Marlene and Iris: A Place Near the Head

Morning light reached only the edge of the lunch table. Beyond it, cyan light traced the dark wall; six folded cards waited beside six empty plates.

Iris put the sponsor nearest the head.

Marlene moved the card down one place.

“They paid for the lunch,” Iris said.

“And we will thank them. This chair is for the guest of honour.” Marlene set that card to the right of her own. “Otherwise we have sold something we meant to offer.”

Iris studied the gap, then moved the director into the opposite place, nearest Marlene on the left.

“The deputy arrived first,” she said, touching another card.

“For coffee.” Marlene left the director where Iris had put it.

The deputy travelled one setting farther down. Arrival time had lost to office; money had already lost to the occasion. Nobody had sat down, and the table had begun making introductions.

Iris tried the sponsor at the far end. Marlene brought the card back to the remaining side place.

“Not first doesn't mean banished.”

“That would have been a fairly expensive banishment,” Iris said, then immediately checked the spacing between the two cards. “But this puts the sponsor beside the guest they wanted to meet.”

“Good. We can be correct without being unkind.”

Iris walked around the table once, checking the arrangement from each chair. At the head she stopped, lifted the guest-of-honour card and turned it a little so it faced its diner squarely. Then she set it down to Marlene's right and opened her hand toward the finished plan.

“For approval.”

Marlene looked along both sides before nodding.

Iris let out a breath. The argument was over. Its result stood in six small tents of paper, ready to tell everyone where to go without raising a voice.