Walter stepped back from the microphone.
“We can continue if the people at the table want us to continue,” he said.
He turned to the cast, not the guests.
One by one, the performers nodded.
Mara looked toward the restaurant staff.
Anika raised her hand.
Peter did the same.
Luis lifted both hands, which made the nearest tables laugh.
Emily stood.
“Continue,” she said.

Victoria stared at her for a moment.
“You think you’ve won because a few people feel sorry for you?”
Emily shook her head.
“I don’t think I’ve won anything. I think I finally got to finish a sentence without being interrupted.”
The room went quiet again.
Victoria opened her mouth, then closed it.
Conrad looked at Celia, but she had already stepped aside to let Mara approach the platform.
“We are ready,” Mara said.
The performance resumed from the interrupted line.

CHAPTER NINE — THE LAST TABLE

The final scene took place around the battered wooden table.
The performers carried it from the platform into the center of the dining room, where they set places for thirteen people.
Each place held an ordinary spoon, a small plate, and a folded card.
Guests could volunteer to sit at the table, but the cast deliberately left several seats available to the restaurant staff.
Walter explained that the closing scene had no fixed dialogue.
The people at the table would choose what they wanted to serve, ask, or refuse.

A guest in a silver dress volunteered to carry a tray of bread.
Another fetched water for the people beside him.
Bennett asked Luis whether he would join them.
Luis looked at Emily before answering.
“I will if I don’t have to make a speech,” he said.
“You won’t,” Mara promised.
He sat beside Walter and accepted a piece of bread.

Emily remained at the edge of the room until Anika beckoned her forward.
“There’s room,” Anika said.
“I’ve already had my scene.”
“This isn’t the same thing.”
Emily joined them.
For the first time that evening, she sat at a restaurant table without being responsible for everybody else’s glass.
She had imagined that the feeling would be glorious.
Instead, it was ordinary, which pleased her even more.

Celia took the empty chair across from her.
“I have an announcement to make,” she said.
Emily’s stomach tightened.
She feared another speech about hospitality, a polished promise that could be repeated in tomorrow’s newspaper.
But Celia did not stand or address the whole room.
She spoke to the people at the table.
“I asked to manage the business because I thought I could keep the kitchen running and the staff paid,” she said. “I let somebody else decide what kind of place we were. I want to ask the staff how to change that.”
Peter leaned forward.
“You can start by showing us the tip calculations,” he said.
“I will.”
“And the schedule decisions,” Anika added.
“Yes.”
“And whether the kitchen staff can take breaks when the dining room is full,” Nina said from behind them.
Celia looked at her executive chef.
“That too.”

The conversation was neither easy nor dramatic enough for a standing ovation.
People argued over details.
Peter wanted an outside payroll specialist to explain the gratuity arrangements, while Anika insisted the employees should be able to ask questions without supervisors present.
Luis worried that new rules would disappear when the next important guest complained.
Celia listened, made notes, and admitted when she did not know the answer.
Walter let the discussion continue beyond the rehearsed ending.
The musicians waited patiently with their instruments resting across their knees.

The next interruption came from an unexpected direction.
A dishwasher named Simone, who had watched from the kitchen doorway,

asked whether she could speak before the final scene ended.
Mara offered her a chair and switched off the microphone so that Simone would not have to address the entire room.
Simone said that her evening shift usually began before her son’s after-school program closed.
She had arranged three different neighbors to collect him during the past month because Conrad kept changing her schedule.
She did not want the audience to know her son’s name, and she did not want the problem transformed into a touching story.
She wanted a schedule she could use to make arrangements without apologizing to everyone involved.


Celia asked whether she had ever submitted the concern formally.
Simone answered that she had, twice, and that the requests had disappeared into Conrad’s office.
Peter remembered seeing one of the forms beneath a stack of banquet invoices.
He had assumed the matter was already being handled.
“That’s the problem,” Simone said.
“Every one of us assumes somebody else is handling something until it happens to us.”
Mara looked at Walter, who nodded without speaking.
The scene had been written to end with a guest offering bread to a worker.
Instead, it was ending with a dishwasher asking for a predictable calendar.


Walter found the change more useful than the ending he had imagined.
Celia opened the notebook she had carried to the table.
She said that staffing rules needed to include a deadline for publishing schedules and a clear procedure for changes.
Simone asked what would happen if that procedure was ignored.
Celia said she did not yet have an answer, then agreed to put the question at the top of the next meeting’s agenda.
Anika suggested that employees should be able to exchange shifts with one another without waiting for one manager to approve every trade.
Nina pointed out that the kitchen already did something similar during lunch service.


The two departments began comparing how they handled emergencies and sick days.
No one applauded when Simone finished speaking.
She looked relieved by that too.
Emily watched her return to the kitchen, where the dishwasher racks were waiting.
Then Emily asked Mara whether the company could include a short written explanation of the discussion in its program for future performances.
“Not Simone’s private details,” Emily added.
“Just the fact that practical changes matter as much as speeches.”
Mara said she would ask the company at its next rehearsal.
Walter wrote the suggestion on the back of his script.
For once,

the room’s most expensive chairs were occupied by people listening to a dishwasher describe an ordinary Tuesday.
The play could not fix her schedule that night, but it had made it impossible for the people responsible to claim they had never heard her.

Victoria watched from the rear of the room.
She had remained after the interruption, although nobody had persuaded her to join the table.
For several minutes, she appeared to be considering whether to leave.
Then she approached Emily, stopping at a distance that made it clear she remembered the condition Celia had imposed.
“May I speak to you?” she asked.
Emily felt every muscle in her shoulders tighten.
“You may,” she answered.
Victoria looked around, apparently annoyed that there was no private place to conduct the conversation.
“What happened earlier was regrettable,” she began.
“What you did earlier,” Emily corrected.
Victoria’s eyes narrowed, but she continued.
“What I did earlier was inappropriate.”
Emily waited.
“I was angry, and I behaved badly,” Victoria said. “I’m sorry.”

The apology was brief and awkward.
It did not explain why Victoria had thrown the water, and it did not undo the dismissal or the humiliation.
Emily looked at the woman who had spent the evening moving from one room to another in an effort to control what people said about her.
“Thank you for saying that,” Emily replied.
“Does that settle the matter?” Victoria asked.
“No.”
Victoria looked wounded.
“What else do you want?”
“I haven’t decided,” Emily said. “You don’t get to set the time limit on my answer.”
Victoria opened her handbag, then stopped herself from reaching inside.
For a moment Emily thought she might offer money.
Instead, Victoria closed the bag and stepped backward.
“I understand,” she said, although Emily was not sure that she did.

The audience began clearing the tables after the final scene.
There was applause, but it came after the work rather than during the conversation.
Walter shook hands with the performers and thanked the kitchen crew by name.
Mara collected the props and folded the script pages into her canvas bag.
The battered table was carried back toward the storage room, bearing new rings from tonight’s water glasses.
Emily watched the marks appear and felt an unexpected sadness that the table would soon leave.

Walter came to stand beside her.
“I owe you a meal,” he said.
“You still owe me half a bowl of soup,” she replied.
“I ate more than half.”
“Not according to the dish that came back.”
He laughed.
“All right. I owe you an entire bowl.”
Emily considered him.
“You can pay for it next time.”
“That’s a dangerous invitation to a man who travels with a theater company.”
“I didn’t say the next meal would be here.”
Walter looked pleased.
“Then I hope you’ll choose somewhere with comfortable chairs.”