Dinner at Alberto's

They went all the time, John and Lucy. This was known to their small circle for long years, known to the restaurant's staff as well, naturally. Whenever another couple suggested getting together or came to mind as having not been seen for too long a time, the reservation would be made. A new boy was in the charge of this in more recent years. It was too bad; for ages, Joseph would recognize the voice, John's or Lucy's, and immediately ask how they were, when could the place hope to see them again. For Lucy, this was always an additional treat, a warm and flattering bonus before the anticipated pleasure of time and good food with old friends.

Of course all that was years ago, really. This was heavily on Lucy's mind when she called the restaurant, that late December afternoon. To book a table for only herself and John. She was glad that Joseph, with the weather-lined face and blue eyes that seemed to see everything, was no longer the maitre'd. She was glad that no one familiar to her would have reason to wonder, even for a moment, why the Corsaros were dining alone. If they were lucky, Lisa would still be serving there. Lucy in fact mentioned their preference for this server. It had been so long, there would be only the agreeable exchange of smiles, modestly affectionate greetings, between them and a waitress who would be uninterested in the absence of other guests.

Having made the reservation, Lucy suddenly experienced misgivings she could not identify. John would be fine with her having decided this. He would lift his eyebrows a little but nod while doing so. He was good about things like that. She had relied on this compliance in small matters throughout their marriage. A purchase maybe a little too expensive, a movie she wanted to see and which was not to John's taste – he would always nod, accepting. On this day and for the first time in fifty-two years of marriage, Lucy was aware that he never expressed happiness for her, or amusement, or anything at these times. He just agreed. On this day it felt contractual to Lucy, and not even especially a virtue.

“I thought we would eat at Alberto's tonight,” she said within minutes of his coming home. He had been to the doctor, complaining about a whistling in his ears. The doctor, long accustomed to John's frequent and usually meaningless concerns, gave him some drops.

His coat hanging from one hand, John stood in their large and elegant living room and regarded the small vial of ear drops held in the other. Still thin, still tall, John had a way of challenging whatever was before him, his nervous energy suggesting confrontation, even with a small vial of ear drops. “I''ll bet I could get these at any drugstore. I don't think he took me seriously. What? Alberto's?”

“Yes. We haven't been in forever and I thought it'd make a nice change. Plus, it's so pretty with the snow and all.”

John moved to a chair while nodding his head, to deposit the coat on its arm. He moved more slowly and carefully lately, Lucy thought, and not for the first time. But then she paced herself as well. As age overtook them, John would say that this was an obligation for people of their years. Anything at all could be dangerous.

“Did you want to call James and Caroline, see if they're up to joining us? Been forever.”

Lucy, still reclined on the gray sofa, forced a chuckle. “I did. But they've got family over, staying on after Christmas, apparently.” She looked down at her fingernails but only to look down, because this was a lie and it had a great deal to do with the misgivings troubling Lucy, about the dinner out.

*

Two hours later they were dressing, Lucy feeling increasingly self-conscious in the choosing of what to wear, what to do with her thick gray hair. They passed each other going from closet to chest of drawers, moving in the silent and measured choreography of husband and wife so attuned to the other's movements, there is never even a momentary faltering. The bedroom, like every room in the house, was large and beautifully furnished. With the three children grown and settled – although with their youngest, Rob, there were difficulties – the home was, as both had known for years, too much for them. Lucy had insisted that she could not leave and John complied here as well, but she perceived too that he would in time bow to her change of heart.

“The new guy better give us the table we like. You can't trust these new people. They don't know how to treat their better customers.” John was adjusting a necktie as he said this, facing a mirror, and Lucy's hands were stilled at one ear, the clasp on a pearl between her fingers, her head cocked. At this moment she had a vivid awareness of her own face in the mirror as old, yet not only as old. Beaten down, somehow. There was as well a feeling new to her. It was not exactly anger. It was more exasperation.

“I asked for the one we like, in the corner by the window.” Lucy said this in almost a hushed way, as though it were a thought and not a spoken answer. “He said he'd give us Lisa.”

“If they can't appreciate customers like us, I'll make sure they know we expect to be treated right. Lisa's still there?”

Lucy had trouble breathing just then, and she planted the tips of her fingers hard on the vanity table. Over fifty years. This is what he has always been. It was unthinkable that now, an old woman, she should be stunned in this way, hearing him as she would hear a stranger. Something was happening but she knew only that it was a tide carrying her.

Lucy finally stood and John brought her coat to her. “You're shaking,” he said. '”It is chilly in here.” He did not say that he'd be talking to the men who installed the heating system, there being no need for him to say this.

*

What had actually happened, before the call to Alberto's was made, was that Lucy phoned Caroline. The impulse felt daring, in a way; they had not spoken for some time, rendering any attempt at contact awkward, as happens when old friendships fade. In Lucy was a shadowy intent to seek confirmation of a kind.

