Chapter 20: The Toast

I made the dress myself, in four nights, on the shop's biggest machine.

It was midnight blue silk, cut simply, with a high back and a hem I'd weighted so it would swing.

It had pockets.

I was proud of the pockets.

The cab let me out at the Plaza at seven, and I walked up the red carpet alone.

Rafe had gone in an hour before, through the side door, because a voter has to be seated before the doors open.

He hadn't liked leaving me.

I'd told him it was the one walk I wanted to make by myself.

The photographers were three deep behind the rope.

The man in the leather jacket was among them, and he did not lift his camera.

Somebody called, "Mrs. Aldane!" and then, "Ms. Gallivan!"

I stopped on the carpet for exactly as long as it took to say, "Thank you for asking."

Then I went inside.

The ballroom was the same ballroom.

It had the same two hundred chairs and the same crystal.

The head table stood at the far end under the same chandelier.

I had walked down the length of it in April with my wedding ring in a water glass.

I walked up the length of it now, in silk, with nobody's arm.

People turned.

The old woman in the lavender suit lifted her cane an inch off the floor, like a salute.

Near the back, the columnist in the grey jacket gave me a single slow nod.

Cheyenne sat at table nine in a plain black dress, with her hands clamped together in her lap.

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