Chapter 6: Truce Brunch

A dead man's stamp was on my forged name, and Tommaso spent all of Saturday night chasing it.

By morning he had one answer: the notary's seal had been sold with his office in April, to a buyer nobody could name.

"Someone planned this for months," he said.

I thought of Camille at my dentist appointment, holding my coat.

Then the invitation came, on pale pink paper delivered to the hotel desk.

*Truce brunch, Sunday at eleven. Six of the girls from school will be there. Come and let me say sorry properly. Please. C.*

"Don't go," Tommaso said, reading it over my shoulder.

"I'm going."

"She wants an audience."

"So do I."

He studied me for a moment.

"I'll be at the next table," he said.

The restaurant was a glass room above the park, with white tablecloths and a view of the leaves.

Six women from our old alumni chat sat around a long table, and Camille sat at the head of it.

She stood when she saw me, with both hands pressed to her heart.

"Bianca. You came."

She wore a cream silk dress and her hair in loose waves.

On her collar, just under her chin, was a small gold pin shaped like a swallow.

I stopped walking.

My grandmother had worn that pin on the day she pressed her medal into Russell's hand.

It had a tiny garnet for an eye.

I had kept it in the safe in our dressing room, and I had not taken it to the hotel.

"I know I made a mess," Camille said. "I want to fix it. Sit, please."

She pulled out the chair beside her, and I sat.

The other women gave me soft, careful smiles.

A few of them had forwarded the flapper video in college.

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