It always started with the rolls.
The way people passed around the basket. The little pads of butter, slipping inside their foil wrappers. People looked disappointed if you didn’t take a roll and spread it thick with butter. It was like an insult. What they didn’t realize was that if you took one roll, there was no reason not to take another. He passed the basket on to Mel and hoped nobody would notice.
There were eight people at the table, including Jake and Mel. Three of the others were developers for Rothschild, and the other three were unaffiliated. They’d all decided that Jake’s job was the most interesting and they asked him questions about it. They eventually asked if he needed a roll.
“I’m fine,” he insisted.
That was the problem with fancy meals. Even if he ordered chicken for the main course, they always found ways to surround it with other food that he’d never asked for. Turtle soup seemed to spontaneously condense, thick with chunks of meat and swimming with fat. Someone at the table requested shrimp and it arrived surrounded by bowls of butter. Little pools to drown it in, so it dripped a yellow trail on the tablecloth. Mel had one, but she didn’t spill.
He gave them the usual speech about his job. Most of it was true. How he’d wanted to be a reporter since he was a boy. He’d been editor of the high school paper, huddled in rooms cutting and pasting articles for the Xerox machine. Then he’d gone on to write in college. He was lucky enough to get a job straight out and earn a chance to work his way up. A decade’s worth. They asked him where he’d been when one event or another happened in New York and he told them.
“And so why did you come here?” a middle-aged man asked before he sucked on a shrimp tail.
Jake brushed his hair back. That was where the editing came in. He had a different reason sometimes, but never told them Thompson’s reason. The real one. He said he wanted a change of pace. He wanted to see more of the country. He wanted to do a different type of writing. He couldn’t tell if they’d bought it or were just being polite. The two things looked the same.
“But enough about me,” he said. “I bore myself.”
“Well, not us,” a woman said, and her husband nodded. He was one of the Rothschild employees. Jake decided to distract them.
“So what do you do for Rothschild?”
“I’m on the construction end of things. I make sure these communities get built. But nothing like this building,” he said and laughed. “God awful, isn’t it?”
“Just the outside.”
“I guess. I’ll be on a site tomorrow though, supervising a new project. I make sure things get done.”
“That must be satisfying.”
“It is,” the man said. “You watch something really come full circle. It starts out just a patch of land and then ends up as a place where people live. My wife’s heard this a million times.”
“I haven’t heard it lately,” she muttered.
“Well…it’s just a phase.”
Jake wanted to get out his notebook, but he hadn’t brought it. The entire night was supposed to be off the record. More importantly, the notebook didn’t fit in his new suit’s pocket. Especially with all the thick-stock business cards he’d gotten.
“What’s just a phase?” he asked. He’d have to use his memory-never optimal.
“Just the usual stuff.”
“What’s that?”
He could feel Mel looking at him. He didn’t look back.
“You know-just regulations.”
“Oh. Union stuff? About when you work?”
“No. You have to go through a lot with wetlands preservation. So we’re dealing with that. And you’ve got these environmentalist people. It’s the usual.”
“Do you have to deal with that though? Shouldn’t it all be taken care of by the time you’ve started building?”
“I wish,” he said and grunted. He took another roll. “They still protest, even after you’ve done all the legal work. It’s crazy, but they do it. That’s what happens when those people have all day free without real jobs.”
“I guess so.” Jake looked at the rolls but left them on the table. The man grunted again and started eating his in big bites. Eventually, a waitress collected the plates. Jake wiped the sweat off his forehead as the couples split up into conversations of their own.
“Why didn’t you have a roll?” Mel asked.
“I want to save my appetite.”
“For chicken?”
“There’s nothing like it.”
“Everything’s like it.”
“Did I get you in trouble before?” he asked under his breath. Change the subject. Even if the new subject was more dangerous.
“What do you mean?”
“With Mr. Rothschild. I had no idea that he was behind me when I said that about never catching up to Palmstead.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. He puts on a show, but he doesn’t mean it.”
“Did he…” Jake started. He touched the prongs on his salad fork and waited.
“Did he what?”
“Well, did he tell you anything? About me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to bring it up. But is this date just to, you know, try to get me to write something? Did he tell you to take me out tonight?”
She looked down at the white napkin on her lap.
“If you think that Jake, really…”
He frowned, but she smiled.
“Case closed,” she said and touched his arm with her hand. “Besides, Gary’s already sprained my ankle. Mr. Rothschild knows your paper won’t be easy on me, even if I do wine and dine you.”
He reached for her hand as they laughed. But then they heard the sound of shattered glass. Mel grabbed him, her nails scraping his skin.
“What’s happening?” More glass broke. It echoed across the room.
A man was standing on the table next to the band. He wore blue jeans and a white tank top. He had a long beard that went down to his chest. A message on the tank top read “Stop The Development.” It was written in dripping crimson paint.
“Everybody listen to me!” His words were slurred and it sounded like he was drunk. He picked up another glass and held it by its flute. He tossed it up, nearly hitting the wooden ceiling. Half the people stood up at their tables and the other half ducked under them. The glass crashed to the floor.
“I want to talk to you about what’s happening. You people are endangering the most precious resource we have.” His voice was hoarse. Jake held Mel close. “Why are people more important than animals? Why you are risking the wetlands for this? For people! For your company’s developments!”
He flailed his arms around. He didn’t hold a weapon. He continued to talk, though it quickly became impossible to tell what he was saying. Jake and Mel watched as a man crept up behind the table. Jake hadn’t noticed him before. He wore all black and had thick red hair running to his collarbone. He had long arms and wide shoulders. After touching an earpiece with his hand, he nodded and jumped on the table in a single leap.
Both men fell on the floor and more glass shattered.
Then it was quiet again. The red haired man got up and held the bearded man’s hands behind his back. He walked him to the back of the room and then out the door. People started clapping and everyone sat down again. Rothschild was sitting in front and he stood up and walked to the podium.
“Well,” he said and adjusted his tie. “That certainly seems like a cue for the next course.”
Everyone laughed. A moment later, waiters started circulating with the meal. They stepped around the busboys, who were busy cleaning up the broken glass.