“Shut up,” I seethe.
Penelope’s eyes narrow to diamond-tipped points. “What did you say to me?”
“I said toshut up. You didn’t spend a single second of time with her. You pawned off any obligation you had to do that to me.”
The truth tastes like loss. Like letting go of a seven-year-long friendship. Losing the piece of myself that was still embedded in it. The twenty-two-year-old, hungry for friends, desperate to publish at all costs. But the truth also tastes like relief. Because I’ve been fighting to hold onto a friendship that has become nothing more than a glorified business transcation.
“She was—” I gasp. “She wasdying,and I had no idea. I wasted the last months of her life planning yourderangedwedding.” The thing about the truth is, it can’t be stopped once you start. It’s like the sun. A burning bright light cast oneverything, in all directions. “Those days were all she had, and we wasted them.” I’m careening, a train car that’s skated off its rails and over a cliff.Those days were all she had.
May you never lose sight of all the days before tomorrow.I understand now what Louise was trying to tell me. This is my life—my one and only. I’m in the middle of it. It’s the thing that’s actively passing me by, every minute I spend waiting for tomorrow.All we have is now, and that’s eternal, in its own way.
“Howdareyou!” Penelope swats away her makeup artist and stands up from the folding chair. “I’ve been anamazingfriend to you, and this is how you repay me?”
I laugh. I am a madwoman. I am unleashed. “Amazing friend? Are you serious?” A year and a half of trial and triumph andlifecomes out in my voice. “Where were you when I needed you? When I wasn’t a photogenic trophy you could show off? When I had to shave my head? When I couldn’t get out of bed?”
Penelope gasps, an affronted, kicked-puppy sound. “You are so out of line right now, it’s insane. I did you afavormaking you a bridesmaid after Izumi got knocked up.”
It’s a surprise, and it isn’t, this final blow. If anything, it makes me feel at peace. Because I’m finally seeing everything clearly. Penelope and I are not friends anymore.
I rip the hydrangeas out of my braids, taking several bobby pins with them. “Hydrangeas are a ridiculous wedding flower.” I hold the wilted flowers up. “This looks like a fucking charity luncheon.” I throw them at her for emphasis.
When the flowers hit her chest, she shrieks. Pen is a supernova, alright. A dying star collapsing in on itself. She reaches for a club sandwich from the room service cart and lobs it at me. Lucky for me, her aim is shit.
“Fuck this wedding. Fuck you.” The bouquets of hydrangeas are sitting on the table. I want nothing more than to see themmeet the back end of a garbage truck. The entire bridal suite watches me snatch up the bouquets and burst out of the hotel room, arms full of sickly sweet flowers.
“What are you doing!” Penelope shouts after me.
I find the trash chute easily. It smells like rotten fruit and must. I fling the bouquets down it. The entire wedding party has followed me into the hallway, everyone watching the scene in disbelief.
“Youpsycho!” Pen’s perfectly tan face is the color of a ripe tomato.
I suddenly notice that Calliope, crying but smiling, has a phone pointed at us.
“I can’t believe I was going to introduce you to my agent,” Pen seethes. “I’m going to get you blacklisted at every single agency.”
“Penelope?” Josh’s voice peeps up from the crowd that’s gathered around us. I guess he and Tori finally came back upstairs. “What are you talking about?”
No time like the present! “Your lovely bride offered to introduce me to her agent,” I tell him, “in exchange for becoming her unpaid wedding planner for the summer.”
Josh’s face screws up. “That’s not—” He turns to Penelope. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“Of course not, baby, she’s lying,” Pen assures him.
“Oh, and Penelope never finished her conversion requirements.” I smile at her. “Do you want to tell the rabbi, or should I?”
“Youbitch—” Penelope snarls, but her groom holds her back.
“I’m leaving,” I announce, feeling lighter than I have in years.
“MOM, LOOK WHAT SHE DID!”Penelope screams.
Tori lets out a withering sigh. “I need a scotch.”
“Someone do something!” Pen shouts as I walk to the elevator. “Arrest her!”
“Goodbye, Penelope,” I say cordially.
Outside,the sun is shining and the trees are varying shades of burnt, like the entire world is on fire. My dress drags through muddy piles of leaves as I check the map and realize, with glee, I’m only a fifteen minute walk from The Sunny Island.
