Chapter 5 - The Contracts on the Dark Tray
I didn't go back in right away. I stood just past the marble column at the ballroom entrance where the light thinned and the music had stopped, and I could see without yet being seen.
The room had changed in the minute I'd been gone. The quartet on the small riser had set their instruments down. The cellist was fitting the latch on his case. A waiter near the dance floor held his tray chest-high and wasn't moving, like someone had told him to freeze mid-step. People at the round tables had turned their chairs. Nobody was pretending to talk anymore.
Tiffany stood in the center, alone in all that white. Her bouquet was gone. I didn't know where she'd put it. Her shoulders were back the way she'd practiced for photos, but her hands kept opening and closing at her sides. She looked toward the hallway, then toward the kitchen doors, as if someone owed her an explanation.
Then the side door by the service station opened and he came through.
He was in his forties, black suit, white shirt, black tie, the little name tag catching the chandelier light. He carried a dark tray held level in both hands, and on it was a stack of white contracts so thick it leaned slightly when he walked. He didn't hurry. He walked the way men walk when paper gives them authority.
A woman in a headset touched his elbow and whispered something. He nodded once and kept walking until he reached the edge of the dance floor. The head waiter stepped back to give him room. The room went quieter, if that was possible.
I pressed my back a little harder into the column. My phone was still warm in my palm. My cheek throbbed under the powder.
He set his stance and looked first at Tiffany, then out at the tables. His voice wasn't loud, but the ballroom carried it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention," he said. "My name is on file as the venue manager for this evening. I need to advise you of a change to service."
Tiffany took a half step toward him. "What's happening?" she said. Her voice cracked on the second word. "Why is the music stopping?"
He didn't answer her directly. He glanced down at the contracts on the tray, then back up. It was professional, practiced, the tone men use when they don't want to be blamed for the message.
"Mrs. Bennett exercised her cancellation rights," he said, "which means in the next few minutes services will end unless the payer authorizes continuation."
A sound went through the tables. Not gasps. Something lower. Chairs shifting. A fork set down too hard. An older man at my table stood halfway and sat again when his wife pulled his sleeve.
Tiffany stared at him. "What?" she said. "No. That's not — she can't do that. This is my wedding."
The manager didn't argue. He lifted the top contract just enough to show the signature page underneath. "The agreement for this ballroom, catering, music, and florals is held solely in her name," he said. "Only the payer can continue or stop service this evening."
I watched Tiffany's face change. I had seen that look when she was a little girl and Daniel had told her no about something small in a store. Disbelief first, then heat rising up her neck. Her eyes went wide and fixed on the stack of paper like she could make it disappear by staring.
"Where is she?" she said, louder now. "Where is my mother-in-law? Get her out here."
The manager held his position. The waitstaff along the back wall didn't move. The cellist clicked his case shut and the sound cracked across the marble floor.
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Tiffany turned in a slow circle, searching the faces at the tables, then the doorway where I stood in shadow. For a second I thought she saw me. Her mouth opened, but no words came. The chandelier light caught the beading on her gown and the tight line of her updo, and she looked very young and very alone there in the middle of all those flowers.
I stayed where I was. The tray stayed level in his hands. The next few minutes had started to count.
