“That’s not how it works either,” I told him.
“Man! You aretough!” He shook his head, that curl I couldn’t seem tonotfocus on bobbing. The conga line was now winding around a nearby chair, a red-faced man with a cigar clamped in his mouth leading it. “So what you’re saying is that you are never going to dance with me right now,no matter how I plead or beg you, even if conga is involved.”
“Correct,” I said.
“Really?” He made a face. “Shoot. I hate not having what I want.”
This was such a weird thing for him to say—arrogant, honest—that I found myself, for the first time, without a set response at hand. But as the conga line came up behind him, the girl in pink letting out a whoop as she reached for his belt buckle, I almost wished for a final beat to address this thought, one I still had myself, more often than I could admit.
I hate not having what I want.
“Don’t we all,” I said quietly, as the line blurred past me, weaving through the tables. And just like that, I reached the point where the whole thing was too much color and life and laughter, and all I could do was turn and walk away.
CHAPTER
3
ETHAN ASKEDme to dance at a wedding, too, and I said no. The first time.
But that was later in the story, this one I’d once told others so eagerly, and now could only repeat to myself, in my own head. You’d think in retrospect time would become linear, as if distance from events forced them to take their proper places. But something like this, I’d learned, was more fluid, as if the story was always being retold, in progress, whether you could bear to listen or not.
I was doing it again, jumping around. But it was so hard to start at the beginning when you knew how it would end.
It all happened at the Margy Love Wedding, the previous summer. My mother did not like doing out of town weddings and rarely took them on, maintaining that she was only as good as her vendors, which were all local. Margy Love’s grandpa, however, was dear friends with William’s mother. As the original benefactor of the business, Miss May—as she was known—had a certain clout even my mother couldn’t deny. Aged eighty and in assisted living, she rarely asked for favors. But when she did, the answer was always yes.
So that August, after ten months of long-distance planning with Margy (in D.C.) and her mother (in California) we packed up for a weekend in the beach town of Colby (where they’d vacationed as a family every summer of Margy’s life). The venue was only about three hours from our house door to door, and, actually,nota bleak, unpopulated place where weddings had never happened before. Not that you could tell this by how stressed my mom was or the amount of stuff she insisted we bring (three vans’ worth, one of us driving each) to ensure she’d have everything she required. My mom was wound pretty tight as a rule, at least when it came to work. But even I had rarely seen her so tense and snappy, which was why, when we finally pulled out caravan-style from the front of the house, I was happy to have the ride all to myself with just the radio for company.
Still, I missed Jilly, who had been planning to come along with me and hang out on the beach or in my room while I worked. This would have been a first for her, an entire weekend away from her family, and we’d both been looking forward to it. It wasn’t easy for the Bakers to do without her and juggle their two Cheese Therapy food trucks (they sold gourmet grilled cheese and the richest, creamiest tomato soup I’d ever tasted), which was why she usually ended up being the substitute hands-on parent to one or all of her siblings. This weekend, though, they’d promised her a pass in return for a busy summer of ferrying the twins and Crawford around, as well as changing endless diapers of Bean’s. Two days earlier, however, Cheese Therapy had been one of only twenty trucks selected for a food truck rodeo at the state capitalcelebrating small local businesses. It was a big deal, and they needed all hands on deck, so our getaway was out.
So Jilly would spend the weekend corralling her siblings and working the Cheese Therapy register while scoping out cute boys in a bigger city. Meanwhile, I’d go to Colby, where I’d spend Friday night assisting my mom and William with the rehearsal dinner—a clambake on the beach with a Tiki Hut theme—and Saturday working the main event (formal, at a hotel overlooking the ocean, surf and turf stations to follow).
If I’d actually been a guest, this probably would have sounded great. As it was, all I could think about was the combination of food and sand (never good in practice) and a very important wedding taking place in a venue I’d not yet seen. At home, we had extensive notes on every place we’d staged ceremonies, detailing pertinent issues like hard-to-find exits, squeaky floors, or rattling pews. Out of town, though, we were everywhere for the first time.
