I’m fine. I just need to talk to Jeff. When I get back to the bench and stick my phone back in my purse, my fingers brush against a velvet box. It’s my grandmother’s antique ring, which I’m going to hand to the parents of the ring bearer when theyarrive. It feels good holding this ring. I feel connected to my dad again—it was his mom’s ring.
Jeff doesn’t pick up. He’s probably got his phone on silent already—he remembers to do stuff like that. Unlike me, who blasted “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” in a staff meeting last week when I forgot to turn my phone down. I couldn’t find it for a full minute. Mortifying. “I was only trying to get in the wedding mood!” I’d exclaimed, cheeks flaming.
It doesn’t help that I’m an elementary school librarian.
Still gripping the ring in my hand, I go back inside, heading for the reception desk. I’ll use their landline to call Jeff’s room directly.
Except I’m halfway down the hallway when the ring slips from my hand. Because of course it does. It clinks on the floor.
Then starts rolling away from me.
“Crap!”
I chase after it, but it’s going fast. I race toward where it curves…and rolls directly under a closed door.
I could laugh. I do laugh, lightly. It’s fine. It’s just a broom closet.
I reach for the handle but pause when I hear a giggle.
I imagined that, right?
Except then a male voice comes through. A familiar male voice.
“You’re so hot, baby.”
My stomach drops.
I know that voice. I was just looking for that voice. Only the man I know with that voice doesn’t say things like that.
“That’s right. Just like that.”
The colors in the hallway seem to fade, everything around me going blurry.
Another giggle.
Open the door, Maggie.
My hand goes to the handle. The metal’s cool under my palm.
The door is locked.
“Mmm. So hot.” The male voice once more.
I back up, my heart racing. I need to get into that room. I need to confirm that I’m wrong. But there’s no one in the hallway. The reception desk is a million miles away, around a corner.
I head back to the door to the back garden. I walk briskly through those sweet-smelling roses to where that man is now bent over beside the bush, clippers in hand. Even from the back, I can see he’s big, his broad shoulders filling out his dark blue coveralls.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Do you have keys to any of the doors inside?”
He must have headphones in. I gently tap him on the shoulder, my panic increasing.
The man abruptly stands up, looking startled. He towers over me. He’s younger than I expected, but that’s all I see. My vision’s blurry.“You’re so hot, baby”echoes in my ears.
“I need to get into the broom closet,” I say. “I lost something…under the door.”
A moment later, the man is inserting a key into the lock. He didn’t ask any questions. He must have seen the urgency on my face.
Then the door is open. And there’s Jeff, his hands up the dress of the woman who’s supposed to be doing my hair in an hour. Clara, Jeff’s hairstylist, who told me just last week in the salon as we mocked up hairstyles that she knew Jeff and I were going to have the most beautiful babies.
