Chapter 3 - Table Forty-Two
The ballroom was a labyrinth of social traps,
and I navigated it with a practiced,
stony calm.
I found my place card at the very back of the room,
tucked away near a decorative palm tree and a hidden speaker.
Table 42.
The number felt like a deliberate insult,
a way to remind me that I was the very last of the last.
There were no high-ranking politicians at this table,
no titans of industry,
no cousins with jewelry that sparkled like stars.
There was only me,
and a few distant relatives who had been invited out of a sense of grim obligation.
The table was so far from the stage that Mason looked like a miniature figure,
a tiny man in a tiny world of white roses.
My place card said only "Ruth Foley,"
no middle name,
no title,
no recognition of the woman I had become.
It was perfect.
I sat down,
the plastic chair feeling stiff beneath me,
and watched the high-society ballet unfold.
I saw Walter Foley enter the room on the opposite side,
and the atmosphere seemed to freeze in his wake.
He was seventy now,
but he still carried himself with the arrogance of an emperor.
His hair was a shock of silver,
his tuxedo was a masterpiece of tailoring,
and his eyes were like flint.
He moved through the crowd,
accepting tributes of handshakes and smiles,
as if the Grand Bellevue were his private residence.
Beside him was Shane,
now middle-aged,
his face bloated by expensive whiskey and cheap triumphs.
Shane saw me first.
I saw the way his eyes widened,
then narrowed,
as he leaned in to whisper into our father's ear.
Walter’s head turned slowly,
like a turret of a battleship searching for a target.
Our eyes met across the vast expanse of the ballroom,
across twenty-one years of silence,
and hatred,
and pride.
I didn't look away,
I didn't bow my head,
I simply sat at Table 42 and watched him.
He began to walk toward me,
Shane trailing behind him like a loyal,
hungry dog.
The conversations around us died down,
the guests sensing a blood-scent in the water.
"Well,"
Shane said,
his voice loud enough to carry to the neighboring tables.
"The ghost finally decided to haunt us."
I didn't answer him,
I only looked at Walter.
My father studied my dress,
his lip curling in a sneer that had been decades in the making.
"Ruth,"
he said,
his voice as dry as old parchment.
"I wasn't sure Mason's sentimentality would actually go this far."
"Hello,
Walter,"
I replied,
lifting my glass of cheap house wine.
The sound of his first name coming from my lips was like a slap in the face.
A woman at the next table gasped,
clutching her pearls as if I had committed a sacrilege.
Shane laughed,
a hollow,
vicious sound.
"Still dramatic,
I see."
They stood there,
towering over Table 42,
May you like
trying to make me feel small.
But they didn't realize that I had spent the last two decades in places much more dangerous than a ballroom.
