Chapter 7: The Hall

The union hall smelled like coffee, wet boots and a hundred years of cigarettes nobody had smoked inside since before I was born.

Two hundred ironworkers sat on folding chairs under the fluorescent lights on Wednesday night.

Some of them had known my grandfather.

Most of them had watched the wedding video.

Anson parked across the street and turned off the engine.

"I can come in," he said.

"You can't. Members only."

"Then I'll wait."

"It might take a while."

"I've got olives." He nodded at the glove box. "I brought the jar."

I laughed, and it got me out of the car.

The business agent stood behind the podium at the front, a heavy man with reading glasses pushed up on his head.

He'd been at my christening.

He read the complaint out loud in a flat voice.

On Tuesday, May 19, Reagan Dunleavy was observed impaired on the steel at Strahan Point, endangering her gang and the public.

A murmur went around the room.

"You want to answer that?" he said.

"I do."

I didn't go to the podium.

I stood up where I was, in the middle of the hall, so they'd have to turn around to look at me.

"I've been on the steel seven years," I said. "Three generations of my family paid dues in this room."

"Raise your hand if you've ever seen me drink before a shift."

Nobody's hand went up.

"Raise your hand if you've ever seen me drink after one."

Half the room put a hand up.

Somebody at the back yelled, "Shots after the Penguins game!"

The room laughed, and some of the stiffness went out of it.

"On Tuesday morning," I said, "a man in a clean white hat tried to fire me at the gate."

"In front of my gang and a news van."

"Because I wrote a report about bolts snapping on thirty-one."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Jilted at the Altar, I Married His Billionaire Uncle from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.