Ben rang the bell at ten on Tuesday. Eva had her coat on already, although she didn't need to leave for another half-hour.
He held the key between his finger and thumb.
“Here.”
She took it.
“Thank you.”
“I've checked. Everything's out.”
“Good.”
He looked over her shoulder into the hall. The box from the café was on the little table. One corner of it had pushed the clay bowl to the side.
Neither of them made the joke.
“Are you off to work?” he asked.
“A meeting.”
“Right.”
He nodded. She could smell the shower gel he always used. It was an ordinary brand, sold everywhere. There would be whole shelves of it she would have to pass without thinking of him.
“Bye, Eva.”
“Bye.”
He went downstairs. She waited until he reached the bottom before she shut the door. Then she put the key in the bowl, beside her own.
At half past ten she left with a notebook, a pen and the photograph of the room. Yesterday's handover was finished. Will had listened while she showed Nora the last few bookings and had paid what they'd agreed. Her hook at the café was empty now.
The new venue smelled of carpet cleaner and fresh coffee. The anniversary daughter was waiting in the room with the wide window. Its terrace looked smaller than in the photograph, but Eva hadn't promised anything about the terrace.
“I've made one list,” the woman said, opening her folder. “You'll be proud.”
There were thirty names.
Eva looked at her own notes. Twenty-four.
“I had twenty-four,” she said.
“Guests. With family, thirty.”
Eva remembered writing 24, then turning the page round to look at the seats near the door.
“You're right,” she said. “That's my mistake.”
She drew a line through her first arrangement.
“Does it ruin it?”
“No. It changes the tables.”
They measured the room by walking round it. Eva asked the venue's manager to show them where the doors needed space and which tables they could move. He helped them pull two together, then said he'd be at the front desk if they needed anything else.
Eva made a new plan. More people meant more time for coats, more chairs, a different place for the parents. She wrote the number thirty at the top and circled it twice.
“I should have checked,” she said.
The woman looked over her shoulder. “You have now.”
They agreed a small fee for the planning and the hours Eva would work on the day. The woman put the amount beside the other figures in her folder. Eva wrote the fee in her notebook and the hours beneath it.
By the time Eva left, the room made sense on paper. She had a date for the next call and three things to find out before it.
Outside she bought a sandwich and sat on the low wall beside the bus stop. There was too much mustard in it. She ate it anyway, holding the notebook under her elbow so the wind wouldn't take the new plan.
Her phone stayed quiet. It was strange not to have a message asking where something was or when she was coming back. After a few minutes she put it in her bag and read through the thirty names again.