Brunch at Eleven Thirty

At 11:22, Emo moved the sugar jar aside, caught the bottom of the Venetian blind between his fingers, and pulled it down to the final slat.

The plane leaves outside shone almost white. Once the blind closed, only a narrow line of light remained on the corner of the table.

“Brunch does not require candlelight,” the server said, stopping beside him with two menus.

“The light will fall across the screen.”

She looked at the phone, whose screen had yet to wake, and set down one cup.

Emo drew a sheet of cream writing paper from the inside pocket of his coat. It held a single line of French. The letters stood straight, with enough space between them to accommodate a long correspondence:

Je serais honoré si vous acceptiez de partager avec moi le repas de la mi-journée.

“Is the grammar wrong?” he asked.

The server took the page and read it twice.

“No.” She pushed it back. “You are asking someone to lunch. Why make it sound like an armistice?”

Emo held one corner of the paper beneath his thumb. “How do people write it now?”

The server took a ballpoint pen from her apron and wrote two lines on the back of an order slip:

On déjeune ensemble ?

Ça te dirait de déjeuner ensemble ?

“The first is direct. The second leaves the other person a little room.” She tapped the second line. “Do they use tu with you, or vous?”

Emo opened the old messages on his phone. Days separated the sentences. Each one carried a greeting, a date, and a complete sign-off. Only last month had the other person written tu for the first time.

“Tu,” he said.

“Then send the second one.”

He entered the twelve words in the message field and stopped above the send button.

The server removed the empty saucer. “You spent three days on that letter. How long will this sentence take?”

Emo pressed send.

At 11:24, a read receipt appeared beneath the message. He turned the phone face down at once.

“What is it now?” the server asked.

“I am waiting for the answer.”

“Watching it will not make them write any faster.”

The phone vibrated against the table. Emo did not move. The server turned the screen over for him.

Avec plaisir. À onze heures et demie ?

Emo looked at the clock on the wall. “That is four minutes from now.”

“The clock has no translation problem.”

He straightened one cuff and folded the letter he had spent three days composing. The first fold was too wide, so he opened it and tried again. The second fit inside his palm.

At eleven thirty, the bell above the door rang once.

Emo rose and pulled out the chair opposite him. When the server brought the second cup, the table still rocked a little. He bent down, folded the letter into four layers, and tucked it beneath the short table leg.

The table settled. A single ring travelled across the coffee in each cup.