At least it was a nice weekend, warm with sunny and clear skies forecast, and I would be at the beach. With this in mind, I’d splurged earlier in the week on a new black sundress and gold-accented sandals for the occasion. As we drove east, the subdivisions and interstates giving way to farmland and two-lane roads, I could feel the work-related kink in my neck slowly relaxing. I could only hope the drive was having the same effect on my mother in the van ahead of me.
Once over the bridge to Colby, we turned onto the main road, which was bottlenecked with tourists.FRESH SHRIMP!read one sign I studied as I crawled along, followed byWHONEEDS TRAFFIC? RENT A BIKE FROM ABE’S!with an arrow pointing to the nearby boardwalk. After what felt like an hour of exhaust, brake lights, and the occasional glimpse of ocean, blue and wide, we finally turned into the lot of a high-rise hotel called the Piers. The main building was so white in the bright sun that just looking at it made my head hurt. As I parked, pushing open the door, I could already hear my mother complaining. So much for a relaxing drive.
“Thissun!” she said to William, instead of hello, as he walked over. As usual, he was perfect and unruffled in his khakis, short-sleeved checked shirt, and very clean white Adidas sneakers. In contrast, my outfit, after three hours in the car, looked like I’d balled it up in my hand multiple times. There were a lot of things I envied about William (just about everything, actually) but top on the list was how he always looked serene and flawless, even under the most dire of circumstances. “Old New England suppression and denial,” he called it, which made it sound less like something to covet. I still did, though.
Now he just looked at my mom, reflected in his aviator sunglasses, flapping her arms around and trying to kick up a breeze as she continued, “At almost exactly this time tomorrow, we’ll have a sixteen-member wedding party in full dress out in this. If everyone doesn’t faint it will be a miracle.”
“You’re forgetting the pergolas,” he said mildly. “We didn’t insist on them, and the fluttering tulle, purely for the looks of it.”
“We’ll need a lot more than fluttering tulle to deal withthis,” my mom grumbled, dabbing at her (not sweaty, from my view) brow. “But that’s tomorrow. Let’s find the caterer and see how this dinner is shaping up. Louna, can you start the unloading? The ballroom door is supposed to be just over there, behind the Dumpsters, and unlocked. They’re expecting us.”
Great, I thought, even as I nodded. They’d go into the A/C to talk tiki torches while I schlepped boxes of centerpieces, my mother’s preferred table linens, and glassware across a hot parking lot. I could still hear her complaining as they walked away.
That night, the rehearsal went well, with only a few basic wrinkles. (Meltdown from flower girl, bossy wedding planner wannabe aunt of bride, impatient officiant. This last was a pet peeve of us all. Nobody liked a snappy minister.) By the time Margy and her groom, Josef, play-walked down the aisle together, with her carrying the bouquet of ribbons from her bridal shower, everyone was ready for a drink. As they adjourned to the beach, my mother had the caterers waiting with trays of champagne, the tiki torches lit and flaming around them. Let the party begin.
“Well, that’s done,” she said to William, giving a cordial-but-not-exactly-warm nod to the bossy aunt as she passed us. “Here’s hoping the actual event goes so smoothly.”
“That was smooth?” he asked, his eyes following a bridesmaid in wobbly platform sandals who was trying to navigate the steps to the beach. “Just once I’d like to get an officiant who was happy to do their job.”
“Like you’re always happy to do yours?”
“Exactly,” William replied. A pause. Then they both laughed, as if this was hysterical. I rolled my eyes, turning back to the party as two of the groomsmen walked by us. One of them was about my age and built like a football player, with dark hair cut short and blue eyes. The kind of boy that you can easily picture as a little kid, that cute. As he passed by, he smiled at me, and I felt my face flush, even as I tried to imitate my mother’s efficient, businesslike nod in return. Once he went down the stairs to the beach, I realized William was watching me, amused, and felt embarrassed all over again.
After the dinner, the guests moved the party to the hotel bar and, thankfully, out of our jurisdiction. I helped my mom, William, and the caterers break down the tables and chairs, then brought a purse, a phone, and a monogrammed flask to the hotel lost and found. (Someday, I’d write an entire book about the things people left behind at weddings. I just had this feeling it all meant something.) By ten thirty, I was back in my room eating a pack of crackers from the vending machine and texting with Jilly, who was in a hotel room with Crawford watching a marathon of swamp fishing shows while the “youngers” (her term) all slept.
