From where I sat I could see the plates going out to the tables — filet mignon, some of them, and lobster tails gleaming with butter, and little architectural towers of vegetables that had clearly been arranged by someone with a culinary degree.
Waiters moved between the tables like a well-drilled army.
Two hundred people lifted their forks at more or less the same time, and the room filled with the low civilized murmur of people enjoying something exquisite.
A waiter approached my folding chair.
He was young, and he would not meet my eyes, and I understood why the moment I saw what he was carrying.
Not a plate.
A paper plate.
And on the paper plate, one slice of pepperoni pizza, cold enough that the grease had congealed into pale islands on the cheese.
He set it down beside me with the particular gentleness of a person who knows he is participating in something ugly and has no power to stop it. ”
I’m sorry,” he said, so quietly I almost missed it, and then he was gone.
From the head table, Whitney lifted her champagne flute in my direction.
She was smiling.
Around her, a few guests followed her gaze to me and my paper plate, and I watched them understand, and I watched them decide to do nothing.
“Don’t complain,” Whitney called, light and musical, loud enough to carry.
I looked down at the cold slice.
Then I looked back at her, and I said the only thing I could think of that was both true and would give her nothing to work with. ”
It’s still food.”
A few people laughed, uncertainly, unsure whether it was a joke they were allowed to be in on.