Small Things You Promised novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Cool Nights

The church ladies walked them in two by two.

A man with a walker and a bolo tie.

The widow from Dodds Avenue in a pink church hat, with her oxygen tank on a little cart.

The man from the bathtub, who'd driven a bread truck thirty years, holding his granddaughter's arm.

The eighty-one-year-old from East Lake, who'd sat with his face in front of the last unit and closed his eyes.

The lobby went quiet as they passed, and women in silk stepped back for the walker.

The board chair met them at the ballroom doors herself, with her cane.

She shook every hand.

Then she walked them all the way down that gold room, to the four tables in front of the stage.

The church ladies had put a booklet on every chair in the room.

SMALL THINGS, on the cover, in Wiley's square capitals.

I sat at the end of the front table, between the widow and Missy.

Wiley sat behind me, at the next table, with the apprentice and the big gray-haired installer and the quiet one.

At seven twenty, the mayor came in.

A hotel boy walked him to the back.

The mayor looked at his place card for a long time.

Then he sat down, because what else was he going to do.

Ty came in behind him in a dark suit, with his mama on his arm.

He saw the front tables.

He saw me.

He stopped walking.

His mama didn't. She pulled him to the back table and sat him down beside her.

At seven thirty, the lights dimmed.

Lacy came out on the stage in a pale gold gown that matched the room.

She'd seen the front tables. I knew she had.

She smiled at them anyway.

"Well, would you look at this," she said into the microphone.

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