The phone rang six times and Lucy sensed – correctly – that Caroline was deciding that, all things considered, it would be better to take the call. Get it over with? Yes.

“How are you doing? It's been ages.”

“Oh, God, Lucy. You know how things are at our age. Time just...goes.” Then Caroline, whom Lucy had long thought of as her best friend, related ordinary details about the holiday just past, the children coming by, the dinner she made with her daughters. It did not escape Lucy's notice that Caroline failed to inquire after her own life or about John.

Lucy held the phone in both hands and realized that it was impossible to suggest dinner out. There would be an evasion, poor pretenses of other commitments, and Lucy was not prepared to take this graciously. With this realization came an urgency, to end the call.

Before phoning Alberto's, she made one other call but heard, not her son, but his message. “Maybe you could come by soon? Bring Don, if you like. I'll make sure it's all right, honey.” Then she sent her love to the voice mailbox, hung up, and was ashamed of herself because she could not make it all right, and Rob would certainly know this and just feel sorry for her. She sat for a while, thinking that something was happening, a thing larger than she wanted or could even foresee.

These were the calls made that afternoon, before Lucy contacted Alberto's and decided to wear the pearl earrings.

*

Of course all the Christmas decorations were still up. They were unusual as well; no plastic ornaments or standard angels pinned to walls. Instead Alberto's annually displays hand-woven mats – from Tuscany – with discreet clusters of real greenery and dried cranberries on them. The only Santa is old and Victorian, in lush red velvet and a porcelain face, and little ceramic cherubs, the patina of age adding charm, sit and pray on a windowsill.

“He tries too hard. You can tell.” John offered this opinion of the young maitre'd as they sat, the favorite table in fact secured. He pushed his chair back and looked under the table as he usually does. Lucy never asks why. It is a part of his scouting out the space, claiming it.

“At least he tries, John. That's something.”

He ignored this. His manner was not disagreeable. It never is especially so, unless others are present. There having been no others on this occasion, John then chose to regard the menu. Lucy watched him and thought: he is not looking for what appeals to him. He's looking for what will disappoint him.

“Well, well!” Lisa greeted them, naturally affable as she was in the past, a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Lucy always liked the woman's lack of artifice, her easy-going and oddly maternal care of their table. John approved of her because Lisa would fix her eyes on him when he ordered, clearly taking in everything he would specify, attentive, respectful.

“I'll be right back with your drinks,” Lisa said. Lucy watched her move away, feeling abandoned.

We look fine, Lucy thought over a shared plate of calamari. We look exactly as an older couple out should appear. Attractive for our ages, dressed well, obviously long used to one another. We don't talk much but that's fine as well. Anyone seeing us would take that as evidence of familiarity, the tacit understanding between those attached forever.

Little was said for some time. It occurred to Lucy in fact that nothing really need be said at all, but she saw this as cowardice in herself. Their entrees were served, Lisa adjusting the plates and other items on the table to make things easier. When Lucy smiled at her before she left, she had the sense of wanting to leave a final and favorable impression with the woman.

“I called Rob today,” Lucy said, her eyes on John's face, a fork poised with a piece of roast pork by her plate. She had to repeat the statement, though; a Christmas song was inexplicably loud. The repetition gave the statement a force she did not want it to have and she was aware that her hand was trembling.

“It's not the music. I should be able to hear fine.”

“So you heard what I said.”

“Of course I heard. What he have to say?”

Lucy then sat back, realizing she had no strategy at all. If she was to be understood, it was necessary that John respond in certain ways but, already, he was not aggressive enough. She remembered again that his bluntness was directed at others, not herself. It was a bitter knowledge this evening, a protection she wanted to discard.

“Nothing. I got the machine.” Lisa came by to check on their satisfaction with the dinners and John asked her if a new chef was at work. She replied in the negative and waited for the criticism of the food she was sure was coming, but none came. John chose at this moment to allow only an unsmiling nod to express his disappointment.

Lucy felt a little sick in her stomach and placed her hands on her lap, not wanting to make a pretense of eating. Silence was between them in thick layers, a small space defying movement, a pool of stagnant water.

“Something wrong with your food?” John was nearly eager for this to be true, she knew. Even as he asked, his eyes scanned the dining room to locate Lisa and complain to her.

“I told Rob that he should visit. I told him to bring Don. If he liked.” The music's volume had lessened but Lucy spoke loudly still.

John said nothing. He ate and she knew his mind, knew how he was foreseeing such an event. She knew even that would be all right with him, their son coming by with his partner, because John would gather up all evidences of wrongness in the visit. He would present these after the young men had gone, for Lucy's benefit. He would do this to express as well a hurt, a father's unjust suffering, he did not in fact feel. A surge of real anger shook Lucy's frame, momentary but alarming. It passed quickly because she could not consider that his thinking and actions for so many years had denied her closeness with her youngest son. This could not be taken in. And why, she thought, now? Why after allowing so much damage to be steadily and quietly done?

