My shoulders curl in,trying to hide. Mystery Man doesn’t see me at first.
“Hi, Aunt Lou.” Josh gives Louise a big hug, then steps aside to introduce his backwards-capped companion. “This is my best friend since middle school, Eitan Moreno.”
“Hi, ma’am.” Mystery Man’s voice cuts through the room. “Grabbed these on the way over but I see now I should have gotten something bigger.” He pulls a bouquet of lilies from behind his back and lets out a self-deprecating laugh that tickles like wind chimes.
“Oh my, how did you know that lilies are my favorite?” Louise stands up (she didn’t stand up when I got here!) and makes for the bouquet.
“Lucky guess,” Eitan says warmly.
“I worry for the men of this generation, but at least there’s one out there with proper manners.” Louise makes suspicious and stern eye contact with me. I regret telling her about my dating woes. “Have you met Penny’s wedding planner?” Louise points to me.
The entire group focuses on me. I am heirloom tomato purple. “I’m not?—”
“Bathroom Girl.” Mystery Man’s gaze slides from my pink bow to my Mary Janes. Josh snorts at the nickname but tries to turn it into a cough. I may just reconstitute into a puddle.
“That’s me.” I grimace. “And I’m not the planner, I’m just a friend of Pen.”
He raises his eyebrows. I can’t tell if I’m missing something, or if he’s looking for something.
“Her name is Gem,” Louise proclaims.
“Ruby! My name is Ruby.”
“Ruby,” Eitan murmurs, like he’s tasting my name. I remember his girlfriend at the wedding, no doubt on their way to somewhere private to do unspeakable things to one another. I blush.
“Eitan,” I respond, trying out his name, my voice threatening to spook like a horse.
“Nice to see you again, Ruby,” Josh says as he pulls me into a whirlwind hug.
“We decided on a photographer, band,andflorist!” Pen tells Josh excitedly. “We were so productive, I’m not even sure why we have Miri. Ruby did incredible.”
I scramble to dispel this rumor, feeling Miri’s ire from her sick bed. “I was using Miri’s notes. She’s very thorough. Great wedding planner.”
Pen exhales pointedly. “Can’t show up to her own meeting,” she mutters.
Josh senses the tension in his bride’s pursed lips. “Eitan has lived all over the world, Aunt Lou,” he redirects. “He’s been in Chicago for the last eight months, but before that he was living in Colombia, Japan, and—” Josh looks to Eitan, widening his eyes.
Eitan cuts in. “Argentina, Seoul for a bit, New Zealand.” He taps his chin. “Oh! And Canada.”
How nice for him.
Since cancer, I haven’t traveled. I can at this point—logically, I know that—but there’s still the nagging voice telling me I’ll find a lump while I’m halfway across the country from my oncologist, or my flight home will get cancelled and I’ll miss an appointment for my ovary-suppressing shot. And that’s not even mentioning the radiation. Have you seen the rates of cancer among people who spend their lives above the clouds? I’ll keep my feet firmly planted on the ground, thanks.
“I traveleda lotbefore I met Uncle Alfie.” Louise glances at Calliope. “Did you know that a Czech prince wanted to marry me in the seventies? We met in Paris.”
Calliope playfully swats Louise. “How have you never told me that?”
“I traveled back to Chicago to talk my parents into it.” Louise smiles, wry. “Let’s just say they were skeptical. I’m back home after traveling for four years, and my parents sent me to Jewel for potatoes for dinner one night.” Louise sniffs. “Mind you, we had a full house staff. There was no reason they needed anything from the store, let alone they neededmeto get it.” Louise pauses to look around the group, everyone leaning toward her. “It was a set up. They organized it so that a son of one of my father’s business partners would be there at the same time.”
“Uncle Alfie?” Calliope asks. I’m blindsided by the reminder that Penelope—my friend of seven years—has had one of my favorite authors as a great uncle her entire life.
Louise snorts. “Gosh, no. It was some pencil-pushing, training-wheels CFO in a pinstripe suit who followed me around half the store.” She rolls her eyes. “I make it to the register, and there’s a cute Irish boy with red hair down to his shoulders bagging groceries. He did something the CFO never did in the thirty minutes he accosted me in that store.” Louise waits for someone to guess.
“Supported your right to vote?” Calliope asks dryly.
“Close, but not quite, dear. He asked me a question.” Louise throws her hands up. “Sounds easy, right? You’d be surprised how many people are too absorbed in themselves that they don’t even think to ask someone else a question. So can you guess who left the store with a date planned?”
“I didn’t know Uncle Alfie had long hair.” Calliope laughs.
