Mrs. Fletcher(94)

There was also a small contingent from the Senior Center, among them Hannah Gleezen, the popular new events coordinator, whose energy and positivity felt like a force of nature, and the Gray-Aires, an a cappella group she’d created and coached over the course of the spring and summer. Eve had heard them from inside the house, serenading the guests during cocktail hour, harmonizing on “Going to the Chapel” and “Walking on Sunshine,” as well as an out-of-left-field version of “Beat It” that got a big round of applause.

*

The only person on Eve’s list who’d sent her regrets was Amanda, but she’d been so touched by the invitation that she took Eve out for a celebratory lunch the week before the wedding, the first time they’d seen each other since January. She was thriving, happy with her new job, and deeply in love with one of her co-workers, an excommunicated Mormon research librarian named Betsy.

Unlike Eve, Amanda had kept in touch with Julian. She reported that he’d transferred to the University of Vermont and was really excited about starting the next chapter of his life, and especially about living away from home for the first time.

“Good for him,” Eve said. “He’s a sweet kid.”

Amanda did something sardonic with her eyebrows—just a subtle lift-and-lower, a brief acknowledgment of the inadequacy or absurdity of the bland phrase Eve had used—but it was enough to bring it all back into the open, the strange and intense half hour the three of them had spent together in Brendan’s bedroom, and the impossibility of integrating that episode into any sensible narrative of her life. Mostly she dealt with it by not thinking about it at all, or treating it like an erotic dream she’d had, an embarrassing one that refused to dislodge itself from her memory.

“So this is a little weird.” Amanda leaned forward, dropping her voice into a more confidential register. “Julian and I . . . we kinda hung out for a while. Back in the springtime.”

“Hung out?”

Amanda’s face had turned a pretty shade of pink.

“It was totally casual. He came over once or twice a week, after his night class. Just for a month or two, when I really needed the company. But then I started to get to know Betsy . . . Anyway, he was really cool about it.”

Eve was surprised to feel a slight pang of jealousy, or maybe just possessiveness, as if Amanda had gotten hold of something that rightfully belonged to her. But it was a ridiculous, greedy feeling, and she banished it from her mind.

“I’m just curious,” she said. “Did he ever show you any pictures of me?”

Amanda opened her mouth, mock scandalized.

“Ursula! Did you send him some pictures?”

“Just one. I asked him not to show anyone.”

“Well, I never saw it.” Amanda shrugged, as if it were her loss. “Not that I would have minded.”

Eve wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

“Next time you talk to him,” she said, “tell him I said hi.”

“I’ll do that,” Amanda promised.

*

Hannah Gleezen tooted on her pitch pipe and held up one finger, as if she were about to scold the singers. Then she brought it down and the Gray-Aires launched into “Here, There and Everywhere,” the song that had been selected as the wedding processional. Eve thought it was a little excessive, as if the woman in the song were a goddess—making each day of the year/changing my life with the wave of her hand—but George had put his foot down.

Please humor me on this, he’d said, and of course she’d agreed, because she was flattered, and because he didn’t ask for much.

Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she’d been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she’d met a kind and decent man who loved her. He was standing there at the end of the red carpet, handsome in a dark blue suit, a tear rolling down his cheek as he smiled at her and mouthed the words, You’re beautiful. His best man, Brendan, was standing right beside him, supportively squeezing his shoulder. It was almost like a fairy tale, Eve thought, a little too good to be true, and certainly more than she deserved.

Of course, she hadn’t exactly met him. It was more accurate to say that she’d tracked him down, engineering a “chance meeting” at Royal Serenity Yoga a week after he’d fixed the toilet in the accessible bathroom. She’d acted like it was an unexpected treat to see him there—as if he hadn’t informed her that he was a Wednesday night regular—but he didn’t call her on the lie. He just told her how happy he was to see her, and apologized for his baggy gym shorts.

If I’d known you were coming, he said, I woulda worn my lululemons.

They went on their first date two nights later. The Hollywell Tavern was booked solid, so they ended up at Enzo, which was just as romantic as she remembered. Only a few months had passed since she’d gone there with Amanda, but it felt a lot longer than that, as if their ill-fated kiss in the parking lot belonged to the distant past, a youthful indiscretion she could look back on with grown-up, head-shaking nostalgia. It felt so much more solid—so much more real—to be sharing a meal with an eligible man close to her own age, a man with whom she was already, improbably, beginning to sense the possibility of a future.