I was not amused. I was thinking that I’d failed again.
I wasn’t even man enough to be a girl.
It was the usual Friday night at The Marathon. Every table was packed with chattering Harvard men and their dates. Socrates urged his staff to hurry along since there was a vast crowd of people standing outside waiting their turn. Up front near the cashier’s desk there seemed to be some argument going on. Socrates called across to his elder son in Greek, “Theo, go and help your sister.”
Ted hastened to the rescue. As he approached, he could hear Daphne protesting, “Look, I am terribly sorry but you must have misunderstood. We never take reservations on the weekends.”
But the tall, supercilious preppie in the Chesterfield coat seemed quite adamant that he had booked a table for 8:00 P.M. and was not about to stand outside on Mass. Avenue with (in so many words) the hoi polloi. Daphne was relieved to see her brother arrive.
“What’s going on, sis?” Ted asked.
“This gentleman insists he had a reservation, Teddy. And you know our policy about weekends.”
“Yes,” Ted responded, and turned immediately to the protesting client to explain, “we would never —”
He stopped in mid-sentence when he noticed who was standing next to the irate, distinguished-looking man.
“Hi, Ted,” said Sara Harrison, who was manifestly embarrassed at her escort’s rudeness. “I think Alan’s made a mistake. I’m terribly sorry.”
Her date glared at her.
“I don’t make such errors,” he stated emphatically, and immediately turned back to Ted. “l cafled yesterday evening and spoke to some woman. Her English wasn’t very good so I was quite explicit.”
“That must have been Mama,” Daphne offered.
“Well, Mama should have written it down,” insisted the punctilious Alan.
“She did,” said Ted, who now had a large reservations book in his hand. “Are you Mr. Davenport?”
“I am,” said Alan. “Do you see my reservation for eight o’clock?”
“Yes. It’s listed for last night, Thursday — when we do accept reservations. Look.” He offered the document.
“How can I read that, man? It’s in Greek,” he protested.
“Then ask Miss Harrison to read it to you.”
“Don’t involve my date in your mess-up, waiter.”
“Please, Alan, he’s a friend of mine. We’re both in classics. And he’s right.” Sara pointed to the approximation of “Davenport” scribbled by Mrs. Lambros for eight o’clock the previous night. “You must have forgotten to tell her it was for the next day.”
“Sara, what on earth is the matter with you?” Alan snapped. “Are you taking some illiterate woman’s word against mine?”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Ted, reining in his temper as best he could. “I’m sure my mother is no less literate than yours. She just happens to prefer writing in her native tongue.”
Sara tried to end the increasingly bitter dispute.
“Come on, Alan,” she said softly, “let’s go for a pizza. That’s all I wanted in the first place.”
“No, Sara, there’s a matter of principle involved here.”
“Mr. Davenport,” Ted said quietly, “if you’ll stop blustering I’ll give you the next available table. But if you persist in this obnoxious behavior, I’ll throw you the hell out.”
“I beg your pardon, garçon,” Alan responded. “I happen to be a third-year law student, and since I am in no way inebriated, you have no right to eject me. If you try, I’ll sue the pants off you.”
“Excuse me,” Ted replied. “You may have learned a lot of fancy concepts at Harvard Law, but I doubt if you studied the Cambridge city ordinances that allow a proprietor to kick out somebody — inebriated or not — if he’s making a disturbance.”
By now Alan had sensed that this was turning into a jungle duel, with Sara as the prize.
“I dare you to throw me out,” he snapped.
For a second nobody moved. Clearly, the two antagonists were squaring off for a battle.
Daphne sensed that her brother was about to imperil their whole livelihood and whispered, “Please, Teddie, don’t.”
“Would you care to step outside, Alan?” said a voice.
Alan was startled. For it was Sara who had spoken these words. He glared down at her.
“No,” he retorted angrily. “I’m going to stay here and have dinner.”
“Then you’ll eat it alone,” she replied, and marched out.
As Daphne Lambros thanked God many times under her breath, Ted stormed into the kitchen, where he began to pound his fists against the wall.
In an instant his father arrived. “Ti diabolo echeis, Theo? What’s this ridiculous behavior? The house is full, the customers are complaining. Do you want to ruin me?”
“I want to die,” Ted shouted, continuing to attack the wall.
“Theo, my son, my eldest, we have a living to earn. I beg you to go back and take care of tables twelve through twenty.”
Just then Daphne stuck her head through the kitchen door.
“The natives are getting restless,” she said. “What’s the matter with Teddie?”
“Nothing!” Socrates growled. “Get back to the cash register, Daphne!”
“But, Papa,” she replied timorously, “there’s a girl who wants to speak to Theo —the one who sort of refereed the fight.”
“Omigod!” Ted gasped and took one step toward the men’s room.
“Where the hell are you going now?” Socrates barked.
“To comb my hair,” said Ted as he disappeared.
Sara Harrison was standing shyly in a corner, shivering slightly in her coat, even though the place was overheated.
Ted walked up to her. “Hi,” he said with the casual expression he had frantically rehearsed in front of the mirror.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she began.
“That’s okay.”
“No, let me explain,” she insisted. “He was an insufferable bore. He was like that from the minute he picked me up.”
“Then why do you date a guy like that?”
“Date? That creature was a fix-up. His-mother-knows-my-mother sort of thing.”
“Oh,” said Ted.
“I mean filial duty has its limits. If my mother ever tries that again, I’ll say I’m taking holy vows. He was the pits, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.” Ted Lambros smiled.
Then there was an awkward pause.
“Uh — I’m sorry,” Sara repeated, “I guess I’m keeping you from your work.”
“They can all starve, for all I care. I’d rather talk to you.”
Omigod, he thought to himself. How did that slip out?
“Me too,” she said shyly.
From the vortex of the busy restaurant his father called out in Greek, “Theo, get back to work or I’ll put my curse on you!”
“I think you’d better go, Ted,” Sara murmured.
“Can I ask just one question first?”
“Sure.”
“Where’s Alan now?”
“In hell, I suppose,” Sara replied. “At least that’s where I told him to go.”
“That means you haven’t got a date tonight,” Ted grinned.
“Theo!” his father bellowed. “I will curse you and your children’s children.”
Ignoring the increased paternal threat, Ted continued, “Sara, if you can wait another hour, I’d like to take you to dinner.”
Her reply was a single syllable: “Fine.”
The cognoscenti knew that the Newtowne Grill, beyond Porter Square, served the best pizza in Cambridge. This is where, at eleven o’clock, Ted brought Sara (in the family’s beat-up Chevy Biscayne) for their first dinner date. He had finished his chores at The Marathon with extraordinary speed, for there were wings on his heart.