Chapter 2 - THE CRITIC IN TULLE
The string quartet was playing a gentle waltz. Guests at Table 3 were clinking their flutes. Nobody at the head table was looking at floor level.
Lily reached the golden pedestal.
She stood on her tiptoes, her small belly pressing against the ruffled tablecloth. Her chubby right hand rose into the air, fingers splayed wide.
Without a second of hesitation, her small index finger plunged straight through the pristine ivory buttercream of the bottom tier.
She dragged it downward in a triumphant four-inch trench, curling a thick, buttery ribbon of frosting right off a sugar peony, before bringing her entire fist up like a prize fighter.
She stuffed the knuckle straight into her mouth.
The sugar hit her system. Lily closed her eyes. Her tiny forehead crinkled in intense, philosophical concentration. She chewed the cloud of buttercream, rolling it over her tongue with the gravitas of a Parisian sommelier tasting an eighty-year-old vintage.
Then her eyes popped open. She looked up at the towering tiers of cake above her, her eyebrows knitting together as if the dessert personally owed her an explanation.
She turned toward Table 4 and announced in a clear, carrying toddler cadence:
"Wait… we paid for this?"
The silence that followed was instant and total.
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At the head table, twenty-six-year-old Brooke’s blue eyes went wide as saucers. Her champagne flute froze halfway to her lips. Her custom cathedral lace veil didn't move an inch. Beside her, her new husband, Mark, choked violently on his ice water, his face turning bright crimson as he clamped a linen napkin over his mouth.
Diane’s navy silk dress rose from the head table with the terrifying, kinetic velocity of an uncoiling spring.
