Chapter 12: No Line Up There

Nadine's POV

Darius told me everything at my kitchen table, and I did not cry.

I listened with my hands around a mug of coffee going cold.

When he finished, I got up and washed the mug in the sink, very carefully.

"Say the part about the kitchen again," I said.

"A blonde girl in a yellow top. Five hundred in cash. *Give me ten minutes.*"

"She wore a yellow top that night."

"I know."

"She walked me to the stairs. She said, *Use the one at the end, there's no line.*"

I dried the mug and set it on the shelf.

"I held her hand in that police station," I said. "She cried on my shoulder. I let her."

"Nadine."

"Don't. I'm fine."

I was not fine.

I was something past it.

There was an engagement dinner the next night.

Cornelia was hosting it at the Orchard Hill house, sixty guests, a string quartet.

It was Brinley's party, with her name on the cards.

"I'm going," I said.

"I'll go with you."

"No. I'm going, and you're going, but we are not walking in together."

He looked at me.

"I want her to see you first," I said. "Walk in. Take your seat. And when she stands up to make her toast, you stop her."

"And then?"

"Then I'll say the rest."

The Staffords' dining room had a table for sixty and candles down the middle of it.

I came in late, in the borrowed green dress, and a hush went down the length of the room.

Cornelia, at the head of the table, put down her glass.

Brinley sat at Darius's right hand in a cream silk gown with her hair up.

She smiled when she saw me.

It was a beautiful, wide, tearful smile.

"Nadine," she said, rising. "You came."

"I came."

"I'm so glad. Please sit. I was just about to say a few words."

"Go on," I said.

I took an empty chair near the foot of the table.

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