Page 257 of ClickBack

“I am whispering.”

“You’re whispering to the people downstairs.”

Nina laughs and puts hers in her bag. “We’ll get them to him.”

Di returns for the third. Trina gets the last because she brought me the idea and because, once she understands that I actually did it, withholding a role would require a negotiation we do not have time for.

Rae comes back while Trina is reading the number on hers.

“Do you need me to take something?” my daughter asks.

“No,” Di, Trina, and I say together.

Rae looks at the envelopes. Then at me.

“Never mind. I’ve changed my offer.”

Bellamy laughs into Nina’s shoulder while I send them all out before somebody explains more than necessary.

A knock interrupts the retreat. Kristian stands outside with a slim box in her hands. I recognize Javon’s guest from the rehearsal dinner, though I have to retrieve her name a moment after I recognize her face. Tonight she wears a dark green dress, the brace visible beneath its slit.

“Jarrett asked me to bring you this,” she says. “And to tell you he’s tried your phone.”

I look toward the chair where I abandoned it.

“He said you’d probably do that.” She smiles. “He just wants to know you got it.”

“Would you tell him I did?”

“I will.”

Nina makes room for her in the doorway and asks whether she has found their table. Bellamy begins explaining where to sit with enough detail that Kristian laughs and says she will follow them. I thank her before they go. She has carried a gift upstairs, and I let that be all anybody needs from her right now.

Inside the box is a photograph of me beside the racing games at Replay, turning back toward the camera. The gold earrings catch the light. I remember asking Jarrett whether he was coming, impatient to get to the next game.

His note is tucked behind it.

You kept telling me to hurry up. I had the ring in my pocket and was trying to get one more picture of you before you knew. East door at 5:20. I won’t look. Come let me hold your hand.

I look at the photograph again. I have been living inside a memory he was looking at from the other side.

Rae brings me a tissue without asking what is in the box.

“He did something nice?”

“Very.”

“Well, tell him to stop until after the pictures.”

She helps me into the dress and takes charge of the buttons. There are thirty-one. I counted them at the fitting, and so did Di, who had strong feelings about the person expected to open them later.

Rae begins at the bottom. I stand facing the window while her knuckles brush my back. We can see each other in the glass.

“Nanny would’ve liked this dress,” she says.

“She would have wanted a sleeve.”

Rae laughs. “She would have brought a jacket.”