Then he got down on one knee.
The room gasped—collective, half sentimental and half secondhand panic. The woman in green was crying before he'd finished her name.
I watched her sayyes. Watched him slide the ring onto her finger.
The whole room erupted in joy. The lighter-haired guy yelled something toward the side of the platform. The older woman in cream pressed a hand to her mouth, while the sandy-haired guy whooped like they were at a football game. The string quartet started up with something cheerful.
I looked away.
I wished her luck. I genuinely did. She looked like a decent person. She didn't deserve for her marriage to crash within a year, like these usually did. She could be one of the ones it stuck for.Maybe. Sure. Probably.
I went back to pouring pinot for the woman from Tuscany.
Sabrina, stop being like a bitter widow at a wedding you weren't invited to. Pour the wine. Smile at the lady. Let the rich people have their moment.
The next hour blurred—wine in, wine out. The tip jar was getting heavier. A man who tried to pay in fifties told me to keep the change. A woman asked me where I got my shoes.Discount Shoe Warehouse, ma'am, two-for-one in March.She laughed like I was joking. I let her.
The room thinned. People started drifting toward the doors with their coats over their arms. The string quartet went into the tireder repertoire—slower songs, less attention required. I started wiping down bottles I wasn't going to use again tonight.
I was so tired I could feel it in my eyelids.
I was thinking about the cab ride home, whether Mrs. Park had left a plate covered with foil on the stove, whether Bonnie was actually asleep or just lying there in the dark with Pickles on her chest, listening for the door. I wondered what I was going to say to her in the morning if she asked about the surgery, andlate autumnwasn't an answer I knew how to put into a sentence a kid could accept.
Then he sat down again.
The Negroni guy was back at the bar.
He looked tired around the eyes. He'd lost the jacket somewhere—sleeves rolled to the forearm now, top button undone, hair messier than it had been an hour ago. He didn't order. He just sat.
"What a night, huh?"
"What a night," I agreed.
"Honestly," he said, and he half-laughed, "I hate these events."
I stopped wiping the bottle. Set it down and leaned a hip against the back counter. "Yeah?"
"Too much. Too suffocating. I'm not sure how long I can deal with it." He rubbed the back of his neck. The hair on his forearm caught the blue light from the bar. "And the foundation—the foundation is its own kind of hell. The only good thing about it is that it actually helps people."
He was definitely a board member, a brother, a brother-in-law, or whatever the family attachment was. Either way, one of them was sitting across from me, telling me he hated it.One of themagreed with me.
I leaned across the bar.
I dropped my voice. "Can I tell you something? But you have to keep it between us."
His eyebrows went up. He leaned in. "I can keep a secret."
"I heard the owner of this whole foundation is just a trust-fund baby. Daddy gave him all the money. The whole thing's a vanity project."
He laughed.
He laughed loud—louder than the first time, loud enough that a couple at the nearest table looked over with offended faces. His head went back, hand came up to his chest, and he laughed long enough that the couple at the nearest table turned around twice.
I let out a low chuckle myself.Okay, fine. He's not the worst. I'll downgrade him from most annoying man of the night to?—
He stopped laughing. Wiped one eye with the back of his hand, and extended the other hand across the bar.
"It's nice to meet you. I'm Mr. Cross."
