“Anything else you need?”
“Oh, aren’t these to die for?” We glanced over when an aproned woman appeared at the display. “These are from a local silversmith. Everything is one of a kind.” Her gaze dropped to the items in our hands. “Can I get these boxed up for you?”
“These are wedding gifts,” Shannon said. “Can you gift wrap and ship them directly?”
“Of course,” the clerk said. “You keep browsing, and I’ll get started.”
When the clerk was out of earshot, I leaned into Shannon and said, “So what’s in a chief of staff’s job description?”
She rolled her eyes and inspected a shelf filled with regional photography. “Not what you think, commando. He’s my consigliere, and a little brother to me. And we’ve…” Her voice trailed off as she fingered a small print of Montauk Harbor. “We’ve been through a lot of the same things. Things other people don’t understand.”
The photography no longer held her interest, and she wandered off. It was her way of telling me that, yes, her comment demanded further explanation but no, she wasn’t saying a damn thing more. Her hand glided down a rack of afghans and quilts, then over the surface of a fully-dressed dining room table. Finally, she stopped at a carousel of jewelry.
“What’s the deal with the wedding presents?”
Shannon’s index finger traced a row of silver and gold charm bracelets. “People got married. I owed them gifts. Before you kidnapped me for the weekend”—she sent a purposeful glare over her shoulder, which I summarily ignored—“I was planning to go shopping.”
“You strike me as the type of guest who wouldn’t dare show up empty-handed.”
She tried on several bracelets. Replaced all of them. “That’s usually the case. I didn’t go to any of these weddings, though.”
“Why not?” I shook my head as she held a hideous pair of octopus earrings to her lobe. “I thought you loved weddings.”
She returned the earrings to the carousel. “Everyone says that,” she murmured, almost to herself. “I don’t understand why.”
“Because the first time I saw you, you were telling Lo’s wedding planner how to do her job. Then you were bitching about flowers and appetizers and tents. And after that, you ran the reception. I could be wrong, but you might have officiated the marriage, too.”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding while rubbing her thumb over a thick metal cuff. “I wanted to give my brother and my best friend an incredible wedding. It was project management with cake and flowers, not wedding fever. There’s a big difference.” She pivoted, her arms folded over her chest. “You want to know who has wedding fever? Andy. She wants the whole damned thing, and you know what? She deserves her Cinderella moment. Not me. I don’t need any of that. I’ve never thought about getting married, but if I did, I wouldn’t want a big, frilly event.”
“No buying out beachfront inns for you?”
“No.” She walked away to pay and sign the enclosure cards for her gifts, but I was insane. I wanted to know everything about Shannon, and I wasn’t done with this topic.
“What would you want?” I asked.
She paused, then returned to writing the cards.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I haven’t given it much thought, but…the wedding is just one day. I don’t believe in that one day being the best day of your life. That’s a lot of pressure for the universe. It’s too easy for little things to go wrong, and make it seem like the marriage started on the wrong foot. I want the best day of my life to be a lazy Sunday morning with raspberry pancakes and open houses andmy person. The wedding is a party with legal documents, and I don’t want a party to matter more than a marriage. But that’s just me.”
With a shrug, Shannon slipped each card into its matching envelope and placed them beside the gift-wrapped boxes.
She couldn’t make it easy on me, that was certain. She couldn’t be a spoiled bridezilla brat who required a big-ass wedding. She couldn’t even be a bitchy workaholic who threw tantrums when forced to take a day off. She wouldn’t fit into any neat compartment, and maybe it was time to stop trying.
“I’m hungry,” she announced. “Point me in the direction of food. Preferably good food, and decent adult beverages.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We headed to a casual restaurant away from the town’s quaint center, and sat at the outside bar. She asked me about Kaisall over dinner, and provided an oblique explanation of her refusal to eat anything off a bone. Ribs, wings, fried chicken: all out of the question.
That was no way to live.
The girl was a handful, but…it was amazing to watch her stress melting away. Some of it remained, but she waspresent. Her words softened and flowed more freely. Her body loosened, as if she wasn’t bracing for battle anymore. Her gestures slowed, and her smile…that smile. The real thing was unexpectedly powerful, like a riptide.
Once the plates were cleared, she studied the dessert menu like she was being quizzed on it. I ordered another beer and let a deep sense of contentment wash over me. The salt air was sinking into my skin, there was a feisty lady at my side, my belly was full of low country barbeque, and unless there was an act of war this weekend, my time was my own until Tuesday.
“Okay, commando,” she said. “I’ve done all the talking. Now it’s your turn. What are you all about? I want the Will Halsted story.”
“You should know I’m obsessed with IPAs,” I said in my best lilting hipster voice. Shannon’s fist landed on my shoulder, and the smiling scowl on her face told me she didn’t find that kind of comment amusing. Not entirely.
