Here.

There's no way to not pass The Pita Hut and the men who come early to wait. Today, it makes me laugh, the way they lose language at the sight of live women. From thirty feet, they begin preparing. Shifting like ants, their circle opens in formation. They slouch at attention--narrowed eyes, mouths panted open. But Deanna says what she knows and hates is that they'd never look at one of their own women like that. And she's right. And I'm mad before I know it, fumbling to do something I mean: stop and stare, spit and curse, scream the world out of place. They are still looking when I turn back for their eyes. Aproned fools. I can live without their fucking hummus. Deanna catches me before I keep going. "Slow down, girl. We're here."

The air in the cooler dries the sweat to my face. I watch my biceps settle under the weight of trays of poached salmon, going up and up and up the bruised stairs to the narrow kitchen in the back of the store. Deanna sighs over coffee, eyes closed and rubbing her brows like she's reading her mind, thumb and forefinger meeting, parting at the bridge of her nose. She leans into the steam before closing the cambro. "That's all I need," she says.

We'll let Howard be the man and heave all this coffee up and out. He'll be running late and have some Howard stories to make laughter, even once the mosquitoes hum hungry into us, and folks start getting wine-rowdy. I gather my braids m a knot and change into white shirt and apron.

We are traying asparagus when Ben walks in without footsteps, complaining that the cake won't be ours. "This is a corner man and wife have chosen to cut." He smirks and winks at no one in particular. Sometimes, I get tired of puns. "It's coming from Leona's," he adds. Leona uses mix and bright, heavy frosting. With a cake like that, these won't be big tippers. Ben sets down the folder with a half-smile and heads out, grabbing the van keys and mumbling about booze and ice.

And so we wait. The food's unpacked. Howard's stocked the bar. Deanna's folded napkins, set out china and candles on all the tables, inside and outside. She twists in a stuffed chair in the sitting room, reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. If she leaves it visible, it will make someone nervous. Deanna acts like she doesn't know this. Howard and Allison lean and bend, uncorking fat bottles of vino verde. The harpist is carting around, looking for the spot to play without an amp. Summer heat has filled this big old house. The ice will not last the night. The florist came too soon.

The bride's sister introduces herself as the bride's sister. Tracy. I see the resemblance. Severe cheekbones. Orphan Annie hair. She asks me if I am who I am. It happens like this. "Yes, I'm in charge," I tell her. "Yes, we're ready for the guests." I glance sideways to remind Deanna not to set any tablecloths on fire. Tracy should be going by now, but she remains in place, smiling a sniffing smile. I turn back to the house to make myself useful.

We eat while we can, while the house creaks, while the tent is full of quiet people, all except the man up front, talking with his hands. Bride and groom kiss, and the applause sounds like rain from this distance. I roll up my sleeves and straighten my collar. It's time go outside and disappear.

"Scallops wrapped in bacon...

Scallops wrapped in bacon."

"Scallops wrapped in bacon?"

"Scallops wrapped in bacon."

Some say "here" for me to stop. Others "please." Most wait silently, glancing to be understood.

I cut more lemons for ice water and look forward to the scent they will leave on my palms. Deanna edges past, her tray full with toothpicks, balled napkins, the shards of a plate. She dumps them and handiwipes her hands and neck. There's not much left to size up in the fridge. Deanna moves in closer, bending and humming. She smiles at the last tray of stuffed mushrooms.

"Notice the brother out there?"

"Hard to miss." I saw him on my way past the bar. Howard was opening his bottle of beer. Pale green linen suit. Looked a little like my cousin Ray. Broad-chested and peacefully serious.

"Tell you now, he's the kind that looks away. We remind him."

"Black bean spirals? . . . Black bean spirals? . . . Black bean spirals. ... Black bean spirals?"

Guests are spread across the lawn. They buzz in polite circles, happy with their beverages. Some open as I approach. Reaching for a spiral, a man with a handlebar moustache talks about the films of Kieslowski. "Genius of our lifetime," he declares. The circle waits for him to chew. I look ahead to the next, waiting for the silence of full hands.

