Chapter 195: The Table He Kept
Grant's table for one had already been booked.
The important part was not that it existed. It was why he chose it and why, once booked, he kept it.
I learned that part later from Dale, after the restaurant closed, when the facts could no longer alter anyone's choice.
Grant saw the closing notice in the newspaper on a Sunday.
He cut it out, Dale said. Then he kept it on his kitchen table for four days without doing anything.
The notice was small. Thirty-two years. Final dinner on the last Saturday of the month. Reservations required.
Bellamar's had been the room where Grant ended our marriage and began the collapse he mistook for freedom. He had already said as much in Compliance Quarterly.
His compliance career was already known to me. Dale skipped the résumé and told me why Grant wanted one chair.
On Thursday, Grant called him and said, audit this.
Audit what?
My reason for going.
Dale asked the questions friends ask when friendship has survived becoming honest.
Do you think Nora will be there?
No, Grant said. She told someone once she had nothing left to prove to that room.
Are you hoping she will be?
No.
Would you approach her if she were?
Grant took too long on that one.
If she sees me and does not turn away, Grant said, I will walk over. I will ask her directly whether I may speak. If she says no, I leave. If she says yes, I say the one thing I came to say, then I leave her alone.
Dale made him repeat the part about asking her.
Grant did.
So why go? Dale asked.
Because for years I made that room the first page of the story I told about her, Grant said. I called the envelope generous. I called her cold. I made myself the victim before dessert.
Now I teach people to keep the original document beside the correction.
Bellamar's is the original document.
I want to sit there once without asking the room to make me look like a good man. I want to pay for my own dinner, tip properly, and leave before the lights go out.
Dale asked whether an old restaurant needed his closure.
No, Grant said. The restaurant needs nothing from me. I need to stop using it as the place where my life happened to me. I made a choice at that table. I can sit with the fact without rewriting it.
And if the room gives you nothing?
Then I eat a good dinner and go home.
No audience? Dale asked.
No audience.
No flowers, no letter, no envelope?
Nothing she has to carry home.
Dale believed him. Not because the words were beautiful. Grant had built a career out of beautiful words and nearly died of them.
He believed the choice Grant kept making.
Grant telephoned Bellamar's himself. The reservationist told him the last night was nearly full and the only remaining table was small, by the window, close to the corner table.
Any table, Grant said.
How many guests?
One.
The reservationist asked whether he was sure.
Grant looked at the old closing notice on his kitchen table, Dale said, and answered without explaining the arithmetic.
One is the correct number.
He gave his name, his telephone number, and a card to hold the table. Then he asked the restaurant to note three things.
He would order dinner.
He would not need special service.
He would leave before the staff's closing toast.
The reservationist read the details back.
Last Saturday of the month. Seven-thirty. Window table.
The day before dinner, Grant called once more.
Not to ask who had booked the corner table. Not to change his plan.
To confirm the one choice that belonged to him.
Keep the reservation, he said.
Party of one.