The first thing I noticed about the Azure Heights Estate was that it did not feel like a place where ordinary people were supposed to breathe too loudly.
The ballroom rose two stories above us with its polished stone and towering windows while crystal chandeliers hung from a ceiling painted the soft ivory color of old money. Every surface seemed chosen by someone who had never once looked at a price tag or wondered if tax was included in the final cost.
The light from the bay poured in through the glass in a late afternoon gold haze which softened the white roses on every table and turned the tiny candles into trembling stars. Waiters moved between the guests like shadows in black jackets as they carried trays of champagne so pale it looked almost silver.
The floor was glossy enough to reflect everyone who crossed it and made the whole room feel doubled as if even the guests had more of themselves than necessary. If you walked in without knowing anyone, you might have thought this was exactly what perfection looked like.
I remember thinking that too for maybe half a second before I remembered my father’s suit. There was nothing wrong with it exactly since it was a dark suit that was clean and perfectly respectable.
But I knew the slight shine at the elbows from years of careful wear and I knew the way the left sleeve sat differently because a tailor at a strip mall had shortened it by hand. It had spent the last week hanging in dry cleaner plastic in my parents’ closet as it waited for this day like a soldier called up for one more formal duty.
My father, Robert Preston, owned exactly one dark suit which he wore for weddings and any event where my mother said he should not wear his brown jacket. Today he had worn it with a white shirt and the navy tie I bought him for Father’s Day three years earlier.
He looked handsome in the way fathers look handsome when you know every tired line around their eyes has a story behind it. However, in that room surrounded by men in tuxedos so tailored they seemed grown onto their bodies, my father’s suit looked like it had been invited by mistake.
My mother knew it too as I watched her smooth one hand over her navy dress for the tenth time since we sat down. She had spent all morning in front of the bathroom mirror curling her hair into soft waves and pinning a silver clip above her ear before asking me if it looked cheap.
