Part 8: The Long Table

A year after the gala, the river building hosted a community exhibition. The lighting could be adjusted for different work, and the restored staircase had a clear route to the upper rooms. Nina's team had learned which parts of the plan worked and which needed small changes after people began using the space.

My studio returned to adjust one fixture that created glare at a particular time of day. Julian's team repaired a door that had swollen during wet weather. The project manager recorded both changes and checked them with the building staff. Opening a building had not ended the work of listening to the people who used it.

Helen and Teresa met once a month for coffee. Sometimes they discussed old drawings; sometimes they argued about whose recipe for tomato soup was better. They had agreed not to reopen the settled payment question unless new evidence required advice from their advisers. The agreement gave their friendship room to be about more than the ledger.

Julian and I continued seeing each other. We did not set a date for a wedding to satisfy anyone else's calendar. We talked about what we wanted, including the possibility that our work schedules would sometimes take us to different places. When I accepted a school lighting project in another town, he asked how I wanted to stay in touch rather than assuming I would decline it.

At the exhibition, the community group arranged a long table for visitors to share ideas. It had an ivory cloth, but the chairs were comfortable and the space beneath it was occupied by storage boxes.

Julian looked under the edge. “No room for us.”

“We could move the boxes.”

“Nina would require a permit.”

“She would require a reason.”

We chose chairs. A student sat beside us and asked how the lights could make the paintings look different without changing the paintings themselves. My designer explained color temperature with two small lamps. The student asked a question we had not anticipated, and the team wrote it down for the next workshop.

Helen arrived with Teresa and a container of tomato soup for Nina. The soup was not part of the exhibition. It was an apology for a joke about the opening reception's food, which Nina had taken in good humor.

Teresa showed us a new photograph of the old workshop. They had identified the person who took it through a former client. The date on the back had been added later, so the archive labeled it as an estimate. Helen was pleased that the uncertainty had been preserved.

“Your father would approve,” she told me.

“He would ask for the original invoice too.”

“He already did.”

After the exhibition, Julian and I walked to the river. We talked about the school project, his next restoration, and whether his sister's dog had finally stopped eating paint samples. The dog had moved on to pencils.

He asked whether I wanted dinner the following Friday. I said yes and suggested the restaurant with mismatched chairs. Neither of us called a mother to confirm the plan.

When we reached my car, I found the business card he had given me after the gala in my bag. The note on the back was faded but still readable. I showed it to him.

“No sandwiches were harmed,” he read.

“Except the one you ate.”

“That was part of the scope.”

I put the card away. The tablecloth had given us a place to pause, but it had not made the decisions for us. We had chosen the next conversation, the work, the boundaries with our families, and the dinners that followed. For Friday, at least, we had also chosen chairs.