The Blending of the Families
“You cleaned,” Lila says, standing over Phoebe the next morning. “I’ll try my best not to take that as an insult.”
Lila drops her new room key on the nightstand. Phoebe sits up. She sees Lila’s dresses, neatly hung in the corner of the room, and all at once, she remembers last night. The cleaning. The crying. The holding of Gary’s hand. Lila, jumping on her bed, shouting about how she no longer wanted to marry Gary. But this morning, Lila seems as she always does just after she barges into a room.
“You didn’t happen to stumble upon any Motrin during your cleaning spree?” Lila asks.
“Not feeling your best, I take it?”
“That’s an understatement. This might be the worst hangover I ever had in my entire life. Worse than church wine.”
Phoebe waits for Lila to say something else, to address her confessions from last night. But someone’s at the door.
“You were supposed to meet us at nine in the lobby for surfing,” Juice says, standing in the middle of the doorframe in nothing but a swimsuit and towel.
“Right,” Lila says. “Surfing.”
Lila closes her eyes like she’s already tired from it.
“We’re late,” Juice says. “Dad’s already down there, in the car.”
“Give me a few minutes to turn back into a real human being and I’ll be down,” she says.
“You’re coming, too, right, Phoebe?” Juice asks.
Phoebe feels the tug to join. But she also knows she needs to give them alone time. There are things that need to be sorted out.
“No, I don’t know how to surf,” Phoebe says.
“Nobody does!” Juice says. “They’re going to teach us. It’s a lesson.”
“I’m going to sit this one out, kiddo,” Phoebe says.
After Juice leaves, Lila won’t quite meet Phoebe’s eye. Phoebe waits, but Lila opens a bottle of Motrin.
“How does Motrin know where the headache is?” Lila asks. “I’ve never understood that.”
“I think it just reduces pain all over the body. Head included.”
Lila turns on the shower.
“You’re taking a shower before surfing?” Phoebe asks.
“Oh no, there will be absolutely no surfing today.”
“You just told Juice you’d surf?”
“I cannot surf, never will, won’t put myself through the circus act of trying.”
“Why did you plan a surfing morning as part of your wedding then?”
“Because it was the one thing Juice asked for,” she says. “And I guess I thought by the time my wedding week arrived, I’d be the kind of person who wanted to go surfing.”
Lila’s makeup from last night is heavy below her eyes.
“I truly wish I was a person who liked to surf, but unfortunately, I have woken up to remember that I am just not that person.”
Lila will never want to surf, for the same reasons she never wanted to play sports and she is ready to admit that. She wraps her hair in a towel, then mentions her uncle flying in from Santa Fe today and a facial at noon. But she says it with no enthusiasm. She sounds officially tired of her own wedding.
“I have no idea why I planned all these activities,” Lila says. “Can you go surfing in my place? It’s a three-person lesson.”
But Phoebe is not ready to give up yet. “What am I supposed to tell them when you’re not there?”
“Tell them that my stomach is upset, which is not a lie, by the way, and that I’ll see them later at the Blending of the Families.”
She says it like it’s a cultural event, then turns on the TV.
“Aren’t you going in the shower?” Phoebe asks.
“I always have the TV on while I shower.”
Lila puts on the Food Network and raises the volume so she can hear Giada talk about bruschetta while she’s bathing.
“Are we seriously not going to talk about last night?” Phoebe asks.
“Actually, I do have a question about last night,” Lila says. “Did we eat cabbage?”
“Yes,” Phoebe says.
“Ugh,” Lila says. “I can’t believe my maid of honor let me eat cabbage two days before my wedding. Cabbage destroys me.”
“So the wedding is on.”
“Of course it is,” Lila says.
Perhaps this is when Phoebe should say, Actually, I can’t go surfing. Actually, I shouldn’t get any more involved in this wedding than I already have. Actually, I just came here to kill myself, and surfing is pretty much the opposite of killing myself. Surfing is an activity that belongs to other people. There is a whole group of things like this that live in a box in her mind—things like dancing to techno music and rafting through the Grand Canyon—things she decided were for people in California. People like Ryun. People like her mother before her mother died.
