Chapter 4: Outside the Charleston
I did not wait for a taxi under the restaurant canopy.
I walked two blocks in the sapphire dress until the residual heat of the dining room left my skin, then stopped under a streetlamp and ordered a car. The cream box was no longer in my hands. The gift had been delivered. The recognition had been delivered. Everything else belonged to the people still seated at the table I had been ordered not to approach.
My phone vibrated once in my clutch. Erin. I answered.
“Well?” she asked.
“Jake stood up,” I said. “He said the words out loud. The table heard them. I left.”
Erin was quiet for a moment, the particular quiet of someone who had predicted the outcome and was now measuring its impact.
“Are you all right?”
May you like
“I am accurate,” I said. “That is sufficient for tonight.”
The car arrived. I rode home through the ordinary Boston evening traffic and did not check for messages from anyone who had been present at the Charleston. The exclusion had been their decision. The consequences of the exclusion meeting the truth would also be theirs to manage.
