Chapter 10: The Toast

"What does she plan to do about it?" I asked.

Stanton's teeth were chattering.

"She's going to ask you to stand up at the party and apologize into a microphone. Then she'll hand you the pen and the form, in front of everybody."

"And if I won't sign it?"

"Then everybody watches you not sign it. She thinks you won't have the nerve."

"Stanton."

"Please don't come. Please. Say you're sick."

"I'll be there at seven," I said. "Go home before your mother finds the bed empty."

He went down the ladder without another word.

I did not sleep again.

The Linden Room was a ballroom behind a hotel on Summit Avenue, with a chandelier and round tables for eighty.

A banner over the stage said HAPPY 61ST, BERNADETTE!

I stood at the door in a navy dress that Dot had hemmed on her kitchen table.

I carried a flat wrapped box under my arm.

Dot came in on one side of me, in her church coat.

Keir came in on the other, in a dark suit I hadn't known he owned.

Heads turned all the way down the room.

Bernadette saw us from across the floor and did not blink.

She crossed the room to me in a green silk dress with her arms open.

She kissed me on both cheeks.

"My girl," she said, loud enough for the nearest tables. "Look at you. I knew you'd come to your senses."

"Hello, Bernadette."

"And Keir." She turned the smile on him. "How kind of you to drop in. After so many years."

"Happy birthday," Keir said. "I wouldn't miss this."

She took the box from my hands without looking at it and gave it to a waiter.

Dinner took an hour.

The people at my table knew me from church.

They kept leaning over to say how glad they were that the misunderstanding was behind us.

At eight-fifteen, Brittany tapped a glass at the head table and rose with a microphone.