The Rehearsal Dinner

In the morning, Lila stops by on her way out to the flower vendor. She does not say anything about the blending of the families, just talks about a power outage and all the flowers that are melting in the fridge.

“Melting?” Phoebe asks.

But Lila doesn’t explain. “I need you to take Gary to run some errands today, because a fun fact about Gary is that he can hardly walk right now.”

“Why not?”

“He hurt his back again. This time from surfing. Thank God I didn’t go. What a disaster. Imagine if I couldn’t walk today? I don’t know what Past Lila was thinking, planning a surfing morning before her wedding.”

“I want to point out that it’s only nine in the morning and you’re already talking about yourself in the third person,” Phoebe says, and Lila laughs.

“Lila is too busy today to be worried about that right now.”

But Phoebe is worried—she’s not sure she’s ready for a full day with Gary. She’s supposed to be letting go of him.

“Why doesn’t Jim take Gary?” Phoebe asks.

“Because Gary has to try on his tux and go to the barber, and I just don’t trust Jim. I feel certain that Jim would somehow send Gary back with a pink suit and a shaved head.”

Phoebe wants to say something else but isn’t sure what. Lila turns toward the door.

“You have your speech for tonight ready?” Lila asks.

“I do,” Phoebe says.

“I can’t wait.”

Lila leaves, and Phoebe looks at the speech again.

“Oh no,” she says. In the brutal light of morning, the speech is all wrong. It is way too honest. Nothing at all about Gary and Lila. Part op-ed, part long literary analysis, part sermon on the most extravagant, wasteful weddings in literature. “Every wedding, even a successful wedding, is a waste,” Phoebe wrote, followed by a series of examples from literature that prove how the modern wedding has gotten totally out of control, how she blamed Queen Victoria for most of it, because prior to her big white dress,

weddings in nineteenth-century literature were small affairs that happened in a sentence: “Reader, I married him.” Then, a final and totally random concluding side point about how annoying it is when the female protagonist claims she never wants to get married, yet somehow gets to have the biggest wedding in town.

It seems I’ll just be winging it, Phoebe thinks, and feels surprised at how excited she is by the challenge. She always gave her best lectures when she didn’t plan them too much, when she was too busy to prep. If she planned too intensely, if she wrote it all beforehand, she got flustered halfway through, because they were always longer than she realized. She overdid it. She rarely trusted herself to be herself, even though the students liked it more when she looked at them, when she just stood there like a person and was honest about all the things she knew and all the things she didn’t know.

 

GARY WAITS OUTSIDE the lobby in his car—a nonvintage, regular Hyundai. He is already in the passenger seat. Phoebe gets in to drive.

“I hear you’re in pain,” Phoebe says.

“So much pain,” he says. “Do you want to hear all about it?”

“If it will make the pain go away, sure.”

“It will make the pain feel … useful. Give us something to talk about, you know.”

Phoebe rolls down her window. She wants to feel the ocean air.

“So, the pain,” he says.

“Is it … painful?”

“Right. That’s the word. Painful.”

They laugh. They take off. He talks about his aches and pains, and then she talks about her aches and pains, and then they talk about how much more fun it is to talk about their aches and pains than their younger selves expected it would be.

“It honestly doesn’t even feel like complaining,” Gary says. “It’s just like, valid subject material.”

“I agree,” she says. “How are we not supposed to talk about the slow decay of our bodies?”

“It’s truly the most dramatic thing that will ever happen to us,” he says. “It’s basically like being on a sinking ship. Except you’re never allowed to acknowledge that the ship is sinking.”

“And then people roll their eyes every time you mention that the ship might be sinking,” Phoebe says.

A car pulls up next to them at the light, blasting Kesha so loudly, it ends the conversation. They just sit there and wait, two faithful subjects of Kesha’s universe.

“I truly cannot believe it when people drive by with their music that loud,” Gary says after Phoebe takes a right.

“Maybe they think we like it,” Phoebe says. “Sort of like when you’re obsessed with a favorite song and you can’t imagine anyone else not wanting to hear it a thousand times. They’re probably just driving around thinking they’re doing us a service, like, Everybodyyyy likes my music!!”

She sings that last part loudly, and Gary cracks up. He rolls down his window and repeats her song. “Everybodyyyyyy likes my music!”

This is her last day with Gary. She knows this. It deeply saddens her, and yet, at the same time, she is grateful for it. Excited, even. Determined to enjoy it, to want nothing from it but the day itself.

“I aspire to be them, in some way,” Phoebe says.

