They Voted Me Out Of The Wedding So I Canceled It Chapter 27
We called the program Your Own Table.
The first cohort accepted twenty women.
Some had left the workforce for five years to care for sick parents.
Some had spent more than a decade as full-time, unpaid household managers.
Some came in holding half-finished business plans, asking me, “Is it too late to start over?”
I placed my own blue folder in front of one of them. The cover was curled at the edges, and the date on the first page was years old.
“No.”
She opened it, and her eyes slowly lit up.
On the first day of the program, I had my grandmother’s old dining table delivered to the office.
After I’d moved out of Decatur, it had been sitting in my apartment. The legs were scratched, and the edges were worn pale with time.
Cameron had someone reinforce it but insisted on leaving every mark.
“Conference room or common area?” he asked.
“Common area.”
“You’re not worried it’ll get damaged?”
I ran a hand across the worn surface.
“A table is meant to be used.”
At lunch, the program participants gathered around it to revise their resumes and review their budgets. Someone spilled coffee on one corner and fumbled for napkins in a panic.
I just smiled. “It’s fine.”
Once, that table had stood in the dining room in Decatur. I had sat there booking Evan’s business trips, filling out Ava’s school applications, and remembering all the things everyone else forgot.
Now, it was still a place of work.
Only this time, everyone sitting around it was working on a life of her own.
On the night the program ended, Cameron was the last one left in the office.
He placed an expense report in front of me.
Mileage, meals, materials—not one receipt missing.
“Strictly business,” he said.
I checked it over and signed. “Compliant.”
He didn’t leave right away.
“There’s one more item,” he said. “Not for company reimbursement.”
“What is it?”
“Dinner.”
I looked up.
“With a client?”
“No.”
“An investor?”
“No.”
He pulled out the chair across from me but didn’t sit.
“Claire, I’d like to take you to dinner. As a man who is interested in you.”
Only one lamp was still on in the office.
He didn’t reach for my bag. He didn’t tell me he’d already made a reservation.
He just stood there and waited for my answer.
“What if I say no?” I asked.
“Then I’ll go eat by myself, and I’ll see you at our nine a.m. meeting tomorrow.”
“And if I say yes?”
“You pick the restaurant. We split the bill.”
I laughed.
“You came prepared.”
“Working with you has taught me to state the boundaries up front.”
I shut down my computer and picked up my coat.
“Let’s go.”
He stepped aside to let me pass through the doorway.
He didn’t take my hand.
Not until we walked out of the building and I brushed my fingers against his first.
He paused for a beat, then gently took my hand in his.
No one had rescued me from a failed marriage.
I had already walked a very long way on my own. I had just decided to let someone respectful walk beside me.