But she came all this way to see the ocean.
“Okay,” Phoebe says. “Suit yourself.”
Lila drops her robe. She steps into the shower. Giada toasts the bread. Phoebe stands up to leave. “Oh, while you’re out there, get me some Gas- X,” Lila yells, and Phoebe’s sympathy from last night vanishes. This spoiled child, yelling out commands from inside her marble shower. Not even a thank-you.
ON THE BEACH, they are handed wet suits that look to be half the size of their bodies. Phoebe and Gary glance at each other with suspicion.
“And these are supposed to fit us?” Gary asks.
“Absolutely,” Aspen, the instructor, says.
But Phoebe can’t get her suit up past her thighs. Gary’s gets stuck at the calf.
“This is ridiculous,” Gary says, tugging at the fabric. “I’m supposed to get all the way in this thing?”
He hops on one foot while he tries to pull it up over his calf, then tips over like a rigid skyscraper.
“Shit.” He laughs when he hits the ground.
Phoebe likes his loud balloon of a laugh. Likes it when he curses, too. It makes it easier to believe he was once a teenager. That he wasn’t born a father. Or a fiancé. He’s just Gary, trying to put some pants on.
“You okay?” Phoebe asks.
“Nobody tells you about this part, do they?” Gary says.
“No,” Phoebe says. “In all the surfing movies, they always edit out all the montages of surfers just trying to put on their wet suits.”
“That’s the surfing movie I’ll make one day,” Gary says. “Just extremely hot people getting stuck with one leg in their suit and then falling over.”
“I’d like to point out that you just called yourself hot.”
“I hope you can excuse it knowing it was done only for the sake of continuing a joke.”
“And we appreciate your sacrifice.”
He looks down at the suit suctioned to his calves. She wonders where he got those calves. His father? Football in high school? Gym after work for twenty years? He didn’t seem the type, but she’s lived long enough by now to know it’s foolish to ever be surprised by someone’s secret hobbies.
“Well, it’s a very dramatic scene, I admit,” Phoebe says. “Will they be able to do it? Or will they just get stuck there, forever, on the sand?”
“It looks like it,” Gary says. “I mean, there’s no goddamned way.”
Juice comes over, already in her wet suit. A pro. “What’s wrong?” Juice asks.
“I can’t get it over my calves, sweetheart,” Gary says.
“I can’t get it over my thighs,” Phoebe says.
“Help us,” Gary says.
“Ew,” Juice says, and looks at the two of them. “This is weird.”
Juice walks away to practice standing up on her surfboard. Phoebe pulls her suit up, slides her arms in the holes, and celebrates, while Gary lies there in defeat.
“Okay,” Phoebe says. “It’s basically just like wearing tights.”
“I don’t wear tights.”
“You just got to shimmy this thing up slowly.”
Phoebe kneels down to Gary’s ankles. She pulls on the fabric, or whatever it is, gingerly.
“I think you just ripped some hairs out,” he says.
“Surfing is pain, Gary.”
“Surfing is already too hard.”
She gets it over the mound of calf.
“Hooray,” Gary says, pulling the rest up with ease. “Now I’m a wet suit person.”
Phoebe zips him up in the back and Velcros it tight. The gesture is intimate, like putting a necklace on your wife’s neck. He is so lovely, Phoebe thinks. He is so good, standing there, getting ready to surf with his daughter even though he is hungover and his back is shit. He is looking at Phoebe like maybe she is good for the same exact reason. Maybe they are a team. She gives him a tiny high five as though the big task of the day is over. It’s friendly and sterilizes the moment between them.
“Ready to go,” Aspen says, as she rubs sunscreen on her face. She announces it has some sand in it. “Exfoliator!”
Then she does some stretching and says, “Okay, take your boards.” She shows them how to lie on it, bellies pressed against the board, legs centered for balance.
“Balance is everything,” Aspen says.
