She Called the Bride the Help, So I Read the Bill Aloud novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Night Before
On Friday night I did not rehearse.
I had rehearsed on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday.
I had done it in the van, in the shower, and in front of the walk-in with my cooks pretending to be a garden club.
By Friday I knew every line, and the lines were not the problem.
The problem was that I was going to stand in the Claiborne garden in front of two hundred forty people.
I wanted, very badly, to be held first.
Reuben came at nine with a paper sack.
"I brought bread," he said. "And a lemon. I didn't know what you'd want."
"Nobody brings a lemon."
"I do." He looked at the sack. "It's a lemon for tea. I thought you'd want something to do with your hands."
I laughed, and then I put my forehead against his chest and stayed there.
He did not say a thing.
He put his arms around me.
One hand came up to the back of my head.
We stood in the doorway of my apartment while the neighbor's television went on and on through the wall.
"I'm frightened," I said into his shirt.
"I know," he said.
"I'm not frightened of her. I'm frightened of getting it wrong."
"What does wrong look like?" he asked.
"My voice cracks. I cry. I stand up there and I can't read my own handwriting."
"Then your voice cracks," Reuben said. "Then you cry. They'll wait."
"You don't know that."
"I do," he said. "I have stood on a stage and watched four hundred people wait for a trumpet player who forgot the bridge. They wait."
I laughed again, wetly.
He took my face in his hands and looked at me.
I saw that he was frightened too, and had decided not to show it.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of She Called the Bride the Help, So I Read the Bill Aloud are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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