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HomeVirtual Loose LeavesWriters' corner2009Mary Kennan HerbertBreakfast in a hotel dining room

2009
Mary Kennan Herbert

Breakfast in a hotel dining room

Mary Kennan Herbert

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1My father and I were the only ones there on a winter Saturday.
Yet a full staff of penguins was on duty, webbed shoes muffled on thick but aging carpet, their lined faces and beaks a bit mottled.
They brought us the morning newspaper, toast, coffee, orange juice, grapefruit (a beauty) nestled on ice in a pewter tureen, an old-fashioned presentation,
with a hint of decay.
The hotel was closed shortly thereafter, for a decade, then remodeled,
reopened with new crystal, dinnerware with postmodern chic, fruit compote but no grapefruit.
I visited once again, my father long dead, he dared to die, with no message on the answering machine, no note slid under the door.
Yet, still I looked at each businessman in a well-cut suit,
searching for paternal-looking accountants who might be fathers of angry daughters,
to see if any had been sent to treat me to one last breakfast at the hotel,
so I could feel like a princess again, the sun delivered at my command,
at the ringing of a little bell, ding, matins, or the come-to-breakfast call to the threshers,
the beginning of a very nice day, doomed, stillborn with a dash of freshly ground pepper dispensed by Zeus from his well of sorrows.

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References

Electronic reference

Mary Kennan Herbert, “Breakfast in a hotel dining room”Revue LISA/LISA e-journal [Online], Writers' corner, Online since 01 January 2009, connection on 29 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/568; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/lisa.568

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Mary Kennan Herbert

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The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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