diners at the nearby tables had stopped their conversations and were listening intently to the two women. He wondered if he should get up and leave Estelle and her mother in what passed for privacy in such a public place.
“Estelle, please.”
“No, Mother. I am going to finish my very nice meal here with Mr. Everett and then—and then, I don’t know where the evening might take me.” She gave Edward Everett another wink.
“I’m sorry,” her mother said. “I don’t know—Mr. Everest?”
“Ever-ET,” Estelle said. “Not like the mountain. Like the city in Washington.”
“Mr. Everett, I don’t know what pull you have with my daughter, but, could you?”
“Leave him out of this, Mother.”
“Maybe I should go,” Edward Everett said, extending his good leg to snare his crutches so he could draw them out from under the table.
“And leave me with the check?” Estelle said. “I see your plan.”
“No. I can just sign …” Edward Everett lifted his hand to signal the waitress.
“I was being funny,” Estelle said, touching his raised arm, and he lowered it. “Please stay.”
“Who—” Estelle’s mother said.
“Mr. Everett is a serial murderer,” Estelle said.
“Mr. Everett, I don’t know anything about you, but my daughter—”
“Estelle,” her mother said sharply. “This has to stop now.”
“No,” Estelle said. “The only thing that has to stop is the scene you’re making. We were perfectly enjoying ourselves until you came in. Please go. Please give Alicia my love. Tell her that I hope she and Jack will have many happy years.”
Her mother gave a sigh, shook her head. “The Ogdens will wonder what sort of family they have married into.”
“It’s not like they can wrap her up and take her back to the store. It’s a no-deposit, no-return deal.”
“I can’t go back and face those people.”
“Yes, you can, Mother. Courage under fire. That’s the motto. Courage sous le feu. Remember? Sous le feu.”
“This is just making Frank’s decision—”
“Leave him out.” Estelle banged her palm on the table, rattling the dishes and toppling Edward Everett’s wineglass. Only his quick reflexes kept it from tumbling onto the floor and shattering.
“Is there a problem?” the hostess said, approaching the table.
“Estelle, one last time.” Her mother’s tone was pleading now. She began wringing her hands in a gesture that he imagined might have been the same one she used in Estelle’s story about the International Herald Tribune and the Louvre.
“The last time?” Estelle said. “Good. Then we’re finished.”
Her mother opened her mouth as if to say something but instead sagged as if she had been staggered by an actual physical blow, turned and left, a little unsteady on her feet. After a moment, the silence that had descended on the restaurant during the scene broke: flatware clinked against plates, conversations began again, no doubt people rehearsing the stories they would tell when they went home. You will not believe what happened in the restaurant tonight.
“I am sorry, Edward,” Estelle said. “So so so sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you—”
“It’s fine,” he said. Still, how he had ended up across a table from her, part of an argument with her mother, was vague to him.
“Who is Frank?” he asked her.
“He was someone I was with and now I’m not anymore. That’s all.”
Their waitress approached their table and set the slender leather portfolio containing the bill onto it. “Will there be anything else?”
“I don’t think so,” Edward Everett said, opening the portfolio. The sum staggered him. Fifty-seven ninety-six. If he added a fifteen percent tip, it would approach seventy dollars. He had never seen a restaurant check for so much, at least not one that he was paying. He studied it—two steaks, potatoes, salads, two carafes of wine, two chocolate cheesecakes, one of which they’d never received—waiting for Estelle to offer to pay half but she did not. He took the pen the waitress had slid into the portfolio, glanced at Estelle, noted a tip of ten dollars, and scrawled his name on the line at the bottom of it.
“The restaurant should just hang on to the check,” Estelle said. “That might be worth something someday, what with your autograph.”
“That’s not likely.” He realized he had gone more than half an hour without thinking of his injury, without the thought that next year at this time, he might be stamping prices on grapefruit and bananas in a supermarket instead of playing ball.
“Oh, come on, now. As my mother always said, Courage.” She gave the word