The movement is like yoga, Phoebe thinks. She feels glad, suddenly, for all that yoga she tried doing on Zoom during the pandemic. She feels like maybe that wasn’t a waste of time after all, if it allowed her to be present in this moment. And maybe that’s it: You do things in the moment for the person you hope you might be two years from now. You don’t kill yourself when you are sad because one day you might not be sad, and you might want to go surfing with a man you really like?
Phoebe uses her hands to push herself off the board into a plank, then jumps her feet up right in position. Gary looks at her with amazement.
“Very good,” Aspen says.
They enter the ocean. Phoebe likes the cool shock of the water against her ankles. Phoebe sticks a finger in and tastes it. She’s always been curious.
“It really is salty,” she says.
“That’s sort of its claim to fame,” Gary says.
The waves are small, and Phoebe is grateful. Aspen sets up Juice first, pushes her when a wave comes, and she stands up on the board right away. Gary and Phoebe cheer even though Juice probably can’t hear. It feels good to cheer. The cheering is in some way for the parents. It’s good to celebrate the girl for doing a thing the girl has passionately wanted to do since … Lila and Gary got engaged. Even Aspen is smiling.
“Who’s up next?” Aspen asks.
“Ladies first,” Gary says.
Phoebe slides onto the board, feels Aspen take it from behind.
“Okay, paddle!” Aspen shouts, as the wave comes.
But Phoebe does not know what it means when Aspen screams paddle. Does she use her whole arms at the same time like long oars? Or is it more like swimming? Does she just use her hands? Aspen didn’t say. For a minute, Phoebe feels foolish paddling, like a beached whale, but then the wave catches her, and she sees the water gliding over the board, over her hands, and she presses up just like she did on sand. She jumps and there she is, standing on the water. She can’t believe it. “Oh my God!” she shouts to no one, to herself, to Gary and Juice. She is balanced. Steady.
But then she falls into the water.
It’s been so long since she has fallen like that—she has never, she thinks, ever fallen like that. Totally and completely without any way of catching herself. Swirled up in the curl of the wave. And she loves everything about it, the cold water on her face, the ocean in her ears. It is life. It is up her nose and in her ears and she wants to swallow it all.
But it’s very salty. She stands up and spits out the water.
“You, like, did it!” Juice says.
“I know!” Phoebe says.
They watch Gary as he tries to stand up on the board, and Phoebe can feel Juice silently rooting for her father. Phoebe roots for him, too, out loud, and is this what it’s like, being part of a real family? Gary only gets halfway up, loses his balance immediately, then disappears into the water. He comes up nearby with a laugh.
“How was the ride?” Gary asks his daughter.
“Amazing,” Juice says.
“I think your daughter just acquired a very expensive new hobby,” Phoebe says, and Gary laughs. They watch Juice, who is already making her way back to Aspen beyond where the waves break.
“I’d need an entirely different body to be good at this thing,” Gary says.
But they keep trying. It’s just fun to try. It’s fun when the goal is to just surf and not to feel happier. For the rest of the hour, they take turns with Aspen as she sets them up for the waves.
The waves get bigger as the hour passes. While she waits for her turn, Phoebe swims out a little deeper so she doesn’t get toppled. She likes it. She likes the drama. The dark gray-green of the water when it’s not lit up by the sun. Each time a wave builds, Phoebe feels a swell of fear, dunks her head under like Juice instructed, and rises with the water. She can feel how easy it would be to get carried out to sea, but she resists it. She swims back to Aspen. She takes another ride, and then another, and then another. Each time she falls, she’s overwhelmed by the white foam, the sand in her ears. But she emerges.
They are all exhausted by the end of the hour. Phoebe is too tired to take off her wet suit, and when it gets stuck around her heel, she is the one who tips over this time. She laughs when she hits the ground. She feels like an overtired child playing in the sand. She feels like she could laugh hysterically or sob out of joy. She wants to stay on this sand forever, with Juice pulling at the leg of her suit, trying to tug it off. Each time Juice tugs, it makes them both laugh harder.
Eventually, Phoebe gets it off. She feels naked without it. Gary hands them towels. Sets out a blanket. The three of them fall asleep like that, the cool breeze drying them.
