Page 17

"I looked."

Bunny Fenwick bears down on us at the door with a headset, a clipboard, and an expression of immense private satisfaction.

"Table six," she says. "Back to the wall for Mr. Mercer. I've heard he prefers it."

I look at Hollis. Hollis very casually looks at the beams.

"I didn't hear it from you," Bunny adds, and sails off.

Table six has Carmen in a fitted jumpsuit with a lipstick that could stop traffic, and Ruth in her crocheted cardigan with a corsage pinned to it. The chair against the wall is waiting for me with its back to the plaster and a clean line to the door. Hollis slides into the seat beside it as if she had nothing to do with that either.

"You told Bunny," I say, low.

"I told Carmen, who told Bunny, who has a sixth sense for the thing you're about to need." She butters a roll. "It's a gift. It's also a curse."

"Thank you."

"It's a roll, Ben."

"Hollis."

She looks at me. "You're welcome," she says, softer. Her knee presses against mine under the table and stays there.

Dinner is loud. The threshing floor fills with three hundred people and the sound goes up into the beams and comes back down as one warm roar. I count exits without trying. Two doors, a loading hatch, a stair to the loft. My chest is tight, but I put my back to the wall and my shoulder an inch from Hollis's, and it holds.

Carmen tells a story about a catering disaster with a goat. Ruth corrects her. Hollis laughs. She laughs with her head back, her hand flat on her chest, her shoulders shaking. The sound takes up all the room it wants.

It's the best thing in the building. I've counted. It's eleven times by the time the plates are cleared.

At seven-fifteen, Bunny appears at the microphone between the salad and the main course.

"And now," she announces, "our annual Founders' Couples Trivia! Three questions, married folks sit this one out, and the winning pair gets their name on the Lantern Walk plaque for the year. New couples especially welcome." She beams directly at us. "Hollis and Ben, you're up first."

"No," Hollis says, pleasantly, to her water glass.

"Yes," Bunny says. "Stand up, both of you."

I stand. I look at Hollis. I'm actually enjoying this.

She stands. Three hundred people swivel in their chairs.

"Question one," Bunny says. "Ben, what's Hollis's favorite song?"

I don't hesitate. "Dream a Little Dream. Ella Fitzgerald. B-flat. She hums it when she's working."

The room makes a noise. Hollis stares at me.

"Question two. Hollis, Mrs. Dunleavy across the street says the two of you were out on that porch swing at three o'clock this morning. What was Ben doing up?"

Color floods her cheeks. The whole room is silent. I could kill Bunny with my eyes, but I look at Hollis, and she looks at me with a question.

I nod. Once. A permission she didn't ask for.

"Counting," she says quietly. "He'd woken up from a bad dream. He counts to fourteen to get back. I knocked on the wall so he'd know he wasn't alone, and then we sat out on the porch with some terrible tea until he could get back to bed."

Someone in the back sniffles. Carmen has both hands over her mouth.

Bunny takes off her glasses and wipes them. "Final question, for both of you. How long have you known each other?"