Chapter 6: Not Yet

The whole room waited for me to cry.

I could feel them waiting. Two hundred people with drinks in their hands, ready for the seamstress in the borrowed dress to run out the door.

My face was hot. My knees weren't good.

But I'd stood in front of a lot of screaming brides in my life.

I walked to the stage.

Shayla watched me come with the mic in her fist, her chest heaving.

I held out my hand for it.

She was so surprised she gave it to me.

I leaned in.

"Not yet," I said.

There was a beat of total silence.

Then a tug captain by the window barked out a laugh, and somebody else snorted, and the laugh went around that room.

The loudest one came from Mrs. Meade, in navy velvet at the front, hooting with her hand over her heart.

Hugh, by the bar, put his head down and his shoulders shook.

Shayla went purple.

I handed the mic back to the bass player.

Then I turned to Shayla, close enough to smell her perfume, and held out my hand again.

"Those are my mother's," I said. "Give them back."

She touched her ear.

"These? Clint gave me these."

"Clint can't afford to give you a parking ticket. You cut her wedding dress open, Shayla. Tell the room."

A woman near the stage said, "She did what?"

Shayla's eyes darted around the room.

All those faces. All those phones coming up.

"You want them?" she said.

She pulled one earring out, then the other.

She stepped down off the stage and stalked to the big open doors onto the deck.

"Shayla, don't," Clint said behind me.

She went straight to the railing over the water and threw them.

Underhand, hard, like a girl skipping stones.

I heard one hit wood.

I didn't hear the other one at all.

I was at the railing a second later.

Below the deck, the green tug was tied alongside the float, all lit up. A crewman in a white shirt was bent over on her deck, picking something up.

He straightened and held it up to the light between his thick fingers.

A little pearl on a gold post.

"This yours, miss?"

"Yes," I said. My voice broke right in half. "Yes."

"Where's the other one?"

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