Chương 5
“Claire, come on.”
“Did you?”
“I pushed back on some things.”
“Which things?”
“The ice sculpture.”
Despite herself, Claire remembered it.
Margaret had wanted their initials carved into a six-foot ice wall behind the raw bar.
Claire almost smiled.
Ethan noticed.
“See?”
“No.”
“You smiled.”
“At the fact that your defense is an ice sculpture.”
His eyes filled.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that he blinked harder.
“I screwed this up.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“I screwed it up so badly I don’t even know where to start.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“Start with why.”
He leaned against the opposite wall.
“When Dad died, Mom got strange about events.”
Claire frowned.
Ethan rarely spoke about his father.
Thomas Vale had died of a heart attack six years earlier at fifty-nine. Claire had seen photographs of him but never heard much beyond anecdotes polished from repetition.
“His funeral was the first time I saw her care what people thought more than what was happening,” Ethan said. “She kept changing flowers. She made me switch ties because she thought mine photographed badly. At the cemetery she asked if enough people from Dad’s firm came.”
Claire said nothing.
“I hated her for it. Then I started doing the same thing.”
“How?”
“I kept thinking if the wedding looked right, maybe I’d feel right.”
The answer was ugly enough to sound true.
Claire looked down at her bare ring finger.
“And I was useful.”
He flinched.
“I never thought of you like that.”
“Your mother did.”
“My mother thinks everybody is useful or useless depending on the day.”
“You let her.”
“Yes.”
The word came quietly.
Claire had expected an argument.
It destabilized her more than one would have.
Ethan wiped his face with both hands.
“I kept telling myself I’d repay you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“With what?”
“I make good money.”
“So do I.”
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
He stared at her.
Claire had inherited part of her money, but not in the way Margaret sometimes implied when telling people Claire was “comfortable.”
Her father had owned three neighborhood pharmacies outside Baltimore. When he died, Claire and Rachel sold two and kept one property under lease. Claire had spent the next eight years working in healthcare analytics, living in a townhouse smaller than the one Ethan rented before they met, and treating money like a fire extinguisher: important mainly because emergencies existed.
Ethan knew that.
He also knew Claire hated discussions that made her sound wealthy.
Margaret did not share the discomfort.
Within months of the engagement, Claire’s financial stability had become a family resource people referred to indirectly.
She has flexibility.
Claire doesn’t mind.
It makes more sense for her to put it down.
She gets the points anyway.
Each sentence had been small.
Together they had built a wedding.
Ethan said, “I’ll pay you back.”
Claire looked at him.
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“You can pay invoices. You can’t pay back what this was.”
His mouth tightened.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I don’t know what you know anymore.”
The ballroom door opened.
Rachel stepped into the corridor.
“Sorry. Five minutes became eleven, and Margaret is trying to get Daniel to call corporate.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Of course she is.”
Rachel looked at Claire. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
Claire pushed away from the wall.
Ethan said her name.
She stopped.
“If there were no message,” he asked, “would you still marry me tomorrow?”
Claire turned.
He looked terrified.
It was, she realized, the first real question he had asked her all evening.
She thought about saying yes because cruelty would have been easier than uncertainty.
Instead she told the truth.
“I don’t know.”
He absorbed it slowly.
“Okay.”
It was the most adult thing either of them had said.
Back in Daniel’s office, Margaret was on the phone.
“Yes, corporate,” she was saying. “This manager is allowing a private domestic dispute to interfere with a contracted event.”
Daniel stood by his desk, expression blank.
Claire entered.
Margaret pointed to the phone.
“They’re transferring me.”
Daniel said, “Mrs. Vale, you are welcome to speak with anyone you like.”
“Good.”
“It will not change the payer authorization.”
Margaret turned away.
Rachel whispered, “I think he’s enjoying himself now.”
Daniel heard.
“I am not.”
“You almost smiled.”
“I did not.”
Claire sat down.
For a few seconds, the absurdity relieved something in the room.
Then Claire’s phone began vibrating with messages.
Bridesmaids.
Ethan’s brother.
Her aunt.
A college friend.
The rehearsal dinner guests had been redirected to the hotel restaurant, but rumors had already started.
Rachel read over Claire’s shoulder.
“That was fast.”
Claire opened the wedding party group chat.
ETHAN’S BROTHER, MARK: Is rehearsal delayed?
JESS: Someone said the ballroom is being canceled???
NOLAN: Guys what is happening
MELISSA: Claire are you okay?
Then another.
MARK: Mom says Claire is having some kind of breakdown.
Claire looked at Margaret.
Margaret was still on hold.
Rachel saw the message.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
Claire caught her wrist before she could take the phone.
“Don’t.”
“She’s telling people you’re unstable.”
“I can read.”
“Then let me answer.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what I’m saying yet.”
Rachel stared at her.
Then slowly nodded.
That was the first moment Claire understood the next part would be harder than canceling the wedding.
The cancellation had buttons, signatures, numbers.
The story about the cancellation belonged to everybody.
At 8:20 p.m., Daniel brought them a preliminary accounting.
Thirty-one thousand four hundred dollars in hotel charges could not be recovered.
Another seventeen thousand was uncertain.
Nearly fifty-two thousand in future hotel charges could be stopped.
Outside vendors had their own terms.
Claire read every line.
Margaret watched her.
“You’re really doing this.”
Claire looked up.
“Yes.”
“What am I supposed to tell two hundred people?”
The phrasing was so Margaret that Claire almost admired it.
Not What happened to my son?
May you like
Not Are you all right?
What am I supposed to tell people?
