The Perfect Couple(100)
Celeste loves how Roger refers to her as “my bride.” She pretends she’s marrying Roger, and this lightens her mood. Temporarily.
Celeste keeps one eye trained on Shooter at all times, like she’s a spy or a sniper. Their gazes meet and lock, and Celeste dissolves inside. He’s trying to tell her something without speaking—but what? Celeste craves the looks, even though they’re ruining her. When Shooter isn’t looking at her, when he’s joking with Merritt or Abby or Greer, she feels sickeningly jealous.
Celeste’s parents arrive. Celeste worries that, like Benji, the Winburys will think Karen and Bruce are “the salt of the earth” and will patronize them, possibly without their even realizing it.
But Greer is fine with Celeste’s parents, and Tag is better than fine. Celeste wants to hold a grudge against Tag, but he is so gracious and charming with her parents that she can feel only gratitude toward him. She’ll confront her anger and disappointment later, after the wedding.
The rehearsal dinner unfolds exactly as it should. Other people are drinking the blackberry mojito punch. Celeste has one sip of Benji’s and decides to stick to white wine. She doesn’t have time to keep track of Shooter; she’s too busy meeting this person and that person: a friend of Tag and Greer’s from London named Featherleigh, a business associate of Tag’s named Peter Walls, neighbors from London, neighbors from New York, Benji’s lacrosse coach from St. George’s, and the four Alexanders—blond and preppy Alexander, Asian Alexander, Jewish Alexander, who is engaged to a black woman named Mimi who is a Broadway dancer, and the Alexander known as Zander, who is married to a man named Kermit.
Celeste feared her parents would be shy and overwhelmed but they are holding their own and Betty looks better than Celeste anticipated. She walks with a cane and Celeste knows she’s on a mighty dose of painkillers, but she appears happy, nearly radiant. She is far happier about this wedding than Celeste is.
Celeste makes a deal with God: I will go through with this if You just please keep my mother alive.
There are passed hors d’oeuvres, each one more creative and delicious-looking than the next, although Celeste is far too anxious to eat. She sips her wine but it has little effect. Her body is numb. The only thing that matters is Shooter. Where is Shooter? She can’t find him. Then he will appear, brushing past her elbow; even the slightest touch lights her up. She has thought back on the kissing in her apartment only a few thousand times since it happened. How did she have the willpower to refuse him? She is in awe of herself.
Her father stands to give a toast. It’s about Betty first, and Celeste’s eyes well with tears. Then it’s about Celeste and Bruce says, And so to you, Benjamin Winbury, I say from the heart: Take care of our little girl. She is our treasure, our hope, our light, and our warmth. She is our legacy. Here’s to the two of you and your life together. And everyone clinks glasses and drinks.
Thomas stands to speak next, and Celeste leans over to Benji and says, “I thought Shooter was giving the toast.”
“He didn’t want to,” Benji says.
“What?” Celeste says.
“He told me he didn’t want to speak tonight,” Benji says. “He’ll give a toast tomorrow, after we’re married.”
Tomorrow, Celeste thinks. After we’re married.
Celeste doesn’t want to go out; she has done enough pretending for one night. She wants to go to bed. Honestly, she would like to sleep as she did when she was a child: right between Mac and Betty.
Her mother senses something is wrong. Celeste can tell by the emphatic way Betty insists that Celeste go out to be with her friends, be with Benji.
I’ll be with Benji the rest of my life! Celeste thinks. Her time with her mother is dwindling; the sand is running through the hourglass more quickly now, at the end. But Celeste knows her mother will be happier if she goes out.
Besides, Shooter is going. And Merritt—Celeste needs to keep an eye on Merritt. However, when they are all piling into cars, Merritt is missing.
“Wait a minute,” Celeste says. She climbs out of the Winburys’ Land Rover and runs across the driveway to the second cottage. She pokes her head in but the lights are off; Merritt isn’t there.
“Celeste,” Benji says. “Come on!”
“I have to find Merritt,” she says. She tries to remember the last time she saw Merritt. It was during the dinner, obviously, but Celeste had to meet and mingle with so many people that she didn’t get to spend any time with her one true friend. And Merritt didn’t give a toast, even though she’d intimated that she might. Please, Celeste thinks, don’t let her be with Tag. But that has to be it. Where else could she be? She is always the one leading the charge when it comes to continuing the fun.
Celeste tears through the house checking each room—the kitchen, the formal dining room, the casual dining room, the powder room, even the glowing cube that is the wine cellar. She goes down the hall and checks the alcove outside Greer and Tag’s room but she doesn’t have the courage to knock on their bedroom door or on the door to Tag’s study. She scurries down to poke her head into the white living room, even though she has never once set foot in there. She sees a figure in one of the chairs and she’s so startled, she cries out.
“It’s just me,” someone with a British accent says. It’s that Featherleigh woman. “Are you looking for someone?”