He lifted the lid.
Then the smile came off his face the way a sheet comes off a table.
The first thing in the box was a pair of yellow rubber gloves.
Under them lay a folded gray apron, the kind a kitchen hands out.
A feather duster.
A spray bottle of glass cleaner.
And beneath all of that, lying flat on a bed of white tissue paper, a polished bronze nameplate.
CARL HENDRICKS.
VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS.
Nobody said a word.
The jazz trio stopped mid-bar, and the bass player’s hand froze on the neck of his instrument.
I could hear the candles hissing in their glass cups.
“That nameplate,” David said, very evenly, “was supposed to be the whole box.”
“I ordered it three weeks ago. I was going to stand up here tonight and promote you, Carl. Vice president. A corner office, a company car. Everything else in that box, I added in the last four minutes. Priya found the apron in the kitchen.”
