Chapter 7: The Trunk Show

Whitley's boutique sat on a corner of the North Loop with a hand-lettered gold sign over the door.

On the first Saturday of November she threw a trunk show for the wedding party, with champagne and a string quartet and sixty guests.

The invitation had come to my desk with a sticky note in her handwriting.

"Bring him. I'd love to see you two together."

"It's a trap," I told Anson in the cab.

"Obviously."

"Do you want to go?"

He looked out the window at the lit-up storefronts.

"I want to see what it looks like," he said. "A woman who keeps your secrets and sends you gold edges."

We went.

The shop was all white orchids and mirrored walls.

Whitley met us at the door in a blush dress, kissed my cheek, and shook Anson's hand with both of hers.

"I'm so glad," she said. "Everyone's dying to meet you."

Jared hovered behind her with a glass in each hand and didn't look at me.

Anson put his palm flat against my back, and we went in.

For an hour it was almost nothing.

Women I half knew touched my arm and said how brave I'd been.

Anson stood at my shoulder with a glass of water, saying less than anyone, and I felt eyes on us from every corner.

Then the quartet stopped between pieces, and a voice cut across the room.

"Anson? Anson Merrow?"

A woman in a green silk dress had stepped out from the crowd.

She was pretty and hard-eyed and about thirty, and I had never seen her in my life.

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