Christopher Locke Still Lives With Green Dress The throng of beautiful people decorated in Prada bags and Thom Browne blazers didn’t notice the air had cooled. But once the light surrounding the Los Angeles hills dipped into muted grays, and the temperature collapsed into the 60s, Bill Wenz herded his guests back through the sliding glass doors. After a bit of cajoling and bright laughter, the caterers shooing themselves back into the kitchen, Bill rounded everyone into a manageable bunch: filmmakers, artists, real estate addicts, and miserable divorcees. Bill stepped up onto the marble hearth and slightly grimaced; an MCL injury he’s ignored for years. He raised his glass high. Others followed suit. Bill looked to his maid Marie and she cut the music. “Um, well, I’m not so good with speeches,” he said. Polite chuckles: Bill was a speech writer for the governor. “So I’ll keep this brief.” And then Bill gave one of his very best speeches. The kind a doting father gives to his only daughter. The kind that makes others wish it was recited to them. And though it was thoroughly rehearsed, the speech was imbued with the magic feel of spontaneity. Looking at Jill and her new wife Katrin as he spoke, Bill felt that the only thing missing was Jill’s mother, Dorian—dead now five years from breast cancer. When he came to the end of what he had to say, his breath settled like a feather and not a single body stirred. “To Jill and Katrin,” Bill said, and he raised his glass higher. The guests applauded and cheered. The florist Bill had been sleeping with, Brooke, put a monogrammed napkin to the corner of her left eye and dabbed, her mouth a perfect ‘O’. “Hear, hear,” the Argentinian phlebologist barked to Bill’s left. Bill couldn’t stand him. Or his wife. But Bill served with them on the board of the California Arts Council, so that was that. Jill beamed, sensing this was the moment her life would finally begin. Her long red hair twisted in a braid down the back of her green organza dress. Katrin held Jill’s hand and smiled and waved quickly, then ran her fingers through her dark bob cut. Jill was not good at public speaking, and as the daughter of a speech writer the irony was not lost on her. Before she addressed everyone, she cleared her throat; the green silk of her dress looked almost chartreuse in the light. Katrin worried the guests might think appropriation due to the antique, far eastern style of what Jill wore, the way its stitching flickered with tiny songbirds throughout.
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