Chapter 18: The Toast

By five on Friday there were forty people on Gran's lawn, and thirty-five of them believed it belonged to the Brandolinis.

I watched them from the boathouse door with Rowan behind me.

They stood in good coats on the frost-stiff grass, holding paper cups of something hot, under the strings of lights Rowan had hung.

The tent glowed at the end of the dock.

On the porch, the banner said BRANDOLINI FAMILY LAKE WEEKENDS in letters a foot high.

Beckett had put out the projector himself that morning, as Santino asked, and loaded the slideshow Santino had made.

He had also loaded a flash drive of his own, in the second slot.

"Nervous?" Rowan said.

"Yes."

"Good. It means you're in the room."

"You said that to me on the first night."

"I say it to everyone who'll go through with something."

I had Gran's deed folded in my cardigan pocket, from the desk in her study, with her name on it as owner.

I had the printed ledger.

I did not have the envelope.

Bailey's camel coat moved through the crowd at the edge of the lawn, her braid pinned up, her leather tote on her arm.

She smiled and touched elbows and took a glass from a waiter.

She looked, from there, like the host's best friend.

Santino's mother stood beside the drinks table in a plum dress, with her hands folded on her purse and her reading glasses pushed up into her hair.

I had told her to bring them.

At ten past six, Santino climbed onto the little riser at the head of the dock with a microphone.

He wore the good jacket and a white shirt open at the neck, and he looked wonderful.

He tapped the mic twice.

"Hi, everybody," he said. "Thank you for coming up to the lake."

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