Chapter 5: Whose Pearls

"Teo said to make myself at home," Sheridan said, watching me in the mirror. "He said you'd understand."

"I do," I said.

I looked at the robe, my silk robe, the one the housekeeper had folded for me every Sunday for four years.

"Keep it. Wash it cold."

She blinked. She had wanted a scene.

I opened my jewelry drawer and found it empty, the pearls gone from their blue case.

"Teo lent me those for tonight," she said sweetly. "For the opening. He said I should look the part."

"He can lend what's his."

I took my passport and one change of clothes, and I walked out of the room I had slept in for six years.

I did not look back at the bed.

The gallery opening was at eight, in the Chelsea building the Family owned under three different names.

I came in a black dress and my mother's earrings.

The invitation had put me at table nine. It was beside the kitchen door.

The waiters kept bumping my chair.

Across the room Sheridan stood at the microphone in cream silk, with my wedding pearls at her throat.

Teo's grandmother had worn those pearls. Teo had put them on me himself the night of our wedding, with shaking hands.

"Tonight is about vision," Sheridan said into the microphone. "Mr. Landolfi's vision, and the wonderful people who stood behind him."

She looked straight at me when she said it.

I lifted my glass and smiled.

Benny sat at the head table with his arm along the back of her empty chair.

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