(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
They decided to walk to the restaurant to celebrate the first anniversary, thirty blocks north of their apartment. Though the evening was pleasantly warm, it was dark already. It had been a Saturday in November, they walked up Fifth Avenue, past the public library. Instead of proceeding to the restaurant they decided to wander up the side walk for a while ; there were still twenty minutes before their reservation. The street was found only with a handful of people. She had once come here with Graham and his father and stepmother to have drinks at the Plaza. They couldn't find the restaurant at first. The address written on a slip of paper in Moushumi's evening bag, led them only to a suite of offices in a town house. They pressed the buzzer, peered through the glass door into the empty, carpeted foyer, at a big vase of flowers at the foot of the stairs.
"It can't be this," she said. They wandered partway up and down the block, looked on the other side. They returned to the town house, looking up at the darkened windows for signs of life.
"There it is," he said, noticing a couple emerging from a basement door below the steps. There, in an entry way lit by a single sconce, they found a plaque nailed discretely into the facade of the building bearing the restaurant's name, Antonia. A small fleet gathered to welcome them, to tick their names off a list at a podium, to lead them to their table. The fuss felt unwarranted as they stepped into a stark, sunken dining room. The atmosphere was somber, vaguely abandoned, as the streets had been. There were a few wealthy-looking middle aged couples in suits. A well-dressed elderly gentleman was dining alone. She found suspicious that there were so many empty tables, that no music played. She had been hoping for something more bustling, warmer. Given that it was subterranean, the place seemed surprisingly vast, the ceilings high. The air-conditioning was too strong, chilling her bare legs and arms. She wrapped the pashmina tightly around her shoulders.
"I'm freezing. Do you think they'd turn down the AC if I asked ?"
"I doubt that. Would you like my jacket ?" Nikhil offered.
"No, It's okay." She smiled at him. And yet she felt uncomfortable, depressed. She was depressed by the pair of teen aged Bangladeshi busboys who wore tapestry waistcoats and black trousers, serving them warm bread with silver tongs. It annoyed her that the waiter, perfectly attentive, looked neither of them in the eye as he described the menu, speaking instead to the bottle of mineral water positioned between them. She knew it was too late to change their plans now. But even after they placed their order, a part of her had a nagging urge, felt like standing up, leaving. She'd done something similar a few weeks ago, sitting in the chair of an expensive hair saloon, walking out after the apron had been tied behind her neck, while the stylist had gone to check on another client, simply because something about the stylist's manner, the bored expression on her face as she'd lifted a lock of Moushumi's hair and studied it in the mirror, had felt insulting. She wondered what Donald and Astrid liked about this place, decided it must be the food. But when it arrived, it too disappointed her. The meal, served on square white plates, was fussily arranged, the portions microscopically small.. As usual they traded plates partway through the meal, but this time she didn't like the taste of his so she stuck to her own. She finished her entree of scallops too quickly, sat quiet for a long ttime, watching Nikhil work his way through his quail.
She was not able to enjoy herself. As they neared the end of the meal, it occurred to her that she was neither very drunk nor full. In spite of two cocktails and the bottle of wine they'd shared she felt distressingly sober and lighted her after-dinner cigarette.
They were the last of the diners to leave. It'd been wildly expensive, far more than they'd expected. They put down a credit card. Watching Nikhil sign the receipt, she felt cheap all of a sudden, irritated that he'd left such a meager tip.
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