“The Shack. This Saturday. The patio at sunset. Our food. Paige is handling everything else.”
Luke was quiet for a moment.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“The patio at sunset with our family isn’t a backup plan, Meg.” His voice was steady. The voice of a man who’d been waiting for this. “It’s the plan. It’s always been the plan.”
She smiled and felt immediately lighter. The lists. The chairs. All of it falling away.
“Everyone’s known for weeks,” Luke said. “You were the last one.”
She laughed. Luke laughed too.
“Saturday,” she said.
“Saturday.”
She hung up and went back inside. Her phone buzzed before she sat down. Anna.
“Did Luke call you?” Meg asked.
“No. Bernie called me.” Anna’s voice had the sound it got when something landed right. “Gerald came through. The license is approved. We can serve wine.”
Meg stood in the coffee shop with Paige already planning and Natalie watching her with bright eyes.
“We can serve wine at my wedding,” Meg said.
“The first wine ever served at the Beach Shack,” Anna said. “Fifty years and the first glass is at your wedding.”
Meg stood in the coffee shop with Paige already planning and Natalie watching her with bright eyes and everything landing at once.
“Saturday,” she said.
“We know,” Anna said. “Everyone knows.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?”
She hung up and put the laptop in her bag and looked at her friends.
“Dress,” Paige said, standing. “Something simple. Something you can dance in.”
“I don’t dance.”
“You will on Saturday,” Natalie said.
The shop on PCH had a window full of white that Meg would have walked past a hundred times without seeing. Natalie had found it—Natalie found everything, quietly, without fanfare, the way she found the right words for a struggling student or the right moment to squeeze someone’s arm.
Paige pulled four dresses in three minutes. She moved through the racks the way she moved through venue setups—decisive, efficient, no browsing.
“No beading,” Meg said.
“No beading. No train—you’ll trip on the boardwalk. Nothing stiff. You need to be able to move.” Paige held up a dress. Simple. Ivory. A neckline that was elegant without trying too hard. “This one.”
“You picked it in three minutes.”
“I’ve been doing this for fifteen years. Try it on.”
