Chapter 10 - The Terrace at Sunset
One year later, the late afternoon sun was dropping behind San Francisco once again, painting the towers of the financial district in long, horizontal bands of copper and rose.
On the terrace of Lucent Sky, the gas braziers had just been lit. The quartz tubes hummed with soft, amber flame, taking the chill off the wind that swept across the water from Sausalito.
The linen tablecloths were still white, but the atmosphere had changed in ways that regular diners from the Pacific Union Club found difficult to define, yet impossible to resent. The silver shepherd’s crook was gone from the lapels of the staff. The sommelier still knew his vintages, but he wore a simple black apron, and the dining room was run by David, the former back-waiter, whose quiet, watchful efficiency had cut customer complaints to zero in eleven months.
At Table Fourteen, the corner table by the glass railing, five people were sitting down for dinner.
Clara sat near the view, looking over a quarterly report from the Mason Street intake center, which had provided transitional housing to one hundred and fourteen women and two hundred and eight children during its first ten months of operation. She wore an ivory silk blouse, her face relaxed, her eyes bright with the steady, quiet confidence of an executive who had built something that worked.
Emma sat next to her, her legs swinging freely beneath the linen cloth. She had outgrown the orthopedic shoe six months ago; she wore red patent leather Mary Janes that she tapped rhythmically against the table leg without anyone telling her to stop.
Lily was showing Mrs. Higgins a spelling test from Hamlin that had a large gold star pasted in the upper right-hand corner.
Michael sat at the head of the table. He wore the same pale gray suit, his collar unbuttoned, his watch still absent from his wrist. He was forty-nine years old, but the line of tension between his eyebrows had smoothed out, replaced by the small, permanent creases of a man who laughed often on Sunday mornings.
David approached the table carrying a large wicker basket lined with a clean red-and-white checked cloth.
Inside the basket were six round loaves of sourdough bread, fresh from the kitchen’s hearth oven, still steaming faintly in the cool evening air.
He set the basket directly in the center of the table, between Michael’s water glass and Emma’s small hands.
"Good evening, Mr. Willoughby," David said with a slight, respectful bow. "Good evening, Clara. Girls."
"Good evening, David," Michael said.
David stepped back, his hands folded comfortably in front of him. "Chef Keller wanted you to know that the evening service has sixteen walk-in reservations from the Geary center downstairs. The kitchen has eighty loaves ready for the six o'clock seating."
"Thank you, David," Michael said. "Tell Keller that the butter should have the sea salt on the side. Some of the little ones don't like the crunch."
"Already done, sir."
David walked back toward the kitchen doors, nodding with a small, warm smile to a young couple who had just been seated at Table Twelve.
Michael reached into the basket. He took the first loaf—hot, crisp, smelling of yeast and good wheat from the central valley—and broke it with his hands. The sound of the crust cracking was loud enough to carry across the three nearest tables, but no one turned to look with irritation. The sound of breaking bread belonged here now; it was part of the room’s design, like the glass railing and the view of the bay.
He gave the first piece to Emma.
She took it with both hands, smelled the steam, and looked across the table at him, her blue-gray eyes dancing in the light of the gas braziers.
"Is this the good bread, Michael?" she asked.
Michael broke another piece and handed it to Scarlet, who took it with a nod that had all the dignity of an old friend who understood everything without speaking.
May you like
"Every piece of bread is the good bread, Emma," Michael said, looking around the table at the four faces that had turned an empty house on Broadway into a home. "As long as there's enough to share."
The sun slipped below the horizon, the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge flickered on against the purple dusk, and on the terrace high above the water, the five of them ate together while the city hummed softly below them in the dark.
