She looks over. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
“If we should have dinner together tonight.”
“Why not?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day.”
“So? For people celebrating that, it matters, but there are plenty of people in the world for which this is just a Friday night. And we have to eat.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. But finally she agrees. “Yeah, that’s true. It doesn’t have to be a thing, unless we make it a thing, right?”
“Exactly. It’s just a meal.”
“Right.”
“And we don’t need to change our clothes or anything,” she goes on. “We’ll just walk into the restaurant in our work clothes, straight out of that meeting, just a couple of colleagues having dinner after a meeting.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
Paul pulls up at the hotel a few minutes later, and we get out, heading into the lobby. I notice the red and white roses everywhere, the low romantic music playing, the many couples smiling, hand-in-hand, milling about. But I don’t say a thing.
For them, it’s Valentine’s Day. For us, it’s Friday night after work.
We head for the restaurant without a word.
“Good evening, two for dinner?” the hostess asks.
“Yes,” Ginny tells her.
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Um, no. I’m in room eighteen-oh-two,” Ginny says, dropping the number of one of the most expensive suites. “I was hoping?—”
“Oh! Is the last name Riley?” the woman asks.
Ginny glances at me, then says slowly. “Y-e-s.”
“Your table is ready.”
Ah, Graham made a reservation right here.
The hotel’s restaurant is award-winning, and I can imagine he thought it would be easier to dine here. Or it’s possible Margot made the reservation because Graham didn’t think about needing a reservation on Valentine’s Day. Or maybe they just thought they’d want to be close to theirroomafter dinner so they could go straight up and…
I don’t need to think about that.
The hostess takes our coats, then leads us into the restaurant and to the gorgeous wall of windows.
She doesn’t offer us menus. “Your five-course meal will start shortly,” she says with a bright smile, then she turns and heads back to the hostess stand.
Ginny looks at the table. There’s a rose at her place. There’s champagne already chilling. There’s glittery gold confetti sprinkled over the black tablecloth and a gold candle flickering in the center of the table. Our cloth napkins are blood red, or, I suppose, Valentine’s red, and as our waiter appears, introduces himself, and opens the champagne, Ginny starts to laugh.
She covers her mouth with her hand, but she doesn’t stop. In fact, when our eyes meet, she starts laughing even harder, until tears are shimmering in her eyes.
I can’t help but grin watching her.
“Do you…need a moment?” the waiter, Dan, asks.
