I would,” I said.
From the head table, Whitney’s smile came apart.
She hadn’t expected this.
In her version of the evening, I was scenery; scenery doesn’t ask for the microphone.
For just a second, before she rebuilt her composure, I saw something cross her face that I had waited my whole life to see her feel about me.
Uncertainty.
I walked toward the microphone.
I walked steadily, unhurried, the way you walk when you have decided something and the deciding is already behind you.
My heart was going hard, but my hands were still.
I took the microphone from the emcee, who surrendered it with a hospitable little bow, and I turned to face the room full of strangers who had watched me be humiliated and said nothing.
“I’ve prepared a very special presentation for the happy couple,” I said.
The guests applauded, warmly, the way people applaud a nice surprise.
I smiled at them, and I meant it, because they had no idea, and neither did my mother, and neither — for one more second — did my sister.
I held up the flash drive so the technician in the AV booth could see it, and I gestured toward the screen.
Chapter 7 — The First Image
The technician came down from the booth, took the flash drive with a professional nod, and carried it back up.
There was a pause — the small mechanical eternity of a file loading — and then the enormous LED screen behind the dance floor flickered, went blue, and woke up.
The first image appeared.