Chapter 15: After the Slap

"Nobody touch her," Dominic said.

He said it quietly.

He had never needed a microphone to be heard in his own ballroom.

He came down the three stairs from the stage with his glasses in his hand.

He walked past Marla and stopped in front of me.

"Let me see."

I turned my cheek.

His jaw worked.

"Do you want her arrested tonight?" he asked, very low. "You say the word."

"I want her to stay."

He looked at me.

"I want her to sit down in front of everybody," I said, "and hear them."

He nodded once.

He turned to the room.

"Mrs. Diekema," he said, courteous as a headwaiter. "Please sit."

Marla did not move.

She stood in the middle of the carpet with her hand still raised, her cardigan-neat dress rucked at the shoulder.

The pastor had stood up.

He was an old man and he did it slowly, with a hand on the back of his chair.

"Marla," he said. "Is the girl telling the truth?"

"Pastor, she's lying, you know I would never."

"You struck her."

"She provoked me."

"In front of three hundred people," the treasurer said. Her voice shook. "Marla, the building fund."

Marla's head snapped around.

"Not here," she said.

"You told me it was a bridge loan."

"Not here!"

The donor on Marla's left, a man with a silver mustache, moved his chair six inches away from hers.

His wife, across the table, picked up her wrap.

Then a woman at the next table stood.

Then two men at the back.

It was not loud.

It was only a ballroom full of people deciding, one at a time, where they wanted to sit.

Marla turned in a circle, looking for a face that would meet hers.

Not one did.

Dwight put his head in his hands.

Brooke had lowered her phone, and her eyes were enormous.

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