Chapter 19: The Gala

On the thirtieth of August I put on the white dress.

It was the same dress, cleaned, with the same thin straps and the same hem above the knee.

Mitchell watched me zip it from the bedroom doorway.

"You don't have to wear it," he said.

"He asked me to. If I don't, he knows."

"Then wear it." His voice was rough. "And when this is over, I'm burning it."

"Deal."

Lila waited in the main room in a pale blue slip dress, with a gauze brace on her left wrist.

It was the dress she had worn the night she fell, dry-cleaned.

She had asked for it herself.

That morning she had texted Bennett from the black phone: I'm sorry, I'll do whatever you say.

He had answered with a heart and a job for her at eight, carrying a tray.

She held her chin high, and her hands were steady.

"I'm going to throw up," she told me.

"You can do that after."

"I'll do it on his shoes."

"I'll hold your hair."

We drove through the gate at seven.

The Rainsford terrace had been turned into a lit white room, with candles on every table and a quartet by the pool.

Two hundred and twelve people stood on it with glasses in their hands.

I saw the senator, laughing with his wife.

I saw the managing partner of the law firm, silver at the temples, who had signed a letter at 7:12 on a Saturday night.

I saw my clinic director in a gray suit, who looked at me and then at her shoes.

I saw Judith at the long head table, upright in dove-colored silk, with her pearls on and her face unreadable.

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