At about half past nine, after the plates went, the waiter came out of the back with a tray.
Family
On it were nineteen identical leather folders.
And he started at the far end and worked his way down, and put one in front of every adult at that table.
PART 2 — THE MENU
Before I get to what happened, I have to put down what happened forty minutes earlier at that same table, because it is the reason I did it.
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I was reading the menu properly. I do that. I had the wine list open beside it because I was going to suggest something in the middle of the range for the table.
And Briar reached across and took the menu out of my hands.
She did not snatch it. She took it, folded it, and passed it down the table to a nephew who did not have one.
And she said, to nineteen people, entirely cheerfully:
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“Give me that. You don’t need to look at the prices, do you? Family’s got a walking credit card. Order something nice, everybody.”
family laughs at its own running joke.
Orrin, whose birthday it was, said “Briar,” in a mild voice and then went back to his conversation.
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Torren, sitting next to me, laughed as well.
Nobody said anything else.
And I said, “I’ll share with you then,” to my husband, and he pushed his menu over about four inches, and I ordered the chicken.
Four years of that. I had done the sum the previous week on a Sunday night and the number is eleven thousand four hundred dollars.
Not one person has ever offered. Not once, in four years, has any adult in that family put a hand out and said let me get this one.
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PART 3 — THE SPREADSHEET
I rang The Lantern House at ten past nine that morning.
I spoke to a woman called Ottilie who runs the front of house, and I told her exactly what I wanted, and she did not laugh and did not make it strange.
Separate checks. One per adult. Delivered together to the table, to each person, after the plates were cleared.
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And my own check to include mine and Orrin Mallory’s, because it was his birthday and that has never been the issue and I was not going to hand a sixty-eight-year-old man a bill at his own dinner.
