Chapter 15: The Gala

The microphone squealed once and settled.

I could hear the whole room breathing, two hundred people waiting to be told what to feel.

"Hoyt said I was confused," I said. "I'd like you to hear who is."

Hoyt laughed, easy and warm. "June, let's not do this up here."

"You invited me up here."

I turned my face toward the back of the ballroom, where the sound booth would be.

"Please play it," I said.

For a moment nothing happened, and my stomach dropped.

Then the speakers crackled, and Cecelia's voice filled the Depot.

"We got married two years ago. Hoyt and me."

Nobody moved.

"The second of August," said my own voice, small and level on the recording.

"You know."

"I know the date. I want to hear why."

I held still and let them hear all of it.

I let them hear her say the plan was steady woman, good family, bar owner's daughter.

I let them hear, "You were the plan, and I hated it from the first minute."

Someone near the front said, "Oh my God," very softly.

A shutter clicked, then a dozen.

Then came the part I had not been sure the room would stand.

It was Cecelia saying, "It wasn't supposed to be a real ceremony. The vows were theater."

I took the folded page out of my dress pocket.

"This is the certificate from the county courthouse," I said. "Sandberg, Hoyt Eugene, and Geller, Cecelia Anne. The second of August, two years ago."

"My father died on the twenty-eighth of July. We buried him on the first."

"That afternoon Hoyt came to my shop with lemon pastries and held my hand while I cried."

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