Dinner with a Friend

Clara had booked a table for seven o’clock to celebrate Ana’s new job, and she was determined that nothing should go wrong. She arrived ten minutes early, hung up her coat and chose a seat by the window. The restaurant was small and unpretentious, with red signs outside and a long menu of pasta dishes that she read twice while she waited.

By a quarter past seven, Ana had still not appeared. That was unusual: she was normally scrupulously punctual, and she had sounded genuinely excited about the evening. Clara ordered a glass of water, held out for another five minutes and eventually typed, with more calm than she felt, “Everything OK? I’m by the window.”

The reply came almost at once: “I’m here too! I can’t see you.” Clara looked round the room. There were only six tables, and Ana was certainly not at any of them. Another message followed before she could answer: “The place on Green Street, right?” Clara felt a small, cold certainty settle in her stomach, because she had not read the address on the confirmation again after booking it.

She stared at the screen for a moment. She was sitting in a restaurant of the same name, but on King Street. Both places had red signs and a similar menu, yet only the one on Green Street was close to Ana’s office, which explained why her friend had assumed there could be no other. Clara phoned her, and for a second neither of them spoke. Then they both began to laugh, so hard that the waiter glanced over.

Clara apologised to the waiter, paid for her water and walked across town to the right restaurant. Ana had kept their table and ordered bread to share. By the time the food arrived the mix-up had become the funniest part of the evening, and the story was already shaping itself into one they would tell for years. Before they left, they agreed that, in future, they would exchange a map link rather than rely on a name.