Chapter 23: Kiss, Kiss, Kiss, Again

"Kiss."

It was one voice in the back row, and it was not even loud.

I stood at the front of the auditorium with a promotion in my hand and my husband in the second row.

"Kiss," the analyst said again, a little stronger.

A woman from accounting joined in.

"Kiss! Kiss!"

I knew where this was going. I had been to a steakhouse, a diner and a Sunday table.

I had never once been at the front of it.

Three hundred people took up the chant.

"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"

Dennis Tidwell stepped carefully away from the microphone.

I put my mouth near the mic.

"Kiss," I said, into it. "Kiss. Kiss."

The room roared.

I had told myself I would never do it again, and I did it louder than I had at the steakhouse.

In the third row, Margot flipped over the sign she had hidden in her apron.

It was a piece of poster board. It said, in marker, THAT'S MY DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.

She flipped it again.

The back said: KISS HER, TRISTAN.

"Mom," Tristan said, from across the room, with pain.

"It's small!" Margot shouted back.

The CFO had stood up, and he was chanting too, with a bourbon tenor.

Ivy was standing on her chair again.

I came down the steps from the stage. The chant went with me, and the carpet was soft under my flat shoes.

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