Iris Bell and Theo Mercer, But I Only Came for One Dinner

I was standing in the back room of the Bellwether Bay Museum, holding a tray of tiny crab cakes, when Sloane told me she'd found me a rich man. "Not a man," I said. "A meal." She turned from the mirror and lifted one perfect eyebrow. "You can have both." I'd spent the afternoon arranging flowers for the museum's winter benefit, a job that came with a black dress code, two free dinners a month, and an unreasonable number of conversations about tax deductions. Sloane had come to help with the guest list. She wore a satin green dress that seemed to have been designed for someone who never carried anything heavier than a champagne flute. Behind her, Piper was tapping through photos on her phone. Her new apartment had a view of the marina, she'd told us last week, because her boyfriend liked having her close to his office. Before that, Sloane had spent three days aboard a yacht belonging to a man she described as "basically a friend with excellent taste." I had a bus pass and a rent increase notice folded in my purse. "What's the man's name?" I asked. "Theo Mercer." That meant something to me. Mercer House owned two hotels, a marina, and the kind of restaurants where the menus didn't list prices. The family was old Bellwether money, with a foundation named after a grandmother and a portrait of some severe-looking ancestor in the lobby of every building they owned. Sloane leaned toward me. "His family is opening the Lantern Room. It's a private preview tonight. Seafood, unlimited. They're inviting a few people who know how to make a room look good." "People who know how to make a room look good," I repeated. "Don't get prickly. I told him you're lovely and easy to talk to." "I'm not easy to talk to." "You're easy to look at." Piper glanced up from her phone. "She's not wrong." It wasn't the first time someone had treated my face like a skill I could put on a résumé. I'd learned to take the compliment with a small smile and change the subject. The truth was, I hated being looked at when I didn't know what was expected of me. I hated even more that I cared. "How much is dinner?" I asked. Sloane grinned. "The preview menu is three hundred dollars a person. There's a lobster course, oysters, crab, and some ridiculous dessert cart." I nearly dropped the tray. "Unlimited?" "Within reason." "Whose reason?" "Probably Theo's." I thought of the rent notice in my purse and the measly dinner I'd eaten before my shift: toast and the heel of a jar of peanut butter. Then I thought of lobster arriving on a silver platter, hot and sweet, with butter enough to drown a small boat. "Fine," I said. Sloane clapped once. "That's my girl." "Don't call me your girl. And I'm not pretending to date anybody." "No one asked you to." She said it lightly. It was the sort of answer that let a person pretend they hadn't heard the warning. I changed in the museum bathroom, pinning my hair into a loose twist and smoothing the front of my dress. It wasn't new, but it fit. When I stepped back into the hall, Sloane looked me up and down. "Good," she said. "You look expensive." "I look like I found a dress on sale." "Exactly. Relatable expensive." "Please don't tell anyone I'm coming to meet a man." "Why would I?" She picked up her purse. Her phone lit as she turned away, and I caught the name at the top of the screen: Theo Mercer. I didn't ask what she'd written. If I had, I might have heard the first lie before I was sitting across from it. ***** The Lantern Room occupied the top floor of a renovated ferry terminal. Its windows looked over the harbor, where the last of the daylight had turned the water copper. Inside, a woman in a charcoal suit greeted us by name and led us past a wall of glass tanks. Lobsters moved slowly behind the glass, their claws banded in red. I stopped walking. "You can admire them later," Sloane murmured. "I'm admiring them now." At the private dining room, a photographer lifted his camera. Sloane waved as if the flash belonged to her. I looked around for the people who were supposed to make the room look good. There were eight of us: two local arts donors, a lifestyle blogger, a couple who looked recently married, Sloane, me, and a man at the far end of the table. Theo Mercer stood as we came in. He was taller than I expected, with dark hair and a sober gray suit that seemed to fit without trying. His smile was polite, not warm. He shook Sloane's hand first. "Thank you for bringing Iris," he said. I blinked. He knew my name. Sloane touched my arm. "Iris, Theo. Theo, Iris." "I've heard you're good with people," he said. "I arrange flowers," I said. "That sounds like people." He had a dry voice, low enough that I had to listen. I didn't know whether he was joking, so I gave him the safest smile I had. A server set down a menu. Theo's gaze flicked to me, then to the menu. "I hope you're hungry. We're testing the tasting service tonight." "I am," I said. For the first time, his expression shifted. A faint crease appeared beside his mouth. "Good," he said. "The kitchen hates wasting food." "I'll do my best to save them from that." Sloane laughed too loudly. The photographer took another picture. A server appeared with a small card beside my plate. I turned it over. The front read LANTERN ROOM PREVIEW. The back listed a social media handle and a line about being grateful to celebrate Bellwether's newest dining experience. I looked at Sloane. "What's this?" "Just a little card." "I didn't agree to post anything." "No one's making you." Theo had gone to greet the other guests. I tucked the card beneath my napkin and told myself it was nothing. The first course came: oysters, cold and shining on crushed ice. The next was crab with warm bread. I ate carefully at first, aware of the people around me, then less carefully when the lobster arrived. Sweet meat, hot butter, lemon. I stopped thinking about the photographer. I stopped thinking about the dress. I even stopped thinking about the rent notice. Then Theo sat down beside me. "I'm glad you came," he said. "I'm glad there's food." He glanced at my plate. "That was honest." "I'm very bad at pretending I'm not hungry." "And are you bad at pretending other things?" I set down my fork. There was no accusation in his voice, but I heard one anyway. "I don't know what you mean." His attention shifted to the little card by my elbow. "Sloane said you were interested in helping us build a local following." "I'm interested in dinner." He held my gaze. "Only dinner?" "Is there supposed to be something else?" Before he answered, Sloane slid into the chair on my other side. "Theo, you should tell Iris about the weekend schedule," she said, smiling at him. "She's free next Saturday." I turned to her. "I am?" "Of course. We talked about it." "We didn't." For half a second, her smile tightened. Then she laughed, as if I'd made a joke. "See? Easy to talk to," she said. Theo looked from her to me. I couldn't tell what he thought. All I could tell was that the lobster was still warm and the room was getting colder.