“Really? I’m so embarrassed about my musical tastes, I don’t even like turning the radio on when someone is in the car.”

“What would you do if I asked you to turn on some music right now?”

“I would deflect the question and ask what you would like to listen to since you’re the driver. Dealer’s choice.”

“Oh, so you’d make your anxiety seem like some noble self-sacrifice.”

“Exactly.”

She feels playful, like everything is a grand laugh. Even their aches and pains—just a joke between them. A thing to be shared. She turns left onto Bellevue Avenue, and if Phoebe forgets he is getting married tomorrow, and that her life is over, it is a beautiful drive.

They stop at the liquor store. “This should only take a minute,” he says. “It’s preordered.”

They go inside and Gary moves to pick up the box but can’t do it with his back. “Shit.”

“I got this,” Phoebe says. As she brings the box of booze to his car, it occurs to her that she is literally helping Gary and Lila get married with her own brute strength. But that is her job.

Back inside the car, her phone dings.

“It’s Geoffrey!” Phoebe says. “Craigslist isn’t just for murderers!!”

“Huh? Who is Geoffrey?”

“The mansion keeper,” she says. She hands him the phone. “The winter guy. Hey, can you read this aloud?”

“In any particular accent?” he asks.

“You do accents?”

“Only around total strangers.”

“What are my options?”

“New York,” he says. “Boston. Rhode Island. I’m limited regionally.”

“When in Rhode Island.”

“Hi, Phoebe,” he says, in a Rhode Island accent, which is just a more pronounced version of the way his mother talks. “Thank you for your interest in the Newcombe Mansion. I must say, I am keen to meet you, as I am very delighted to hear you have a PhD in nineteenth-century literature. As you know, the Newcombe Mansion was built in 1845 by a Civil War hero, Jonathan Newcombe, so this seems fortuitous. I hope I have the chance to meet an applicant with your level of expertise.”

“Wait, a winter keeper?” Gary asks, in his regular voice. “What are winter keepers?”

“People who caretake mansions. In the winter, when the owners are at their real homes. Turns out it’s a job in Newport.”

“Newcombe is a twenty-room property,” he reads again in his accent. “I would love to show you. I am available to meet you anytime this afternoon or tomorrow. I am hoping to have the matter settled before the end of the weekend.”

“Holy shit!” she says. “Tell him I can meet him later after I drop you off.”

“No, sorry,” he says. “I’m coming with you to see this mansion.”

“But we have to get your tux,” she says.

“That can wait.” He writes back to Geoffrey, and she puts the address in Waze.

“Wait, why don’t you have a Rhode Island accent?” she asks. “Aren’t you from Rhode Island?”

“I took a speech class at Yale, trained myself out of it.”

“Wow,” she says. “Traitor.”

 

THE NEWCOMBE MANSION is guarded by tall iron gates that someone painted blue. The gates open as they approach.

“Naturally,” Gary says.

Geoffrey waits for them in the front entrance. He is a small, Southern man wearing a light peach suit. He looks especially small next to the big house. The entrance is so formal, with giant gargoyles up on the roof, and when Phoebe says hello, she half expects Geoffrey to bow or curtsy. But he shakes her hand like any old American.

He welcomes her into the house and starts by telling her that this is a position exclusively for caretaking the interior.

“We have people for the grounds,” he says. “But our main interior caretaker of ten years just unexpectedly resigned.”

He asks what experience she has caretaking nineteenth-century mansions, and she tells him she has no experience, though researched many for her dissertation. She doesn’t harp on the fact that most of them were fictional estates, often discussed primarily as metaphors for colonialism.

“In my line of work, I research historical buildings a lot,” she says. “I have a chapter in my dissertation about Victorian domestic interiors. I study the way nineteenth-century novels portray domestic space as primarily female and the natural world as primarily male.”

She tells him about the years she spent in the basement archives, and it feels good to talk about her research again. All those hours in grad school

she spent cataloging the effects of each room on the characters in Jane Eyre —she would sit in the library and look up and before she knew it, it would be dark. She loved those early days, when she didn’t know exactly what she was writing yet, when she was just on the cusp of figuring it out.

“Excellent,” Geoffrey says. “Because this is a job about research. Let’s say this fabric wallpaper from 1845 starts to tear. What do you do?”

“I don’t know,” Phoebe admits. “But I would research it until I found out.”

Geoffrey laughs.

“Somehow, I believe you,” he says. “Shall we?”

They turn to the door and Phoebe sees a face carved into the wood. “Is that Dante?”

