Chapter 2
The photographer was still opening his tripod when I set my heel on the gold cross. Nobody had to place me. Ten years of anniversaries had taught my feet that hand-span of paint on the pale parquet, the way feet learn a stair in the dark. My husband stepped in on my right, his sleeve brushing my bare arm. Julian photographed well. Everyone said so.
His mother took my left in a wave of scent. "Left foot on the cross, Ivy. Toes to the doors."
"I know where it is. Ten years of standing on it."
"Then stand properly. The paint doesn't move for anyone."
Something in me was moving. A slow warmth worked down my thigh under the dress, patient as a leak. I pressed my knees together and smiled at the doors. Twelve weeks, and nobody in this hall knew there had been anything to lose.
Julian's father took the end of the row, the man whose anniversary all this gold was for, already checking his watch. "Are we arranged? I want this done before the soup."
Against my ribs, the clutch buzzed. Three short pulses. Julian's hand went to his empty pocket before he remembered where its weight had gone.
"Is that mine?" he asked, lips barely moving under the smile.
"You asked me to hold it. Pockets ruin the line of the suit."
"Silence it, then."
"While a man counts at us?" I angled my smile up at him. "It can wait. Everything waits until after the speeches. Isn't that tonight's rule?"
His eyes came down to me and stayed one beat too long. "Who told you the running order?"
"The card at my seat. It's printed. Toast, reply, dancing."
"You read it already."
"I read everything you put in front of me. You should remember that."
"Faces to me!" the photographer called. "Husband's hand at the wife's waist."
Julian's palm settled at my waist, warm through silk, two inches above where everything was quietly coming apart. The clutch sat against my stomach, and when it buzzed again it buzzed into me, right where the twelve weeks had been. Like something kicking. The wrong woman's child, knocking at the wrong door.
"You're pale," Julian said into my hair.
"September lights. They flatten everyone but you."
"Hold — and again," the photographer said. "One more for safety."
Between flashes I flicked the clasp and looked down, the way women check lipstick. His phone had lit through the gap. Serena, his first love. A new line under the ultrasound: Tell her tonight or I walk in there myself.
I read it twice and closed the clasp on it. Good. Let her walk. I had the best place in the room to watch from. Painted, even.
"Ivy." His mother, through her smile. "You're swaying."
"The floor's been polished." I planted my heel harder on the cross and ground it a half-turn, the way you put out something lit. "Better?"
"Chin up. This one goes on the wall."
We all faced front then, four smiles in a row, and I asked the air lightly, "How many speeches before the dancing?"
"Two," his mother said without moving her mouth. "His father's, then Julian's. It's on your card."
"Two," I said. "That's all I needed."
Julian's fingers pressed in at my waist, one warning ounce. Down the row his father cleared his throat, the sound of a man who owns rooms. Under my hem, blood was drying, and more came patient behind it. I stood on my paint. I smiled the smile the wall required.
Two speeches stood between me and being handled. The flash went off while I counted them.