Chapter 1: Benji
The beach house is worth thirty-two million dollars and the bride wants a rustic elegance theme for her wedding. In a house with forty-foot ceilings and an infinity pool that wraps around three sides of the house like a moat.
“I love it,” I tell her. “Rustic elegance is going to be stunning against these sight lines. The Gulf of Mexico as the backdrop, the natural wood and burlap grounding the whole thing so it doesn’t feel sterile. I see your vision for the wedding. I completely see it.”
I don’t see it.
What I see is a multi-million-dollar white stucco house in a luxury gated community fighting for its life against mason jars. But I’m a professional wedding planner and it’s my job to make the client’s vision happen, not to make the client’s vision good. Those are completely different skill sets. I’m excellent at both but today I am only being paid for one.
The bride’s name is Callie. She’s twenty-six, thin, with straight, long blonde hair. Her father bought her this house as a wedding present. A mansion sitting on the most pristine stretch of beach in the Florida Panhandle, and Callie has been inside it twice.
“What about the table settings?” I ask. “Have you finalized the linens?”
“We were thinking maybe a natural linen? Like an oatmeal color? With wildflowers in small clay pots as centerpieces. Very organic. Very unproduced.”
Unproduced.
She’s paying me an outrageous fee to produce an event that looks unproduced. I plan love for other people and I make it look like it happened by accident.
“Oatmeal linens, wildflower centerpieces, clay pots,” I say, typing into my iPad. “Absolutely.”
We walk the property for two hours. The house is extraordinary. The architecture is all clean white lines and floor-to-ceiling glass. Every room faces the water. The terrace is three thousand square feet of polished concrete that steps down to a private boardwalk that leads to the whitest sand I’ve ever seen, and I live in Miami, so that’s not nothing.
But the community is almost aggressive in its blankness. Every building and wall is white. You admire it and you speak in a voice that’s two notches below your real one.
It’s the opposite of me in every possible way.
Callie leaves at four. She has a dinner reservation with Connor and his parents and she needs to “decompress” before it, which probably means a nap and a glass of rosé. I don’t judge. I would love to do the same.
I lock up the house and stand on the front steps. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, I’m starving and I need a cocktail. And I want to watch the sunset over the Gulf because I’ve never seen it from this coast. And there is nowhere nearby to do any of those things at the same time.
I pull out my phone and do what every lonely person in an unfamiliar town does. I search for somewhere interesting to go.
Bars near me with Gulf view.
The first three results are wine bars with craft cocktails and small plates. Nothing directly on the beach. The fourth result is ten miles down the road.
Big Tex’s Roadhouse. 4.3 stars. 1,247 reviews.
I tap it. The photos show a concrete building right on the water. Neon signs and motorcycles in the parking lot. A bearded giant man holding a rack of ribs next to a massive smoker. The menu is burgers, brisket, coleslaw and fried everything else. The reviews say things like “best food in PCB” and “amazing views from the deck” and “don’t wear nice shoes.”
One review catches my eye:
“This is the real Florida Panhandle. Not the tourist version. The people are genuine, the food is incredible, and if you sit on the deck you’ll never want to leave. Just don’t start trouble. The owner is the size of a refrigerator.”
I’m sold.
Every smart instinct I have is telling me to go back to my rental condo, order pizza, eat on the couch, and go to bed early. Tomorrow I have vendor calls starting at eight. The florist in Panama City hasn’t returned my last two emails and I need to finalize the arch design by Friday.
But I’ve been in this town for three days and I’m going stir-crazy. I’m a social animal who thrives on people and noise. Three days here has me starved for human contact.
I’m going to Big Tex’s Roadhouse.
I drive back to the rental, which is a second-floor condo in a complex called Seaview Estates that does not, in fact, have a view of any water. It has a view of a parking lot and, if you lean over the balcony railing and crane your neck to the left, a sliver of blue between two buildings that might be the Gulf or might be the roof of a pool supply store. The condo is clean and furnished. It’s mine for two weeks and I’ll make the best of it.
I shower quickly under water pressure that’s barely a suggestion, the lukewarm stream flattening my hair against my skull. The bathroom smells like generic soap and mildew.
After digging through every outfit I packed, I choose my favorite white jeans. Fitted, sitting low. A silk button-down in a blue so pale it’s almost silver, open two buttons past appropriate. Silver chain at my throat. Rings on my fingers. I push back my white-blonde hair off my forehead and let it fall in ways that make people’s eyes follow it.
