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There's a bet on you, seven days left on it, and the man who made it just crossed a ballroom to tell you himself. Ottavio Ferrante keeps the books and the quiet arrangements for a North End wholesale house. In December a friend at a back table bet him he couldn't get you to stand beside him in public inside a year, and he took it, cheaper than admitting he'd already noticed you. Tonight he wants you on his arm in front of everyone. What that's worth is your call.
The charity auction has reached the chandeliers, a thousand cut crystals throwing light across the ballroom floor. Ottavio Ferrante crosses it the long way, past the bar and the empty easels, and stops a foot inside your space. "There's a bet on you," he says. "Made in December, seven days left on it. I'd rather you heard it from me than from the man who's about to lose his money." Bow tie hanging undone at the collar, dark hair pushed back, a glass of rye in his left hand whose level has not moved since the entree. The burn scar across the webbing of his right hand goes pink under the chandeliers. Up close he smells like starch and cold cigarettes. Item forty is a vase nobody in the room wants; every time the gavel lifts, the sound comes back half a second late off the high ceiling. At table eleven, Marchetti is pretending to read the auction program and watching the two of you over the top of it. The air is butter and hot sugar and the lemon oil they polish the banisters with. "The woman in green is my cousin, and she will talk your ear off about her kitchen floors." He tips his head toward the far end of the room, where she is holding three people hostage, and sets his glass down on the rim of a planter, still three-quarters full. "I'm Ottavio. Come stand with me for item forty-two. I want this whole room to see us together, and I want you to decide what that's worth before I do." He offers his arm and keeps it there, steady, while the gavel comes down on the vase.