Chapter 4 - The Musicians Stop Playing
I didn't hear the music stop at first. I heard the change in the air coming through the restroom door when it opened.
A girl in a pale blue dress came in fast, let the door swing shut behind her, and stood checking her lipstick in the bright vanity lights. She didn't look at me. She was humming along to whatever the quartet was playing out in the ballroom, that low song they'd been carrying all through dinner. Then mid-note, she stopped humming. She tilted her head.
Out beyond the marble hallway, the violin line thinned and dropped out.
I stood with my phone still in my hand. My cheek throbbed where Tiffany had left the mark. The restroom was too bright, every tile and mirror edge too clean, and I could hear my own breathing settle before I moved toward the door.
The girl glanced at me once, then back at her own reflection. "They messing up?" she said.
I didn't answer. I eased the restroom door open a few inches.
From that angle I couldn't see the whole ballroom, just a slice of it past the columns: the edge of the chandelier light, the tall white flowers on their stands, the backs of two tables where guests were turned toward the small stage. The quartet was set up near the far wall. I had picked them myself back in March because Tiffany said she wanted something classic for dinner, something that would look good in pictures.
The cellist had his bow stopped midair. He was looking past his music stand toward the side door where the venue staff came and went. The violinist beside him leaned in and whispered something. The second violinist already had her instrument down against her shoulder.
A young man in a black vest, one of the waitstaff, crossed in front of them and said something I couldn't catch. Whatever it was, the cellist nodded once and laid his bow across his lap.
That was the first visible thing. Instruments coming down. Cases coming up.
The cellist bent and unlatched the long black case at his feet. The click of the latches carried even over the talking. The violinist unclipped her music, slid the sheets together, and reached for her own case propped against the back drape. No hurry to it. No anger. Just the practiced motions of people who had been told to pack.
At the tables, people noticed the gap before they understood it. A man at the nearest table turned his chair half around. A woman with her phone raised for video slowly lowered it. The low talk across the ballroom shifted. Chairs scraped. Someone laughed, short, assuming it was a break between sets.
I pushed the door a little wider and stepped into the hallway where the marble threw the light back up at my shoes. The air out there was warmer, heavy with flowers and dinner and perfume. From the hallway arch I could see more of the floor now.
The waitstaff had stopped moving.
Two of them stood along the back wall holding their dark trays level, glasses untouched. Another one near the cake table had taken a step back from the table itself, hands clasped in front of him. The bartender at the portable bar wiped the same spot on the counter twice and then stopped wiping. Nobody was clearing plates. Nobody was pouring.
Tiffany was in the center of the dance floor.
She'd been posing a minute before — I could tell by the way her white strapless gown was still flared perfectly around her feet, the way her blonde updo hadn't moved. A photographer hovered a few feet off, camera lowered. A couple of her bridesmaids stood at the edge of the floor with their bouquets hanging down.
Tiffany turned in a slow circle, looking first at the quartet, then at the waiters along the wall.
"What is happening?" she said.
Her voice wasn't loud, but in that thinning quiet it carried all the way to the marble where I stood. One of the bridesmaids glanced toward the side door. Nobody answered her.
On stage, the cellist fit his instrument into the case and pressed the lid down. The soft thud of it closing seemed to settle over the room. The first violinist latched her case and set it upright by her chair. The pianist, a thin older man I'd spoken to at the rehearsal, closed the keyboard cover and folded his glasses into his pocket.
A murmur went up from the center tables. A woman said, "Is this part of it?" A man answered, "Check with Daniel." Chairs moved. A little girl in a flower girl dress tugged at her mother's sleeve and asked if she could go to the bathroom, and her mother shushed her without looking down.
Tiffany took two steps toward the quartet, her heels sharp on the floor now that there was no music under them. "Hello?" she said, and gave a short laugh that didn't hold. "Guys?"
The cellist didn't look up. He buckled the strap on his case and stood.
The waiters stayed where they were, trays held, eyes forward. I recognized that posture. I'd seen it at charity galas when something went wrong in the kitchen and the captain told everyone to hold position and wait. It wasn't rude. It was frozen.
Tiffany looked around at her guests. All those faces turned toward her, waiting for her to explain or joke or fix it. The photographer lifted his camera again, then thought better of it and let it hang.
The chandelier kept throwing warm light down over the white flowers and the empty dance floor. Everything expensive and perfect and suddenly still.
May you like
I stepped back half a pace into the shadow of the hallway column. My hand found the cool marble edge. The mark on my left cheek burned under the hallway light, and I didn't cover it.
On the floor, Tiffany stood alone in her gown while the room watched her, and for the first time that night, nobody moved to help her hold the moment together.
