A lot happened in the next year. My father recovered from his injuries, although his eyesight worsened and he had to have an operation on his Cadillacs. His emotional state rebounded slowly, and he hated to see the shop finally sold. We spent Sunday mornings visiting LeVonne’s grave, but that wound would never heal. My father couldn’t bring himself to accept LeVonne’s death, and I didn’t fault him for this. The murder of a young man should never pass without notice, though it does, every day.
Uncle Sal and Betty got married and bought his-and-her Harleys. Cam sold the equipment from Lawns ’R Us, took the proceeds to the track, and made a bundle on the Trifecta. Herman amassed a respectable chip collection, and his daughter Mindy became my best friend and maid of honor. By the morning of my wedding day so much had happened I had forgotten about any alleged bet.
“You’re out of your mind,” I told my father. “What bet?”
“We made a bet, Rita,” he said. “You and me.” He squinted at the mirror through his new glasses and straightened his rented bow tie. We were getting ready to go into the private anteroom at the Horticultural Center in Fairmount Park.
“I didn’t make any bet with you.” I stood next to him, appraising myself in the mirror. An ivory sheath that fit only when I inhaled, more crow’s-feet than last year, and a horrified expression. I was ready to be married. “I wouldn’t bet about a thing like that.”
“My daughter?”
“All right, maybe I would.” And even though I was getting married, I hadn’t quit poker. With a great deal of prodding, my future husband decided he would at least try the game and join us on Tuesday nights. “But I still don’t remember any bet.”
“Fifty dollars sound familiar?”
“Fifty?” I was too jittery to think. Everyone was out there waiting. Fiske and Kate. Mack and half my firm, including Janine. Cam, Herman and Essie, Sal and Betty. David Moscow and his bread-baking lover. Only the press was excluded; I didn’t care if I never saw another reporter in my life. Just last week I had declined another offer for a TV movie. Based on a true story, my ass.
“We made the bet when I was in the hospital,” he said. “On who you’d marry, remember?”
The first strains of Purcell’s “Trumpet Voluntary” floated through the door, and my mouth went dry. “Dad, we have to go.” I grabbed his arm, tottering on stiff ivory pumps, and we hustled together out of the anteroom.
“We made it when I was sick, in the hospital. Not the eye operation, the time before.”
We stood arm in arm at the entrance to the main room, waiting for our cue. The room was actually a huge greenhouse, with white wooden chairs set in rows amid exotic hibiscus and fragrant gardenia. Rubber and palm trees grew all around, and tiny white lights twinkled from the tropical foliage. It was pretty, but hotter than I’d ever expected. Only Italians would rent humidity in a Philadelphia summer.
“Rita, remember? I bet you fifty dollars that you’d marry Paul.”
The music swelled, our cue came, and we stumbled forward onto the white paper runner. Guests turned around, craning their necks. I moistened my lips in an attempt to look virginal. “You put fifty on Paul?” I said, out of the side of my mouth.
“Yeah. Remember now?”
I looked at Paul, who smiled back at me nervously. My heart actually fluttered, he always looked so handsome in a tux. Tall and strong, with nice, long sideburns. “You actually bet I’d marry Paul, Dad?”
My father nodded as we passed the last row of guests. Heads turned when we walked by. Everyone I knew, everyone I loved, grinning. My heart felt light, giddy. I knew I’d made the right decision. I looked down the aisle at the best ponytail that ever happened to me, and Tobin, my husband-to-be, smiled back. I squeezed my father’s arm.
“Sucker,” I said.
And he laughed.