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apparently considered storage space, and waiters flung used menus onto it as they dashed past. It was not long before a wine list came flying toward me.
    It was a thick tome and as I settled in to read it, I heard my newfound voice say to Claudia, “It is quite a lovely list.”
    â€œGood,” she said. “I could do with an excellent Burgundy. Do you see one?”
    â€œPages and pages of them,” I replied.
    But I had only reached page three when the captain reappeared and held out his hand, saying “I need that wine list” in peremptory tones.
    I wavered for a moment, struggling with myself. Then I surrendered the list. “Bravo!” said Claudia. “You stayed in character. Molly is a lady.”
    â€œI don’t think she’s all that happy about it either,” I said, noting with fury that my list was now in the hands of a man three tables down the banquette. I was inclined to march over and snatch it out of his hands, but I was determined to stay in character. So poor Molly fluttered her fingers at every passing waiter, saying in a pathetic little voice, “Do you think I might please have a wine list?” Given these timid tactics, it was a full twenty minutes before we were able to order wine.
    â€œI’m going to learn a lot, being someone else,” I murmured to Claudia.
    â€œIndeed,” she said. “Now when do you suppose that supercilious captain is going to allow us to order?”
    Were we invisible because we were women? Or did we look too much like tourists to be worthy of recognition? Maybe the staff was simply overworked. But when the captain finally came to ask what we would like for dinner, he neglected to mention the special seasonal menu he had so lovingly described to the man sitting next to us.
    I felt torn between Ruth and Molly. The former was gleeful; this terrible treatment was going to make very good copy. But Molly was wondering why anyone would subject herself to this. Molly was wishing she had stayed home in Birmingham, where ordinary people weren’t treated shabbily in restaurants. Molly was, in fact, furious.
    And so she said, in her very nicest voice, “Did I hear you say something about a special menu to the gentleman over there?”
    The captain said sullenly, “It’s quite a large meal.”
    â€œThat will be fine,” she said softly. “We’ll have that. And a bottle of the 1985 Chambolle-Musigny.”
    Once the wine came, Claudia relaxed. She swirled the soft garnet liquid in her glass and smiled benevolently down at the sautéed foie gras, inhaling the fragrance of the white peach with which it was served.
    â€œWhite peaches always remind me of Paris,” she said happily, and I had a sudden memory of my mother’s voice saying, “Poor Claudia,” in that tone she reserved for single women. “She did marry once, but her husband was hit by a truck in a freak accident and she never got over his death.”
    As Claudia cooed over her curried tuna tartare, translucent ruby nuggets surrounded by overlapping circles of sliced radish, I thought how stunned she would be to know that my mother considered her an object of pity. After her husband died Claudia reinvented herself, created a character she could inhabit, and spent the rest of her life showing others how to do it. She was the only working friend my mother had, and she had obviously supported herself in style; by the third glass of Burgundy she was expounding on her favorite hotel in Beaune.
    I listened politely, Molly’s best Junior League smile playing across my face. The food was good enough, but it was hard not to notice that everyone around us was receiving considerably more attention than we were.
    Then things looked up. The captain came to announce that a table had just become available in the non-smoking section. Would we like to move? As we walked out of the smoke I saw that we were being led to a larger