“I loved that,” Juice says when they wake up.
Phoebe did, too. She still loves it. No matter what happens, she’ll love it forever.
“Let’s do it again tomorrow,” Juice says.
“Never,” Gary says and smiles.
AFTER, THEY GO to Flo’s and eat fried clam strips. Gary and Phoebe get big waters. They toast to the day. They sit next to an elderly couple with matching fleeces and Phoebe likes how they order the same drink but one with a twist and one extra dirty. They say it like they have become proud of the minor differences left between them.
“I have to pee,” Juice says.
“You don’t have to tell us exactly what you’re going to do in there,” Gary says.
She laughs. She leaves Gary and Phoebe alone. The moment feels ripe with possibility and yet, at the same time, doomed. Gary’s leg is resting slightly against Phoebe’s, maybe by accident, maybe not. Maybe he’s so tired, he doesn’t even feel it.
“That was genuinely fun,” Gary says.
“You sound surprised,” Phoebe says.
“I am.”
He looks at her like he’s trying to tell her something he cannot say. Just say it, she thinks. But she can’t say it now. She should have said it last night when she thought the wedding was off. Now she doesn’t know if it would be cowardly or brave. She doesn’t know if she is supposed to seize the moment or let the moment go.
“She’s a great kid,” Phoebe says.
“I’m lucky.”
“It might not be all luck. It’s possible you had some kind of hand in it.”
“I suppose I was there for a few hours of her childhood.”
“Oh my God,” Juice says, coming back from the bathroom. Her hands are still wet from washing. “There was this sign in the bathroom that said 40 PEOPLE MAX IN THIS ROOM. Like why would forty people ever be in the bathroom? Like what would you even say to all forty people in a bathroom?”
“Hello?” Gary says.
Juice laughs. “Yeah! That’s a good start. Hello, forty people.”
“Why are we all in the bathroom?” Phoebe asks, pretending to be forty people.
“Whose idea was this, you guys?” Gary asks.
They laugh, and then Phoebe becomes embarrassed by the laughter. Or afraid of it. She’s not sure. Whatever it is, it’s too good. It connects them all. It draws them close. It’s like a warm sweater that they all wear. Phoebe sits back, and she sips her water. She has never, in her life, felt totally at home around any restaurant table. Not even with her husband. She was often worried about what to say and did they have anything left to say and was there food in her teeth?
“Here you go,” the waitress says and lays down the check.
Phoebe doesn’t want to go. She wants to stay at this table with Gary’s leg slightly brushed against hers and Juice reading off the back of the menu, which is really just a short story about how many times Flo’s has been demolished by hurricanes.
“In 1938,” Juice says. “In 1954. In 1960. In 1985. In 1991—”
“So … many times.”
“Many, many times.”
Phoebe imagines that rebuilding after each devastation must be a real chore, especially for a place like Flo’s, which has knickknacks covering every inch of the walls. To rebuild each time with the same level of bursting, idiosyncratic personality—how do you do that? How do you remember where each rusty spoon was randomly nailed to the wall? How do you care where each bottle opener hangs when you put it up the fourth time? How do you act like this singular and quirky existence is entirely natural and will never be destroyed again?
“Let’s get going, huh?” Gary says.
They get up and walk out the door. This is, Phoebe realizes, the one problem with falling in love with strangers. You don’t get to keep them. She watches them spread out in their own directions as soon as they reach the parking lot.
It’s a relief when Gary looks back and says, “Where to?”
AT CVS, JUICE proclaims her love for CVS. Literally everything in the world is here, she says. Anything you want! Juice buys herself a sleep mask
with zebras on it. Then they follow Phoebe to the medicine aisle, even though Phoebe keeps saying, “I’ll just meet you guys at the front in a minute.”
“What else do we have to do?” Gary asks. “But follow you around like your helpers.”
“Yeah, we’re helpers,” Juice says. “Paid by the hour. What do you need? I’ll get it.”
“Gas-X,” Phoebe says.
Juice and Gary crack up so loudly, the employee at the counter looks over.
