Epilogue
THE NEXT SEAT AT TABLE SIX
Eight weeks after the summer supper, the Larkin Conservatory raised enough money to fund its apprenticeship program for three years.
The final pledge came after eighteen-year-old Sofia Ramirez told four hundred donors she'd learned to grow food before she learned to trust adults. A trustee rose before she left the stage. The room followed.
Nate stood behind the curtain with both hands in his pockets so he wouldn't interfere.
“You wanted to rewrite her speech,” I whispered.
“Only the middle.”
“You wanted to add six minutes.”
“She left out the irrigation project.”
“No one has ever donated more because of irrigation.”
“You have no soul.”
“I have three years of funding.”
When the applause ended, he kissed me behind a screen of palms. Mallory walked past carrying a radio and said, “Please wait until the client has paid the final invoice.”
My company had survived Bennett's attack and proved it didn't depend on me approving every invoice.
Mallory now signed off on three major events, and I'd taken two consecutive Sundays off.
The second involved Nate, pancakes and an argument over a crossword answer. He was right, which ruined the morning.
The divorce moved slowly. Bennett stopped asking me to reconcile after Elise sent his attorney Laurel's timeline. At settlement, he asked for part of Rowan Events, then withdrew when Elise produced the prenup he'd demanded, initialed on every page.
In the hallway, he said, “You always were better at details.”
It wasn't an apology, but it admitted what my work had been worth. I wished his new furniture well.
He had also begun buying groceries. Ruth saw a bag split outside his apartment, sending apples, eggs and chicken across the pavement.
“I helped him,” she told us. “I'm not a monster.”
“Did the chicken survive?”
“It has better prospects than Bennett.”
Three nights after the gala, Table Six gathered at the Halston.
The hotel gave us our corner table. Evelyn brought trip photographs, Ruth had won a case and Elise ordered champagne before removing her coat. I arrived last.
“You're late,” Evelyn said.
“I had a date.”
I sat where Evelyn had once pulled out a chair for me when Bennett's proposal was still a secret.
There were five glasses on the table and an empty place beside mine.
Before Nina arrived, Evelyn raised her champagne.
“To Claire,” she said.
“No speeches,” I warned.
“It isn't a speech. You'd have supplied a microphone.”
Ruth lifted her glass. “To keeping the house.”
Elise shook her head. “That's not the victory.”
“I know. But it is an excellent house.”
They looked at me.
“To wanting more,” I said.
We drank to that.
Four months earlier, I'd imagined my betrayal was smaller because no audience had seen it. I was wrong. The overnight bag beside my stairs had been enough, and I didn't need to lose the house or company before I was allowed to leave.
Evelyn squeezed my hand.
I squeezed back.
Nate and I were leaving for Montreal the following morning. He had booked one museum. I had booked four restaurants. Neither of us had made an itinerary for the hours between.
“Is Nina coming?” I asked.
Evelyn checked her phone. “She said she was on her way.”
Twenty minutes later, Nina entered the restaurant carrying a large book against her chest.
She wore kitchen whites beneath her coat. Her hair had come loose completely, and there was flour on one cheek. She didn't stop to speak to the host.
“Sorry,” she said when she reached us. “The printer delivered these to the restaurant an hour ago.”
She put the book in the middle of the table.
The cover showed a white hotel plate beneath gold lettering.
A Season at the DeLuca Table.
Below it, in smaller type, were the names:
Menus by Marco DeLuca and Celeste King.
I read the line twice.
“Where's your name?” I asked.
Nina took off her coat with unsteady hands. “It's nowhere.”
She opened the book. Page after page held recipes I had eaten in her restaurants, notes I'd watched her scribble at my kitchen counter and photographs of her hands with her face cropped out.
Marco appeared in the introduction nine times.
Celeste appeared seven.
Nina appeared once in the acknowledgments as “our culinary team.”
“Did you sign off on this?” Elise asked.
“Marco said the contract was standard. Celeste handled it.”
Ruth reached for the book. “Who owns the recipes?”
“I created them.”
“That wasn't the question.”
Nina's phone lit on the table.
A message from Marco filled the screen.
Don't come to the restaurant tonight. Celeste and I need space to discuss its future.
No one spoke.
Nina looked at the cover again. The shock on her face hardened into something I recognized.
“He put her name on my work,” she said.
I pulled out the empty chair beside me.
“Sit down,” I said. “Start at the beginning.”