“Maybe some dessert,” John said, pushing away his plate. “If they haven't messed with the tiramisu.”

*

Teaspoons clink against thin porcelain, sugar being stirred into strong coffee. Already Alberto's is emptying; only a few tables of younger people remain, boisterous, empty bottles of wine held in the air to attract a server. But calm still reigns. Alberto's permits exuberance to a point but all who work there are empowered to politely scold guests who go too far, even request their departures.

The evening out is nearly done for Lucy and John. She believes she will say nothing, express none of the resentment within her like a disease taking hold over long years. She tells herself the timing is wrong but knows this to be a silly evasion. She has never had the courage to oppose him. The day's small events, the calls, the thinking, exist apart from this deeper reality.

Then John says, “You should call Caroline again, soon. Makes no sense, not getting together for so long.” Lucy's eyes fix on him, steely, hard, inquiring. He could not have said anything worse. He should not have opened the door to her discontent, freshly more painful from that afternoon's phone call.

“I don't think it'll do much good,” she replies, now staring into her coffee. In her mind are dinners in the past, both James and Caroline exchanging quick expressions of suppressed shock with every modestly derogatory view put forth by John. Who never once perceived the reactions. Lucy remembers the night, over linguini and clams for four, when John told James that he was a fool to go on helping his children with money. A fool. Lucy had then stiffened, seeing Caroline's face and fully expecting an outraged response from her which, remarkably, did not come.

“Hm?”

“I just think...they've gone their own way. It happens like that. With old friends.” The lie took its toll on her, Lucy's being frozen and poised for trouble, like a soldier's.

“Maybe. Well. Their loss.”

With these words tears well in Lucy's eyes. He should not have said that word, loss. It is too potent. It too goes to their son and all the time in which she has felt his loss. Arguing, fighting, is impossible. And she is crying a little for herself, for the shame of having let it all go on. She is complicit in her own victimization. She always has been. One day, she thinks even now, she may understand why.

John's hands then hold the table's edge. He sits upright, alarmed, and asks what is wrong. Lucy shakes her head, saying nothing for long seconds. Finally she says, “No, I'm all right. Just feeling a little shaky.” She suddenly applies her husband's own strategy when things are not right. “Maybe the coffee is too strong for me.”

John says nothing, mutely witnessing his wife's using her napkin to dab at her eyes. Lisa comes by and asks if everything is all right, if they need anything else, not referring at all to Lucy's state, which is barely perceptible.

“The check. Please. Mrs. Corsaro doesn't feel well.”

“I'm so sorry! Anything I can do?”

“Just the check. And maybe you should watch how strong you make the coffee.” Even as he so addresses the server, however, John's eyes are on Lucy. Lisa nods and moves away. A minute passes and John says, “I'm making an appointment tomorrow, you should see Demarest. Not that new idiot. Demarest.”

Again, Lucy shakes her head, an unthinking response. “There's no need. I'm fine. I'm – “

“No.” John is notably resolute, not speaking in his usual way, not issuing criticisms or opposition in a furtive, if still supremely confident, manner. “No. No sense in taking any chances. I'm calling first thing in the morning.”

Everything is still. The younger party with the wine is gone, the windows reveal a landscape of snow and asphalt, of a few cars and trees beyond them, branches sagging under the weight of snow, nothing moving, nothing changing. The young maitre'd, his tie now loosened, passes John and Lucy, smiling at them. They both fail to see this. John is carefully examining the bill, carefully calculating a suitable tip. Lucy is looking at him, unable to turn away. There is in her, suddenly and shockingly, a sense of being reprieved, of being somehow forgiven for never challenging her husband's behavior. Because he needs her. He is afraid of her not being there, ever. She considers: have I always known this? Have I never resisted because, if I did, he would have nothing, and he does not deserve that, even at his worst? That I could not allow that?

“I'll help you to the car,” John says. But Lucy requires no help. With the revelation comes the awareness that she is, has always been, the stronger of the two. Loss still exists. It is a consequence of this bargain. Still, she has survived it. She may also bring Rob and Don to the house, and combat the loss. He will not fight her. This she knows. He dare not and Lucy moves to the door of Alberto's, John's hand at her elbow, awareness like a dawn she is first taking in.

In the car, John, as always, takes his time adjusting his seat belt, starting the engine, checking the mirrors. Lucy sits patiently, also as always. There is no happy ending, no worthy resolution resulting from her defiance. There is only what has always been. But something happened in Alberto's, something freeing her. It was not a miracle, yet it feels miraculous to her.

Driving home, Lucy knows she will see Dr. Demarest, as John wishes. She can be compliant because his life is in her hands.