Once and for All(10)

CHAPTER


    3





ETHAN ASKED me to dance at a wedding, too, and I said no. The first time.

But that was later in the story, this one I’d once told others so eagerly, and now could only repeat to myself, in my own head. You’d think in retrospect time would become linear, as if distance from events forced them to take their proper places. But something like this, I’d learned, was more fluid, as if the story was always being retold, in progress, whether you could bear to listen or not.

I was doing it again, jumping around. But it was so hard to start at the beginning when you knew how it would end.

It all happened at the Margy Love Wedding, the previous summer. My mother did not like doing out of town weddings and rarely took them on, maintaining that she was only as good as her vendors, which were all local. Margy Love’s grandpa, however, was dear friends with William’s mother. As the original benefactor of the business, Miss May—as she was known—had a certain clout even my mother couldn’t deny. Aged eighty and in assisted living, she rarely asked for favors. But when she did, the answer was always yes.

So that August, after ten months of long-distance planning with Margy (in D.C.) and her mother (in California) we packed up for a weekend in the beach town of Colby (where they’d vacationed as a family every summer of Margy’s life). The venue was only about three hours from our house door to door, and, actually, not a bleak, unpopulated place where weddings had never happened before. Not that you could tell this by how stressed my mom was or the amount of stuff she insisted we bring (three vans’ worth, one of us driving each) to ensure she’d have everything she required. My mom was wound pretty tight as a rule, at least when it came to work. But even I had rarely seen her so tense and snappy, which was why, when we finally pulled out caravan-style from the front of the house, I was happy to have the ride all to myself with just the radio for company.

Still, I missed Jilly, who had been planning to come along with me and hang out on the beach or in my room while I worked. This would have been a first for her, an entire weekend away from her family, and we’d both been looking forward to it. It wasn’t easy for the Bakers to do without her and juggle their two Cheese Therapy food trucks (they sold gourmet grilled cheese and the richest, creamiest tomato soup I’d ever tasted), which was why she usually ended up being the substitute hands-on parent to one or all of her siblings. This weekend, though, they’d promised her a pass in return for a busy summer of ferrying the twins and Crawford around, as well as changing endless diapers of Bean’s. Two days earlier, however, Cheese Therapy had been one of only twenty trucks selected for a food truck rodeo at the state capital celebrating small local businesses. It was a big deal, and they needed all hands on deck, so our getaway was out.

So Jilly would spend the weekend corralling her siblings and working the Cheese Therapy register while scoping out cute boys in a bigger city. Meanwhile, I’d go to Colby, where I’d spend Friday night assisting my mom and William with the rehearsal dinner—a clambake on the beach with a Tiki Hut theme—and Saturday working the main event (formal, at a hotel overlooking the ocean, surf and turf stations to follow).

If I’d actually been a guest, this probably would have sounded great. As it was, all I could think about was the combination of food and sand (never good in practice) and a very important wedding taking place in a venue I’d not yet seen. At home, we had extensive notes on every place we’d staged ceremonies, detailing pertinent issues like hard-to-find exits, squeaky floors, or rattling pews. Out of town, though, we were everywhere for the first time.

At least it was a nice weekend, warm with sunny and clear skies forecast, and I would be at the beach. With this in mind, I’d splurged earlier in the week on a new black sundress and gold-accented sandals for the occasion. As we drove east, the subdivisions and interstates giving way to farmland and two-lane roads, I could feel the work-related kink in my neck slowly relaxing. I could only hope the drive was having the same effect on my mother in the van ahead of me.

Once over the bridge to Colby, we turned onto the main road, which was bottlenecked with tourists. FRESH SHRIMP! read one sign I studied as I crawled along, followed by WHO NEEDS TRAFFIC? RENT A BIKE FROM ABE’S! with an arrow pointing to the nearby boardwalk. After what felt like an hour of exhaust, brake lights, and the occasional glimpse of ocean, blue and wide, we finally turned into the lot of a high-rise hotel called the Piers. The main building was so white in the bright sun that just looking at it made my head hurt. As I parked, pushing open the door, I could already hear my mother complaining. So much for a relaxing drive.

“This sun!” she said to William, instead of hello, as he walked over. As usual, he was perfect and unruffled in his khakis, short-sleeved checked shirt, and very clean white Adidas sneakers. In contrast, my outfit, after three hours in the car, looked like I’d balled it up in my hand multiple times. There were a lot of things I envied about William (just about everything, actually) but top on the list was how he always looked serene and flawless, even under the most dire of circumstances. “Old New England suppression and denial,” he called it, which made it sound less like something to covet. I still did, though.

Now he just looked at my mom, reflected in his aviator sunglasses, flapping her arms around and trying to kick up a breeze as she continued, “At almost exactly this time tomorrow, we’ll have a sixteen-member wedding party in full dress out in this. If everyone doesn’t faint it will be a miracle.”