I nudge the tented linen napkin into place exactly between the knife and the fork, precisely over the spot where the centre of the dinner plate will be when our lunch arrives. There’s a large clock on the opposite wall, showing 12:18. In our previous life together, Katya was always twenty minutes late. Always exactly twenty minutes. Which meant her lateness wasn’t tardiness or lack of awareness of the time, but precisely the opposite of that: she knew exactly when she was expected to arrive, and was intentionally twenty minutes late, every time. It was, and apparently still is, one of her signature moves.
I, of course, arrived at 11:55. This is a popular restaurant, and there is always a cluster of optimists in the foyer hoping for a cancellation. Noon reservations are cancelled at 12:05, and my signature move is, Don’t take chances.
She arrives at the maître d station right on time. Her time. I watch as she swirls out of her tan-coloured cape, uncovering a stunning, loose-fitting dark maroon blouse, black slacks and a light-and-dark-grey silk scarf used as a belt, tied at the hip, the ends trailing down past her knees. Simple black leather pumps. Perfect, understated makeup. Dark hair in a loose bob. Unquestionably, a Katya ensemble, from head to foot.
As she glides between the tables toward me, I am amused to see the room react to her presence, like iron filings reacting to the presence of a magnet. Necks crane, gazes linger, heads lean in.
– Is that who I think it is?
– I think it is.
– She’s even more beautiful in real life.
I think, If only they knew what she used to look like.
A waiter rushes over and pulls out her chair. Two more arrive, one to deliver a basket of breadsticks and the other to hand her two menus and the wine list. She hands one of the menus to me and smiles at the waiter.
– We’ll need a minute to decide.”
Ahhh, that voice, that deep, rich contralto voice that men find so irresistible and woman find so intimidating. A Marlene Dietrich voice without the German accent.
Turning to me, she says,
– Sorry, I lost track of time.
I think, No you didn’t. But I say, flatly,
– No problem. You’re here now.
My voice sounds reedy, diminished compared to hers.
She looks at me appraisingly.
– You’re looking good.
I think, Another lie. I look tired, my clothes are a year out of date, my hair is past due for a trim. But I say,
– You too. You haven’t changed.
She laughs, a low rumble in her throat that brings back so many memories.
– It takes a lot of work to not change.
– And money.
She laughs again, nodding.
– And money, to be sure.
I sit up straight.
– So what’s the agenda? Why did you ask me to lunch?
– No agenda, just two old friends catching up.
Another lie. Katya always has an agenda. Usually more than one.
A young couple comes over to ask for an autograph.
– I’m sorry, but I’m not who you think I am. I just look like her. This happens to me all the time.
They return to their table, disappointed, puzzled. I overhear the woman say she was sure it was her and her companion replying that he bets it is her and she just says that so people won’t bother her.
Katya winks at me, acknowledging the lie, and raises her hand imperiously. The waiter has been watching us from a corner and is at our table in an instant. She orders a bowl of tomato bisque and the salmon special. I order the pork chop because I know she is against eating pigs.
She says gaily,
– Let’s order champagne, in memory of Paris.
I wince at the extravagance.
– You’ll have to pay for it.
A shadow of hurt passes over her face.
– Of course I’ll pay for it, Sweetie. I’ll put it on my magic expenses card.
As we await the champagne, she surveys the room, spots someone and waves. He waves back.
– Excuse me, dear. Do you see Terrance over there? Do you know him?
I look. I don’t recognize him.
She reaches out and touches my hand.
– Would you mind terribly if I went over to say hello?
Of course I don’t mind, and it wouldn’t matter if I did. I watch as she navigates her way to Terrance’s table. She really is formidable.
The champagne arrives and the first sip takes me back to Paris, twenty years ago, before she was a goddess. We were interns at a Paris haute couture house. We shared a 5th-storey apartment in the Marais, so I know that the Katya entertaining the table of gay men across the room is just a creation, a performance. The Katya I knew then peed and pooped and farted and burped and had bad breath and periods and constipation and heartbreak, just like we mortals. Well, if she has managed to put that Katya to bed, good for her, because I haven’t been able to escape my past.
The irony is, I’m smarter than her. I taught her about the history of fashion, all the way back to the medieval period, about the physics and chemistry of fabrics and dyes and fasteners and threads, how a sewing machine can magically transform inert bolts of material into stunningly beautiful garments. She would listen patiently to me, then, forgetting everything I just said, take her sketchbook into a corner beside windows streaming with winter rain and in 2 hours come back with a dozen brilliant sketches, any one of which could start a trend. I could talk intellectually about the past, but I couldn’t for the life of me intuit what might be coming in the future. She could not only see it, she could shape it.
She returned to our table as the food arrived.
– That Terrance is so gay. He’s so funny. I’ll introduce you.
No thanks. I’m not going to get sucked back into that world.
She took a delicate sip of her soup.
– Mmmm, that’s good. I’ve heard you’re doing a lot of petites mains work these days. You have your own atelier?”
– Yeah, that’s me. A glorified seamstress.
– But you’re good at it, yes? You get good work?
– Sure I’m good, but it doesn’t pay. All the money goes to the designers, the marketers and the models. There’s not much left over for us worker bees.
Katya separates a bit of salmon from the fillet, cuts the head off a spear of asparagus and elegantly lifts the salmon and the asparagus to her mouth.
– This is so good. So, I may have a proposition for you.
I knew it. Katya always has an agenda.
– I’m listening.
