“You’ve still got the Springfield business this month?” Frank asked.

Julian looked at his watch.

“It’s handled.”

He was good.

He was better than good; he was warm.

He poured water from the blue glass pitcher for Arthur and told Ruth a story about a client who had sent a fruit basket to the wrong floor, and the whole table laughed in the right places.

I ate a drumstick and said nothing and turned my wedding band around my thumb under the napkin.

At twenty to eight I stood up with the empty platter.