“Good afternoon,” Bethany said. “Can I help you?”
“Yes. Those chairs go back in the shed. All of them. Saturday is ours.”
Bethany lowered the chairs carefully. “I’m sorry?”
“The pavilion. We use it Saturdays. I don’t know who told you to put these out, but they belong on the other side of the fence.”
“There’s a reservation today.”
“Then someone made a mistake. Start moving them.”
Candace spoke with the distracted firmness of a person giving instructions to a delivery crew. She looked Bethany over: the rollers, the sweatsuit, the hands dusty from carrying chairs. She did not look long enough to see anything more.
Rowan came out of the pavilion carrying a box of paper napkins. “Ma’am, I think there’s a mix-up. We’re having our wedding here.”
Candace turned toward him. Her eyes flicked over his work shirt and comfortable shoes.
“Whose wedding? Your employers’?”
“Mine,” Bethany said. “Ours.”
Candace laughed once. “Of course. And he’s the groom.”
“I am, actually,” Rowan replied.
“How wonderful. Then one of you should know enough to check a calendar. People like to use this place without realizing it’s not first-come, first-served.”
“We booked it in March,” Bethany said. “Two until eight. City Parks.”
Candace glanced at Lorna, as though waiting for her friend to appreciate the absurdity.
“They booked it,” she repeated.
“We did.”
“And you expect me to clear a twenty-year Saturday tradition because you paid somebody at City Hall?”
“I expect a public reservation to mean what it says.”
The word public sharpened the woman’s expression. Candace folded her arms.
“Are you from around here?”
“I grew up here.”
“Where?”
Bethany paused. The question was familiar. Not where had she grown up but which streets did she have the right to claim, which answer would satisfy this particular listener.
“On Cooper Street,” she said.
Candace gave a faint, dismissive nod. “Well, the public beach is farther south, past the boat launch. They have grills down there. It’s really quite nice.”
“We aren’t looking for a beach,” Rowan said. “We’re having a wedding.”
Candace moved past him as if the conversation had ended. She lifted the corner of a tablecloth, inspected the chairs, and spoke to Lorna.
“We’ll need our tables over here. The coolers go in the shade.”
Bethany stepped alongside her. “Ma’am, please don’t move our things.”
“I am fixing a problem. Someone has to.”
“My name is Bethany. This is Rowan. If you tell me yours, maybe we can work out a reasonable way to use the space.”
Candace ignored the introduction. “Those are city chairs. You can’t just scatter them across the grass.”
“We signed them out from Parks.”
“Who is supervising you?”
Bethany felt something in her chest settle. She could have reached into the bag near the table, pulled out her identification, and ended the question of who she was in a matter of seconds. But the conversation was not supposed to depend on her job. It was supposed to depend on the reservation and the same public rules that protected every other family in town.
“We’re supervising ourselves,” she said. “It’s our wedding.”
Candace’s smile was now thin enough to be a warning. “Then I’m going to be very generous. You can use the lawn once our cookout is set up. I won’t ask who told you that you could come down here.”
“We have a reservation for the pavilion and the lawn,” Bethany replied. “And we’ve already invited our guests.”
“Guests,” Candace said, tasting the word.
It was a small sound. Bethany recognized the contempt behind it instantly. Rowan heard it too. He placed the napkins on the nearest table and took Bethany’s hand, not because he thought she needed help standing but because he wanted her to know that he was standing with her.
