Palace Council Read Online Free PDF

telephone. She had always hated every form of human violence. Back in high school, in the thick of the war, Eddie had teased her, the way big brothers do, demanding to know if she would shoot Hitler if given the chance. Junie had said she might, but would have to kill herself next.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said now, and meant it.
    â€œGo to the wedding,” she instructed. “Give the best toast.”
    So he laughed, and went. For that matter, so did Junie, who did not want to leave her nervous brother without an escort. It had been a while since she had seen New York, she said, and it was time. Although the bride was from Cleveland, her family wanted to marry off their daughter in the heart of well-to-do Harlem. The wedding was at Saint Philip’s Episcopal Church on 134th Street. Kevin Garland was a vestryman, and, indeed, the Garlands, grandest family in all Harlem, practically owned the place. Alas, at the last minute Aurelia’s parents were unable to make the trip: her father had taken a nasty tumble, and was hospitalized. Eddie sat stoically, dying a bit inside, wondering how Aurie could marry into the kind of family who would insist that the wedding go on as planned, bride’s parents or no; and wondering, too, whether Aurelia was really being pressured by her family to marry into a senior clan, or if Eddie had been only a last fling: perhaps this storybook marriage was what Aurie had planned all along. When the priest invited the groom to kiss the bride, Eddie shut his eyes, trying and failing to remember who had written that every true novel is about the love you lost.
    Junie, who never missed a thing, poked his ribs and told him to stop mooning. “It’s their day, not yours,” she hissed.
    The reception was in the ballroom of the Savoy Hotel, transformed at enormous expense to resemble the interior of a Venetian palace, right down to the painted ceiling, frieze-covered walls, and gilded pilasters. This was the style of the times. The matrons who ran Harlem society—“light-skinned Czarinas,” Adam Clayton Powell had dubbed them, meaning anything but a compliment—made frequent jaunts to Europe, and returned bubbling with obsolete ideas. A good quarter of the guests were white. Eddie fumbled his toast, but Gary Fatek, his rich friend from Amherst, spoke brilliantly. Gary was tall and graceful and impressive. Even his unruly red hair commanded attention. When he opened his mouth, choirs sang. He kept the room laughing, and worked into his remarks the fact that he and Eddie had met Aurelia at the same college mixer, in November of their freshman year. Thus the celebrants were able to acknowledge the eight-year love affair now at an end, without anyone’s actually mentioning it. This was Gary’s element: not only speaking, but speaking in Harlem. On other days he could be found, by his own description, rabble-rousing in libraries and church basements, urging the glorious alliance between students and workers but Negroes in particular. The Czarinas sniffed that Gary had time for this silliness because he was half a Hilliman and did not have to work for a living. If the question ever arose, Gary, laughing, said he did it to pick up girls.
    When the toasting finally ended, the drinking began. With Junie on hand, Eddie consumed less alcohol than he had at the engagement party. Clear-headed, he watched uneasily.
    â€œSmile.”
    â€œI am smiling.”
    â€œNot like that. A real smile.”
    Eddie did his best, but he was remembering the last time he had sat among strangers celebrating the couple, and how that night had ended. He had yet to tell even Junie or Gary about finding the body.
    â€œGet out there and have some fun,” Junie commanded, refusing to allow her brother to mope. She wore him out, forcing him to dance one number after another, most of them with a young woman named Mona Veazie, Aurelia’s maid of honor. Mona, at this time