Lucky Caller(48)

Sonnets or passages from Shakespeare weren’t uncommon for readings during a ceremony, Jamie told me as we filled pitchers with water that evening. But this wedding was next level, totally full-out, Shakespeare to the max.

“There are lutes,” one of the other waiters told us excitedly. “They’ve got dudes out there playing recorders, wearing doublets and shit!”

The bride and groom, the rest of the wedding party, and even the officiant wore elaborate period dress. The musicians indeed played instruments of the era. There were definitely sonnets, and while the best man and maid of honor speeches were original works, according to the enthusiastic discussion among guests they had been composed in iambic pentameter.

“If my best friend told me my speech had to be in iambic pentameter, I’d find a new best friend,” Celeste murmured to me at one point, and I snorted.

“Can you imagine?” I said to Jamie as we were getting cake service ready. “Being like, let’s get married, but it has to be Shakespeare style. Let’s spend all this money on a big fancy wedding, except it’s … I cannot stress this enough … Shakespeare style.”

“You know, it’s not even the weirdest theme I’ve seen.”

“What was the weirdest?”

“There’s been a bunch. Space cowboy. Hunger Games. Zombie apocalypse.”

“You’re lying.”

He grinned. “Maybe. One of them is real, though.”

“Which one?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Jamie!”

We were bringing back our trays to transfer more plates of cake when Jamie said, “I think it’s nice, though.”

“What? Shakespeare style? Or the Hunger Games—for real, was it Hunger Games? I need to know everything.”

He began loading my tray with plates. “I just think it’s cool that they each found the, like, one other person who thought this was a great idea. They’re … on the same page. And that’s kinda what the whole thing’s about, right?”

He glanced up at me, and something about the moment—facing down the full force of Jamie Russell’s earnestness—was too much. I was afraid I’d do something stupid, like drop my tray and grab his face and press five or six dozen small kisses there.

Instead I just swallowed and looked away. “What would your wedding theme be?” I asked eventually, watching Jamie rearrange a few plates on his own tray to fit a couple more.

Jamie thought for a moment. “Big top circus.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, meeting my eyes once more with a small smile. “Peanuts, tiny car, red-and-white-striped tent. The whole nine yards.” Then he shouldered his tray and headed back toward the ballroom.





42.


TO OUR DISMAY, TICKET SALES for our event continued steadily over the course of spring break.

I had mentioned the event at one point over break and Mom had looked surprised—“Your dad is doing a school thing? And they’re actually selling tickets?”

“Yeah, I mean … a few.”

“We can get in for free though, right?” Sidney had asked.

“It wouldn’t hurt to buy them,” Rose had replied. “Support the station and all that.”

“No, we’ve got two people on the inside of this. We should get comps,” Sidney insisted, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

When Sasha sent an updated total to the group chat on Monday morning, I had to double-check to make sure I hadn’t read it incorrectly. It didn’t seem possible.

That first afternoon back, Mr. Tucker approached us before the start of class as people were still trickling in.

“I’m blown away,” he said. “Absolutely floored. I never thought…” He shook his head. “We’ve sold almost three hundred tickets. This is going to be amazing. And the thing is, because of the number of advanced sales, we obviously can’t have the event in any of the classrooms. Even the black box theater would be too small. But luckily…” He paused like he was about to drop something truly spectacular. “I managed to get permission for us to use the auditorium.”

I shook my head. “What about the middle school show? They open the next day. Don’t they need it for … dress rehearsal or whatever?”

“I was told they’d wrap up that afternoon with plenty of time for us to get in there. They’ll have their backdrops up, but that won’t really make much of a difference, right?”

“Right,” Jamie replied.

“I’m looking forward to this,” Mr. Tucker said with a smile. “It’s going to be great.”

That was definitely debatable.



* * *



We had just risen from dinner a couple of nights later when Sidney’s phone rang. She looked over at Mom: “Technically, the forks are down.”

Mom waved a hand, consenting. “Go for it, you quibbler.”

Sidney grabbed her phone and disappeared into our room.

She came back a few moments later, her face stormy, and handed the phone to Mom.

“Hello?”

“What is it?” Rose said as Mom began on a series of Hm. Mm-hm. Yeah. Sidney didn’t answer, just threw herself down on the couch.