The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Towles, Amor. Table for Two. Viking, 2024.

Table for Two begins with "The Line," a story about a couple living in Communist Russia, Pushkin and Irina, after Irina urges Pushkin to abandon their rural homestead and move to Moscow so that she can work in service to the Communist Party. Although Pushkin initially adjusts poorly to the move, he gradually ingratiates himself with the urban community by offering to stand in the long supply lines on behalf of the neighborhood's residents while Irina works diligently for the party. Eventually, Pushkin's generosity accidentally lands him an immigrant visa to the United States, but he promptly squanders all of his and Irina's money on the way there and ultimately ends up parting ways with Irina in New York, where she reunites with the Communist Party and he begins waiting in lines at soup kitchens.

The second story in the collection, "The Ballad of Timothy Touchett," concerns the misadventures of a young writer, the titular Timothy Touchett, who has such difficult actually writing anything that he instead begins to spend his time copying the signatures of his favorite authors. Eventually, Timothy is spotted doing this by a man named Mr. Pennybrook, who offers Timothy a job at his bookstore under the auspices that it is a legitimate position before gradually nudging Timothy into performing high-value forgeries of author's signatures in rare books. The pair keep up this lucrative industry for quite some time before they are eventually caught by the police and summarily punished.

Next, "Hasta Luego" follows a man named Jerry after his plane is grounded at LaGuardia Airport and he ends up sharing a cab to his hotel with a garrulous man who goes by Smitty. Initially, Jerry is astonished by Smitty's ability to charm people, as Smitty takes several other stranded travelers to the hotel bar and begins buying rounds, but a mishap in which Jerry picks up Smitty's phone by accident leads him to speak with Smitty's wife, Jennifer, who reveals that her husband is a recovering alcoholic. Jerry spends the next several hours ensuring Smitty does not drink further and grows increasingly irritated with him and Jennifer, but when Smitty finally boards his plane the next morning Jerry finds himself gutted by the realization that his own wife has hardly spoken to him during his layover.

The following story, "I Will Survive," revolves around a woman named Nell, whose mother, Peggy, confides in her that she believes Nell's stepfather, John, is cheating on her. Although Nell's boyfriend, Jeremy, urges her not to dig into her mother's affairs, Nell follows John through New York City and discovers that he is not cheating at all, but has instead been participating in recreational roller skating performance, which seems to bring him a great deal of joy. After an elated Nell relays this information to Peggy, it destroys Peggy and John's relationship, prompting Nell and Jeremy to gradually understand that in a sense the pleasure John has taken from the roller skating is as much a violation of the relationship to Peggy as a romantic tryst would be.

The fifth story in the collection, "The Bootlegger," follows Tommy Harnkess, a well-to-do man in New York City who begins attending concerts at Carnegie Hall, after he spots the man next to him in the audience illegally recording the concerts. Tommy elects to report the man, whose name is Arthur Fein, to the authorities, but much to Tommy and his wife's horror, Arthur reveals that he has only been making the recordings so that he can bring them home to his bedridden wife, who used to attend the opera with him religiously; indeed, he still pays for her seat. Although Tommy manages to track down Arthur, who forgives him for getting him banned from Carnegie Hall, Arthur's daughter, Meredith, curses Tommy by telling him to think of her father each time he hears a cello.

"The DiDomenico Fragment" is the story of a man named Percy Skinner who is approached by an art dealer, Sarkis, with an opportunity to make some money as a finder's fee if he can track down and procure some precious fragments of a larger painting by the artist DiDomenico, which has been passed down and divided within Percy's family for generations. Percy identifies his nephew, Peter, as the most likely candidate to give up his fragment, and begins manipulating Peter and his wife and child to convince them that the painting must be sold. Percy's devious plan ends up backfiring, as a separate art dealer follows his every move and swoops in to complete the deal at the final moment, but Percy finds himself in possession of something different: a relationship with his family.

The final piece in the collection, the novella "Eve in Hollywood," follows a mysterious woman named Evelyn Ross, whose face has been scarred in an automobile accident, as she travels to Los Angeles and begins integrating herself in the community there. After some time, Evelyn befriends a variety of people, including the young Hollywood starlet Olivia de Havilland, before a series of events leads to Olivia receiving blackmail from a photographer who has managed to capture her in a compromising position. Evelyn and her coterie of friends begin working to track down the blackmailers and salvage Olivia's reputation, which they eventually succeed in doing through a series of subterfuges.