The Table That Wasn’t There

By seven o’clock, the most desirable table in Plume City was at the carpenter’s.

It belonged to the Golden Crumb. That afternoon, one of its legs had folded during a discussion of artisan corn crusts. Nobody had been hurt, although a customer’s opinion of lunch had fallen sharply.

The waiter had carried the table away, swept up the splinters and stretched a little cord between two chairs so nobody would tread on the nail still sticking out of the boardwalk. Beside it he placed a card.

TABLE SEVEN UNAVAILABLE.

Rico arrived at a quarter to eight. He had an appointment, a small red hat and sufficient experience of the city to notice when an empty space was attracting expensive shoes.

A duck in a pearl-gray cape stood before the cord.

“How does one reserve it?” she asked.

“You can’t,” said the waiter.

Her posture improved.

“Of course. But how does one?”

“The table is being repaired.”

“I see.” She lowered her voice. “Privately.”

“At a carpenter’s.”

She nodded in the satisfied way of someone who had obtained an address without being told the address.

Rico leaned against the railing.

A gondola passed below. The piano somewhere along the Velvet Lily was attempting a tune it would eventually recognize. Across the canal, a lamp flickered above a shop whose owner believed this gave the shop atmosphere.

A second duck joined the first. He wore a collar that appeared to be holding his head hostage.

“Is this the table?”

“It’s unavailable,” she said.

“For how long?”

“Naturally, they won’t say.”

“About twenty minutes,” said the waiter.

Neither duck seemed to hear him.

Rico’s guest arrived precisely at eight. She wore a green silk scarf and had asked, when arranging the evening, for a quiet table and somebody who would not discuss property.

She stopped beside the cord.

“Oh,” she said. “You got us in.”

Rico looked at the empty boards.

“I got us a table by the window.”

“But this is seven.”

“At present, it’s a gap.”

“My sister came last week. She said the service was impossible.”

“Did she want dinner?”

“She wanted to be remembered.”

“The waiter remembers her.”

His guest glanced at him. Rico’s face supplied no additional testimony.

By now, three more ducks had arrived to inspect the unavailable table. One leaned over the cord as if the absence might be upholstered.

The waiter tried to seat them elsewhere.

“We have a lovely table beside the water.”

“Is it available?” asked the duck in the cape.

“Yes.”

She looked disappointed by its character.

A young drake offered to leave a deposit. The waiter refused it. This had a disastrous effect on demand.

“There must be a list,” the drake said.

“There is a bill from the carpenter.”

“Can I be on it?”

From his pocket, the waiter took a pencil, considered it, and put it away again.

Rico’s guest watched the growing congregation.

“It would be rather satisfying,” she said.

“What would?”

“Sending my sister a photograph from table seven.”

“Shall I take one now? We can fit all of it in.”

She laughed, then checked whether anyone important had heard.

The waiter came over with two menus.

“Your window table is ready.”

Rico looked to his guest. She held out her wing for a menu.

They had just sat down when a wooden wheel began to squeal along the boardwalk.

The carpenter arrived pulling a small trolley. On it lay table seven, upside down, with one new leg of notably unromantic pine.

The crowd parted reluctantly.

“Where do you want it?” she asked.

The waiter pointed.

“There’s a nail as well.”

“I know. It came out of the leg.”

She stepped over the cord, pulled the nail and dropped it into her apron. Then she lowered the table onto its feet.

It was a perfectly serviceable little table. A pale crescent marked the place where someone had once set a hot teapot. One edge had been chipped and sanded smooth. Beneath it, the new leg shone like a tooth recently introduced to the family.

The duck in the pearl-gray cape stared.

“That?”

“That,” said the carpenter.

“Was there not another one?”

“There was another leg.”

The young drake crouched to inspect the repair.

“Is it a special wood?”

“Pine.”

“From where?”

“The shelf.”

He stood up.

The waiter removed the cord. He turned the card over and wrote TABLE SEVEN AVAILABLE.

A terrible clarity settled over the gathering.

The duck with the restrictive collar remembered another engagement. The cape followed him. The young drake said he was only looking, which was the first claim of the evening the waiter had no difficulty believing.

Within a minute, everyone who had wanted table seven had gone.

The carpenter watched them leave.

“Was there something wrong with the top?”

“No,” said the waiter. “Apparently it had more promise before you brought it back.”

Rico’s guest had been studying the menu. Now she looked past him to the empty table.

“It does have a good view.”

“It had one this afternoon,” Rico said.

“Would you mind moving?”

He picked up his glass.

At table seven, she slipped off her green scarf and laid it over the back of her chair. The waiter brought their menus and asked whether they wanted the card removed.

“Yes, please,” she said.

Then she called him back.

“Actually, may I borrow your pencil?”

Rico watched her turn the card to its original side. Under TABLE SEVEN UNAVAILABLE she wrote, in neat small letters, WE ARE HAVING SUPPER.

She propped it between the salt and the bread.

Across the canal, the flickering lamp finally went out. Its owner emerged, tapped it once and began looking for a ladder.

“Do you think,” she asked Rico, “my sister would understand the photograph?”

“Possibly.”

She considered that.

Then she put her phone away and passed him the butter.