Chapter 4.

4.

I returned to my bedroom and found my suitcase had been moved. It looked like a housekeeper had come through and cleaned up my mess. All the vomit in the bathroom was gone and my sailboat bunk bed had been remade with fresh linens and blankets. All my clothes were folded and put away in the dresser. And somebody must have gone around and chased away all the daddy longlegs because I didn’t see any more. Even the cedar closet was finally free of them.

I unzipped my garment bag and carefully unpacked the components of my tuxedo. It was a beautiful suit, hand-tailored in Italy—a pearl-gray jacket with matching vest and flat-front pants. The white twill shirt was immaculately pressed and cool to the touch; I carefully pushed the black onyx studs through the buttonholes. The accessory package included a clip-on bow tie, but in the weeks leading up to the wedding I’d spent many hours in front of my bathroom mirror, practicing and mastering the real deal. Now I could knot a real bow tie in ninety seconds flat. I wasn’t sure if anyone at the wedding would notice the difference, but I felt better knowing it was done right.

I was fastening my cuff links into my shirt sleeves when my cell phone buzzed with an incoming call: SUPERCUTS .

“Hey, Vicky.”

“Frank, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Everything’s fine.”

“I’ve been so worried about you. I thought you were going to call me last night. What happened to the girl?”

“They found drugs in her cottage. Something called xylazine.” The words stuck in my throat like glue, but I managed to force them out. “She seemed like a very troubled person.”

“And Dawn Taggart? What about her?”

“It was just a big misunderstanding, Vicky.” I hated myself for lying but I sure couldn’t admit the truth. “I think what happened is, I’m just not used to these kinds of people. Because Stroudsburg is such a small town? I’ve been misinterpreting a lot of things. But everything’s better now. It’s all straightened out.”

She must have heard something in my voice that she didn’t like. “Are you sure? My son seemed pretty worried about you, Frank. He wouldn’t go into detail. Citing his journalistic code of ethics or what have you. But he seemed very uncomfortable with the whole situation.”

I assured Vicky that Todd was wrong, that everything was fine, and then added that the ceremony was starting in an hour. “So I need to finish getting dressed.”

“Okay, I’ll let you go,” she said, but then instead of hanging up she stayed on the line. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll call you when I get home.”

“All right. Good luck with your toast!”

Right, the toast. After I ended the call, I opened my desk drawer and took out the single sheet of yellow lined paper with my final draft. I know her mother’s watching us from heaven, and I know she’s pleased by what she sees. And at last I realized why I’d struggled so much with the toast, why my speech had always felt so false and phony. I suppose deep down inside I had never believed a word of it.