"That's her."
Patrice said it to the sponsors' wives at the dessert table in Suite 1.
It was 8:45 PM on Saturday, second intermission.
"Walked out on our Bryce with him."
She tipped her wine glass at Wes.
Thirty people were in the box.
It smelled like popcorn and somebody's cologne.
Eight of us were ER nurses in Breakers scarves Dawn had bought at the gift shop.
The rest were sponsors in suits and their wives in good boots.
Below the glass, the ice crew was scraping the rink.
Red letters ran along the dasher boards.
BRUECKNER MECHANICAL
Dawn had read me the guest list in the car.
Two seats per sponsor.
That logo was why the Brueckners were in the box.
An hour earlier, a sponsor had shaken my hand by the bar.
"So you're Wes's date."
"I'm Dawn's raffle ticket."
He winked like I was being modest.
Everyone in the box had decided the same thing.
Wes hadn't corrected anyone.
Neither had I.
Patrice lowered her voice just enough to carry.
"We paid eighty thousand for that wedding."
"And she shut it off like a faucet."
A wife in a white coat put a hand on her chest.
Two of my nurses stopped eating.
Curt stood at the glass with a beer and his back to the room.
Dawn touched my elbow.
"You don't have to."
"I know."
Dawn squeezed once and let go.
I walked over to the dessert table.
Patrice watched me come and smiled.
It was the smile she'd used in the bridal suite doorway.
"Hello, Leah."
"Mrs. Brueckner."
"Name one vendor you paid."
Her smile held.
"Excuse me?"
"One vendor."
"The hotel," she said.
"Obviously."
"Which payment?"
"There were eleven."
Patrice laughed and looked at the wives.
"Honey, I don't carry receipts to a hockey game."
"I do."
"They're in my trunk."
"The hotel has one signature."
"Mine."
"And one card."
"Mine."
"The band, the florist, the photographer, the cake, the dress."
"Sixty-four thousand four hundred."
"Every vendor."
The wife in the white coat took her hand off her chest.
She looked at Patrice the way you look at a bill that came out wrong.
Patrice didn't answer.
Then she found her voice.
"We gave you twenty-five thousand."
"There's a picture."
"There's a picture of me holding a check."
"Ask Curt what happened to it."
Patrice turned around to the glass.
So did everybody else.
Curt didn't turn.
He watched the ice crew finish.
"Patrice," he said.
"Sit down."
"Curt, tell them."
"Tell them about the party."
He didn't.
She didn't sit.
She looked at the back of his head.
Then she looked at me.
Whatever she saw there, she decided against it.
"The check," she said, to nobody.
She still believed in it.
I could see that.
She set her wine down and picked up her purse.
Then she put the purse down again.
"Funny how fast she landed in an owner's box."
She said it to the wives.
"I'd bet it started before."
One of the wives actually gasped.
Wes was across the box at the bar.
He set his glass down and walked over.
He didn't hurry.
He stopped beside me, not in front of me.
"It started at 4:49 that day."
Patrice looked at him.
"She's with me."
Nobody said anything for a second.
Then the horn went for the third period.
The sponsors' wives drifted to the glass to watch the puck drop.
Patrice sat down.
Curt took the seat beside her and didn't look at her.
I went back to my nurses.
Dawn handed me a plate of mini cheesecakes.
"You're on my couch till Christmas," she said.
"I didn't ask."
"I know."
The Breakers scored twice in the third.
The box stood up both times.
The Brueckners stood up too, for the sponsor photo.
Breakers 4, Omaha 2.
At the final horn, Wes came and stood next to me at the glass.
Down on the ice, the players were slapping the goalie's helmet.
"You asked me something," he said.
"At three in the morning."
"The radio got there first."
"I remember."
"You'd hung it up."
I looked down at the ice.
"I hung it on a door."
"That's hung up."
"Where is it?"
"In my office."
"Say when."
I thought about Dawn's couch.
About fourteen bags in a shop I'd never seen.
About a key on an easel ledge.
"When I have my own door."
He nodded once.
"Okay."
That was all.
He didn't ask when that would be.
People started pulling on coats.
The sponsors shook hands with Wes on their way out.
Patrice went past without a word, her purse tight under her arm.
Curt came last.
He stopped beside me and zipped his jacket.
His eyes were on the ice, where his name ran along the boards.
He spoke low, for me only.
"You'll want a lawyer, Leah."