Chapter 11
The ballroom didn't follow me when I walked out. That was the strangest part. I expected chairs scraping, voices rising, someone calling my name to make me stop and turn it into a scene I had to manage.
No one did.
I left the white high heel on the patterned rug by the bed where it had been all day and walked barefoot across the ballroom floor. My veil brushed the backs of my calves. The cold from the floor came up through my feet and it kept me steady. I didn't pick up the bouquet. I let it stay where I'd set it. I kept my phone tight in my right hand, screen dark, thumb over the edge like that would keep it mine.
A hand caught the door before it swung shut behind me. Jewel, my cousin, fell into step beside me. She hadn't been in the doorway in the video. She'd gotten there late, lipstick fresh, and she'd watched the whole reception from the back table without drinking anything.
"Don't stop in the hall," she said quietly. "Keep going to the lot."
We pushed through the service corridor. The air smelled like hot plates and lemon cleaner. A catering guy pressed himself against the wall to let us pass. My dress made a soft shush with every step. Behind us, heels clicked fast on tile — not his. Hers.
The older woman — his mother — caught us by the side exit, the one that led to the parking lot. Her burgundy lace dress was creased at the waist from sitting. Her pearls had swung forward when she hurried.
She didn't apologize. She didn't reach for me.
She held out a set of car keys. A silver fob with a dealership tag still on the ring.
"My car," she said. "Row two. Gray SUV. You can sit. Just sit and breathe."
I stared at her hand. Her nails were perfect and short. Her breathing was shallow.
"Why?" I said.
"Because you need air that isn't his," she said. Her voice was low and even, the kind she'd use at a charity gala when a mic cut out. "Take the keys. Don't argue with him in there. He'll make you the problem again."
I took them. The metal was warm from her palm. I didn't thank her.
Jewel pulled the door bar. August heat hit us along with the smell of asphalt and cut grass. The parking lot lights had just come on though it wasn't quite dark. Cicadas were going loud in the trees behind the venue.
My feet hit concrete and then blacktop. It burned faintly but I didn't stop. Row two, she had said. I saw the gray SUV, a clean Lexus with a county sticker in the window.
And then I heard him behind us.
"Hey! Wait!"
He'd come through the same side door. White shirt sleeves still rolled, tie loosened now, hair messed from running his hands through it. He wasn't yelling. He was using that calm, reasonable voice he'd used in the bedroom when he told me to stop being dramatic.
He was looking straight at my hand. At my phone.
"Give me that," he said as he got closer, holding his hand out, palm up, like I was supposed to just place it there. "You don't want this out there. Come on. Let's talk inside where it's private."
Jewel didn't answer him. She stepped sideways, just enough to put her shoulder between him and me. She wasn't big. She was five-four in flat sandals. But she planted her feet.
"You don't need her phone," she said.
His smile thinned. "This is between me and my wife, Jewel. Move."
"No," she said. She didn't raise her voice. "She walked out. That's her answer. You stay right there."
I kept moving. Ten feet to the SUV. My veil caught on a gust and lifted. I fumbled with the fob, pressed unlock. The lights flashed. The chirp sounded too loud in the quiet lot.
He tried to step around her. Jewel shifted with him. He put a hand up like he would move her by the elbow and then stopped — we were outside now, in a parking lot with a caterer holding a trash bag by the dumpster watching us, with two cars pulling in for the evening event behind the venue.
He looked past her to me.
"Please," he said to me, and for a second his voice cracked right. "You'll ruin everything. Just give me the phone and we fix this together."
I got to the driver's door and pulled it open. The interior was cool and smelled like leather cleaner and her perfume. I slid into the driver's seat, bare feet on the mat, dress bunched around my knees. I pulled the door shut but didn't lock it yet. Through the windshield I could see him and Jewel five spaces away, her arms crossed now, holding her ground.
His mother stood halfway between us, not moving closer to either of us. She had her arms wrapped around herself though it was warm out. She watched me, not him.
I held the phone in both hands on my lap. It was still mine. The video was still on it. I hadn't deleted it. I hadn't sent it either.
May you like
I took a breath and the air conditioning hadn't been turned on so it was just parking lot air, hot and still, but it was air that wasn't in that ballroom. I was outside the venue. I was in a car with an unlocked door and keys I hadn't asked for. He was out there, kept at a distance by the one person who'd chosen to stand in front of him.
I didn't start the engine. Not yet.
