“Nope. We get to sit wherever we want.”
She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “The girls will naturally want me to sit with them, so if there’s only one seat at their table, you don’t mind if I take it, do you?”
“Knock yourself out. I’m sure I’ll find an open seat somewhere. There’s lots of new people to meet.”
“Thank you!” She flung her arms around me, crushing me against her as if I were a nut in need of cracking. “I’m so relieved. That’s what I love about you Emily. You’d happily forgo an opportunity to shmooze with the big wigs at the Mona Michelle table in order to share a lackluster meal with a bunch of dotty strangers. You are so evolved.”
Retrieving a mirrored compact from her pocketbook, she rechecked the gloss on her lips. “So, now that we have that out of the way … did anything happen on your home visit that’s worth mentioning?”
“Uhh—A guy in our group was hammered out of his head, we barely escaped having to buy advanced funeral plans, and Osmund was reunited with a woman who helped save his life during World War II.”
She snapped her compact shut. “So, nothing out of the ordinary.”
The bottleneck at the entrance to the dining room suddenly broke up, allowing guests to stampede through the doors like shoppers at a blowout sale. We exchanged “Bon soirs” with the official greeter at the door, sanitized our hands with a squirt of gel from the stationary dispenser, then angled off to our right, circling around the food station that occupied the center of the room.
Guests were loitering behind chairs, waving their arms to friends, flashing the number of seats still available, sitting down, standing up, bumping into the guests standing at the chairs behind them. Tables were set up to accommodate four, six, or eight guests, and each table abutted a sparkling clean, floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the river and its traffic. What could be more thrilling than the prospect of oohing and ahhing over the spectacular views of the Seine while we dined?
Well, one thing might be more thrilling.
Finding an empty seat. Why were all the tables full?
“There they are … with some bald guy I’ve never seen before. Ew! They’ve saved two seats. C’mon.” Jackie seized my hand and sprinted toward a round table that occupied the far corner, arriving two steps behind an elderly couple who’d just claimed the chairs by pulling them out. “Excuse me,” Jackie said in a voice breathy with apology, “but I believe those seats are taken.”
“I know they are.” The gentleman grinned. “By me and my wife.” He tapped his name tag. “I’m Leo. This is Izetta.”
“What I meant was, they’re being saved for me and my friend.”
“No they’re not.” Bobbi Benedict regarded Jackie from beneath the brim of her pale blue Western hat. “It’s first come, first serve. No seat saving allowed.” She glanced at her two blonde companions for confirmation. “Idn’t that right?”
Alligator Boots, whose name tag identified her as Dawna Chestnut from Nacogdoches, Texas, inched her rosy lips into a smug smile. “Sure is,” she drawled as she hiked her strapless bustier toward her chin.
Snakeskin Jeans dusted her cheek with the tail end of her long platinum hair, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Ditto what Dawna said.” I glanced at her name tag. Krystal Cake. Abilene, Texas.
I tugged on Jackie’s dress. “There’s an empty seat over there. I’m going to—”
“Mom? Dad?” A middle-aged woman in a clingy cocktail dress intercepted Leo and Izetta before they could sit. “We’re saving seats for you on the other side of the room. You want to join us? I have your pill caddies.” She flashed a smile at the Mona Michelle elite. “Sorry.” Grasping her parents by their elbows, she gently navigated them away from the table.