Grant will not be asked to be usher.
James will grill.
Tomatoes will stain the plate.
The toast, if any, will be short.
No one will say it is nothing.
Nothing is banned.
Something happened in a garden.
A bride named it.
Then she left the lights on for other people and took her life off the property.
That is the whole plot.
The rest is weather, work, a child, a park bench with a clock, a diner, a plant, a dress sold, a pale-green bag in a garage, a blazer on a hotel chair the first night, a mother with keys, a groom with the engine off, a friend with please in her mouth, a father with a hand that should have known better, and a summer evening that looked expensive while it failed.
Save it for the toast, Claire said.
She meant: you do not get my dinner as a cover.
She meant: speak some other time, to some other microphone.
She meant: I am taking the night.