Chapter 4: The Seating Chart

My grandmother's dining table seats twenty-four, and she writes the place cards herself.

On Friday she wrote twenty-four.

She put Ansel on my left and Barrett across from him.

She did not smile when I noticed.

The guests were both families, plus the two other heirs from the night I picked a husband.

One owned hotels and one owned yachts, and neither had been told they'd lost.

Barrett came in last, with Melody on his arm and a bottle of champagne under the other one.

Gordon Collier followed them.

Barrett's father was sixty-three, silver at the temples, with a soft voice he never raised.

He shook my hand with both of his.

"Leona," Gordon said. "Welcome to the family. Truly. Ansel has been a son to me for twenty years."

"He told me," I said.

"He is the finest doctor in this city, and my foundation is proud to keep his clinic open."

He squeezed my hand once more and let it go.

I thought nothing of it at the time, except that he had very warm hands.

We sat.

I had decided before dinner what I wanted, and I'd said it once, in the car.

"Sit by me tonight," I'd told Ansel. "The whole dinner."

"I will," he'd said.

I did not say it again.

The soup came, and the hotel heir leaned across the flowers.

"Ansel. Quick question. Does this look infected?"

He pulled up his sleeve and showed a red patch the size of a dime.

Ansel got up, went around the table, and studied it.

"It's a mosquito bite," Ansel said.

"It itches in a way I don't like."

"That's what mosquito bites do."

He walked back, sat down, and picked up his spoon.

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