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She managed a nod, and then when he smiled, she looked away. Better to focus on the moment—his withdrawal, the condom disposal, the arranging of their clothes and their faces, the unlocking and opening of the door. Better not to think about what was happening to her.
What he meant to her.
What she felt when he looked at her that way.
By the time the wiener dog burst into the room, Ben looked like nothing had happened, but May still felt as though she’d been ripped into tiny pieces and scattered all over the place.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Allie knelt at the apex of the horseshoe-shaped table and committed murder with a staple gun.
Her victim was a wad of gauzy pink and orange and white ribbons, which she was supposed to be forming into some sort of rosette to adorn the head of the reception table.
T-minus five hours until the wedding, and the whole family was at the National Railroad Museum, decorating the reception hall. The room was high-ceilinged, with a warehouse feel and six neat rows of enormous train cars—engines, sleeping cars, cabooses—lined up like, well, boxcars. Toward the front of the room, the museum staff had arranged tables and chairs in a large space crowned by a horizontal reception table. There were twinkling lights on the engines and a decorative archway for leaving presents underneath. A temporary dance floor and a space for the DJ to set up.
Anybody could have a reception at Brett Favre’s Steakhouse or the Holiday Inn. It took a couple with a little verve to throw a party at the train museum.
Plus, Matt was kind of a train nerd.
Her mother was determined to turn the assembled plastic tables and chairs into a romantic getaway for two hundred and fifty people. Allie had to applaud her dogged determination, however misguided.
A bright pink and orange decal on the entry door said ALLIE AND MATT in flowing script, and the tables were covered with linens in matching orange, pink, and yellow. May and Ben had beheaded hundreds of fake daisies and scattered them artfully around the white china. Mom had made a garland of daisies for the gift-gazebo-thing, which she was fastening in place with twist ties. Allie was stuck with rosette-making duty.
The stapler struck the ribbons with a satisfying bang.
Rosettes were for women who gave a damn about beaded bodices and lemon-chiffon frosting. They were for giggling girls who fainted with happiness at the idea of hundreds of guests clinking their champagne glasses with forks, demanding that the Princess and her Prince Charming engage in PDA.
Allie was not one of those girls. She didn’t care about ribbons. She cared about dogs and long hikes in the woods and Matt. She cared about him deeply, but she didn’t love him the right way.
She’d thought May would tell her that was okay. That sometimes love wasn’t balanced. That passion never lasted, and stability mattered.
She’d thought May would say that Matt was good and lovable and he’d treat Allie well for the rest of her life.
But she hadn’t said it. She hadn’t said anything.
May’s loud laughter echoed through the reception hall. She and Ben were on the other end of the room, setting buckets of daisies on the tables. The laugh was new—since she came home, May had been quiet the way she got when something was eating at her, and Ben was as tightly wound as he’d app
eared in the cell phone picture May had snapped for her.
But they had this heat between them. Allie didn’t get how it was possible that nobody saw it but her.
Maybe they did see. Seeing but not speaking was how her family rolled. They needed a Latin motto that meant If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.
“Don’t forget the medallion, hon!” her mom called from across the room.
Allie picked up the shiny silver circle from the table and sneered at it. It said “Allison and Matthew” in black script, and it was supposed to go in the center of the rosette.
Brandishing the only weapon she had, she stapled the living shit out of it.
“How’s that coming along?” Mom asked.
“Great!” she shouted. “You’re going to love it.”
Her mother would be appalled. All the guests would look at Allie’s misshapen, mangled rosette and wonder what had happened, but no one would say anything, because she was The Bride. She’d discovered that the status gave her an odd sort of power.
It’s your day, her mother kept saying. Whatever you want!
She wanted doughnuts for breakfast.
