Chapter 9: Lost and Found

"What do you mean?" I whispered.

The partner was already going back up the stairs.

"I didn't say anything," he said. "I came down for a smoke."

The door shut behind him.

I stood on the landing and tried to remember the reception.

Trent coming back to the ballroom just in time to cut the cake.

His hair damp.

His shirtsleeves rolled up.

"Spilled a whole glass of red on it," he'd laughed, kissing my cheek. "The rental place is going to kill me."

I hadn't even looked.

I'd been watching the clock, wishing I could go up to bed.

In the car, I told Tino.

Tino said nothing for three blocks.

Then he said, "Hotels keep everything. Towels, earrings, teeth. My cousin worked laundry at a hotel. They kept a glass eye for a year."

"Would they keep a jacket?"

"If nobody came for it."

That night, Dina put on her one good dress and fake eyelashes.

I put on jeans, a baseball cap and the plainest face I owned.

My face had been on the news for two weeks.

"You're the bride," I told her in the van. "I'm your cousin. You lost your veil."

"What did I do with it?"

"You were drunk and you threw it down the laundry chute."

"That's beautiful," Dina said. "That's exactly what I'd do."

The Arden's night manager was a tired young man in a burgundy vest.

Dina leaned on his desk and cried.

She cried.

"It was my grandmother's," she sobbed. "It was handmade in Abruzzo. My husband will divorce me."

The night manager looked at me for help.

"She's been like this for three days," I said. "Please."

He sighed and took us down in the service elevator.

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