I’m with the large party in the alcove, I said.

I’d like to settle my own portion of the bill now, separately, and I’d like you to split my items off the main tab.

I said it the way you say a thing you have rehearsed exactly once, in your head, walking down a hallway, and discovered on the first live attempt to be even simpler to say than it had been to imagine.

The server, who had come over too, blinked and glanced at his terminal and asked, a little uncertainly, whether that meant I would not be covering the party this evening.