Over the years I’ve dined alone from time to time, at restaurants with beautiful views, or quaint interiors, or interesting menus. No matter what age I was at the time, I rarely got the chance to enjoy my meal without feeling that my sole presence as a woman dining alone was a disturbance. In a Greek restaurant in Chicago, the waiter asked me three times if I wasn’t expecting someone else before finally bringing me a menu, and then served me with a kind of quiet fury. In a fish restaurant in Tofino, Canada, on a short break from teaching, I asked for a table by the window. I was shown a table in a dark corner, where all I could do was admire the wood paneling. I sat down obediently and stared at the white tablecloth. I was early. The place was empty. They didn't take reservations. Strangely, what I felt was shame.
A few months ago, I found myself in beautiful Rennes, Brittany. I had just returned to Europe after thirty years of living in the States, and I was looking for the right place to have my first meal out. I had bought a French diary, still wrapped in cellophane, and a brand-new French pen, and wanted to enjoy a glass of French wine together with a delicious French meal. I found a little bistro that seemed to promise all that. Two men, tall, lean, fashionably unshaven, stood smoking on the steps. “Ah bah oui,” they were serving dinner. Was I expecting someone else? Non? I was shown a table right behind the open door, squeezed into a corner so tight I had to keep my elbows close in order not to hit wall or glass. I asked for another table. The place was empty, after all. I was early. “Non,” all reserved. Not even a “désolé.” Service was perfunctory, the bread dry, the wine they recommended, terrible. I ordered fish. The waiters stood at the bar, looking in my direction, sneering. Did they know they were crushing my French dream? I used the breadknife to slash open the cellophane wrapping of my diary. They snickered more loudly. I screwed the cap off my new pen. I looked at them, leaning against the bar, looking back at me. I glanced up at the board listing the specials of the evening and wrote the name of the dish I had ordered. I looked at the wine list next to the specials and wrote down the name of the terrible wine. I swirled my glass, took another sip, closed my eyes for a moment before writing something in my diary that had nothing do with wine. I noticed they weren’t sneering any more. I took out my phone and snapped a few pictures of the menu, of the place, of my food, writing in between snapshot and snapshot. They looked worried. One came over and asked me if I had enjoyed my food. The other recommended a different, much better wine. I got fresh bread. They had become the polite French waiters I had pictured. When I left, the place was still almost empty. The pen felt warm in my hand.
2 Comments
Sara Barry
8/29/2018 03:56:40 pm
OOOH, good one Anna! I have had this same experience dining alone, feeling so conspicuous! Sorry you had to go through all that but you, my friend, had the last laugh. xoxs
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Barry
8/29/2018 06:14:30 pm
Beautifully written, Anna. I remember the last dining experience you mention as you told us about it during the dinner in Tacoma recently. The seeds of a short story?
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A little about myself:Hello there and thank you for visiting my website! I have lived in Spain, Mexico, France and the United States, but now make my home in Germany. I have a Ph.D. in Literary Studies and a Master's in TESOL, and have published several books for children, among them El Loro Tico Tango and El Fandango de Lola, a 2012 Ezra Jack Keats Honor Book. As a writer and an artist I'm in constant conversation with my own anxious mind even as I celebrate the joyful possibilities of our crazy, incomprehensible world. Archives
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