Chapter 10: City Hall

I finished the cannoli.

I licked the sugar off my thumb.

When they came back with the coffee, I was looking at the framed photo of Coney Island.

"We look so happy there," I said.

"We are happy, babe," said Raffaele.

His mother poured my coffee and smiled at me with her son's mouth.

On Thursday night I didn't sign anything.

I put the envelope in my bag and told Raffaele I'd bring it with me, signed, in the morning.

He kissed me goodnight through my door.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Eleven a.m. Don't be late, babe."

"I won't."

The Office of the City Clerk is a long gray room on Worth Street.

It has numbered tickets, a gift shop that sells plastic bouquets, and twenty couples waiting on benches.

I wore a white sundress and my denim jacket.

Raffaele wore the blue suit and a flower in his buttonhole.

He'd brought everyone.

His mother, in black and pearls.

Chiara, in red, as his witness.

The gold chain and the woman with the bob from the sales office.

And a heavy man in a gray blazer I recognized from Chiara's steakhouse.

The owner, who had bought more of Raffaele's wine than anyone in New York.

"He's my best customer," Raffaele whispered. "He insisted on coming."

"How sweet," I said.

Chiara hugged me.

"You look like an angel," she said in English.

To the bob, in Italian, she said, "An angel from a discount store."

They both smiled at me.

I smiled back.

His mother held out her hand, palm up.

"The paper," she said in English.

"It's in my bag," I said. "I'll give it to Raffaele at the counter."

She nodded, satisfied.

Our number came up at ten fifty-two.

We walked up together, Raffaele and me, his mother and Chiara behind us, the guests behind them.

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