They were ten minutes north of San Clemente when Meg finally said it.
“That wasn’t it either.”
Luke adjusted the passenger seat back—he’d been sitting at polite-guest angle for two hours and his knees were protesting. “No.”
“The courtyard was beautiful.”
“It was.”
“The fountain was gorgeous. Margaret went all out for that tour.”
“She did.”
“Don’t tell Joey about the napkin cranes. He’d either be devastated or inspired and I don’t know which is worse.”
“Inspired,” Luke said. “Definitely inspired. He’d buy origami books.”
Meg merged onto PCH and let the ocean fill the passenger side of the windshield. Three venues in two weeks. The Dana Point hotel with the ballroom that smelled like carpet cleaner and rum. The garden estate in San Juan Capistrano where the event coordinator had used the word “bespoke” eleven times in forty minutes. And now Margaret’s courtyard at theSan Clemente resort—the most beautiful of the three, with the bougainvillea and the ocean view and the Chiavari chairs and a chef who’d been there eleven years and could do a tasting menu that would make Meg’s San Francisco colleagues weep.
All perfect. All wrong. And Meg couldn’t explain why.
“Is it me?” she asked. “Am I being impossible?”
“You’re being selective.”
“Luke.”
“You’re being you.” He said it the way he said most things—simply, without judgment, like the observation was enough. “You know what you don’t want. That’s useful.”
“I know what I don’t want. Carpet cleaner, the word ‘bespoke,’ and napkin cranes. That’s not a wedding plan. That’s a complaint list.”
“It’s a start.”
“It’s venue number four we need. And five. And an actual decision before the sunset window closes and we’re getting married in the dark.”
“I like the dark.”
“Luke.”
“Fish tacos,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m hungry. There’s that place in Dana Point—the one on the harbor.”
“We’re having a crisis and you want fish tacos.”
“We’re having a conversation and I want fish tacos. Those aren’t the same thing.”
The taco place was small and loud and smelled like grilled fish and lime. They sat at a picnic table on the patio with paper baskets and two bottles of Mexican Coke—so much sweeter than regular Coke and perfect for fish tacos. The harbor stretched out behind them—boats, seagulls, the kind of casual coastalbeauty that never made it into a venue brochure because nobody charged for it.
Meg ate a taco and pulled out her phone and started scrolling through venue listings, because even in crisis she multitasked.
“Stop,” Luke said.
“I’m looking at options.”
“You’ve been looking at options for months. You have a spreadsheet with forty-seven venues and a scoring rubric.” He took a sip of his Coke. “Close the phone.”
