Chapter 24: A Table for Four

The restaurant had six tables, a plastic tablecloth and no menu.

My father had picked it.

He had wired the back kitchen in 1994, and the owner still gave him the corner by the window.

It was a Sunday, three weeks later.

Nobody at the next table looked at me twice.

That was the whole reason I had agreed.

"Sit," my father said.

He wore a jacket and no bow tie.

His color was back, and he had stopped using the wheelchair on Thursday, though a cane leaned against the wall for show.

Penelope's father sat across from him in the same cardigan.

They had met for the first time two weeks ago in a hospital hallway.

They had been arguing ever since.

"A fuse box is a fuse box," my father was saying.

"A fuse box in a studio is a small cathedral."

"You've never wired anything."

"I've never had to. I hire people who do."

"Not anymore, you don't."

"No," said Penelope's father, and he looked at me and coughed. "Not anymore. Your boy saw to that."

My father laughed so hard he had to put down his fork.

Penelope slid into the seat next to mine.

She smelled of rain and the cold bus ride in from New Jersey.

Under the table, her knee found mine.

"Did you tell him?" she whispered.

"Not yet."

"Tell him before the soup."

"Tell me what?" my father said.

"Dad."

"I'm old, not deaf."

I took a breath.

"Northlight is starting a new label," I said. "It's called Ambrose Pictures. We bought the name and the catalogue back. The president is Penelope."

Nobody said anything.

Penelope's father put down his glass.

His hands were shaking, and he laid them flat on the plastic cloth where I could see them.

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