He texted Thursday morning.
In the city again. Purely self-interested question: is the restaurant near your office the one with the mural or the one without?
I read it twice. The lightness of it the specific lightness, after Wednesday, of a man who had received something serious and was now deliberately offering something easy.
I wrote back: Without. The mural one has better food but worse acoustics.
He replied: Without it is. Seven?
I typed back: Works.
He picked a place I hadn't suggested Thursday night, fixed menu, the kind of room that did the work for you. Good bread. Nobody performing anything.
We ordered. Talked about the Georgetown timeline and whether it would close before the holidays. He thought yes. I thought probably not, based on how the city's planning office had been
