Big Summer(40)
“Just let me hang up my dress,” I said, detaching my arm from the bride’s. I wanted to unpack, to explore my room, and to answer the emails that had hit my inbox as soon as I’d logged on to Sea Star’s Wi-Fi (the password was “DrueandStu2020,” because of course it was). I also wanted to check in with Darshi, who was spending the weekend at an economics seminar in Boston, one that she swore she’d signed up for prior to Drue’s reappearance in our lives. I hadn’t pressed her, but I had wondered if Darshi had wanted an excuse to be nearby, if she thought that I’d need to be rescued at some point before the weekend was over.
After confirming that the bathroom, with its freestanding bathtub and its open-air shower, was just as luxe-y as the rest of the room, I hung up the clothes that I’d packed. I hear yr going 2 B in VOGUE, Leela Thakoon had texted me, followed by a string of exclamation points and heart-eye emojis. I, too, had heard those whispers, and that Drue and Stuart were in the running to be featured in this week’s Vows column in the Times. “Which is huge, because some big-deal agent is getting gay-married in Aspen tomorrow night,” Drue confided.
“I think you’re just supposed to say ‘married.’?”
Drue had patted my arm and poured me a glass of prosecco. “You’re cute,” she said. “Meet me downstairs. We’ll get our hair done.”
Once the rest of my clothes were unpacked, I gave my bridesmaid’s dress a shake. Drue, thank goodness, had not decreed that her bridesmaids had to all wear the same dress. Instead, she’d picked out a fabric—chiffon—and a range of shades, from sand to taupe to pale gold to saffron, and let us choose our own designs. When I’d learned that most of the bridesmaids were having their dresses made, I’d asked Leela if she’d be willing to design something. Leela had eagerly agreed, and she’d outdone herself. The silhouette was simple: a sweetheart neckline; wide shoulder straps that would leave my arms and the top of my chest bare and keep my bra covered; a boned bodice that would hug my torso from breasts to hips, where the skirt flared out full. Somehow, Leela had managed to fold the shimmery gold fabric into dozens of tiny pleats that gave the fabric the illusion of motion, so that even when I was standing still the dress looked like a pond ruffled by a breeze.
“You’ll look like Venus, rising from the sea,” Leela had said, hands pressed against her heart.
I’ll look like Venus, rising from the all-you-can-eat buffet, I thought before I could stop myself. I didn’t want to dwell on the pain that Drue had caused me. I wanted to believe that she was truly sorry and that we could move past it. I wanted to enjoy this beautiful place with my best friend.
From the beach, I could hear someone performing a microphone check on the newly constructed stage and the lulling sound of the waves. A familiar excitement was humming in my chest, an anticipatory buzz. When I was a little girl and my parents took me on trips to the beach, I could remember feeling this way, when the traffic slowed down and I could sense but not see the ocean; when I knew that fun was close. Maybe it will be wonderful, I thought. Maybe I’ll meet the man of my dreams. With the breeze against my face and half a glass of prosecco fizzing inside me, it felt like a night made for miracles; a night made for falling in love.
Chapter Eight
I gave my bridesmaid’s dress a final shake, hung it up, and pulled on another one of Leela’s creations, a spaghetti-strapped, down-to-the-ground maxi dress in a bold hot-pink floral print, called the Daisy. Downstairs in the beauty suite, Drue was already in a chair, eyes closed, with Minerva tending to her face while another woman worked on her hair. “Is that you?” Drue called, and patted the seat beside her. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get pretty!” At five o’clock, with my complexion smoothed out, my hair pinned up, and my new dress swaying in the breeze, I stood next to Drue at the top of the staircase leading down to the beach and the party.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Drue asked. I nodded, truly at a loss for words. The beach had been transformed. The sand was covered in layers of Persian rugs in vivid shades of scarlet and indigo, gold and copper and cream. In between the arrangements of carpets were bonfires—I counted four of them, three already burning and the fourth being lit by a uniformed server. Piles of blankets and embroidered pillows in hot pink and turquoise and gold, some fringed, others stitched with bits of mirrors, were stacked by the fires, and there were long tables set up, buffet-style, underneath tents behind them. Waiters circulated with trays of drinks. It looked like a seraglio had tumbled out onto the sand.
“The bar’s over there,” said Drue. She pointed toward the center of the beach, where a freshly assembled bar stood, fully stocked and bustling, with tiki torches flaring in a half-circle around it. She pointed again. “Over there is where they’re cooking the lobsters and the clams.” I could see white-uniformed caterers bustling around behind a screen, carrying platters of food to one of the buffet tables. “Oh, and wait ’til you see what else!”
“What else,” I saw as we made our descent to the beach, was a bed. A king-size bed, set on the rug-covered sand, with a curved brass headboard, surrounded on all four sides with gracefully draped mosquito netting that swayed in the breeze. The bed was dressed all in white, from the crisp pillowcases to the down-filled duvet. A placard on the coverlet read “Reserved for the Bride and Groom.” Selfie sticks protruded from both sides of the bed, as well as from its base, all positioned to snap the perfect shot. A sign affixed to one of them reminded the guests of the nuptial hashtag, #DRUEANDSTU. There was also, I noted, a hashtag for the mattress company and one for the linen supplier. When I pointed them out, Drue gave a modest shrug. “It was no big deal. Just a couple of brands came to us, and we figured, why not?”