Table For One

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It's been one of those days, those weeks, those years. You need a break and you are going to take yourself to a restaurant you've been dying to try. The joint oozes class even if you feel class is the last word anyone would ever say about you.

The maitre de races over. Man, does this guy have a stick up his you-know-what. Can I help you, madam? His look says he'd rather kill you than help you but you're used to it. In your line of business that look is a daily event. Let's you know you're doing the job the way it's supposed to be done.

You give him your sweetest smile knowing it is as faded and jaded as your heart and your dreams. Table for one, you say. He looks around frantically, hoping there will be no table for one. But there it is, in the corner, away from everyone else. For a moment, he falters. You can tell that he is wondering whether he will tell you it is reserved, but he knows it is unlikely that any other lone wolf will be prowling these parts. He snatches a menu from the counter, and strides off toward the table, muttering “Come this way” over his shoulder.

So you're sitting there enjoying the view with a cynical grin hanging off your face. Elegant women parade past on their way to the ladies, leaving their rich husbands at the dinner table, smiling and nodding at each mistress and ex-mistress who passes by. Every woman here is both wife and mistress, and every woman bumps into her cuckolds current bit of fun at some point in the night. Each pretends not to know who is banging who's husband. It is all so civilised and all so ready to collapse.

Your food comes and it is incredibly good. The oysters taste as though they have just been plucked out of the ocean, the caviar is soft and almost foamy, the lobster with drawn butter the best you have ever had, and chef's special salad is to die for. A bottle of the best Sancerre arrives compliments of the house. You could never have afforded to buy such a superlative vintage.

In fact, you can't afford this dinner at all. But then you won't have to. You can feel the guilt and fear hanging in the air, so thick you could cut it with the diamond nail file the dame over the way from you is using to sharpen her claws. Her smile is a red and white warning, but the message is unnecessary. You are discreet. It's part of your job.

You get up and prepare to leave. The maitre de bustles over, his smile thin and obsequious, to tell you that your bill has been paid. Of course it has. You knew that. These women and men would do anything to keep your mouth shut, and what is an expensive dinner now and then for the surety that their secrets are safe with you.

Being a private detective to the rich and fatuous has to have it perks.

Inspired by a prompt from Jill Badonsky in The Muse Is IN Writing Club.