The waiter had not finished handing out the menus before the ordering started, and I watched my brother-in-law order a bottle of something at a hundred and ten dollars without opening the list.
And that is when it finally landed properly.
They did not think I was mean, and they did not think I was generous.
They did not think about me at all. I was the mechanism by which the evening got paid for.
So I smiled, and I let every single one of them order, and I did not say one word.
At about half past nine, after the plates went, the waiter came out of the back with a tray.
On it were nineteen identical leather folders.
And he started at the far end and worked his way down, and put one in front of every adult at that table.
PART 2 — THE MENU
Before I get to what happened, I have to put down what happened forty minutes earlier at that same table, because it is the reason I did it.
