Chapter 24: Showcase Night

I wore the long green dress.

I had not planned to until I stood in front of the hotel mirror and saw it hanging in the closet.

It was the same dress, with the same hem.

I had carried it three years in a garment bag without knowing why.

When I walked into the ballroom at seven, four hundred people turned to look.

The room blazed with chandeliers and cut stones in glass cases.

Photographers lined the back wall.

Ansel stood at table nine with Rory on his knee, in a tiny black suit, with a pencil in his pocket.

The old teacher sat in the front row beside his wife, in a suit that was too big for him now.

When he saw me his face broke open.

I crossed the floor and kissed his cheek, and his wife took my hand in both of hers.

"You look like a queen," she said.

"I look like a woman in her old dress."

"It suits you."

"Imogen."

A soft voice came from my left.

Cordelia stood there in pale gold silk with her honey hair swept up.

She smiled at me, wide and kind, and then her gaze dropped to the dress, and the smile slipped.

It was a small slip.

It lasted less than a breath.

"You wore green," she said.

"I did."

"It's the color you had on the night..."

"Yes," I said. "It's the color you told me to wear."

Her eyes went still on mine.

Then the lights in the ballroom lowered and a spotlight found the dais.

She turned away and took her seat at the head table.

Four hundred cards sat on the tables in the dimness, each in a neat square hand.

Nobody was looking at them yet.

Lachlan walked to the microphone in a black suit, with a single sheet of paper that he did not unfold.

His mother sat at the head table in gray silk, and she did not look at him.

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