Page 47 of All In
She’d probably been too busy with her job to know too much about my situation, and part of me wanted to smile and make light of it. But my personal recovery plan was to be as honest as I could. With everyone.
“Yeah, I moved. I couldn’t hack it. I live in New Orleans now.” I stirred my soup. “That’s the sanitized version of what happened. The Black Plague version is, I ran out of town without telling anyone where I was going and spent the last six months in New Orleans, drunk off my ass.”
Tania’s eyebrows shot up, but then she nodded. “Okay.”
“Theo found me, dropped everything to help me sober up—and it wasn’t any goddamn picnic for him, I can tell you. Now I’m here, all dressed up for a wedding, instead of dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“I’m so happy you’re here.” Tania’s eyes glanced at Theo. “He’s a rock, that guy.”
“How so?”
She spooned a bite of soup then dabbed her napkin to her mouth. “You know I was Jonah’s assistant in the hot shop. Carnegie Mellon paid me to do that job. But for an installation the size Jonah envisioned, I didn’t think two people could complete it on time. I couldn’t be there every minute—I had my own classes at UNLV. So Theo stepped in. He’d never worked with glass before. Jonah and I showed him the basics, and it just clicked for him. The job needed to be done and he was going to do it. He just went for it. All in. And when the installation was finished, I got all the credit for the assist. I tried to get Theo to put his name on the paperwork for the Wynn show. Jonah tried. Hell, Jonah was about to do it without Theo’s permission. But Theo side-stepped us, went to Eme Takamura directly, and told her his name wasn’t to appear anywhere with relation to the installation.”
“Why wouldn’t he take any credit?”
Tania shrugged. “That’s just how he is. So it doesn’t surprise me in the least he dropped everything to fly to you when you needed him. It’s what he does. If there’s a job to do, he does it.”
I nodded, thinking about Theo being best man for Oscar.Jonah would have done it.
Tania had grown quiet. I saw her jaw work and her eyes fixed on the water glass in front of her.
I covered her hand with mine. “Hey.”
She smiled, not looking at me. “God, I miss him like hell.”
“I know.” The words held the deepest, hardest truth for everyone in this room.
I miss you, Jonah. We all miss you.
It was easy to feel like I suffered the most. To believe the bulk of the pain was mine to choke down—an enormous mouthful, while everyone else only had to chew little bites. But everyone who’d known Jonah had a plate of pain to swallow.
Every instinct screamed to change the subject before I started crying again, but instead I squeezed Tania’s fingers.
“Jonah couldn’t have finished the installation if it hadn’t been for you,” I said. “I know for a fact he considered you one of his best friends. He loved you like hell. That’s why you miss him like hell.”
“Thanks, Kace.” Tania smiled and swiped away a tear. “I know he did, but it’s nice when someone else says it.”
The next morning, we drove in a cavalcade of sedans to the Centennial Club, twenty minutes outside Albany. The club was a stately, 18thcentury manor, with many gables piercing its red roof. It sat on a huge field of grass, like an island floating on a flat, green sea.
Dena and her bridesmaids, along with her mother and grandmother, were ensconced in one wing of the big manor, while Oscar and his menfolk were on the other. The ceremony would be in the sprawling backyard that looked more like a football field, and the reception in the grand ballroom.
In the east wing, the bridesmaids slipped on our coral-colored dresses, while Dena had her hair and makeup tended to. The strapless dresses had crisscrossing folds over the bodice, cascaded to the floor in soft lengths of silk.
Dena's mother—an elegant-looking woman in a more modest dress the same shade of orange-pink as ours—fussed over her daughter, while Dena’s 80-year-old grandmother sat in a chair and watched. Both the mother and grandmother gave me a few side-glances, as did two of the bridesmaids I’d never met before.
I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. The tattoos swirling down my right arm and the guitar on the inside of my left wrist painted a stark contrast to the billowy pastel of the dress.
Dena approached me, her knowing, peaceful smile on her face. She looked radiant and far calmer than any bride-to-be I’d ever seen.
“Kacey,” she said softly. “You look beautiful.”
“That's my line. Dena…you’re stunning.” I rubbed my arms, as if I could rub out the tattoos just for today. “Not too sure the ink goes with the dress.”
Dena reached for the tray of hairdresser’s ribbons, pins, and brushes, and took up a black silk rose. “Do you think I’d forgotten you had these tattoos when I picked out the dress?”
“No, but I can feel your grandmother staring,” I said. “I want this day to be perfect for you.”
Her grin widened as she affixed the silk flower behind my left ear. “Today will be perfect because the people I love are here, just as they are.”
