“Bartender’s choice.
Hugo glanced at the window, now speckled with raindrops. “How about a hot toddy?”
Humphrey settled onto a plaid dog bed, curled up with his head on his paws, then caught sight of Marigold and ran over to sniff her excitedly, as if he couldn’t quite believe she was still here. Marigold gave Humphrey a pat and excused herself to use the bathroom, grateful that her purse always contained spare mascara and lip stain, if not a phone charger.
When she returned, she found Hugh sitting with a mug, staring out the window at the rain like some handsome, melancholy sea captain of yore. Albeit one with a man bun. She tried to imagine Jonathan sitting there like that and found that she couldn’t. He’d either be catching up on email, reading the news, or falling down some Reddit rabbit hole about obscure 1970s bass players or the latest theory about life on Saturn’s moons. She loved his curiosity and the fact that his brain never turned off, but sometimes it felt like it needed a constant stream of stimulation to feed it. Jonathan couldn’t sit in contemplative silence—he needed to be talking, reading, or processing. Whenever Marigold got lost in her own thoughts, Jonathan tried to pull her back, wanting to know what she was thinking. Like her mind was a book he could read cover to cover. And Marigold always felt pressure to make sure it was a book Jonathan wouldwantto read, which was why she was always pestering Natalie for smart little tidbits she could stash away.
“Yours is there,” Hugo said, pointing to a mug on the side table next to a cracked leather armchair.
“Thank you,” she said, taking a seat. “I’m sorry—I’ve totally hijacked your day.”
“That seems to be what you do,” he said with a laugh, but there was less bitterness in it than there’d been before. “Hurricane Marigold.”
“I guess I deserve that, being compared to a destructive natural disaster.”
Hugo took a sip. “Destructive… and exciting… and cleansing. Depends how you look at it.”
She waited for him to continue, desperate for some assurance that he was okay. That she hadn’t destroyed his life, or made it impossible for him to trust women. But did she really want him to mention a girlfriend? How would it feel to see him light up talking about the cycling vegan baker Marigold had pictured? Would that provide the closure she was looking for?
“I bet your fiancé is one of those thrill-seeking-doctor types,” Hugo said. “You know, the ones who go heli-skiing on their days off.”
“Jonathan? I could barely get him off the bunny slope the one time we went skiing.”
“You provide all the excitement, then?”
“I’m actually trying to be less exciting these days. Turned over a new leaf.”
“Why?”
Marigold shrugged. “It seemed like it was time to grow up.” She waited for Hugo to make some sign of understanding of approval, especially since he’d witnessed the destructive power of her immaturity. But instead he simply surveyed her with a look she couldn’t quite decipher.
Her phone buzzed, and she crossed the room to look.Humphrey jumped to his feet and skittered over to her, circling her legs as if trying to keep her from going too far. Her stomach clenched as she went to check her texts; Olivia was clearly suspicious, and would never stop poking holes in Marigold’s cover story. What if she’d said something to Jonathan? Or Lulu? But the message waiting for Marigold was even worse than another offer of “help” from Olivia. It was an airline alert—her flight had been delayed until tomorrow morning.
“Oh, fuuuuuck,” Marigold breathed, leaning against the desk for balance. Humphrey sat on his haunches and pawed at her leg, whining with concern.
Hugo rose from his chair. “What’s wrong?”
“My flight was delayed. I need to call the airline.”
She paced back and forth while she waited on hold, Humphrey trotting behind her. When she finally got through to an agent, she explained the situation as calmly as possible, having learned the hard way that hysterical tears didn’t help in customer service situations. “Can you book me on another flight to Montreal? Or Toronto? Anywhere I can catch a flight to Portland—or even Boston?” Her heart sank as the agent explained that the storm had caused massive delays through the entire system as it moved north from New England. There were no flights leaving the island until tomorrow.
Marigold confirmed that she was booked on the first flight to Portland, now via Halifax, then hung up in a daze.
She was going to miss her own rehearsal dinner.
“There aren’t any flights until the morning,” she told Hugo.
He sighed. “I’m sorry, Mare. What are you going to tell everyone?”
“I don’t know.” Marigold resumed pacing around the room,as if the movement might shake her scattered thoughts into some semblance of order. “I mean, the truth, I guess? That my flight was delayed because of the storm. They don’t need to know what city I’m in.”
“Or what country.”
“Okay, if I were in New York, what would I do…” Marigold muttered to herself as she paced. “Even the private planes would be grounded, so I wouldn’t be able to charter a flight.” She’d learned that the hard way the time she missed her SATs. “I guess I’d drive. People drive in bad weather all the time.”
“But you’d still miss your dinner thing anyway, wouldn’t you?”
“You mean myrehearsaldinner? Is that not a thing in Canada?”
