Chapter 5 - The Cloche Came Down Harder Than It Lifted
The steam hit first. It rose off the plate under the cloche in a thin white sheet and then vanished under the low light, leaving the smell of rosemary and hot oil hanging over our end of the table. I hadn't touched my water. The crystal glass in front of Eleanor caught the light every time she moved her hand, throwing it back across the dark wood.
No one had asked the server to come in. He just stepped out of the shadow by the paneling, young, his jacket too big at the shoulders, and reached for the silver dome next to my phone. His cuff brushed the table. The cloche chimed softly when his fingers found the handle.
He lifted it straight up. For a second the polished underside caught all of us, warped and bright, Eleanor's burgundy dress smeared across it, Daniel's white shirt, my own face stretched thin. Then he set the dome down on the service plate with a dull clank that was louder than it should have been. The food underneath was already going dull around the edges. No one looked at it.
Everyone looked at the phone.
It was still face-down. Dark blue case, the corner worn where I always caught it on my bag zipper. It sat exactly where I had put it, too close to the cloche base, close enough that the server had to angle his wrist not to knock it. He glanced at it and then away, fast, like he'd been told not to notice things at this table.
Daniel cleared his throat. I felt it more than heard it, the shift of his chair, his knee hitting the table leg under the cloth.
He stared at the phone. Then he lifted his right hand off his lap and moved it across the tablecloth. His fingers stopped an inch short. I watched the tendons in the back of his hand tighten. He didn't pick it up. He flattened his palm against the wood instead, as if he needed something solid.
"You don't want to do that," Eleanor said.
She wasn't looking at the server anymore. She was looking at Daniel's hand. Her voice was level, the same controlled tone she'd used at the start of the night, but her earrings swayed when she turned her head.
"Daniel," she said. "If you play that here, you will ruin dinner."
The server took a half step back. He still held the empty service tray against his side. The woman in red shifted in her chair behind Daniel and the fabric of her dress whispered. No one else spoke. The crystal glasses along the table threw small hard reflections onto the paneling.
Daniel didn't move his hand back. He didn't move it forward either. He left it there on the dark wood between his plate and my phone, breathing through his nose.
"I'm not asking you to decide tonight what it means," I said. My voice sounded too quiet to me. I kept my eyes on his face. "I'm just asking that we don't pretend it isn't there."
May you like
Eleanor smiled without showing her teeth. "Everything can be discussed after dessert. Like family. In private."
Daniel looked from her to me. His fingers curled once against the table and then opened again. He pulled his hand back to the edge of his own plate, empty, and left the phone exactly where it was, face-down beside the cooling food and the lifted silver dome.
