Chapter 24: The Front Door

The Grand Plaza ballroom looked smaller with only thirty chairs in it.

I stood in the doorway at one o'clock on a Saturday in November and counted them twice.

Thirty-one, with the one my mother had brought from home.

At the far end stood the same floral arch from the other wedding, white roses and green.

It was two feet to the left of where it should be.

I could not help it.

I walked the length of the room in flat shoes and pushed it over by hand.

"Now it's straight," said a voice behind me.

I turned around.

Vaughn stood at the front of the ballroom, beside the arch, in the black suit.

It was an hour before the ceremony, and he was already there.

He had been there, I learned later, since eleven.

"You're early," I said.

"I'm told it's a rule."

"Whose?"

"Yours."

"I haven't made one for this."

"You've made me a hundred," he said. "I keep every one."

I looked at him standing there alone at the end of the aisle with his hands behind his back.

A month earlier, a man had left this room for a sprained ankle that wasn't one.

The new owners of the Grand Plaza had sent the key over themselves, with an apology.

It was the nicest room in the city, and nobody was in it but us.

"Where's everyone?"

"Your mother is across the street buying lilies. She's decided the roses are 'a bit much.'"

"She hasn't called you son yet?"

"Twice this morning. I'm still not used to it."

"Good."

He smiled, a real one, quick and crooked.

Then it went away, and he put his hand into his jacket and took out a small velvet box.

I knew the box.

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