Chapter 7 - Dessert and the Ring
The servers had started clearing the main plates when I realized no one at our table was really talking anymore. They were listening instead.
A cart rolled by with small white plates, each holding a slice of chocolate torte with a single raspberry on top. The chatter in the ballroom had picked back up, flatware clinking, chairs scraping as people got up to find old friends, but at our round table there was this held breath. I could feel the other classmates glancing over, then glancing away when I looked.
Lauren hadn't touched her dessert. She'd pushed the plate forward half an inch, then pulled it back, and her left hand kept moving.
I watched it without meaning to stare. She turned the big square pavé ring inward so the stones faced her palm, then twisted it again so it caught the chandelier light, then turned it inward again. Her fingers did it over and over, a quick, nervous adjustment. In the close-up earlier that night she'd held it up near her chest to show it off. Now she was trying to make it disappear.
Michael had taken the empty chair two seats down from me, the one someone had left to go to the bar. He wasn't sitting with Lauren. He had his hands folded on the white tablecloth and he was watching the table, not interrupting. When our eyes met for a second he gave me a small, almost apologetic lift of his brows, like he was asking if I needed him to step in. I shook my head just enough for him to see.
"Lauren," I said quietly, so only she and maybe Michael could hear me over the room. "Do you mind if I say something?"
She looked up. Her mascara hadn't smudged but her eyes were brighter than before, that shocked shine still there.
"I was rude at the start of this," I said. "When you offered. I said 'That's kind of you' like I was brushing you off. I didn't mean it that way."
She blinked. "You didn't — I mean, you don't have to —"
"I know," I said. "But I wanted to tell you properly. That was a kind thing to offer. It takes guts to look at someone you haven't seen in fifteen years and try to help."
Her hand stilled on the ring. She hadn't expected that, I could tell. Her mouth opened, closed.
I nodded toward her left hand. "And I've been meaning to say, your ring is beautiful. Really. Michael has good taste."
It wasn't a line. Under the chandelier the stones threw sharp little prisms onto the tablecloth, and the cut was clean and modern. I'd noticed it the first time she held it up and I'd meant to compliment it then, before everything tilted.
Lauren looked down at it like she was seeing it again for the first time. She turned it outward slowly, so the square top sat straight. Her thumb brushed the side.
"Thank you," she said, and her voice was smaller than it had been all night. Not condescending, not performing. Just quiet. "He picked it. I told him something simple and he came back with this. I thought it was too much at first."
"It's not too much," I said. "It suits you. The burgundy, all of it. You look — you look really happy in it, if that makes sense."
She let out a breath that could have been a laugh. Her shoulders dropped a fraction. "I was so nervous tonight," she said, fast, like she hadn't planned to admit it. "I kept checking it in the car. I told Michael, 'Just let me do the talking.' I wanted everyone to see we'd landed okay. You know how it is. Coming back here."
I did know. I'd sat in the parking lot for ten minutes before I came in, checking my own necklace in the rearview, wondering if an ivory dress made me look like I was trying too hard to look effortless.
"I get it," I said.
Lauren's fingers relaxed around the torte fork, though she still didn't eat. She turned the ring once more, but this time she left it facing out, the light hitting it squarely. She didn't hide it.
From two seats down, Michael had unfolded his hands. He reached for his water, took a sip, and set it down carefully. He was still watching us, but his posture had eased. He didn't jump in to rescue her or to explain me. He let the moment stay between the two of us, which I was grateful for. If he'd spoken, it would have become about the company again, about Chairman Carter. This needed to stay smaller than that.
Lauren glanced toward him, then back at me. "Does he — is he good at work? I never actually know what he does day to day. He just says 'Emily's company' like —"
"He's excellent," I said. "Thorough. He reads the whole brief. That's rare."
Michael heard that. A faint color came into his face and he looked down at his plate, a small smile he tried to hide.
Lauren nodded, and for the first time that night she smiled at me without the edge. It was tight and a little embarrassed, but it was real.
"I'm glad you came," she said.
May you like
"Me too," I said. And I was, suddenly.
The server came by to pour coffee. Lauren finally picked up her fork and took a small bite of the torte. She didn't hold her hand up to display the ring again. She just wore it.
