Chapter 14: Not Quiet

The kiss stayed on the screen, ten feet high.

Whitney's mouth was on Cory's, and his hand was on her waist.

Two hundred people looked at the screen, then at him, then at me.

"Turn it off," Cory said into the microphone.

It was still in his hand, and the whole room heard it.

"It's a joke," Whitney said brightly. "A sweet, silly dare. The kind of thing Cory and I have done for years."

Nobody laughed.

The woman in pearls had put her hand over her mouth.

I stood up from table one.

My chair scraped, and every head turned.

Cory saw me coming, and his face changed.

"Beth, don't."

"You said you were grateful to your wife," I said. "I'd like to say something to the room."

"Beth, please. You agreed."

"I agreed to come. I never agreed to be quiet."

I walked up the three steps to the stage.

Whitney moved in front of the podium.

"This isn't the time," she said. "Beth is upset, and we all understand."

"Let her speak," a voice said from the second row.

It was the managing partner.

He was a gray-haired man in his sixties, and he had not raised his voice.

Whitney stepped aside.

Cory let go of the microphone, and I took it.

My hands were steady.

I looked at the two hundred faces and found Rhonda at the wall, Marcy beside her, and Garson at the back.

"My name is Beth Kester," I said. "I'm Cory's wife. That's the only part of tonight that is true."

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