Chapter 17: The Green Dress

"Not the black," Maeve said. "Black is for funerals and lawyers."

"Black is safe."

"You're not going there to be safe. You're going to ruin a man in a ballroom."

She flipped through the rack with one finger.

"Green," she said.

The boutique on Larimer Street had one saleswoman, who had stopped pretending not to listen.

I held up a dress the color of a camellia leaf.

It had a square neck, a long skirt and a back that dipped low.

"Try it on," Maeve said. "If you hate it, I'll buy you the black myself and lay a wreath on it."

The fitting room had a three-way mirror.

I stood in it for a long time.

I saw a woman with ink on her fingertips and her hair coming loose.

She was twenty-nine years old, and she was not anyone's guest.

"Well?" Maeve called.

I pulled back the curtain.

My aunt put her hand over her mouth, and then took it away to say, "That's the one."

The saleswoman said, "Oh, honey, yes."

Briggs was waiting outside in his truck with the engine running.

I got in with the garment bag across my knees, and he eyed it warily, like it might explode.

"Don't ask," Maeve said from the back seat. "You'll see it when you see it."

"I can wait," Briggs said.

"Can you?"

He glanced at me, and his ears went red again.

We had a plan, such as it was.

Neil would bring the bank statements to the ballroom in his own coat pocket.

Maeve would deliver the centerpieces for Table Nine herself, which meant forty camellia branches and a clear view of the room.

And I would walk onto that stage and not stop at the card.

The ambulance was the part I had not figured out.

"It's a form with your name on it," Briggs had said that morning.

He had counted it off on his fingers.

"Once you're in a room full of people, they can't walk you out without a reason."

"And if they find one?"

"Then three hundred people watched you give a speech and then watched a stranger grab you," he had said. "I'd call that a gift."