I iron a shirt. I put on a blazer, which I haven't worn since the Seattle farewell dinner and which, if Ivy were here, would earn me a "principal, but nicer" and a thumbs up. I knock on Gemma's door with something that is not nervousness, because I don't get nervous. My jaw is tight and my hands won't fully relax, but those are two things that have nothing to do with each other.
Standing on her porch, I realize I should have brought something. Flowers. Wine. A small decorative dinosaur, which is insane, but the thought arrives fully formed and I can't un-have it. I have brought nothing. I am standing here in a blazer with empty hands like a man who did not think this through, which is exactly what I am.
She opens the door in a green dress the color of new leaves, her hair down instead of pulled back, and my brain does something unhelpful and immediate that I shut down before it can fully develop. She's smiling at the blazer with warm eyesand says, "You look really nice, Beck," like she means it and isn't performing the meaning, and I nearly walk into the doorframe.
We drive to Valentino's.
The front door has a handwritten sign taped to the glass that reads: Closed for Private Event — Alvarez-Park Wedding Rehearsal Dinner. Thank you for your understanding!
The Alvarez-Park wedding rehearsal dinner.
I stand on the sidewalk in my blazer, the cold mountain air cutting straight through it, and stare at that sign for what is probably too long. Gemma stands beside me. She reads it. She makes a sound — a small, controlled sound — and when I look at her, her lips are pressed together so hard they've gone white at the edges. Her shoulders are doing something she's fighting.
"Don't," I say.
"I'm not," she says, voice level.
"You're about to."
"I'm absolutely not about to—" She turns away and her shoulders give up entirely, shaking with the kind of laughter she's muffling behind both hands, and the sound that escapes anyway is somewhere between a laugh and a cough. "I'm sorry," she manages. "I'm so sorry. The sign is just very — it's a very informative sign."
"Gemma."
"The calligraphy is really nice."
The Alvarez-Park wedding rehearsal dinner is doing exactly nothing for the particular kind of humiliation that comes from standing on a sidewalk in a blazer with a reservation you can no longer use. "We're leaving," I say.
The Watershed hits us with a wall of warmth when we push through the door — wood smoke, draft beer, the chili Big Jim makes on shift nights, and the particular noise of agood portion of the Copper Ridge Fire Department having a perfectly normal evening that is about to become less normal. The jukebox is doing something mournful with a steel guitar. A mounted largemouth bass watches us from above the bar with an expression that can only be described as resigned.
We walk in together.
Big Jim looks up from behind the bar, sees us, and his whole face transforms into an expression that can only be described as triumphant. The bar rag stops moving.
"WELL," he says, at a volume that was not necessary and that silences the nearest table completely. "LOOK WHO IT IS."
"Jim," I say, low.
"Beck Delano and Gemma Lockhart," he continues, undeterred, gesturing with the bar rag toward the room at large. "All dressed up. Must be on a DATE."
Someone at the pool table whoops. A booth near the back erupts. Gemma's hand comes up and covers her face, and the tips of her ears have gone pink.
"We're getting a table," I tell Big Jim, using the voice I use on new recruits who have done something inadvisable.
"Of course, of course." He waves us toward the corner booth with the enthusiasm of a man presiding over something he personally arranged. "Best seat in the house."
We slide in across from each other. The corner booth that the entire bar can see, under a light that is doing its level best to illuminate us like a stage. Gemma's recovered enough to look at me over the top of her menu, eyes bright and dancing with an emotion I am choosing to interpret as sympathy.
"You doing okay?" she asks.
"Great," I say. "Having a wonderful time."
She bites her lip. Hard. Her menu trembles slightly.
The bread basket arrives with a folded notecard tucked between the rolls. Gemma unfolds it. Reads it. Her face doessomething extraordinary — a sequence of expressions that cycles through surprise, delight, and helpless hilarity in under two seconds. She presses the notecard flat against her collarbone, composing herself, and then slides it across the table.
Beckett, it reads, in neat loopy handwriting I recognize from the notes she leaves when she watches Ivy — ate well, no dinosaur arguments, went to bed easy. This one reads: She's lovely. Don't mess it up. — Rosa Delgado.
"Mrs. Delgado is here?" I ask.
