I'll Be Your Blue Sky (Love Walked In #3)(13)
“You came.” The words just fell out—clunk, clunk—but because there were only two of them, even in my annoyed state, I hoped Dev had missed the note of accusation in my tone, and an outside observer, even one who knew him pretty well, probably would have sworn he had. His smile held steady for sure. But there was the pink flush, two streaks about an inch and a half wide, running down the exact center of each cheek, and if the rush of satisfaction I felt upon seeing them made me a bad person, I didn’t care. Our five-year romance aside, Dev and I had been best friends for years, although to be perfectly honest, for the past few months, our once rock-solid best-friend status had felt shaky. Even so, the thought of my marriage as being barely a blip on Dev’s emotional radar screen was just too much to bear.
But there they were: two pink streaks. Blip. Blip. I was so busy rejoicing in those blips that I neglected what was clearly my duty at that moment: to bail us both out of our awkward silence with a joke.
Finally, Dev said, “Hey, how could I not be here? I sent back the RSVP card with the yes box checked, which basically amounts to a blood vow in your mom’s world, right?”
“You renege on the yes box and you’re blacklisted for eternity. The party planner code of conduct is pretty clear on that point.”
Two semidecent jokes. And still the air fizzed with tension.
“Which is why,” said Dev, gamely, “you shouldn’t tell her that I considered, and I mean strongly considered heading to Reverend Wiley’s Salvation Nation instead.”
On our drive here, my mom, Cornelia, and I had passed six billboards advertising Reverend Wiley’s fundamentalist megachurch, each bearing a different antiscience message, and every one had made me think of Dev.
Now, I said to Dev, “Big Bang Equals Big Bust.”
“Christians Are the Real Endangered Species,” said Dev.
“Adam and Eve Weren’t Swinging from the Tree of Life.”
“Jesus Didn’t Have a Tail.”
“Except.” I stabbed my finger into the air. “The photo with that one was actually a chimp crossed out with a big red X, not a monkey. And chimps don’t even actually have tails.”
Dev shook his head sadly. “After that, I’m not gonna lie, doubt crept in.”
“You lost faith in Reverend Wiley?”
“By the time we got to the Salvation Nation exit, I thought, hey, he might even have been wrong about God’s wrath instead of climate change melting the ice caps.”
I laughed, and, just like that, we were normal again.
“So you kept driving,” I said, smiling. “And came here.”
“Plus, I figured you’d want to see my haircut.” He ran a hand over his uncharacteristically cropped head.
“I was dying to see your haircut. How did you know?”
Dev shrugged and grinned. “I know everything.”
I am a person who usually pays attention. While strikingly un-Zen in most ways, I spend most of my time being fully present, watchful, so tuned in to the people and things around me that it can get exhausting. Maybe it comes from having spent most of my childhood alone with my mother, who even before her breakdown and subsequent bipolar diagnosis, was all quicksilver, mutable brilliance, and so necessary to me that I kept track of her with what could only be called vigilance, half worried she’d disappear in a puff of colored smoke and sparkles. Or maybe it’s just that I am one of those people who believes that at least half of love is simply paying attention. In any case, I don’t drift in and out. I don’t float. Life doesn’t go by in a blur.
Except that on the eve of my wedding day, at my rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, that’s exactly what life did. The practice ceremony itself was an almost total loss, memory-wise, less like something I experienced than like something I caught out of the corner of my eye. Faint music; people moving around; mouths stretching into smiles; the linen-clad crook of my stepfather’s arm under my fingers my only certainty.
The edges of the dinner stayed a little more crisp, but even that was mostly impressions. I remember the red, green, and gold of a tomato tart, the miniature lake effect of mist rising from my just-poured champagne, Zach squeezing my hand hard and harder under the table as Ian gave a toast that I swear featured—although how was this possible?—Winston Churchill’s quotation about never, never, never giving in. Fairy lights spread out in constellations against the white canopy, the pinch of my new high-heeled sandals, my wistful envy as I watched Hildy and Aidan’s playful flirting. The bell of Rose’s dress as she whirled, solo and in perfect self-containment, on the dance floor. Cornelia’s cheek against mine, her voice whispering, “Courage, dear heart,” into my ear.
There was one stark moment of clarity. Near the end of the evening, I headed toward the dessert table, which someone had decorated with Zach’s stargazer lilies, now in a towering green glass vase, and at which Dev stood, scarfing chocolate-covered strawberries with the happy oblivion of a six-year-old. Just before I reached the table, Zach materialized at my side. I watched Dev spot us, swallow his berry, and wipe his fingers on a napkin so that he could shake hands with Zach, which he did, firmly. Zach clapped him on the shoulder and thanked him for coming.
“Having a berry or six, are you?” I said.
“Me?” said Dev. “I was just admiring this large and impressive vase of large and impressive flowers.”