“That’s a dramatic goal,” Lil says, disapprovingly. Earlier Martin had thought she was the mother of the bride, what with all her instructions. Now Martin doesn’t know what to think. He hasn’t done many weddings; in fact the number is zero, actually. It hadn’t seemed like it was going to be very hard. “It’s not rocket science,” is what the owner said a lot at the first bar Martin worked, about everything mostly, though rockets, to Martin, didn’t seem that difficult, just big engines and shiny tubes full of proud men, patriotic and broad-shouldered with their stupid helmets and breathing apparatuses. Maybe nothing, looking at the tiny bright green mint, is difficult, or maybe nothing’s easy. Rather than say something to this successful and bratty woman, Martin just nods. He has a list with him, as always, and writes

no paper napkins!

below where he has written

check barrels

sweet vermouth

champagne buckets tables 1, 4, 5

Lil = in charge

no paper napkins

tablecloths to caterer, tables in back closet

show Stan lime star

Gail—long black hair

The substitute is the only caterer whose name Martin has caught, and Lil is glaring at her now. “Gail,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Gail.”

“Yes.”

“Apron.”

“Wall,” the substitute says, tapping a hand on the wall, and continues the tour. “Rafters. Light fixture.”

Lil sighs, and Stanford is laughing. “I’m giving you a chance,” she says, but the substitute stalks across the room before anyone has a chance to do anything, and takes another swig of the pink syrup. Martin figures something out. He likes her.

“You look bored,” he says. “Bored and irritable and fidgety and kind of worried. What’s your secret?”

“I don’t have any secrets,” the substitute says.

“Everybody does.”

“Who told you that?”

Martin shakes his head. “It’s a secret.”

“Gail.” Lil’s voice is a blare over the tunes. She’s in another corner now, where Reynard has slunk, near a window that stares out into some thick brush. Standing next to the brush is a tall woman with the ambitious hair of an old movie, smoking. What Reynard is thinking, what anybody is, is unknowable and nobody’s business, Martin decides.

“I need Gail for something,” he says to Lil, and gestures, too largely, as if this woman had emerged unsawed from a showy wooden box, he an impresario. The caterers look up, and the groom. In every wedding is the makings of another. Stanford tastes the Happy Couple and smiles. “You see the limes in the thing?” Martin tells him. “Do them like that while I take her out back. There’s a barrel missing.”

“Right away, cap’n,” Stanford says, already raising the knife.

Martin turns to Gail, whose eyes move everyplace on him, like a pat-down at the airport, and then off someplace else. “Nobody calls me Gail,” she says.

“OK,” Martin says.

“I mean it.”