Constance smiled, almost sadly, as though she were the gracious one, the practical one, the woman willing to say what others were too refined to mention. She adjusted the cuff of her cream silk jacket and glanced around the salon with the faint awareness of an audience. She enjoyed an audience. Women like her always did. They called it poise when they possessed it and impropriety when anyone else did.
“I’m only trying to spare you embarrassment, Vivian,” she said. “These things matter in our circles. White has meaning. Tradition has meaning. One should be respectful of both.”
Tabitha, Derek’s younger sister, shifted her designer handbag higher on her arm and looked away before I could catch her eye. Aunt Margot gave a tiny, approving nod, as if Constance had merely corrected an error in place settings at a formal dinner.
Twelve strangers watched me decide what kind of woman I was going to be.
A sales associate with a name tag that read MIRANDA looked as if she might cry.
I climbed carefully down from the platform, because women in fourteen-thousand-dollar gowns do not stumble no matter how hard someone is trying to make them bleed.
“Okay,” I said.