Chapter 4: The Luncheon

Dale's POV

The Hancock County Fairgrounds hall seats two hundred and fifty people at round tables with paper centerpieces.

Every one of them was eating chicken salad.

I had a seat at the wrestling boosters' table, between a man who sold insurance and a woman who ran the concession stand.

I was wearing my only tie.

It was a Wednesday, and I should have been in the shop teaching eleven-year-olds not to saw toward their own hands.

Instead I was watching a woman across the room with a lanyard and a name tag that said JO, DENTAL.

She sat at the Hartwell Family Dental table in a yellow cardigan with her hands folded.

She had not looked at me once.

I had counted.

On Saturday, in the back lot, I had told her nothing could happen between us while she was married to my brother.

I had meant it, and I meant it still.

I would like to say that made the next two hours easier.

Out the big glass doors, past the potted ferns, a gray sedan sat in the parking lot with a man in it.

I had seen the same car at the market.

I assumed he was someone's driver.

The emcee, a heavy man in a Chamber blazer, tapped the microphone for the awards.

"And now, the moment you've all been waiting for," he said. "The Women of Findlay Woman of the Year, Brandi Whitacre!"

Brandi crossed the floor in a blue suit that matched her bench.

Behind her, at the back of the hall near the doors, my brother stood with his arms folded and a pleased look on his face.

He had told our mother he was working at the lot.

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