“What?
“Oh, but he
“No. He played me. He just told me what I wanted to hear.”
“I don’t think so,” says Bunny, chuckling.
“What is wrong with you, Bunny? Why do you seem so delighted about all of this?”
“Why
“I feel so humiliated!”
“Again with the humiliation. There’s no reason to feel humiliated.”
“Of course there is. I said things. Things I never would have. Things he had no right to know. Answers he cheated out of me.”
“Well, what if he had asked you those things to your face?”
“William never would have asked me.”
“Why not?”
“He wasn’t interested. He stopped being interested a long time ago.”
Bunny tightens the towel under her arms. “Well, all I can say is that he went to an awful lot of trouble for a husband who wasn’t interested in knowing what his wife thought or wanted or believed. And now I just have one question for you.” She gestures to the Ann Taylor suit that I’ve spread out on the bed. “You aren’t planning on wearing that to dinner, are you?”
“You got something from your father,” says William, walking into the bathroom. “I had to sign for it.”
I’ve been upstairs for an hour, stewing, and avoiding William, trying to will myself into a positive frame of mind for dinner. But the sight of him infuriates me all over again.
“You look great,” he says, handing me an envelope.
“I don’t look great,” I snap.
“I’ve always loved that suit.”
“Well, you’re the only one, then.”
“Jesus, Alice. What’s going on? Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you? Should I be mad at you?”
My phone chimes. It’s a text from Nedra.
“Damn toast,” I say. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Oh-that’s why you’re so snappish. Nerves,” says William. “You’ll do fine.”
“No, I won’t do fine. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. I can’t be expected to do everything. You do the toast!” I cry.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am. You’re going to have to do it. I’m not doing it.”
William looks at me aghast. “But Nedra will be so disappointed. You’re the maid of honor.”
“It doesn’t matter who gives the toast. You. Me. It just has to be somebody from this family. Get Peter to do it. He’s good at those sorts of things.”
“Alice, I don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t. And you never have.”
William shrinks away from me, as if I’ve hit him.
“I’ll come up with something,” he says softly. “Let me know when you’re done in here so I can take a shower.”
After William’s gone, I don’t know what to do with myself, so I open the envelope. There are two items inside: a card from my father and an old hankie folded carefully into a square. The hankie belonged to my mother. There are three little violets embroidered on the white cotton along with my mother’s initials. I press the hankie to my nose. It still smells of her Jean Nate body splash. I pick up the card.
I carefully unfold the handkerchief and there, nestled in the white cotton, is my engagement ring: the one I threw out the car window when William and I had the argument about inviting Helen to our wedding. Somebody must have found it and brought it to the pawnshop. The jewels have darkened with age and it needs a good cleaning, but there’s no mistaking the tiny diamond flanked by two even tinier emeralds-the ring that my grandfather gave to my grandmother so many years ago, the ring that I so cavalierly tossed away.
I try and make out the engraving on the inside of the ring but the type is too small. I can’t think about what it all means now. If I do, I’ll lose it. We have an hour before we have to leave for dinner. I slip the ring into my pocket and go downstairs.
The dinner is being held at a new trendy restaurant called Boca.
“Is that Donna Summer playing?” asks William, when we walk in the door.
“Jude told me Nedra was hiring a deejay,” says Zoe. “I hope they don’t play seventies music all night long.”
“I love this song,” says Jack to Bunny. “I sense your dance card will be full tonight, ‘Bad Girl.’ ”
“Did you take your baby aspirin?” Bunny asks.
“I took three,” Jack says. “Just in case.”
“In case of what?” asks Bunny.
“This,” he says, kissing her on the lips.
“You two are cute,” says Zoe.
“You wouldn’t think it was cute if that was your mother and me,” says William.
“That’s because between the ages of thirty and sixty, PDA is gross,” says Zoe. “And after sixty it’s cute again. You’re older than sixty, right?” Zoe whispers to Jack.
“Just a squidge,” says Jack, pinching his thumb and forefinger together.
“There’s Nedra,” says William. “At the bar.” He gives a low whistle.
Nedra is wearing a forest-green silk wrap dress with lots of cleavage showing. She rarely shows decolletage; she thinks it’s declasse. But tonight she made an exception. She looks stunning.
“We should probably tell her,” says William. “Do you want to or should I?”
“Tell her what?” asks Peter.
I sigh. “That your father is doing the toast, not me.”
“But you’re the maid of honor. You have to do the toast,” says Zoe.
“Your mother isn’t feeling well,” says William. “I’m standing in for her.”
“Right,” says Zoe, whose face tells me everything she’s thinking: her mother is running away-
“Darling! Have a Soiree,” cries Nedra, when she sees me approaching. She holds out a martini glass filled with a clear liquid. Little purple flowers skitter across the surface.
“Lavender, gin, honey, and lemon,” she says. “Give it a try.”
I summon the bartender. “Chardonnay, please,” I say.
“You’re so predictable,” says Nedra. “That’s one of the things I love about you.”
“Yes, well, I predict you’re about to not love my predictability.”
Nedra puts the martini glass down. “Do not put a damper on my evening, Alice Buckle. Do not even think about it.”
I sigh. “I feel terrible.”
“Here we go. What do you mean you feel terrible?”
“Sick.”
“Sick how?”
