Chapter 5: The Gala

I did not go to the gala to hold anyone's hand.

I went because Inés told me to.

"Let her try," she said on Friday night, with a pencil between her teeth.

"If she wants to close my studio, she can do it to my face."

"She can do it," I said. "She's on the board of half this city."

"Then go and stand in the middle of it."

She took the pencil out of her mouth.

"Don't go to hide. Go to leave."

On Saturday evening I stood in the back room in my old studio suit.

It was the only one I owned.

It was loose at the waist. I had lost weight in a week.

I could not make the tie work.

Inés came to the doorway in a dark green dress, and she stopped.

"Give me that," she said.

She took the tie from my hand and did not touch my collar or my neck.

She stood two steps away and talked me through it, and I made the knot myself, badly.

"There," she said, and her voice was slightly rough. "Now you look ready to walk out."

We took a taxi to the Hotel Real, and I paid with the cash she had lent me.

The ballroom was gold and white and crowded with three hundred people.

Waiters carried trays of champagne between the tables. A string quartet played on a low stage.

Above the stage hung a banner: HOSPITAL DEL VALLE FOUNDATION GALA.

Valeria stood at the foot of the stairs with the hospital director.

She wore a long black gown and the diamond necklace I had given her on our third anniversary.

Iván was three steps behind her, in a tuxedo.

She saw me, and for one second her face went white.

Then she smiled, a warm, wide, public smile, and came across the floor with both hands out.

"You came," she said. "I knew you would."

She kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear. "Smile."

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