She wanted a private room for her sixtieth birthday dinner at The Alder Room in Atlanta.
She wanted a long table, a custom cake, a fixed dinner menu, and enough space for relatives, family friends, and several people whose names mattered more to her than their relationship did.
“You know how restaurants are with people my age,” she said.
Celeste was sixty, but she carried herself as though aging were an accusation she could defeat through discipline.
She had a skin-care routine more complicated than most tax forms and could turn a compliment about looking young into a twenty-minute conversation about standards.
I called the restaurant that afternoon.
The private room required a deposit and a card to hold the reservation.
Celeste said she was in the middle of an appointment and asked me to handle it.
