“I know the names of the dishes on the menu, sir,” Eleanor said carefully.
“‘The names of the dishes,’” he mimicked her. “Bonjour, baguette, c’est la vie—that’s about the extent of it for someone of your background, I imagine.”
Eleanor bit the inside of her cheek, hard, to keep from snapping back.
“I can assist you with any questions about the ingredients, sir.”
“I doubt it,” Gavin laughed in her face. He looked at Julia, seeking an audience.
“See, honey? You can always tell the quality of an establishment by the education level of its staff.” He turned back to Eleanor, his eyes gleaming with malice. He took a deep breath and switched languages.
But he didn’t just speak French. He launched into a rapid-fire, overly ornate, and archaic version of the language, peppered with complex slang he’d likely picked up during a semester abroad. He was deliberately trying to be incomprehensible.
Gavin smirked, enjoying the sound of his own voice. His accent was thick and unnatural, a caricature of sophistication. The rough translation of his tirade was: “Listen to me, little girl. I want you to relay a special order to the chef.”
“I want the duck, but only if the skin is as crisp as glass, not like an old shoe leather. And bring me another wine, immediately. Something that doesn’t taste like cheap supermarket vinegar. Do you understand me? Or am I speaking too quickly for your simple little mind?”
He leaned back, crossing his arms in a posture of victory. A self-satisfied smirk was frozen on his face. He was waiting for the blank, terrified look from the waitress. He expected her to stammer, blush, and say, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” so he could roll his eyes.
Then he could demand a manager who spoke a civilized language and complete her humiliation. Julia stared at her lap, mortified for Eleanor and for her date’s behavior.
“Gavin, stop it. Just order like a normal person.”
“No, no,” Gavin chuckled, his eyes fixed on Eleanor. “This is a standard of service. If she works here, she should know the language. Look at her, she’s frozen. Completely lost, poor thing. It’s pathetic, really. Probably wondering if I asked for ketchup with my duck.”
Eleanor stood perfectly still. The sounds of the restaurant faded away. She looked at Gavin Sterling, a man who thought money bought intelligence, who thought an expensive suit bought class.
She remembered the lecture halls at the University of Chicago. She remembered her nearly-finished dissertation on the evolution of aristocratic dialects in 18th-century France. She remembered long nights debating linguistics with professors who had forgotten more about the language than Gavin would ever know.
She looked at his smug face. The exhaustion in her legs seemed to vanish, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity. He wanted a show? She would give him a show he would never forget. She didn’t reach for her notepad.
She didn’t call for Henderson. She simply folded her hands in front of her, tilted her head slightly, and met his gaze directly. The silence at the table stretched. Gavin’s smile began to falter slightly.
He had expected confusion and fear. He had not expected the icy, academic calm that settled over the face of a simple waitress. Then Eleanor opened her mouth. Eleanor didn’t blink. She didn’t hesitate.
She straightened her posture, standing tall and proud, as if she were at a lectern, looking down slightly at the seated millionaire. When she spoke, the tone of her voice changed completely. Gone was the quiet, accommodating tone of a tired service worker.
In its place was the rich, confident alto of a woman who had spent five years in the country’s best classrooms, mastering the nuances of speech. She answered him in French. But it wasn’t just any French.
It was a refined, fluid, perfect Parisian dialect, spoken with a flawless precision that made Gavin’s attempt sound like a child banging on a piano. Her voice carried clearly over the low hum of the dining room, drawing attention.
“Monsieur,” she began, her words a devastating blow. “Sir, if you wish to use the imperfect subjunctive to impress me, I strongly suggest you review your basic verb conjugations.”
“Your order for the duck is understood, though your comparison of its skin to glass is a rather clumsy and banal metaphor, typically reserved for bad provincial poetry of the nineteenth century.” Gavin froze, as if paralyzed.
The fork he was holding hovered halfway to his mouth. His jaw hung slightly open. He understood. Maybe not every word, but he caught the gist. But the tone, the undeniable, crushing weight of intellectual superiority, was clear in any language.
Eleanor wasn’t finished. She glanced at the wine he had so rudely rejected. Her expression shifted to one of polite, withering academic pity, the look a professor gives a failing student. She continued, deliberately slowing her pace as if explaining something obvious to a child.
“As for the wine,” she said, “I can assure you, it is not vinegar. It is an authentic 2015 Château Margaux. The acidity you mistook for a flaw is, in fact, the characteristic bright structure of its young tannins.”
“Appreciating this bouquet requires a more educated palate. If this vintage is too complex for your sensibilities, I would be happy to bring you a sweet Merlot, something simpler, to better suit your… unpretentious tastes.”
The silence that followed was absolute. It was a heavy, physical thing. At a nearby table, a silver-haired gentleman slowly lowered his newspaper. A busboy froze mid-stride with a water pitcher.
Even Henderson, the manager, stopped polishing his menu twenty feet away, sensing the sudden shift in the dining room’s force field. Gavin Sterling’s face turned a furious shade of crimson, mottling down his neck.
He looked as if he had been publicly slapped. His brain scrambled to process this impossible reversal. The script had been flipped. He was the master; she was the servant.
But in thirty seconds, using the very weapon he had tried to beat her with—language and intellect—she had stripped him bare in front of everyone. He opened his mouth to object, to yell, to demand she be fired. But he couldn’t find the right French words in his memory…
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