– I’m starting an new line of leisure wear. High quality, designer label garments. Expensive. Very limited quantities. New designs every year. Sold through high-end hotels and exclusive boutiques on Rodeo Drive. Like that.
– And?
– I’d like you to be part of it.
– Why?
– Isn’t it obvious? You know more about the technical side of fashion than anyone I know. So far, I’ve been concentrating on one-of-a-kind gowns for celebrities where the cost of production doesn’t matter. In fact, the higher the cost, the more valued the dress. I don’t know anything about making the same garment over and over again, consistently, to the highest quality standards. What do you say? You’d be a core member of the team.
My first reaction is, Don’t be ridiculous! I don’t know anything about mass production. Then I think, Well, maybe I do. This isn’t really mass production, is it.
My second is terror. I’d be like Mercury circling Katya’s sun. I escaped her gravitational pull once. Why would I put myself back into that orbit?
Then I think about my bills. And my old car. And my apartment. And my shabby clothes. It’s very tempting. Maybe instead of Mercury and the sun, we could be like a binary star, two suns circling each other and sending out complex gravitational waves that morph into new galaxies of fashion.
What the hell.
– Keep talking.
I have read several books lately that have experimented with alternatives to double quotation marks to delineate dialog. One was Lampadusa, which used no quote marks at all, and the other was Fifteen Dogs, which used n-dashes as above. After reading these books, I am finding that the standard US practice of double quotes clutter the page disagreeably. The British practice of single quotes around dialog doesn’t turn me on either as an alternative. So I put this experiment out there and look forward to your comments.
Oh, and I look forward to your comments on the story as well.
This writing is a masterpiece. It’s an honor to read.
I enjoyed every single word of its slow-burning cadence, with moments of nostalgia beautifully woven in—the language like fine dining, the French of fashion… no, not industry. This is where fashion becomes art. Details like Katya gliding, the texture of her voice, and even the subtle, non-verbal offense embedded in the choice of meals are exquisitely observed. The emotional arc is deeply human and quietly heartwarming.
Thank you for sharing this beauty—one of the most fascinating pieces I’ve read in a really, really long time.
And look at this: cognitive labeling such as “The irony is, I’m smarter than her,” “My first reaction is…”, and “My second is terror” blends beautifully into the contemplative cadence of the piece. The character has been sharing her thoughts and emotions with us already throughout the entire lunch, so this kind of explicit labeling feels not only natural, but fully earned. It lands as intimacy, not exposition here.
Regarding the quotation marks: I honestly didn’t even register the n-dash until you mentioned it. In Hungary, where I live, the n-dash is the standard for dialogue, so it felt completely natural—almost invisibly so.
I believe the choice of quotation marks does far more than reduce visual clutter on the page. While conventions are usually described as country-based, I think they’re actually culture- and craft-dependent.
Hungarian (and more broadly Central European) literature tends to be less plot-driven and more contemplative. The US standard of double quotation marks works beautifully for fast-paced narratives where flow and momentum dominate. The Central European n-dash shifts the reading experience from horizontal to vertical, subtly reinforcing structure and giving each beat more weight. And the absence of quotation marks altogether can work powerfully in slow-burn, reflective prose where dialogue often lives close to indirect speech.
Using the n-dash here is an excellent choice. It allows the reader to taste each line of dialogue—to feel its meaning and its weight. Truly the fine dining of prose.
I sincerely hope that, over time, the choice of dialogue punctuation will shift from rigid, country-based standards toward craft-based decisions: choosing what best serves the prose itself. Not overnight, of course—but experimental writers like you break the ice, and analytical minds like mine are happy to support that shift through research and deeper understanding.
And now I’m fully in my element. Participating in this course, engaging on the blog, and meeting you online has been one of the most wonderful holiday miracles for me.
What can I say? Thank you!
Thank you for sharing. I learned so much from the piece – it is beautifully written. I really liked the way you opened with a small detail about Katya’s behaviour – and something about it that only the narrator would be able to decode from their past history – not discernible to a casual observer. That being late was a strategy – it told us both about her unshakeable confidence, arrogance even, and the ways she presents herself to others, through this strategy of being late – and equally important I think, about her relationship to the narrator, that she knew this was Katya’s signature move. Opening with that kind of detail for me really gave weight to the nature of their relationship even as it told us something about Katya.
And then the piece moves into a contrast, the self deprecating attitude of the narrator, ‘my signature move is Don’t take chances’ which I loved. I immediately bonded with the narrator at that point.
The use of the n-dash worked for me – I think though it worked because of the way you crafted the dialogue (I am new to reading as a writer so bear with me – the n-dash for me gave a sense of immediacy, almost like I was a fly on the wall where quotation marks might have felt more removed, reminding me I am reading a transcript…)
On perhaps a different note I was inspired by the way the dialogue flowed – how you interspersed the dialogue with small details of Katya’s behaviour, elegant, refined, performative, perhaps manipulative (?) just before she spoke, and alternately led with the narrators inner dialogue, (often conflicted, self deprecating) before she spoke – this actually helped the flow for me -and thinking about the craft of writing it gave me ideas about how to avoid the occasional and somewhat clunky use of I said or she said… In addition I thought the distinctions between the ‘voice’ of Katya and the narrator were very clear, the effusive elegance when Katya spoke and the somewhat stilted, somewhat distrustful responses of the narrator really deepened my sense of their characters.
Again thanks for sharing – quite apart from being wonderful to read this piece have given me a lot to think about in the craft or writing.
Thank you for your kind words. It’s a bonus for me when another writer is inspired by my writing.