Chapter 16: Play It Loud

The church doors opened and three hundred heads turned.

I heard the gasp before I saw the faces.

It rolled down the pews like a wave.

I had worn red to a wedding that was supposed to bury me.

"Roz," Camille hissed in my ear, still smiling. "What is that? Where's the dress?"

"I left it at your place."

"You promised."

"I did. I promise a lot of things."

I took my arm out of hers.

I walked down the aisle alone.

The organist saw me and lost the tune.

Spencer stood at the altar in his morning coat with his hair gleaming.

His grin was wide and sure.

He had seen a size eighteen woman in red walk toward him, and he had decided that meant he had won.

Gerald sat in the front pew.

He did not look at me.

Grayson sat beside him in a dark suit, his hands knotted together in his lap.

I stopped three steps below the altar.

"You're late," Spencer said under his breath. "And that's the wrong color."

"I know."

"Take your place, sweetheart."

"I'd like to say something first."

The officiant coughed.

He was a thin man with a prayer book and a bad toupee.

"The bride may speak at the end," he said.

"I'm not the bride."

A murmur.

I climbed the three steps and walked to the lectern, where a small black microphone was clipped to the wood.

A man in a headset stood at the side wall with a laptop on a folding table.

Jasper had paid him last night.

I had a cable in my pocket.

I plugged my phone into the table's input, and the man in the headset lifted two fingers to me.

"Rosalind," Gerald said, rising halfway. "Sit down."

"I've sat for twenty-seven years, Dad."

I turned to the church.

"Good morning," I said, and my voice came back at me from every speaker in the building. "Thank you for coming to my wedding."

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