How to Say Our Final Goodbye novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Toast
"I won't," I said.
"Good girl. Wear something pretty. You're at my table."
She hung up.
I sat down on the landing and laughed until I had to put my head on my knees.
At six o'clock on Thursday, July 9, the doorman lit the first lantern.
He did it with my mother's long brass pole, standing in the middle of the empty Lantern Room in his green coat.
The whole night staff stood along the walls and watched.
Then the banquet captain lit the second.
Then the night cook.
Then the head of housekeeping, then Dolly, then the bellmen, then the kid from the sound booth, who had to stand on a chair.
They saved the last one for me.
I took the pole and reached up and touched the flame to the wick.
The fortieth lantern swung and glowed, and the whole room went gold.
Nobody said anything.
The doorman took the pole back and put it away.
"Places, everybody," I said.
By seven-thirty there were three hundred people under those lanterns.
Thirty round tables in cream linen.
White hydrangeas, because the grandmother didn't like roses at a wedding.
Crab cakes the night cook had cooked three ways for a banker who took notes.
The Wainscott board sat at the two front tables, in dark suits, with their wives.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of How to Say Our Final Goodbye are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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