“It’s all good,” Lila says. “But I seriously can’t handle any more honesty right now after Jim’s speech. I really just need the night to go smoothly. And some floss.”
“But I thought you wanted to stop pretending.”
“And I thought you were my maid of honor.”
“I am,” Phoebe says.
“So help me.”
Phoebe opens her bag. “Here,” she says. “Use this.”
“Your table card?” Lila asks, but takes it. Starts using the sharp corner of the card to poke between her teeth. She gets it out. Victory. She reapplies her lipstick. Smacks her lips. Looks at Phoebe like she couldn’t be more grateful.
“When we get back there, I want you to give your speech,” Lila says. “I’m sorry I cut it. I really want to hear it. I just get so worked up sometimes, you know?”
“I know,” Phoebe says.
BUT WHEN THEY return to the patio, they find it nearly empty.
“I told everybody to head down to the fireworks,” Gary says. “We’ll meet them there.”
“But Phoebe hasn’t given her speech!” Lila cries. “And we didn’t even eat any of the palate cleansers, did we?”
“You don’t eat palate cleansers, you have palate cleansers,” Marla corrects.
“Jesus Christ, Marla, who cares?” Lila says. “We didn’t eat or have any of them, am I right?”
“I do not recall a palate cleanser, no,” Gary says.
“For the best,” Jim says. “I’m stuffed.”
He rubs his belly like it got bigger during dinner, which it didn’t.
“But we paid for them,” Lila says.
Lila signals for help, but it’s not the waiter who comes over. It’s Pauline.
“Yes, I’m so sorry,” Pauline says. “The waiter came to me with your concerns, and we made the decision to omit the palate cleansers so we could get you all to the fireworks in time.”
“You omitted the palate cleansers?” Lila asks.
“I am afraid we did omit them, yes,” she says. “The meal was taking a little longer than planned, and we made an executive decision.”
“Oh! As long as it was an executive decision,” Lila says.
“Lila,” Gary says. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay! This is unacceptable. We ordered one hundred and sixty palate cleansers!”
“I hope you’re donating them,” Marla says.
“Do people donate palate cleansers?” Phoebe asks. “That just seems … cruel.”
“Oh my God, can someone just tell me what a palate cleanser is?” Juice asks.
“Like a lemon thing on a spoon,” Jim says.
“A lemon thing on a spoon?”
“I don’t know. Ask the professor,” Jim says.
“It’s just what they always are,” Phoebe clarifies.
“Pauline, thank you,” Gary says. “We’ll take it from here.”
Pauline nods, leaves, and in her absence there is a lot of discussion about whether the hotel had the right to do that—to omit the palate cleanser, to make an executive decision without consulting the bride and groom.
Gary seems to think it is his responsibility as a kind person to forgive the waiter for whatever choices he made, because he was just a man with no good options, and Lila seems to think it is her responsibility as the bride to not have her dead father’s money wasted on food they were denied.
“We paid a lot of money for this meal,” Lila says.
“Okay,” Jim says. “Here we go again.”
“What do you mean, Here we go?” Lila asks.
“I mean, we know how this is going to play out, because this is how it always plays out, so why don’t we just skip over it all and head down to the fireworks to enjoy our night?”
“How does this always play out?” Lila asks.