It is time to relieve Howard and Allison at the bar. They're grateful and a bit sluggish. Howard is hung-over today, quieter than he really is. "Take fifteen," I tell them. "Rest. Standing in one place can make a person tired." Finally still, I realize the day is almost over. I will serve women impatient for wine. I will serve children who rattle their cups for Coca-Cola. I will serve beer to men who really want eye contact. But for now, I am alone in this corner of the porch, my face cupped in my lemoned palms, my elbows cooling where ice has melted. I watch the horizon dusking ripe and remember the darkness of that one Kieslowski film-the scene, that scene, when Veronika collapses.

Veronika is blushing and singing, losing her heart as her voice swells and thickens. And when she falls, the camera sees the sky of that concert hall ten different ways before the noise of her body meeting the stage and the leap and zoom overhead in a brief, straight line-before someone finally holds her wrist, limp as a promised fish.

Tracy's sister approaches. Her dress has a righteous train. She beams. "Call me Liz," she insists, holding herself. They are finished with pictures.

"Come in," I tell her. "Come in for the buffet."

Deanna's pouring out the last of the fruit salad. "Old boy on the harp is just sad." She laughs to herself and tops the platter with mint. "Out there playing the theme from 'Cheers.' And trying to get funky before ... Lionel Richie, Bee Gees, somebody." I haven't heard the harpist for hours. I want to remember that song from the movie.

I carry full bags of trash to the big metal cans outside, empty and sour from all this happiness. Only hours to go. Back in the kitchen, I soap my hands and forearms and rinse them with fast, warm water.

There are those sighs and gasps someone flashing a camera when I wheel out the cake. Deanna will follow with the engraved knife. I watch for darting children and feel my breath caught and my arms stiffening a tremble.

I rinse and stack things that can already be put away. The groom thinks I can help him.

"What was in that fucking chicken?" he asks, slamming his Pilsen, rubbing the top of his neck through his bowtie.

"Excuse me, sir?" He moves closer until I can see that his mouth is a bit greasy and his face is strange-red, expectant. The door is still snapping behind him in short, frantic arcs.

"One of you girls drop a fingernail in my food?"

"Excuse me?"

"Listen. I swallowed something wrong." His voice breaks like a child's and his stare begins to twitch.

I dry my hands, considering. "The chicken was garnished with rosemary," I say. He stops and leans forward, his knee bent and atop the folded step ladder. "You swallowed a sprig, maybe."

I hold his gaze until he starts looking past me, over my shoulder, clearing his throat over and over, jerking his head, becoming the bird he has eaten.

Something soft to chew may help make him right again. I pull the final baguette from the tote and turn to find him draining the beer from his glass. I will not cut my hand slicing for this groom. I take my time and hand him three rounds.

"Thank you," he confesses.

Veronique never sings in the film. She lives sadly in Paris, waiting until things begin to happen.

People with children have already left. It is beginning, the last hour of this party. The tent is empty now, all but for an armful of plates and bottles. A few guests come to tell me that the food was exquisite. Someone is howling near the bar.

Somebody's Momma is always wearing sequins at their child's wedding. This one reaches to touch my hair before she even speaks. I hold the empties close to my chest and I wonder. "Aaah," her fingers work their way up and down a braid, "beautiful. Feels like rope." I wonder who she thinks I am. She wants to know does it take long.

There are others who wait for my answer. "Like Whoopi Goldberg," some old man says. I feel myself smile and I don't know why. "Six, seven hours," I say. Someone else's hand is reaching. I remember his freckles from the bar and I back away before something gets broken. "Can you wash it?" he wants to know. "I'll get more napkins," I explain, moving swiftly to leave the bottles with Howard at the bar, regathering my hair on my way through the parlor.

Before I reach the kitchen, I find them glowing on the bureau in the corner of the sitting room, bound with a broad white sash. I gather them and head out back, past the trash cans, to the small barn that holds crates for china, boxes for linen, things I cannot see. I settle underneath the light hanging high from the beam, studying these strange, strange flowers. I do not know the name for them, but I am drawn in by their blush, their velvet purple centers, by the way they show their seeds. I imagine the island they should come from, lush and distant, my own twin there, waiting for that tug so that something might begin. I touch their warm waxy skin and close my eyes. Outside, another car starts and slows away, and there's that harp music, somewhere farther, finally beautiful. I take my time and pull each petal free.

Audrey Petty teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where she is completing her first novel. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Crab Orchard Review.