Sir… may I eat with you?
The voice of the girl was low, quavering, but it penetrated the noisy chatter of the posh restaurant like a blade.
A man in a bespoke navy suit, just about to take the first bite of a dry-aged ribeye, stopped. Gradually, he turned to the source: a little girl, disheveled hair, dirty sneakers, and eyes full of hope and hunger. None of the people in the room could have imagined that this simple question would change the lives of both of them forever.
It was a cool October night in the city of Chicago.
Mr. Richard Evans, a leading Chicago real estate mogul, was eating alone in the Michelin-starred American bistro called Marlowe, which had a river view and a fusion menu. He was nearly sixty, his hair was salt-and-pepper, brushed carefully, his Rolex was gleaming in the soft light, and his sense of importance was as evident as the silence that preceded him into any room. He was revered, even feared, because of his business instincts, but little was known about the man behind the empire.
He was just going to cut his steak when a voice broke in.
It was not a waiter. It was a child. Barefoot. I guess 11 or 12. Her hoodie was torn, her jeans were caked with dried mud, and her eyes were wary and desperate.
The maitre d started to the door to send her out, but Evans stayed him with a gesture.
What is thy name? said he, not unkindly, but authoritatively.
Emily, she whispered, and looked fearfully around at the diners. I have not eaten since Friday.
He hesitated, and gestured to a chair opposite him. The room was breathless.
Emily was sitting waiting, as though she might be still driven out. Her eyes were down, her hands were moving in her lap.
Evans summoned the waiter. Bring her the same as I am having. And a hot glass of milk.”
As soon as her food was served, Emily went to work. She tried to eat in a ladylike manner, but she was hungry. Evans made no interruption. He simply stood and gazed, and said nothing, with a far-away look in his eyes.
He at last inquired, as the plate was removed, where his family were.
My dad di:ed. Roofing job. Fell. Mom left two years ago. I lived with my grandma, but… she died last week.” She did not cry, but her voice broke.
Evans did not show any expression on his face, but his fingers gripped the glass of water before him a little more firmly.
Not Emily, not the staff, not the other guests at the table could have known that Richard Evans had once lived a story very much like this one.
He was not born rich. He had slept in alleys, sold soda cans to get nickels, and had slept hungry so many nights, he could not count them.
He lost his mother at the age of eight. His father disappeared soon after. He lived in the streets of Chicago–not many blocks away where Emily now roamed. And years before, he had stood outside restaurants, and wondered what it would be like to eat inside.
The words of the girl had struck something hidden–something long shut up.
Evans rose and took his wallet. But in the middle of the act of withdrawing a twenty, he stopped. Rather, he stared Emily in the eyes.
Do you want to go home with me?
She blinked. What, what do you mean?
I am a single person. I am an orphan. You will have food, a bed, school. A shot. However, only when you are ready to work hard and remain respectful.”
There were gasps in the restaurant. Some of them murmured. Others looked skeptically at each other.
But Richard Evans was not joking.
Emily trembled. Yes, she replied. I should like that very much.
The life at the townhouse of Mr. Evans was a world that Emily could not imagine. She had never seen a toothbrush, a hot shower, or milk that was not soup kitchen milk.
She found it hard to adapt. Sometimes she slept on the floor beside the bed, because the mattress was too soft to be safe. She kept dinner rolls in her hoodie, afraid the meals would end.
The housekeeper caught her stealing crackers one afternoon. Emily began to cry.
“I just… I do not want to be hungry again.”
Evans did not shout. He dropped to his knees beside her and said something she would never forget:
You will never be hungry anymore. I swear.”
The new life, the fresh sheets, the open books, the breakfasts of laughter, had started with one question:
May I dine with you?
That was a simple question, but it had softened the armor of a man who had not wept in thirty years.
And in the process, it did not only transform the life of Emily, but it also provided Evans with something he believed he would never see again:
Another reason to care.
Years passed. Emily grew into an intelligent, eloquent young lady. She was a good student and under the tutelage of Evans, she won a scholarship to Columbia University.
But something was bothering her as the day of departure approached.
Evans had never talked about himself. He was generous, thoughtful, but reticent.
One night, when they were sitting in the living room drinking hot cocoa, Emily whispered:
What were you, Mr. Evans, before all this?
He smiled a little.
A person very much like you.”
The tales were finally told, of nights in deserted buildings, of being ignored, invisible, beaten down by a city that cared only about money and breeding.
Nobody assisted me, he said. So I made my own path. But I vowed that when I saw a kid like me… I would not turn my head.”
Emily wept over the boy he had been. On the walls he had made. To the world which had betrayed him.
Five years down the line, she was on the stage in New York, giving her valedictorian speech.
She said, my story did not begin at Columbia. It began on the streets of Chicago-with a question, and a man who dared to answer it.
The theater cried.
However, the actual moment was when she went home.
Rather than jumping into job offers or grad school, Emily gave a press conference and made a stunning announcement:
I am starting the Can I Eat With You? Foundation – to feed, house and educate homeless children in the U.S. The initial donation is that of my father, Richard Evans, who has promised 30 percent of his estate.”
The news made headlines in the country. The contributions came in. Famous people volunteered to assist. Volunteers enrolled en masse.
Because one hungry girl had dared to ask to sit at the table, and one man had said yes.
Emily and Evans visit the same bistro on the 15th of October every year.
They do not sit inside.
They put tables in the street.
And they dish out food, hot, filling, no questions asked, to all the children who appear.
Since there was a time when one dish of food altered everything.
