Cancel the Wedding, Queen Moves On novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Pickup

Bram hands her his coat, the groom grabs her in the parking lot, the groom's mother threatens her livelihood, and Pearl admits who sent the invitation.

I took the coat.

It was black wool and warm from his arm, and it smelled like cedar and cold harbor air.

I put it on over my wedding dress, and the sleeves hung past my fingertips.

"You're late," I said.

It was the first thing I had said to him in seven years, and it came out steadier than I felt.

"Seven years," Bram said. "I know."

Neither of us said anything else.

Pearl came out of the third pew, with her purse swinging.

"Don't stand there making eyes at each other," she said. "Move. The Wexler woman is coming."

She was right.

Cecily was gliding down the side aisle with her chin high, and Preston was three steps behind her with his fist still closed.

I let Bram's hand settle against my back, just for balance, and the three of us went out the church doors into the April light.

The steps were crowded.

Guests had spilled out onto Benefit Street, and every phone was already up.

Preston's wedding car sat at the curb, a long white Bentley with ribbons on the mirrors and a sign in the back window.

JUST MARRIED.

I was halfway down the steps when his hand closed around my wrist.

"You don't get to walk out of this," Preston said, very low.

His fingers were tight enough to ache.

"You humiliated me in front of two hundred and forty people."

"You're going to come back in and say it was a joke, and we are going to eat lunch."

Behind me I felt Bram go still.

He didn't move.

I could feel what it cost him, a big man standing on a church step with his hands curled at his sides.

"Bram," I said, without turning around. "This one is mine."

"Yours," he agreed.

I looked down at Preston's hand.

For two years I had loved that hand, and I had never once noticed how little it asked.

I did what I do to a stuck tuning pin.

I turned my wrist toward his thumb, where the grip is weakest, and pulled.

His hand came off me.

He stared at it.

"I tune concert grands," I said. "I know exactly where a joint gives."

Someone on the sidewalk laughed.

I walked past him to the Bentley.

The JUST MARRIED sign was held on with two strips of tape.

I peeled it off the glass and held it out to him in both hands.

"Reuse it," I said. "Faye's free this afternoon."

Preston's face went through three expressions and landed on the ugliest one.

"You were nothing before me," he said. "A girl with a wrench and a dead father's shop. You think anyone else will have you?"

I didn't answer, because Cecily had reached us.

She came down the last step with her pearls swaying and put herself between her son and the phones.

Her face was smooth and pleasant.

"Etta," she said, in the voice she used on the Arts Hall board. "Whatever you feel, you will not do this on a public street."

"Too late," I said.

"I chair the Providence Arts Hall. I sign your contract every spring, and I sign every other piano contract in this city."

She said it sweetly, and she smiled at someone's camera while she did.

"On Monday morning your contract will be reviewed. Think very carefully about what you do next."

It was the thing I had been afraid of since the corridor.

My family's shop lived on that contract, nine concert grands, four times a year.

Pearl made a small, bright, dangerous noise beside me.

I put my hand on her sleeve.

"Cecily," I said, and I said it kindly, the way she had.

"This morning you told me every Wexler man has a Faye, and a wife is a different position."

I said it loud enough for the sidewalk.

Her smile held for one more second.

Then her mouth went flat.

On the sidewalk, a woman in a green hat said "Oh!" out loud, and three of her friends turned to look.

I took Pearl's arm.

Bram was already moving ahead of us, long-legged, toward a battered black pickup parked half on the curb behind the florist's van.

He opened the passenger door and stood holding it.

The cab had a bench seat.

I climbed up in my wedding dress and moved over to the middle, and Pearl climbed in after me and took the window.

Bram shut the door on both of us.

The crowd was still watching, and Preston stood in the middle of it with the cardboard sign hanging from one hand.

Bram got in on the driver's side.

The engine caught, loud and rough, and for a few seconds we all sat there staring through the windshield.

My hands were shaking now that nobody could see them.

The coat sleeves covered it, mostly.

"Where to?" Bram asked, quietly.

"Wickenden Street," said Pearl, before I could answer.

He pulled out into traffic without another word, past the church and the Bentley and the line of staring wedding guests.

I turned to look at my grandmother.

She was folding her purse strap into tiny pleats on her lap, the way she did when she had something to confess.

"Pearl," I said. "How did he know to be at my wedding today?"

She did not look at me.

"Because I sent the invitation, baby," she said. "And I'm not sorry."

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