“Do you want to go home.”
“I want tomorrow not to include a man who touches my friend at my dinner and calls it nothing.”
“Then we postpone.”
“Don’t decide my sentence.”
He waited. Waiting was why she had picked him. She hated him a little for being decent while her father was not. That hate was not fair and it was still in her mouth.
Patricia found them. She had the car keys.
“The guests are being told Claire is unwell. That is the story for tonight. You can burn it tomorrow if you want. Tonight I am getting you out of this garden.”
Claire laughed, a dry sound.
“Unwell. Sure.”
They left. Grant did not come to the circle. Riley did not come to the circle. The string lights kept doing their job for other people’s wine.
At the Bennett house Claire stood in the kitchen she had known since childhood and drank water from the tap. Patricia sat. James stood. The rehearsal dress felt like a costume from a play that had closed at intermission.
“I will call the venue at six,” Patricia said.
“You will wait until I say,” Claire said.
Patricia nodded once. The nod cost her. Management was her religion. She was being asked to sit in a pew and not run the service.