For the Table

I noticed your left hand first.

The strawberry-colored birthmark at the top of your ring finger matched mine. I wondered if I should hide it from you or the table, but I’ve come to realize that the people I’m waiting on never seem to notice details. Sometimes for fun, I put on a slight accent when I’m reciting the specials just to see if they’ll raise an eyebrow. How did a Scottish man end up waiting tables at a town in New England? Two years of community college theater classes and I can do two barely passable accents and play improv games with the best of them. You wouldn’t know anything about community college or, more apt, community in general. You have the pleasure of isolation.

I’m guessing this was a double date. The man sitting next to you seemed to be trying to impress you. I heard him talk about a trip to France in the spring. You didn’t even glance up from your menu before remarking that you hadn’t been back to France since you got expelled from a boarding school there your sophomore year. Oh, so you’re a bad girl. I bet your father finds that endearing. He makes a show of disapproving, but secretly, he’s proud that he produced a child who misbehaves simply because they can. That’s what well-off people do, after all, isn’t it?

My mother liked misbehaving as well, but unfortunately, her actions led to her losing custody of me before I turned five. That’s when my grandparents adopted me, and moved me up to North Providence. They were shocked when I left college early and told them I wanted to move back to Newport. It’s your life, but we figured you’d never want to go back there. All those bad memories. But you see, I don’t have any memories from that time. My mother once left me alone for three days and all the while she was down the road at the Viking holed up in some room on the top floor with a boat captain from Cocoa Beach. My mother could say “No” to everybody but a guy with a room key. She said “No” to bosses who asked her to start coming on time. She said “No” to my grandparents when they asked her to move home so they could help her get her life back on track. She said “No” to me a few years ago when I asked her for the name of my father. That’s why I moved back here. I wanted to see if anybody could help me find out who he was.

The birthmark gave me away the same way it did you. I was sitting at a bar on the wharf and someone walked up to me and asked if I was ________’s son. My first instinct was to ask who ______ was, but every good detective show taught me that you should always play along. Let people talk. Worst that can happen is you hear more than you wanted to. That day, some older gentleman with a sweater and a pair of four hundred dollar sunglasses sat next to me. It was one of the last warm autumn days when the cruise ship crew members are filling up the bars and the passengers are buying overpriced snow globes at the gift shops on Thames Street.

How’s ____ doing anyway? Haven’t seen him since the sailing race. He still going back and forth to Dallas? I don’t know how he does it. That much traveling would drive me crazy. It might drive him crazy too, but you can’t exactly keep all your families on one island now, can you? I started talking to the guy. Name was Bill. Bill something. I’m bad with last names. Maybe that’s because I never felt like my last name was really mine. Call me traditional, but I wanted to have my father’s last name growing up, not my mother’s. I never wanted any part of her attached to me.

Can we get some bread for the table? The guy hitting on you is polite. I appreciate that. You’re on your phone. Do you know what Bill Something told me when I pretended that, Yes, I was his son, and oh man, so weird that he never talked about having a son, but yeah, he is pretty private, so it doesn’t surprise me all that much--Do you know what he said? He said that he’s bumped into no less than three people with that birthmark, although the other two said they’d never heard of _______ so maybe they were cousins or the children of cousins, right? Poor Bill isn’t too sharp. Chances are some wives were lying to their husbands or some kids got put up for adoption. Isn’t it funny that we all made our way back to the island? Except for you. You’ve always been here, aside from when they tried sending you away. You got to claim ______’s last name right from the beginning. That’s why you’re sitting at the table and I’m standing over it asking you what you’d like for dessert.

It isn’t until I bring the check that you see the birthmark. The other couple you’re with is arguing about a Senate race somewhere. A special election. Nothing happens here, so people argue about things happening away from here. They argue with the kind of voracity that used to be reserved for Dorothy Parker and Truman Capote arguing about philandering Socialites. I had an English teacher in community college who was obsessed with New York glitterati and he explained to us how rich people love fighting about things that don’t affect them. Who’s going to win an election. Who’s going to take over a company. What referendum is going to be voted in. Whatever happens, they’ll just retreat to their mansions and watch as their stocks either tick up or dip down. Then they’ll take a nap.

While your friends(?) argued, you stared at my hand. The mark as yours. For me, it’s begun to feel like a Scarlet Letter. One that was passed down. Fortune doesn’t often travel in DNA, but shame can. You make eye contact with me. Did you know right away or were you trying to fit the last piece of the puzzle in as I collected the credit card from the gentleman who was trying to get your attention all night. When I returned to the table, you were gone. The other three were quietly discussing how upset you were when you left. How you made up some excuse that none of them believed. I thanked them for their patronage and went out to the parking lot. You were smoking a cigarette by the valet. Either you were waiting for your car or for an Uber. I decided to approach you not knowing what I would say. I didn’t think I’d get another chance.

I stood next to you not saying anything. Part of me questioned whether or not you even recognized my presence. It would be tricky, even knowing what you now knew, to suddenly acknowledge the people around you who can’t help you or assist you or serve you in any way. A revelation doesn’t always lead to insight. Sometimes it makes you close a few more open doors. You realize you let something in, and you promise not to let it happen again.

You want one?

You don’t look at me, but you hold out the pack. You might just be bad at making eye contact. Maybe there’s a reason you can’t look at people. Maybe it isn’t elitism. Maybe there’s something you’re too afraid to see. I take a cigarette from you. I don’t smoke, but I need a reason to stand next to you. I want an excuse not to move.