And Mimi smiled and said, “No, you look extremely handsome. Would you consider signing up for Datify?” and Ezra, who was still one catastrophe away from a nervous breakdown, leaned over and kissed her cheek because Mimi could be—was in fact—pretty great, even if she were too often in saleswoman mode.
Gregory laughed and said, “Uh, no fucking way, but thanks,” and Mimi made a sour face betraying her chipper facade, but only for a second. Then she beamed, though Ezra knew her heart wasn’t in it, and said, “I’m always here when you’re ready.”
The van wound its way through the darkening streets, now illuminated by festive holiday lights, and soon enough, they were back on campus, and Ezra wished he could appreciate its beauty, tried to just appreciate the moment. He knew he absolutely could not afford to come undone with Mimi. He knew that if she had even a whiff of a scent that he’d spent the prior night with Frankie, even if this were all just a massive misunderstanding, a practical joke they’d one day laugh about, that his chance to propose, to propel his life forward, the life he now realized he’d built mostly around the idea of her, would be obliterated.
In the hotel room, he’d been shaky when he dropped the phone back in the cradle, his call to chew out Frankie aborted. Mimi, fresh from the shower, with a towel on top of her headand the hotel bathrobe swaddling her porcelain skin, hadn’t seemed to notice that his voice wobbled, that he stepped too quickly into the bathroom for his own shower and closed the door too loudly behind him. If he’d been paying closer attention, maybe he’d have detected she had been distracted too.
It didn’t take long—somewhere between the shampoo and conditioner—for his growing rage toward Frankie to plant seeds, take root, and blossom. Ezra was unaccustomed to tapping into his anger, but now that he had, he found it comforting, he found it mature, he wondered what had taken him so long to get here. Of course Frankie would kiss him on Middie Walk, launching an emotional insurrection. Of course she would insert herself into his life just as Ezra was trying to put everything behind him. Of course, of course, of course! By the time he emerged from the shower, he was goddamned steamingly irate, having completely forgotten that Frankie was supposed to hate him too, and if she chose to kiss him honestly and without motive, perhaps it was because she meant it.
The chapel was hushed, reverent. Guests made their way to the pews, heels clacking against the sandstone floor, nothing more than whispers floating around them. Ezra tried to calm himself. Mimi was pressed next to him, their thighs parallel, her shoulder abutting his, and he wanted to just appreciate the moment for what it was: the last few hours before he asked her to marry him, the quiet aura of a chapel on New Year’s Eve, with stained glass windows to each side and an arch adorned with white and pink roses in front of them. He wanted to feel at peace. Everything about this moment told him that he should feel at peace. And yet he had to willfully stop his leg from jittering, consciously work to still his hands and slow his pulse.
He peered around. Still, she wasn’t here, and now the string quartet was playing, so everyone scurried to the remaining seats and held their breath. Then there she was. He’d forgotten she was a bridesmaid, that she’d done what she came here to do: show up for an old friend, stand beside April while she embarked on a new life chapter.
The bright magenta taffeta dress was outrageous. A bow over one shoulder as large as an anvil; a fabric that swooshed with each step; and honestly, if Ezra weren’t so angry with her, he would have been delighted. Then Pachelbel’s Canon began, and he watched her, seeing if she’d flinch. She’d hate the musical choice, he knew, and even through his fury, he wanted to see the look of contempt on her face at the predictability of it. If she were sitting next to him, she’d lean over and say something like,If it were me, I’d do an instrumental of“Love Is a Battlefield,” and she’d mean it both sincerely and ironically because he’d learned the hard way that Frankie had never wanted to get married, but if she did, she’d do it without all the traditional pomp and circumstance. The quartet played on, and he waited for her disdain, raised eyebrows, clenched jaw, the hint of a sneer, but her face never wavered, never betrayed judgment of the song. She stepped forward, moving down the aisle with grace, with joy, clutching a bouquet of pink flowers, doing it all, he knew, for April. That alone was astonishing.
Mimi reached for his hand, and he turned to face back toward her.
“This is so beautiful,” she said. “It’s all like a dream.”
And the thing of it was, Mimi was right. It was beautiful and it was magic, and for as long as Ezra had ever known, he’d wanted such things for himself too. So why was he staring atFrankie, the girl who’d never wanted such things for herself, much less with him? She’d made that clear. She’d saidno. Anger—at her, at himself—bubbled up all over again.
Ezra leaned toward Mimi, her perfume like a balm, and kissed her forehead.It takes two to tussle. He thought of his mother now, as they all stood as April entered and walked down the aisle. He wondered what she would say, about Frankie being here, about her kissing him, about his plans for a New Year’s Eve proposal. His mom had never met Mimi, though she’d always been fond of Frankie. That his two serious loves were so different might cause his mom to raise her eyebrows, but what he thought she’d really do if she were here was ease toward him, poke his heart, and ask him if he knew what each woman held inthere.
April and Connor were in front of them now, both of them teary, both seemingly overwhelmed with the enormity of the moment and their love for each other. Ezra blinked back tears too. All he had wanted was for the same such happiness. He watched them vow themselves to each other and considered what was in Mimi’s heart and what was in Frankie’s. And he surprised himself when he realized that for each of them, perhaps he didn’t know.
THIRTY-ONE
Frankie
SEVEN THIRTY P.M.
