Chapter 8: The Toast

"I'm not going," I said.

"Then don't." Deena put her glasses back on. "But your grandmother's deed gets signed at that party either way. I'd think you'd want to watch."

So we went.

The Pine Hollow Country Club had a twelve-foot tree in the lobby and an ice sculpture of a reindeer melting slowly onto a silver tray.

Spence had paid for an open bar.

That was why the whole town came.

My grandmother held my arm on one side and Bennet's on the other.

She was wearing her good burgundy dress and her mother's pearls, and she walked in with her chin up.

Bennet wore the cheap grey suit.

It had looked fine in my bedroom mirror.

Under the chandeliers it looked like a rental.

Celine spotted us from the bar before we'd taken our coats off.

She came over in a silver dress with a champagne glass in each hand.

"Oh, he wore the suit," she said. "Is that the court suit? Did you get married and buried in it?"

"Merry Christmas, Celine," Bennet said.

"Merry Christmas, Buddy."

She handed one of the glasses to my grandmother and the other to nobody.

"Spence is giving Mom a bracelet tonight," she said. "Tennis bracelet. Eleven thousand dollars. What'd you get Alana?"

Bennet reached into his jacket and took out a small flat package wrapped in newspaper.

Celine laughed so hard she spilled.

"Newspaper," she said. "Oh, honey."

"It's the Pine Hollow paper," Bennet said. "From the day she was born. Carolyn kept one."

I stopped with my coat half off.

My grandmother looked at him, and then at me, and her eyes went soft.

"He asked me for it this morning," she said. "I keep everything."

Celine's smile slipped.

She didn't seem to know what to do with her face.

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