Once and for All(24)

It’s funny, the little details you remember from the things you cannot forget. The sand cool on my feet. The weight of my shoes, shifting as they swung in my hand. And again, that shirt bright in contrast to my own black dress, so dark I wondered later how he’d even seen me at all.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I got off early, for once.”

“Is it early?” He looked back behind him, over the dunes, where the party was still going on, shadows of figures distantly visible moving above. “Man. It feels late to me.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to this, and felt like maybe I should keep moving, give him the space he’d clearly come out here to claim. But he was the one who had started talking.

“Weddings take a lot out of you,” I answered. “Or so I hear.”

“You hear? You should know. You go to tons, right?”

“I work at tons,” I corrected him. “It’s different from being a guest. You’re at a distance, an observer. Almost scientific.”

“Huh,” he said. He had a bit of a Northern accent, enough to notice. “I never thought about it that way. Then again, I mow yards for my job.”

“That’s not emotional?”

“Maybe for the grass.”

I laughed. “I never thought about it that way.”

“Oh, the world of landscaping is fascinating. Except that it’s totally not.”

We stood there for a second, both of us facing the crashing waves. Out on the horizon, I could see a fishing boat, its lights twinkling as the water shifted.

From behind us, there was a loud whoop, followed by cheering, and we both turned to look. In profile, I saw he had long lashes, a jut I hadn’t noticed to his chin. “Your family’s having fun,” I said.

“My dad’s family,” he corrected me immediately. O-kay, I thought. He gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s just . . . complicated.”

“Family usually is,” I said.

“Is yours?”

I considered this for a moment. “Not really.”

He laughed. “Oh, I get it. You are still on the clock. Counseling morose guests gone AWOL from the ceremony, just part of the job.”

“No, no,” I protested, holding up my hand. “I just mean . . . my family is only me and my mom. Well, and William. Not much to complicate.”

“William?”

“Her best friend, my godfather-basically-my-father-except-he’s-not,” I explained, using the term I’d come up with back in elementary school during Meet My Family week, when this issue first arose. “My real dad died when I was three.”

“Wow. Sorry.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t really know him, at least that I remember. So it’s not like I miss him or anything.”

He slid his hands in his pockets, leaning back on his heels. “My dad and I used to be super close. I was his little buddy, all that. Then, three years ago, he ditched my mom for his secretary. Such a stereotype. He couldn’t even be original about cheating.”

His voice was tinged with disgust, saying this. Now I said, “I’m sorry.”

A shrug. “Not your fault. And yet you manage to apologize anyway. He never has. Weird how that works, huh?”

“Definitely,” I said. “How’s your mom doing?”

“She’s fine,” he replied. “Remarried, too, by this point. She’s over it.”

“And you?”

Silence. Then, “Not quite there yet. Even though I did agree to take this road trip with him, to this wedding, and be a groomsman. It was supposed to be this big re-bonding experience.”

I dug a toe into the wet sand, wiggling it until it disappeared. “And how’s that going?”

“I’m out here, alone, in the dark. Or at least I was until you came along,” he replied. “You tell me.”

“Ethan!”

The voice was behind us, coming from the steps that led up to the hotel. When I turned, I saw a heavyset woman in a green metallic dress, her hair done in an updo, peering down at us. The boy beside me said, “Yeah?”

“You’re missing everything!” she called out. “Joe and Margy will be leaving soon!”

“Okay,” he replied. “Just a sec.”

Placated, she turned, adjusting her hair, then started back toward the party, her shadow stretching long down the stairs behind her. Ethan turned back to the water, a tired look on his face. “My aunt Didi. Who has kind of taken my estrangement from my dad personally.”

“Family is complicated,” I said.

“Exactly. Unless you’re . . .” He raised his eyebrows at me. “What’s your name?”

“Louna,” I said.

“Like the moon?”

“Like Louis and Natalie, young vegans in love, circa 1999.” Now I made a face.

“Wow,” he said, looking impressed. “I think this is a story I have to hear.”

I looked back at the steps, where Aunt Didi was now just a green blur in the distance. “Too bad you have to go back.”

“Yeah.” He glanced over as well. “Too bad.”

We stood there for a second, facing each other. His shirttails, now untucked, were ruffling in the wind. I’d never had this feeling before, that something big was about to happen, and there was nothing I had to do but wait for it. A beat. Then another. Finally, Ethan stepped back from me, away from the thrown brightness of the hotel and into the dimness of the beach beyond. The wind blew my hair, the straps of my shoes twisting around each other as he smiled at me, then gestured for me to join him there.