“We had cabbage,” is all Phoebe says.
“Say no more,” Gary says.
As they walk out, Phoebe looks up and sees them on the security TV for just a second. She is startled by the frankness of their image, the reality of seeing them on this ordinary trip to CVS, recorded by history, all together.
Lila does not stop by before the Blending of the Families the way Phoebe had expected. She thought Lila might have questions about her dress or complaints about Gary’s mother, who has requested to say grace at the rehearsal dinner.
But at six, the hotel is emptied out, and Phoebe wonders if Lila is upset with her. If it’s because she left the Gas-X at Lila’s door without a bag. If she somehow knows about the joy Phoebe felt all day with Gary.
She suddenly feels guilty, but then reminds herself that it was Lila who told her to go. It was Lila who gave her the gift of today, and Phoebe is grateful. It’s a day she’ll remember for the rest of her life. It reminded her of a feeling she stopped believing she could have, a feeling she thought belonged only to other people. It makes her want to give something back to Lila, so she goes downstairs to the bar to work on her maid of honor speech.
But when she sits on the chair, opens a hotel notepad, she finds she’s not sure how to begin. Not after her conversation last night with Lila. And then her conversation with Gary. Writing a maid of honor speech now feels like writing a lecture on a discipline she doesn’t believe in.
It is becoming clear to Phoebe—they are not in love. Maybe they were in love, but now they are two people who are very confused. Very much wanting to be in love, because Lila doesn’t want to be alone. Lila is a woman who experiences a problem, and then finds a man who is compelled to fix it. A man who becomes happy only because he can make her happy. But she is not happy—so what’s the point of any of it?
Phoebe orders herself a beer from the Drink Concierge.
“Are you holding office hours, Professor?” Jim asks, sitting down before she answers. She closes her notebook.
“Mostly just drinking now,” Phoebe says.
“That’s too bad,” Jim says. “I was hoping you could help me with my speech. Turns out, Miss Finnegan from the tenth grade wasn’t wrong and I actually am a shit writer.”
“A teacher said that to you?”
Jim looks at her notebook. “What did you write?”
“Are you seriously trying to cheat off my speech?”
He laughs. “Can’t we think of this more like a brainstorming session? A writer’s room?”
Jim looks at her like they are playing a game of chicken now. Because the stakes are high for the maid of honor and the best man. If they don’t publicly believe in the couple’s love, who will?
“I generally find office hours work best when we stay focused on the student’s problem,” Phoebe says.
“Fair enough,” Jim says.
“So what’s the problem?”
He says he could write a whole book about Gary, about what they’ve been through together.
“But I don’t know this new Gary who’s with Lila. I only know the Gary who was with my sister.”
“Don’t mention your sister,” Phoebe says.
“Then what do I write?”
“Good writing is driven by a question,” Phoebe says. “And the essay is the writer’s best attempt at answering that question. So let’s start there, with a question.”
“But what’s the question?”
“It’s a wedding speech, so the question has to be, Why are these two people perfect for each other?”
“Why is anyone perfect for each other?”
“What do these two bring out in each other that is special, unique? That nobody else in the world can bring out?”
“That’s two questions, not one,” he says. “And how am I supposed to know that?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Is it?” He gives her that inquiring look again.
“Hasn’t Gary ever said anything about why he loves Lila?”
“Has Lila ever said anything about why she loves Gary?”
In all their talking, Lila has mostly listed fears and complaints—his beard, his gray hair, his family.
“He’s good to her,” Phoebe says.
“But Gary is good to the cashiers at the grocery store,” he says. “He’s good to everyone.”
Phoebe nods. Jim sits back in defeat. “This is a weird wedding, no?” Jim says.
“It is,” Phoebe says.
“Do you know what we need? What every writer famously uses when they have writer’s block. Drugs.”
“I think that’s just a myth.” Phoebe tells him about the writers who were famously derailed by drugs. But Jim doesn’t care. He was gifted a pound of edibles by one of Gary’s cousins who bought more than he could bring back on the airplane.
