Helen has rented us a suite at the Biltmore and, though I asked her not to, paid for Piper and my father as well. I told Ben how uncomfortable this made me, and he said, “Babe, I know, you’ve worked since you were twelve. But it’s just a weekend, and it’s just to make it go smoother for all of us, so let’s let it go for now, and this will be the last time we accept such a thing, OK?”
And because he is pragmatic and kind, I, of course, let it go. He likes taking care of me, being my alpha. I’m the one who isn’t used to being taken care of.
My dad is shuffling around the lobby when we pull up in Ben’s Toyota, and Piper says: “Be nice, Tate. Please, just be nice.”
So I kiss his cheek and try to pretend that when I get close, I’m not sniffing for alcohol. He looks sober, though, clean. He reaches for me and pulls me tighter than I’d like, and says: “I wish so much she were here. She’d want to be here so badly.”
He is crying already, so I press myself back from him. “Dad, please, come on. No tears today.”
And he nods and sniffles, and then Piper is at his elbow, asking brightly if he’s already checked in, and maybe he wants to take a walk?
Ben rolls our bags to our suite, which is covered in rose petals and makes us both sigh, because I hate roses (as did my mom), and then giggle because Helen has tried so hard, and it’s a little funny that our bed has been showered in something I loathe so deeply. Ben whisks them off the bed with a sweep of his arms, then tugs his clothes off nearly as quickly, jumps on top stark naked, and says: “Now,thisis a better view, am I right?”
I sleep fitfully that night until he presses himself next to me, nearly swallowing me against him, and then, when I can hear his heartbeat in my ear, I tumble toward sleep, as if his pulse is soothing mine, as if his heart is also assuring mine. Wedon’tneed to measure our love, not when our hearts can beat in rhythm, not when they can beat in tandem, as if they are one and the same.
It is unusually sunny the next day. You never know what you will get by the ocean in March, but for us, it is cloudless. Sky-blue.
I take this as a sign.
I wear my mother’s veil.
My dad behaves himself, though I opt to walk down the aisle alone.
Piper, as my maid of honor, holds my bouquet of lilies (Mom’s favorite) and passes me a tissue when I find myself weeping when Ben says his vows.
Leo, as Ben’s best man, winks at me when I try to gather myself together, which makes me choke, then laugh, then cry harder, and so then Leo starts laughing, and Ben turns toward him, and Ben starts laughing, and soon all of us together have broken down into uncontrollable gales that echo over the beach waves just yards away.
Though it is not the wedding I planned—Helen took care of all the details—it is perfect. We are perfect. Ben’s cheeks are sun-kissed and his eyes aglow, and he cries when he kisses me, and lofts our hands joyfully when the officiant declares us husband and wife, and I gaze at myhusbandand this menagerie of people who have stood up to celebrate us, and I realize that if we did measure our happiness, our love for each other, we would be full.
Daisy finds me by the bar after the ceremony.
“Please tell me you’re at least taking a few days for a honeymoon.”
I stir my martini. “Ben has to work. They’re aiming for Toronto.”
“He should just cast you. Like you’re not the best actress he could find.”
I shake my head. “I want to do this on my own merits, not because I’m Ben Livingston’s wife.”
“Everyone in this town uses their connections. Christ, look at me.”
“It would be different if he wrote something just for me or whatever. I don’t want him wedging me into a project just because. I’ll pass.”
“Your call,” she says. “But there are easier paths to becoming a star.”
I shrug as if to say:Let’s talk about something else.Not that there is much to discuss anyway. Though we’ve been in Los Angeles for only nine months, I can barely muster commercial auditions, and even those haven’t gone well. (I am never pretty, only “cute,” or I am too pretty but they want “cuter,” or I am too tall or too short or too flat-chested or too brunette. I am “too” much of everything but what they want, it seems.) But I meant it: It wasn’t Ben’s job to find me work. It was mine. Had been since I was twelve, and it isn’t any different now.
“Jesus, Tate, come on, what happened to that fire from back in the bar, the girl who wouldn’t turn down a bet?” Daisy says.
I poke at an olive and pop it in my mouth.
“That girl was a role, Daisy—give me a break, like you don’t know that. Also, LA is fucking hard. Everyone out there is beautiful and aspiring.”
“But you have more talent in your pinky than they do.”
I shrug again.
“Tatum, you were the best one in our graduating class. You were the one who won raves inRomanticah. None of the rest of us.”
