The Nice Girl Gets Even novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Engagement Party

Nobody in the ballroom said anything.

The cha-cha kept playing.

The barber let go of the bride and came and looked at my phone over my shoulder.

"That's a big rock," he said. "Wonder whose rent bought it."

The florist was already looking at her own phone.

Not at the picture.

At her calendar.

"Saturday," she said. "Gaillard house. Two hundred guests. Twelve arrangements." She looked up at me over her glasses. "I already bought the roses, hon."

"Do the party," I said.

"Do the party?"

"Do it beautifully. Better than anything she's ever had."

The florist studied me for a long second.

Then the corner of her mouth went up.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, I've got an idea."

The invitation came the next morning, by hand.

Mrs. Gaillard requests the pleasure of your company.

At the bottom, in her slanted hand: Do come, Posey. Margot would so love for you to see.

Gussie read it and said, "That woman wants you there so she can watch you cry in her powder room."

"I know."

"So don't go."

"I'm going," I said. "I've never once declined an invitation in my life."

Emmett wasn't going.

His mother had called to say he was welcome, as long as he apologized to Margot at the door.

He'd hung up on her.

"I'll pick you up at nine," he said. "I'll wait in the drive. I'm not setting foot in that house."

The Gaillard house is white, with columns, on the best street in Spring Hill.

I wore navy, with my grandmother's pearls and low heels I could walk out in.

Mrs. Gaillard met me in the front hall.

"Posey. How brave of you," she said, for the second time that month.

She turned to the women around her.

"This is Truett's little dance teacher. From before."

"Good evening," I said, and shook all their hands, firm grip, eyes up.

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