Miranda and I had just settled ourselves at the table in the corner of the banquette that runs along the wall to your right as you enter the dining room, just a little beyond the caricature of Dick Van Dyke, when my attention was drawn to an earnest girl who sat on the banquette to Miranda’s left. She was twisting her napkin nervously. The man who was seated across from her struck me as old enough to be her father. When the girl spoke to him she sounded as if she were auditioning for a part.
     “I made a list, Dad,” she said.
     “That’s wonderful, Eleanor,” he said. “Thank you.”
     An ancient waiter arrived at our table and invited us to begin with cocktails.
     “We’ll have two perfect Rob Roys,” I said, because my previous experience with Sardi’s, though limited to the bar, had taught me that this was a good place for the classics.
     “Ah!” said the waiter, brightening as if his youth had been restored to him. “Two — yes — yes — wonderful — I’ll be right back.” Off he went, whistling, with a spring in his step.
     “It’s not the list you wanted, though,” said the earnest girl to her father.
     “Oh?”
     “It’s a list of disappointments. It’s the things that disappointed me most in the past year.”
     “Oh, Eleanor,” he said. He shook his head. I think he was wishing that he’d ordered a Rob Roy. “Go ahead,” he said. “Read it.”
     “I think, more than anything else, I was disappointed by the failure of the Large Hadron Collider,” she read. “I had really been hoping that we might gain some insight into the nature of dark matter and dark energy.”
     “Oh, Eleanor,” said her father, “If you go on allowing yourself to be so devastated by every little thing, your life is going to be one disappointment after another—don’t you see that?”
     “I can’t help it,” she said. “I —”
     “I’m going to get our coats,” he said, rising from the table. “You’ve spoiled this little father-daughter date for me, spoiled it completely.”
     Sheepishly, she got up and followed him, head down.
     When they were out of sight and out of earshot, I leaned toward Miranda and said, “I know how she feels. I too had my hopes for the Large Hadron Collider.”
     “Really?” she said.
     “Yes,” I said, “I did. In fact, if you had asked me a year ago, I would have said that I hoped it would create a voracious black hole that would suck the sorry mess mankind has made into its yawning maw.”
     “And now?” she asked.
     “Now I am as besotted with hope as everyone else.”
     “Be careful,” she whispered, placing her hand on mine, “I think you’re getting in touch wth your inner idealist.”
     “Where are those damned drinks?” I snarled.