Page 136 of Roadrunner

This was expected. This was, in fact, the entire point.

She called me a few days later, once she’d had time to properly begin plotting.

“Flowers,” she said. “What do you want for flowers.”

“Whatever you think,” I said.

A brief pause. “You’re going to let me decide.”

“I’m going to let you decide,” I said.

Another pause. Longer. “I’ve been waiting for this since you were nineteen years old.”

“I know,” I said.

“Don’t rush me,” she said. “I’m going to do this correctly.”

“Take all the time you need,” I said.

“Six weeks,” she said. “I need six weeks. We’ll do it the second Saturday in June. That gives the invitations time to land properly and gives me time to do this the way it deserves to be done.”

“Six weeks. June,” I agreed.

She hung up.

I looked at the phone.

Martina appeared in the doorway. She raised her eyebrows.

“Six weeks,” I said.

She took it in stride and went back to the kitchen.

The six weeks were Della’s.

That was the only way to describe them. She ran the operation with the authority of a woman who had been rehearsing it for decades and was not going to waste a single detail. Riley reported back periodically with the equanimity of a man who had accepted that some things were beyond his jurisdiction and this was one of them.

“She asked me about chair colors,” he said one morning.

“What did you say?”

“I said chairs were fine,” he said.

“Good answer,” I said.

“She didn’t think so,” he said.

I laughed. He came around the table and put me against the refrigerator. The magnet behind my shoulder dug in. He kissed me like the six weeks were a problem he could solve with his mouth.

“Della’s chairs,” I said against his teeth.

“Don’t care.”

Martina’s radio was on in the next room. He stopped. Forehead to mine.

“June,” he said.

“I know,” I said.