“I’ve never used marijuana,” Phoebe says.
“Spoken like someone who has never used marijuana,” Jim says. “I’ll have two weeds please.”
Phoebe laughs.
“How have you never smoked weed?’
“I think it’s as simple as nobody has ever offered it to me. It’s like people can look at me and somehow tell that I don’t want to do drugs.”
“That was the first thing I noticed about you,” Jim says.
IN JIM’S ROOM, he gives her a quarter of his edible.
“Now what?” Phoebe asks.
“Now, we wait.”
“How long does it take?” Phoebe looks at the bag.
“It won’t say on the packaging.”
“So we have no idea how much vitamin A we’re getting.”
Jim bursts out laughing. “You’re funny.”
“Will I get paranoid?” Phoebe asks.
“It sounds like you might already be paranoid.”
“I am, I think, suddenly very paranoid about becoming paranoid.”
“If you get me paranoid about you being paranoid about being paranoid…”
“Shit, it’s happening. I really do feel something.”
“Are you going to narrate the whole thing?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, as long as you do it like a movie.”
“In a world where a woman does drugs after a lifetime of not doing drugs,” Phoebe says. “God, my mouth is dry. Is that normal?”
“Okay, let’s set some ground rules so we can cut the paranoia before it takes over,” Jim says. He looks her in the eyes, holds her hands. “Repeat after me. We’re safe. We’re grown-ass adults. We’re not going anywhere tonight until we write these speeches.”
“We’re safe. We’re grown-ass adults. We’re not going anywhere tonight until we write these speeches.”
“We stay right here in this room.”
“No moving.”
“No vehicles.”
“No swimming.”
“If we get hungry we can order food.”
“There’s nothing to be worried about,” he says. “So take a deep breath. Relax. And let yourself go.”
“Okay,” she says. She sits down on the floor, lays out until she is fully stretched. “I’m gone.”
“You’re gone.”
“Goodbye.”
Saying goodbye makes them laugh.
“This is a weird wedding,” Jim says.
“You already said that.”
“Because it’s that weird,” he says. “Maybe it’s just because it’s the only wedding I’ve been to where I truly don’t know anyone except my dead sister’s family. And I can’t even talk to them about the one thing we have in common because my brother-in-law is getting married to someone who refuses to acknowledge her existence.”
“That does sound weird,” Phoebe says.
“And that’s not even the end of it,” he says. He turns to her. “If I tell you something, will you put it in the vault?”
“What vault?”
“The one they keep at the Swiss fucking banks, the one you need blood samples to access.”
She makes the sound effect of a door opening. “That’s the opening of the Swiss vault.”
“I liked Lila first,” Jim says.
“What do you mean?”
“Before Gary met her, I worked a job on the street outside Lila’s gallery. Kind of a random thing, brought in by the state to consult on the construction of this new sewer drain they were thinking of putting in, which meant I was always standing out there on her street, watching Lila go in and out. Girl took a lot of coffee breaks. Went in and out nearly thirty times a day, never once saying hello to me, but I could tell she was looking at me. I could tell we were locked on to each other and that I should say something. But I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to be one of those guys who hits on women just because they’re walking on the street. And I couldn’t just go in the gallery with my greasy hands and start talking about Monet, either. What the fuck do I know about Monet?”
“He was a French impressionist.”
“Thanks, Professor. Would have been helpful to know then.”
“So what did you do?”
“Nothing,” he said. “And eventually Lila came out and called me on it. On my last day, she saw me packing up the truck and came right up to me and said, ‘Are you seriously going to watch me walk by a thousand times and say nothing? How much coffee do you think I drink?’ And I was done for basically at that moment. I was like, I’m working my way up to it, give me some time, and then she said, ‘I’m out of time.’ And I was like, Are you dying or something? And she said, If I were, wouldn’t that be a very impolite question? And then she told me her father was the one dying and the doctor gave him three months to live and she burst into tears.”
“In the middle of the street?”
“Yeah,” he says, half laughing at the memory of it. “She just broke down right there in front of me.”
“What did you do?”
