…and I did not walk into their grand reopening. I walked two doors down, to the old Elks lodge I’d rented quiet all month, and at seven o’clock I unlocked the door and flipped on the lights.
Half of Erie came to me.
Not to the searchlights and the Chamber and the craft cocktails. To the lodge, where I’d set the tables the way this town actually likes them, and put the old supper-club piano player back on his stool, and hung a chalkboard with a Manhattan on it for eight dollars, poured strong. The Petrellis, who I seated for their first anniversary and every one since. The widowers who come for the company as much as the prime rib. Three generations of regulars who’d rather be called by name than served by a “vibe.”
Two doors down, that boy from out of town cut his ribbon to a half-empty room.
By spring, the “younger vibe” had burned through its buzz and quietly folded — turns out a brand can’t remember your late wife’s name or how you take your coffee. My little place is booked every Friday and Saturday now. My name’s on the door, right under the Elks’.
I carried plates through two owners and one blizzard on that supper club floor. At sixty-one, I finally own the floor I’m standing on.
He was so sure nobody orders from their grandmother that he never once counted the house — never guessing half of Erie would follow that grandmother clear down the block, to the only room in town where somebody still knew their name.