Back at the Halcyon Room, Mara gathered the cast around the battered table.
The performers each placed an object on its surface.
Jae brought a pair of worn black shoes.
The cellist laid down a broken bow that had been repaired with tape.
A cook from the production carried a scratched copper pot.
The objects were props, but each had been selected by the person who would use it.
Walter added his gray scarf.
Emily watched the table fill with things that had belonged to working people long before they had been turned into theatrical symbols.
“There is an empty place,” Mara told Emily.
“I haven’t agreed to perform.”
“I know. The place stays empty until you decide.”
Emily considered the small wooden table.
She could imagine walking away, changing into jeans, and riding the subway home without another person staring at her.
She could also imagine returning next week and finding Conrad somehow back at his old desk, quietly calculating the cost of everybody’s disobedience.
“I don’t want my humiliation to be entertainment,” she said.
“Neither do I,” Mara replied.
“If I speak, I choose the words.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody films me.”
Mara turned toward the stagehand.
“No personal filming during Emily’s part,” she called.
The stagehand nodded and added the instruction to the announcement card.
Emily picked up the folded apron from the wooden table.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll stay for one scene.”
CHAPTER SEVEN — THE THIRTEENTH COURSE
The performance began without a curtain rising.
A server approached the wooden table carrying a plate and a glass.
He placed both before an empty chair and waited.
From the back of the room, a voice called for water.
Another voice demanded more light.
A third complained that the plate was facing the wrong direction.
The server adjusted one object at a time until his movements became so hurried that he knocked over the glass.
The audience laughed, recognizing the shape of a familiar restaurant disaster.
Then the server stopped, looked out at the tables, and asked why everybody had noticed the spilled water but nobody had noticed that he had been alone.
The room grew quiet.
A second performer entered and began clearing the fictional table, while the first described the hours before a meal arrived.
He spoke about deliveries, vegetable washing, blocked sinks, and the small decisions made by people whose names never appeared on menus.
The scene was funny without being gentle.
A performer played a famous diner who wanted everything at once, and another played a manager who promised the kitchen could perform miracles if only nobody demanded proof.
Several customers laughed at the manager’s exaggerated smile.
Emily laughed too, although the resemblance to Conrad was uncomfortably accurate.