“I held her,” he says. “After my sister died, that’s what helped me. People who just let me fucking cry. Like Gary. He didn’t try to fix it or solve the problem. We both knew nothing could fix it. I just wanted to be sad, but not sad alone. And so I just held her, let her cry. And it was weird how it wasn’t weird at all. I went home, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. How bold she was. How she just cried like that, in front of a total stranger. In front of me? She didn’t even know me, I was just some dude on the street, but she trusted me, you know? It felt special. So the next weekend, I went back to see her with Gary. But I didn’t tell Gary he was my wingman. I didn’t think he’d come. Who wants to be someone else’s wingman when they’re depressed on their wedding anniversary? And I genuinely thought it’d be good for Gary to do something for a change. That kind of shit always cheered him up. He and Wendy went to galleries all the time. So two birds, you know?”
“Two birds.”
“And then we’re in the gallery, and Lila and I see each other right away but don’t say anything. I’m just walking around the whole place, pretending to look at these paintings, and it’s so hot, you know? Like we both know we’re going to talk to each other, we both know that’s why I came, we both know I don’t give a shit about whatever painting Gary is looking at, I’m just secretly trying to figure out how I’m going to ask for her number. And when Lila finally came over, it felt like my chance.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘So what’s up with this naked woman?’”
“What did Lila say?”
“She laughed. She was like, To be honest, nobody really knows what’s up with this naked woman.”
“Sounds like Lila.”
“Gary was embarrassed. Started asking her all these very appropriate questions, like who is the artist, and is this acrylic, blah blah blah, but I knew that for the first time in my life, I said the right thing somehow. At the right time. I made a woman laugh, at an art gallery no less.”
“So, wait, what happened then?”
“She handed us her card, said to call if we changed our minds about buying the painting. I really thought she was giving it to me. But Gary was the one who took it. Slipped it right into his wallet, and we left. I was going to ask Gary for it a few days later. But then I’m at his house for Juice’s birthday that Friday, and Gary says, ‘You’ll never believe who came into my office today. That woman from the art gallery.’ Just a total fucking coincidence. He seemed really rocked by it. Said something about her father being sick, but he was optimistic. Thought he could give the man a few more years. Then asked me if I thought it was weird for him to go out with her, and I was just like, Gary, if I’m your ethics board, you’re in trouble. And he laughed and they started dating and the rest is history.
“But man, I was disappointed,” he says. “I know everyone thinks I’m a shithead, and maybe I was. But the pandemic really fucked with me. In a good way, maybe. It was just me, all of the time, in my apartment. Just me, and at a certain point, I thought I was going mad, you know?”
“I know.”
“I could finally see why people got married and shit. Like, even if it doesn’t last forever, I could see why it would still be worth it. I think I already felt it when I hugged Lila on the street that day. I just got this strange feeling. Like, This is the woman. This is your chance. She just walked right up to you on the street so fucking hold on to her.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell Gary that?”
“I hadn’t heard Gary talk about another woman since my sister died. So I just … gave it to him. I felt for the guy,” he says. “He was so amped up. Like it had to mean something. Like this was all proof that the universe was good again. I couldn’t take that from him. And the truth was, I was still going through my shit. And I didn’t really know Lila. How did I really know she was the one?”
“And now that you know her?”
He laughs. “Oh, she’s something.”
“What do you like about her?”
“She’s just funny,” he says. “You expect her to be this one thing, and sometimes she is, around everybody in the family, but if it’s just us, she’s
different. She’s honest. Sharp. Smart. Cuts right through me, calls me on my shit. Talks a million miles an hour.”
It sounds like the way Lila is around Phoebe.
“They don’t talk to each other that much,” Jim says, turning to look at Phoebe. “You notice that?”
“I do.”
They were always standing next to each other, talking to other people.
“Gary’s different around her,” he says. “Quiet. And I don’t know. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe he’s happy. And if he’s happy, I’m genuinely happy for him. I don’t want the guy to be miserable forever.”
“But…”
“But he doesn’t seem happy. Not like he was with my sister.”
“Maybe he’s just different now.”
