Page 27 of Wreckage and Rain

"Thank you, Vivienne."

We enter the dining room. Sonny is near the sideboard, scotch in hand, flanked by Calloway and a couple I don't recognize. There are place cards on the table. Eight seats. White linen. More silverware than any single meal should require.

I find my card. I'm at the far end of the table. Between Calloway's wife, whose name I can never remember, and the man I don't know.

Colt's card is in the center. Next to Sonny on one side.

And Cheyenne on the other.

I read the cards twice. Colt Bennet, center left. Cheyenne Aldrich, center right. Summer King-Bennet, far end.

My husband in the middle. His work partner beside him. His wife in exile.

Vivienne did the seating, and she put me as far from Colt as an eight-person table allows.

I should say something. Switch the cards. Laugh it off. Vivienne, I think there's been a mix-up. But I don't. I look at the arrangement and I understand what it is. You don't belong at the center of this table. You don't belong at the center of his life. Here is your seat. Here is where we've put you. Be grateful you were invited at all.

I sit down.

***

Cheyenne arrives ten minutes after us, and she looks like she was built for this room.

Navy dress. Simple. Expensive. The kind of tasteful elegance Vivienne approves of. Her hair is down, falling in waves in a way that costs money and takes three hours. She walks into the Bennet dining room with the easy confidence of a woman who has been here before. Not physically. Energetically. She fits. She speaks this language.

I don't.

"Summer!" She comes to me first. Smart. It's always smart to greet the wife. It preempts suspicion, establishes goodwill, makes you look gracious. "You look amazing. I love the black."

"Thank you. You look great too."

She hugs me. Brief. Perfumed. The kind of hug that people who aren't friends give each other to perform friendship. I hug her back because I am a civilized person and because stabbing someone with a salad fork at a dinner party is generally frowned upon.

She takes her seat. Next to Colt. He turns to her and the careful version of him he wears at that firm all day is just gone. The work face drops. He's looser, easier. The smile that crinkles his eyes, the one I haven't seen aimed at me in months, lights right up for her. He has no idea he's doing it.

"Hey, you made it." His voice is warmer than it was when I got out of the car ten minutes ago.

"Wouldn't miss it." She smiles at him and their eye contact holds a second too long.

Dinner begins.

I talk to Calloway's wife. Her name is Carol. She collects miniature teapots and has opinions about hydrangeas. I am polite and attentive and I laugh at the right moments and I ask follow-up questions and I perform the role of the engaging dinner guest while my husband, eight feet away, is leaning toward Cheyenne and laughing at something she said about the Charlotte trip.

I can hear them. Not every word. Fragments. Remember when Calloway... and Cheyenne's laugh. That waiter was completely... and Colt's. They have inside jokes now. Stories that belong to them.

I cut my steak. I eat. I nod at Carol's teapot opinions.

Sonny is watching them too. From the head of the table. Scotch in hand. He's adjusting the silver salt and pepper shakers as he watches, sliding them a quarter inch left, then a quarter inch right. He's not just observing. He's pleased. The pleasure is small and specific and it lives in how he sets the salt down exactly where it was. Everything in its place.

I take a drink of wine, and then I see Cheyenne put her hand on Colt's forearm and squeeze. He covers her hand with his for a half-second, and nobody at the table reacts because nobody is watching, and the casualness of it tells me this isn't new. This is habitual.

I set my fork down.

"Excuse me," I say to Carol. "I need to use the restroom."

I walk out of the dining room. Down the hallway. Past the powder room. I keep walking until I reach the back door and I step onto the patio and the Charleston night wraps around me like a blanket I didn't ask for.

I press my back against the wall and I close my eyes.