He Sent Me the Green Dress, So I Took His Company novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The White Box
On their tenth anniversary Tilda gets a green silk dress, goes to the dinner, reads her vows aloud to the table and walks out; Gavin texts that he has told everyone she is unwell.
The courier rang the bell at nine, while I was folding napkins for my tenth anniversary dinner.
He handed me a white box tied with ribbon and a tablet to sign.
Gavin's name was on the label, in his assistant's neat print.
I had expected flowers.
Inside the tissue paper lay a green silk dress, the color of a wet leaf.
I lifted it out and my hands went cold.
When I was eight, my father's mistress came to our kitchen in a green dress exactly like it.
She sat at my mother's table and waited for him to come home.
I stood in the doorway in my pajamas, and nobody sent me upstairs.
Under the dress was a cream card in Gavin's handwriting.
Happy ten years, Tilda. Wear this tonight.
That was all.
I stood in my kitchen with the dress over my arm and short ribs in the oven, Gavin's favorite, braising since seven.
My vows for the next ten years were folded in my purse on the counter.
I had written them at two in the morning, and I had cried while writing them.
I called him.
He picked up on the first ring, bright and easy. "Did it come? Odette helped me choose. Don't you love it?"
"It's green," I said.
"You told me you love green."
"I never said that."
"Tilda, you said it last spring in the car. You don't remember?" His voice went gentle, the way it did when he thought I was tired. "It's fine. Dinner is at eight at Marchetti's. I booked the private room. I'll meet you there."
"A private room?"
"A few people from the office. A surprise. Wear the dress, babe."
He hung up before I could answer.
I looked at the dress for a long time.
I did not wear it.
At eight I walked into Marchetti's in my navy dress, with the white box under my arm and my vows in my purse.
The private room had a long table, candles and eleven people.
I knew most of them. Three board members of Lowry Freight, the company my father built. Their wives. Emmett Rourke, the operations chief, at the far end, alone with a glass of water.
Gavin sat in the middle, and beside him sat Odette.
Odette had been his assistant for three years.
She brought me coffee whenever I stopped by the office, and she had asked me twice for the photo of my dad at the lake, because she loved hearing about him.
Tonight she wore a green silk dress.
It was the twin of the one in my box.
"Tilda!" She jumped up and hugged me, warm and quick. "Oh no, you didn't wear it. I told Gavin you'd hate green on you, but he insisted."
Gavin stood and kissed my cheek.
"There she is," he told the table. "She's been a little off this week, so be patient with us."
He said it lightly, and eleven people looked at me with kind faces.
Somebody at the end of the table had her phone raised.
I set the white box down in front of Odette's plate.
"Gavin," I said, "I wrote vows for tonight."
He laughed. "Babe. Not now."
"Now," I said.
I took the page out of my purse and unfolded it.
The room went quiet.
I read the first line aloud. It said I would be on his side for the next ten years, whatever came.
I stopped there, because Odette had stopped smiling.
"I had a long morning," I said to the table. "A dress came in the mail, and my husband told me to wear it."
Nobody moved.
"When I was eight, a woman wore a dress exactly like it to my parents' kitchen. She was my father's mistress."
Gavin's face did not change at all. That told me he had known.
"Tilda," he said softly. "Sit down. You're upset. We talked about the dress, remember? You said you loved it."
"I never said that," I told him. "Not once."
"Honey, you did."
I looked around the table.
Two of the wives glanced at each other.
The board member next to Gavin looked at his plate.
Only Emmett was looking at me, and he looked angry, but not at me.
I slid my wedding ring off my finger.
It was tight. It took a moment.
I set it on top of the white box, between Odette's glass and Gavin's.
"Ten years," I said. "Happy anniversary."
Then I folded my vows in half and put them back in my purse.
I walked out through the dining room, past the hostess stand and into the cold.
My hands were shaking in the parking lot, but I had made a decision, and it was one plain sentence.
I was done.
My phone buzzed before I reached the car.
Gavin had texted: I've told them you're not well. Come home and we'll sort this out quietly.
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