Bea called while I was helping Ruth bring washing in from the garden.
I had a pillowcase over one arm. I put it in the basket and answered.
“Mum's offered to pay for the lunch anyway,” Bea said.
I sat on the back step.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. No ceremony. Just the food and people who've made plans to come.”
“She knows Nate isn't marrying you?”
“She knows. He told her himself as well.”
I could hear a car pass near Bea, then the sound of a door shutting. She must have been outside.
“She says we can tell everyone we've postponed,” she went on. “Private reasons. We don't have to explain it all.”
“Are you postponing?”
“I don't know what we're doing after tomorrow.”
“Then that isn't the same thing.”
“I know.”
Ruth took a shirt from the line, shook it once and put it in the basket. She didn't look toward me.
“Nate doesn't have to be there,” Bea said. “Mum would host it. We could use the food. She says it's a shame to throw everything away.”
“What is she asking you to do?”
Bea was quiet for a moment.
“Welcome people. Say we've had to postpone. Have a nice lunch.”
“And not tell them why.”
“She thinks that can stay private. We can apologise to each other properly later.”
I looked down at the step. There was a little blue peg near my foot. I picked it up and turned it over.
“What happens to her message about me?”
“She says people know it wasn't serious.”
“She said the same thing yesterday.”
“Yes.”
I could hear Bea breathing.
“Would you come?” she asked.
I stopped turning the peg.
“To lunch?”
“If it happened.”
“And smile for everybody, so they know we're all fine?”
“I'd want you there.”
Her voice was small. I knew she wasn't only asking on Mother's behalf. The wedding had fallen apart, and she wanted something left of the day she'd been looking forward to.
“I'm not doing that,” I said.
“Okay.”
“I won't help her make it look as if the only thing that happened was a jealous sister got upset.”
“I wouldn't say that.”
“She already did.”
Bea didn't answer.
I thought of all the cream ribbon around all the jars. Bea had chosen it when the pink delivery was wrong. There had been plenty about the wedding that was hers, that she had wanted and made. Losing it wasn't nothing.
“I'm sorry about the day,” I said.
She made a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn't broken.
“Me too.”
“But you have to decide what you want to tell people. I can't decide that for you.”
“I know.”
“And I can't make it easier by sitting there.”
“I heard you.”
She said it without anger. I put the peg on the basket edge.
“I've still got your spare key,” she said after a moment.
“I know.”
“I'm not asking you to take it. I just keep seeing it on the table.”
I looked toward Ruth's kitchen door. My coat hung inside, the mended cuff turned outward.
“I don't know what to say to that,” I told her.
“You don't have to say anything.”
We stayed on the call for a few seconds without talking. Then she said she would let me go.
“Okay,” I said.
Ruth brought the basket over when I put the phone away.
“Have we lost a peg?” she asked.
I handed it to her.
“Rescued.”
“Good work.”
I carried the basket inside. We folded the pillowcases at the kitchen table, each of us taking a corner, bringing the edges together. I knew where the clean ones went in the upstairs cupboard.
Bea could choose the lunch. I couldn't stop her. Nate had refused to marry, but there were still guests and food and Mother's money, enough to build a different pleasant day around what hadn't been said.
I didn't want to spend the evening waiting for the phone to ring again.
“Could we go for a walk?” I asked Ruth.
She looked at the washing, then at me.
“Yes. The socks can wait.”
We took our jackets and went out. The air had cooled, and I put my hands in the good deep pockets of the coat Bea had repaired.
For half an hour, we talked about the bakery being shut when Ruth wanted bread, and whether the house on the corner had finally painted its front door. I didn't mention the guest lunch.
Ruth didn't ask me to.