Chapter 13: The Staff Table

The Staff table was a folding table jammed against the kitchen door.

Every thirty seconds the door swung open and hit the back of Teddy's chair.

"I'm not complaining," Teddy said, after the fourth time. "I'm just saying I can smell the steaks and I can't reach them."

A waiter came out with a tray and set two plates in front of us.

"The staff meal is fish," he said quietly. "Chef says you're getting the steak."

"Why?" I asked.

"Chef read the program."

He left before I could thank him.

Teddy cut into his steak.

"I like this table," he said. "This is the honest table."

I didn't eat.

Up on the stage, under a screen the size of a barn door, Lucinda took the microphone in a silver gown.

She talked about family, and generosity, and the people who show up.

I held my purse in my lap with both hands.

The spiral notebook was inside it, the real one, with the green cover gone soft at the corners.

I had brought it because I had nothing else.

When the room clapped for Lucinda, I looked up and saw him.

Dalton was crossing the ballroom in a black tuxedo with his tie crooked.

He wasn't walking toward Table One, where his grandmother sat in orange lipstick, watching him.

He was walking straight through three hundred people toward the kitchen door.

Heads turned as he passed, one table after another.

He stopped at the Staff table and pulled out the last folding chair.

"This one taken?" he said.

"You're at the wrong table," I said.

"I read the program." He sat. "I'm staff."

Teddy looked at him, then at me, then picked up his plate.

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