On Halloween My Husband Bet I'd Never Leave Him So I Stopped Waiting novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Microphone

The Pierhouse had been rebuilt in white.

White flowers, white linen, and a white stage at the river end with a stand for a microphone.

Camille had paid for every petal.

Three hundred guests drifted through it with glasses in their hands, lenders and clients and the wives of men who owned container ships.

I came in at nine-thirty on my mother's arm.

I wore black, plain and long, with my grandmother's swallow pin at my collar.

Heads turned all the way across the room.

Camille saw me from the stage steps and kept her smile.

She had a bandage on her wrist, from nothing, and a pale face for the cameras.

At ten exactly she took the microphone.

I knew the minute without looking at a clock, because she had once begged me not to leave before it.

"Friends," she said. "Thank you for coming on what has been a difficult month for the company."

She asked the host to set her phone in its stand at the edge of the stage, aimed at the room.

"I'd like this recorded," she said. "For the family."

A soft laugh ran through the crowd.

"A few weeks ago my dearest friend and I had a terrible misunderstanding. She is not well, and I forgive her. I am here tonight to say the company is in steady hands, and I will protect it the way her father wanted me to."

She turned and put her hand to her heart.

"I'd ask Bianca to come up and take my hand. Let's end this in front of everyone."

Three hundred people looked at me.

I let the silence run until it hurt.

Then I walked to the stage, and I climbed the white steps.

Camille held out her hand.

I did not take it.

I took the microphone out of its stand.

"Thank you, Camille," I said. "I would like to say a few things in front of everyone."

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