The guest said his watch was missing while I cleared the plates after dessert. First I looked under the table. Then I lifted the napkin and moved the empty bread basket. He was a regular, a man whose name my fiancé Nikola pronounced with particular respect. Nikola managed the dining room; I worked the second shift. We were saving for an apartment and counting every extra hour.
The man claimed he had removed the watch before eating. I had not seen it. His wife said perhaps he had arrived without it, but he interrupted her. He looked toward my bag behind the bar. He did not immediately say I had taken it. He asked whether I could simply show its contents, because then everyone could relax.
Nikola pulled me aside. He spoke quietly, in the voice he normally used to resolve an incorrect order. He said I had nothing to hide and five minutes were not worth the trouble. I looked at the white shirt I had ironed for him that morning. He did not ask how I felt. He was trying to find the quickest route to making the guest happy again.
I refused to open my bag. The guest grew louder, and his wife stood and fetched his coat from the rack. She searched the pockets in order, having been angry with him long enough to know where to look first. She found the watch in the inside pocket. She held it on her palm without speaking. The man laughed and said his memory clearly was not what it used to be.
He left me a banknote I did not take. I did not need a tip to become the price of what had just happened. Nikola put it beside the register and did not speak to me for the remainder of the shift. Before leaving he said I could have been more practical. Now nobody had benefited from the unpleasantness, and the guest might not return.
On the way home we walked separately, although we were going to the same address. I thought about the apartment we were saving for and all the future situations in which he might ask me to shrink to suit his calculations. He thought about a job that would not be easy to replace. I knew that without asking. That was precisely why I did not want a simple answer turning him into a monster.
The next morning Nikola returned the banknote to the owner to give back to the guest. He told me he was sorry. I did not remove my ring, but neither did I embrace him. I went to my shift with the same bag. When I left it behind the bar, Nikola moved some boxes to make space. It was a small gesture. I did not yet know whether it was too small.