Chapter 9: A Meal, Properly Served
After Corinne Duvall returned to her table, Henri Beaumont walked to the piano and stood beside June, and for a moment he simply looked at her, as if he were seeing her for the first time. Then he did something that surprised the whole dining room: he pulled out a chair at a small table near the window, a table with a white cloth and a candle, and he gestured to it. "Miss Ashby," he said, "you have earned your meal. Please, sit. You will be served properly, as a guest, not as a curiosity."
June stood up from the bench, her legs unsteady, and walked to the table. She felt every eye in the room on her, but she held her head up. Marcus appeared at her side almost at once, with a napkin folded neatly and a glass of water, and he gave her a small, encouraging smile. "You played beautifully," he whispered, so quietly that only she could hear it. June whispered back, "Thank you," and sat down, smoothing her dress the way Pearl had taught her to do at church suppers, as if dignity were something you could put on like a coat.
Claude Renard stood near the door, very quiet. The amusement had gone out of his face, replaced by something June could not quite read: embarrassment, perhaps, or the beginning of understanding. He did not apologize, not yet, but he did not mock her either, and in a room where he had laughed at her only an hour before, his silence felt like a kind of respect. Vivienne Delacroix watched from her table, her expression thoughtful, and June wondered, briefly, what story Vivienne would tell about this evening when she got home. She pushed the thought aside. Tonight, she was going to eat.
The food, when it came, was more than June had dared to hope for. A bowl of soup, rich and warm, with bread beside it. Then a plate of chicken, cooked the way Henri cooked it, with butter and herbs and vegetables from the market, and a small salad with lemon. June ate slowly, because Pearl had taught her that a meal earned honestly deserved to be tasted, not rushed, and because she wanted to remember every bite. The soup warmed her from the inside, and the bread was soft, and for the first time in weeks, she did not feel the tight, gnawing ache that had followed her through the day.
Henri came to her table as she ate, and he spoke to her with a respect she had not expected from a man who ran a grand restaurant. "Miss Ashby," he said, "I owe you an apology. When you walked in, I thought you were asking for charity. I see now that you were offering something of value, and that we were fortunate to hear it. I would like to pay you for your playing tonight, in addition to your meal, because a musician should be paid for her work." He placed an envelope on the table, and June stared at it, unsure what to do.
"I only asked for food," June said.
"And you shall have it," Henri replied. "But a fair trade goes both ways. You gave us music that silenced a room. That is worth more than soup." June took the envelope with trembling hands and thanked him, and Henri nodded and walked back toward the kitchen, leaving her to her meal.
As she ate, June thought about Pearl, and about the empty cupboard at home, and about how she would tell her aunt what had happened. She imagined Pearl's face when she heard about the meal, and then about Corinne, and she knew the second part of the story would be harder to tell than the first. Pearl had kept a secret for years, and June was not sure whether she would be grateful for the protection or angry at the silence. For now, though, she let herself simply enjoy the food, one bite at a time. She thought about the envelope in her pocket, and about Corinne Duvall's words, and about the song that now had a name, "Song for June," and a father attached to it. It was a great deal to carry home, along with a full stomach, and June felt both grateful and overwhelmed, the way you feel when a door you did not know existed suddenly opens in a house you thought you knew.