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head toward Jack, and nodded his approval.
    When Jack tried to get out of her what she'd whispered to him, Caroline wouldn't say. It wasn't until later, when he called Dom, that he found out.
    "What's the matter?" Dom said. "She won't tell ya?"
    "No," Jack admitted. "All she'll say is that it's up to you."
    "Ain't that somethin'," Dom said.
    "So are you going to tell me?"
    "You want her exact words?"
    "Yes. Her exact words."
    "Her exact words," Dom said with something approaching wonder in his voice, "were 'Thank you for Jack. You did a good job.'"
    That night, he and Caroline made particularly fervent love in his room. When they were done, she shuddered with pleasure and when he tried to move she stopped him. She wouldn't let him escape from inside her and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight. That's when he told her his plans. After graduation, he said, he wanted to open a restaurant. He could take what he'd learned studying business at school and combine it with everything he'd picked up living with and working for Dom. He knew exactly what the restaurant would be like, too. Comfortable and real, with good, simple food. The kind of food he knew about. And great service. Maybe it would be in a brownstone, he said, something that felt like home.
    She waited to see if there was more and, yes, there was.
    I want you to be my partner, he told her. I'll run the back, do the kitchen and the food and the business. You run the front. Make it look the way you want. Make it classy.
    She waited and, yes, there was still more.
    "I love you," he said. "And I want you to be my wife."
    "Those are good plans," Caroline said. "I like those plans."
    And after they kissed, a long and luxurious and enveloping kiss, and then made love again, she said, "Yes, I like those plans very much. I like the idea of living happily ever after."

THREE
    The wedding was your basic nightmare. Caroline's parents wanted a fancy affair, several hundred people, held down in Virginia on the family grounds. Dom thought it should be upstairs at the Old Homestead Restaurant, the venerable steak joint on Fifteenth Street. It was near enough so the boys in the meat markets could easily get there, and they had good, icy-cold beer on tap.
    They compromised. Jack and Caroline got married in the late morning in a judge's chamber down at City Hall. Her parents came up for the ceremony, as did her two sisters, Llewellyn and Susanna Rae. Llewellyn was the perfect Southern belle, gracious and friendly toward all. Susanna Rae was distant and seemed resentful of Caroline's happiness. She stayed separate from the group, barely acknowledged Jack's existence, and looked as if the short and simple vows were for no other purpose than to inflict upon her a painful and permanent wound.
    Caroline's family did not attend the party that followed the wedding. It was their way of showing disapproval without having a confrontation. They waited back at their midtown hotel. Dom threw a bash at his market – it was Caroline's choice of locations. Jack stood in a tuxedo, the first one he'd ever worn, and Caroline was radiant in a white silk blouse and short, white silk skirt, The beer, scotch, and bourbon – and even a bit of champagne – flowed while a band played raucous rock and roll all afternoon. They danced among the hanging slabs of beef, kicking up sawdust, and everyone from Jack's and Dom's past lined up to kiss and hug the glowing bride. At six o'clock, Jack and Caroline hopped in a taxi, rode out to the airport, and met the Hale family. They all took the shuttle to Washington, D.C., then drove from there to the farm in Virginia, just outside Charlottesville. The next day was an all-day party. Tents were set up on the property, an orchestra played sonorous chamber music, hundreds of elegant friends pressed checks into Jack's or Caroline's hands and wished them well. Jack, for the most part, stayed silent, not wanting to say the wrong thing or reveal just how uncomfortable