Sir… may I eat with you?
The voice of the girl was low, quivering, but it penetrated the noisy crowd of the posh restaurant like a knife.
A man in a custom navy suit, who was about to take the first bite of a dry-aged ribeye, froze. Gradually, he turned to the source: a little girl, disheveled hair, filthy 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, with a fusion menu and a river view. He was nearly sixty, his hair salt-and-pepper, brushed, his Rolex glinting in the soft light, his importance as evident as the silence that preceded him into any room. His business instincts were respected, even feared, but little was known of the man behind the empire.
Just as he was going to cut his steak, a voice interrupted him.
It was not a waiter. It was a child. Barefoot. I guess 11 or 12. She had a ripped hoodie, crusty old dirt on her jeans, and a desperate look in her eyes.
The maitre d started to the door to send her out, but Evans stayed him with a hand.
What is thy name? said he, not unkindly, but authoritatively.
Emily, she said, in a low voice, glancing fearfully around at the diners. I have not had a meal since Friday.
He hesitated, and indicated the chair opposite him. The room was holding its breath.
Emily sat, uncertainly as though she might still be driven away. She looked down at the floor and her hands were restless in her lap.
Evans summoned the waiter. Bring her the same as I am having. And a hot glass of milk.”
Emily started eating as soon as her food came. She endeavored to eat in a polite manner, but hunger had its urgency. Evans made no interruption. He stood and watched, and said nothing, with an expression of far-awayness in his eyes.
At the end of the meal he inquired, at last, 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, her voice cracked.
Evans did not show his face, but his fingers clenched a little on the glass of water before him.
None of the people at the table, not Emily, not the staff, not the other guests could have known that Richard Evans once lived a story almost exactly like this one.
He did not come into this world with a silver spoon. Actually, he had slept in alleys, sold soda cans at 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 very far away where Emily was now roaming. And years before, he had stood outside restaurants, and wondered what it would be like to eat inside.
The words of the girl had touched something hidden–something long shut up.
Evans rose and took his wallet. But in the middle of the action of drawing out a twenty, he stopped. Rather, he stared Emily in the face.
Want to go home with me?
She blinked. What, what do you mean?”
I am a single person. I am not related. You will get food, bed, school. A shot. But only when you are ready to work hard and remain respectful.”
There were gasps in the restaurant. Some were muttering. Others looked skeptically at one another.
Richard Evans was not joking.
Emily quivered her lip. Yes, she replied. I should like that very much.”
The life at the townhouse of Mr. Evans was a world that Emily could not have imagined. She had never seen a toothbrush, a hot shower, or milk that was not soup kitchen milk.
She found it hard to adapt. She slept on the floor beside the bed on some nights because the mattress was too soft to be safe. She was stashing dinner rolls in her hoodie, afraid that the meals would end.
The housekeeper once caught her stealing crackers. Emily started crying.
“I just… I do not want to be hungry again.”
Evans did not shout. He got down on his knees beside her and said something she would never forget:
You will never be hungry anymore. I swear.”
The new life, the clean sheets, the open textbooks, the laughter-filled breakfasts had begun 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, it provided Evans with something he believed he would never get back:
An excuse to care once more.
Years passed. Emily grew up to be an intelligent, eloquent young lady. She did well in school under the tutelage of Evans and won a scholarship to Columbia University.
But something was bugging her as the departure date approached.
Evans never talked about his own past. He was generous, thoughtful, but reticent.
One night, when they were drinking hot cocoa in the living room, Emily said:
Who were you before all this, Mr. Evans?
He smiled a little.
A person very much like you.”
The tales were finally told, of nights in empty buildings, of being overlooked, unseen, trampled by a city that valued nothing but 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 constructed. To the world which had failed him.
Five years after, she was onstage in New York, giving her valedictorian speech.
She said, her 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 auditorium cried.
However, the actual moment was when she came back home.
Rather than jumping into employment or graduate school, Emily had a press conference and made a breathtaking 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 committed 30 percent of his estate.”
The news became national. The contributions came in. Famous people volunteered. Volunteers enlisted by the thousands.
Just because one hungry girl had dared to ask a seat at the table, and one man had said yes.
Emily and Evans go back to the same bistro every year on October 15th.
But they do not sit indoors.
They put tables in the street.
And they feed them–warm, substantial, and without inquiry–to all the children who present themselves.
Since there was a time when one plate of food was everything.