“But he’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought the Gary I knew died with my sister that day,” Jim says. “I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. But then I saw you and him talking on the boat.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He talks to you the same way he talked to my sister.”
“How is that?”
“Like himself,” Jim says. “It’s been nice, watching. Nice to see him come out to play again. After all these years.”
“Yeah,” Phoebe admits. “I know what you mean.”
They are quiet, and Jim gets confused.
“None of this really matters, though. I don’t know why I get so excited about it in my head sometimes. They’re getting married. Fuck. They’re getting married. And I’m the best man. And do you know why we’re giving our speeches at the rehearsal dinner and not the wedding? Because Lila said she doesn’t trust me to do it at the actual wedding. I mean, that shit hurt. I thought if anything, Lila trusted me. And that just makes me feel like all of it was in my head. She doesn’t want me. Probably never did.”
When Phoebe says nothing, Jim looks at her.
“Right?” Jim asks.
They’re playing chicken again. But all Phoebe will say is, “It’s not as black and white as you’d think.”
“So that means she wants me a little,” Jim says, and smiles. “At least I can go down in my seaplane knowing that.”
In their silence, Phoebe hears the sounds of people returning to their room. The Blending of the Families is over.
“Lila and Gary are back,” Jim says.
Phoebe puts a finger to his mouth.
“Shh,” she says. “This is research.”
They pull out their notepads, pencils ready, and this makes them laugh again. But there is only the sound of Gary saying goodbye to Lila in her room. The murmurs of Lila’s voice. Then the closing of a door. A faucet running. The sounds of a woman alone getting ready for bed. Brushing her teeth. Using the toilet. The steady routines of her night. Yet Phoebe feels rocked by the noise. She can feel each sound deep inside her head. She must be really high. She turns over on her side like she does in yoga class. Under the bed, she notices something. She pulls out a credit card folded in half.
“Jim,” she says. “This folded-up credit card is from 1991.”
“So?”
“Why would it be from 1991? Isn’t that weird?”
“Is it?”
“What do you think happened to this guy?”
“I think focusing on the credit card is a bad idea right now.”
“But what is this credit card doing there, under the bed, folded up from thirty-one years ago? I mean, I can’t think of any reasonable non-weird reason for it still being here.”
Jim looks at her. “I think office hours are over.”
“But I’m not ready to go home,” she says. “I like it here.”
“So don’t,” Jim says. “Stay here.”
He says it so simply, it sounds possible to Phoebe. She will just stay here, on Jim’s floor, listening to the sounds of Lila’s quiet night.
“Is she crying?” Jim asks.
Phoebe listens for sobs, but she can’t hear anything except the soft waves from outside the window.
“I think that’s just the ocean,” Phoebe says.
Phoebe stares at the ceiling and wonders what Lila thinks when she curls up in bed. Does she regret planning such a big wedding? Does she feel proud of her choices? Does she feel trapped in the spectacle of her own making? And how did weddings get like this? How did they get so big, come to be so important, that a woman couldn’t see her way out of it? That a woman would sacrifice her entire life for it? These are big questions, Phoebe thinks, and good writing is always driven by a big question.
“I know what to write in my speech,” she says.
BACK IN HER room, she writes her speech while eating the last of the Oreos that are Not Legally Oreos. And no, it’s not her dissertation, but it’s five whole pages, and afterward she feels victorious. She has completed a writing assignment for the first time in years, and it makes her feel like she can do anything.
I can go buy Frank the dog, she thinks. I can find a job here.
She searches for professor vacancies at nearby colleges and boarding schools. She searches for apartments to rent on Craigslist, even though she suspects Craigslist is just exclusively for murdering people now.
She finds a cute place on Mary Street with high ceilings where she could stay for a month. A condo on Thames where she could stay the entire year. But she is most intrigued by the ad for a mansion on Ocean Drive, owned by a man named Geoffrey. He is looking for something he calls a winter keeper to live there until May and keep it looking like a mansion through the winter. She has never heard of the phrase winter keeper before, but she likes it.
She messages all of them.