Frankie hadn’t expected that April and Connor’s wedding would move her as much as it had. She found herself blinking back tears when they said their vows, choking up when Connor tilted toward April to kiss her. It was much like the few other weddings she’d been to—the poofy white dress and the impersonal vows and the music, oof, the music! But her old friends from another life seemed so genuinely happy, Frankie found herself setting aside her usual marital scorn and simply stood shoulder to shoulder with Laila and embraced it. She’d even cried.
This, needless to say, was new for her.
Alec Barstow hadn’t officiated though. No one had heard from him since last night, despite several calls to his hotel room and three pages to his beeper. (Frankie didn’t know anyone who still had a beeper, but that was beside the point.)When they realized he was MIA, Connor’s brother, a lawyer in Boston, got ordained thirty minutes prior to the ceremony. Frankie wasn’t certain if she should be reassured that Alec was missing or unnerved because she still couldn’t remember anything after the ice rink and it was quite possible that they’d run into him later in the evening, and thus it was not out of the realm of possibility that he had indeed married them. But Frankie didn’t want to pester April with the rest of her questions; she knew this wasn’t the time.
The shuttle buses waited for the guests after the ceremony to whisk them to Steinway Auditorium for the celebration.Breathe, Frankie told herself, as she shuffled from one foot to the other, trying to stay warm while she waited to board, also trying desperately to avoid Ezra and his girlfriend, who were a few dozen people behind her in line.
She’d thought, in the heat of the moment when she kissed him, that maybe she’d wanted something different this time, like those Choose Your Own Adventure books she’d read as a kid. Kiss Ezra Jones and turn to page 45! But she’d glanced his way during the ceremony and saw him leaning into Mimi and looking happy. So perhaps Ezra hadn’t wanted to jump to page 45 alongside her. Truthfully, if she were being honest, up until that moment, she hadn’t known she wanted to either. This was all a startling turn of events, and for the first time in a long time, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
The drive to Steinway was less than a few minutes, and soon, just as she had shuffled onto the bus, she shuffled off. A waiter stood by the door in a wool hat and scarf, offering the arrivals champagne. Frankie reached for one, wanting to smooth out the edges of what was to come. But she was stilltrying; trying for what, she couldn’t put her finger on. She knew that getting obliterated probably wouldn’t much help with anything, so she kept walking.
She steeled herself and went inside, the chill from the outdoor air dissipating as the heat from the overhead vents assaulted her. It was almost too much at once: the memories and the atmosphere and the cacophony. Frankie took a sharp right to the restrooms, where she did a double take at herself in the mirror. She’d forgotten she had on the ridiculous bridesmaid’s dress, forgotten that she had attempted to pull her hair into what she hoped was an elegant bun, forgotten that April had requested a vibrant pink lipstick to complement the magenta dress, which it did not. Nothing about her was recognizable. She gripped the counter and stared into her own eyes and, once again, reminded herself to breathe, as if she were Ezra, as if hers was the mind that needed quieting. For her whole childhood, Frankie Harriman had been trained, like a robot, like a machine, to ward off nerves by leaning into adrenaline, not running from it. But now, alone, vulnerable, and extremely sober, she discovered that the same grit, the same steeliness was no longer accessible. As an adult, she had toiled with the most temperamental musicians, the peskiest of celebrities; she had built careers into superstardom from nothing; she had fought her way through the boys’ club and had lived the life she wanted on her terms. And here she was, in the bathroom of Steinway Auditorium, worried that she was about to become totally undone. She angled over the counter and moaned, her face falling into her hands.
She forced herself upward and met her own eyes.Breathe,she told herself again. The door to the bathroom creaked open, and an older woman entered, nodding hello. Frankie didn’t want to linger, so she painted on a smile and said, “What an amazing ceremony!” in a voice that didn’t sound like hers at all. She saw herself out.
The auditorium had been transformed for the event. The lights were dim over the stadium seating, but the stage itself had been converted into a genuine party space: round tables adorned with gold cloths and white and magenta flower arrangements, a lacquer dance floor in the center, twinkling white lights draped above and around. If Frankie hadn’t known the feel of a stage intuitively, she never would have had the sense that this was where performers sat and destroyed themselves for the love of their art. Or maybe that was just Frankie. Plenty of the kids she knew from back then loved it. Or told themselves they did anyway.
She moved down the darkened aisles toward the revelry, a pit blossoming in her stomach. Ezra and Mimi were on the far right at the bar; with her red hair and green dress, she was impossible to miss. Ezra turned to look toward the open stretch of the auditorium, a drink in one hand, and Frankie pulled back, as if he were looking for her. His eyes flitted back to Mimi, then he smiled at whatever she had said. Frankie had never seen Ezra in a tuxedo, and honestly, it kind of took her breath away. Something about seeing him all grown up moved her, set her on fire. She thought of the kiss again. Maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise.
Laila was frantically waving to her from downstage. Frankie had been discombobulated after the kiss and Mimi’s arrival andhad lingered in the shower too long, and only just made the pre-wedding photos. She and Laila hadn’t had a proper chance to debrief.
“There you are!” Laila said, pulling her into a hug once Frankie ascended the steps to the stage. “Where were you all day? I tried you four times.”
Frankie sighed. She hadn’t even bothered to listen to her voicemail once she charged her phone. What she wanted was fewer people talking to her, needing her, not more.
“How much time do you have?” Frankie said. “Because the story keeps going and going.” She flopped a hand and grimaced.
