She looks for her date. He’s disappeared again. Prone to wandering, to chatting up the bartender, the valets, anyone in the kitchen if they’ll let him stay after he’s slid his way in, pretending he needs a glass or paper towel. He loves kitchen staff, he loves bartenders. He loves weddings because he loves stories. One of the bridesmaids swirls by, taps her shoulder. They’re getting ready to cut the cake! As if she didn’t know. She’s been tracking the bride, her best friend in high school, though by senior year they’d already grown apart. Her best friend used to talk about her wedding cake even then. Three tiers, white, pale pink roses with pale green leaves and there it is, manifested exactly. Shit—with sugar on it. Where is he? She scopes out the band. He adores talking to a band, used to want to be a bass player. Or a band manager til he talked to one and it sounded like parenting. Still, he wants a big family. She wants a small wedding. No three-tier thing. Something different. A destination wedding maybe. Mexico is played out. Rome, in winter, maybe. If she can find him. Who else would he talk to here? She lets her eyes fly around the room, pretends she’s a bird above the wedding. Who else here has a story he’d be listening to, nodding, nodding? Her date needs that story like a cold house needs fire. She’s the cold house, she suddenly realizes, in her sleeveless dress with its sweetheart neckline. She’s been warming herself by his fire, then shivering when it ends as fires do, in ashes. Weddings for bridesmaids are always cold, nothing to wear around their necks. Maybe she should get the fire first. She downs her fourth glass of wine. To hell with him. There. That old man, with the weird eyes, and what is that on his dusty coat, is that feathers? What’s his story?

Hilary King’s

poems have appeared in DMQ Review, Fourth River, Freshwater Review, Ploughshares, Rogue Agent, Salamander, SWWIM, TAB, and other publications. Originally from the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, she now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family and animals. She is a poetry editor for DMQ Review, and an MFA Creative Writing student at San Jose State University. She loves hiking and ribbon.

Author’s website: https://www.hilarykingwriting.com/