“I’m really glad you know that,” Geoffrey says.

 

HE TAKES THEM through the grand courtyard. He tells them about the owner, how he built this house for his daughter, Elizabeth.

“You can see Elizabeth’s collection of Parisian art in the dining room,” Geoffrey says. “She ended up marrying a French banker, who is featured here in this painting. But they didn’t get along, and Elizabeth spent much of her time traveling the world, collecting the art and the vases you’ll see everywhere in this house.”

Then he gets a phone call.

“I need to take this,” Geoffrey says. “Why don’t you go through and look at the place on your own, let me know what you think?”

 

THEY WANDER THROUGH the house. Every doorway is framed with elaborate woodwork. Muses painted gold in each corner. The face of Cicero carved above the bathroom. And a tub made of marble so thick, it looks like a coffin. Phoebe runs her finger along the frame of the bathroom mirror.

“I think this is platinum leaf,” she says.

“Platinum leaf?” Gary asks. “I didn’t even know that existed.”

They head into the bedroom, where Elizabeth’s art collection continues.

“Do you think a woman who collects art like this is the happiest woman?” Phoebe asks. “Or the least happy?”

“The question presumes that we can be happy,” Gary says.

“Can we not?”

“I think we talk about happiness all wrong. As if it’s this fixed state we’re going to reach. Like we’ll just be able to live there, forever. But that’s not my experience with happiness. For me, it comes and goes. It shows up and then disappears like a bubble.”

“When was the last time you were really happy?” Phoebe asks Gary.

“The honest answer?” he says. “Right now.”

She wants to ask why this is. Is it because he’s getting married tomorrow? Or because of how it feels to be standing here in this mansion together? Phoebe feels strikingly happy, like this kind of connection between two people can fix everything. For just a moment, she fantasizes about them living here, together, roaming the halls, talking about Parisian paintings at breakfast.

“I think the collector’s impulse is both beautiful and repugnant,” she says.

To collect is to care more than most. But it is also to hoard. To take things out of the world and make them only yours.

“Art collections were basically like travel souvenirs for these people,” Phoebe says. “Going to Paris and bringing back seven wall paintings.”

They stare at Elizabeth’s bed.

“Is this where you’d sleep?” he asks.

“I think this is where Elizabeth’s ghost sleeps.”

He laughs, and they look at the portrait of Elizabeth above the bed. She feels drawn to this woman. Maybe because she, too, lived alone in her own way, lived alone inside her marriage.

“I think you’re right,” Gary says, then he turns to her. “Can I see your phone, please?”

She hands it to him. She knows what he’s going to do before he even does it.

“When you’re living here, I want you to call me when you actually do see a ghost,” Gary says, tapping in his number.

“What are you going to do about it?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he says. “You’re right. I’m famously ineffective against ghosts. Just ask Juice.”

She laughs.

“But promise you’ll call anyway?” he asks.

“I promise.”

She looks down at the old wood floor, puts the phone in her pocket. It feels like she keeps something special in there now. The future, where she lives in this beautiful house and can call Gary when she needs to.

They walk into the next room.

“What do you think Geoffrey meant when he said, ‘I believe you,’ like that? Was that an insult?”

“I think, coming from Geoffrey, it’s the highest praise of all.”

“Is it something about my voice or my hair?” she asks.

“I think it’s just your vibe,” Gary says. “You come off as … very smart. Like you’ve studied everything and now have all the world’s knowledge inside of you.”

“Is that obnoxious?”

“It’s the best.”

When Geoffrey returns, he quickly apologizes, then says, “So what do you think?”

“It’s wonderful,” Phoebe says.

He takes her down the hall. “You can use the whole house as your own, but this would be your bedroom. We like to keep Elizabeth’s as her own.”

Her bedroom would be small, but she has always liked small bedrooms. Never liked the way her bed at home didn’t fill up the room. Always felt like something was missing. But this bedroom is understated, a simple yellow-and-blue color palette. A cozy place to go when this house feels too big.

“Perfect,” Phoebe says.

“The job would start in three weeks,” he says. “But you could move in a few days before. Let me talk it over with my partner tonight, and we’ll get

back to you tomorrow.”

Then, he takes them to the garden, a formal one with boxwoods carved into spirals. They walk up a small hill and sit on a tiny bench because from there, you can see the ocean.

 

WHEN THEY GET back in the car, Gary looks at his phone.

“Shit, I actually need to stop by the office to sign a few papers. Take care of things before I leave for the honeymoon. Do you mind?”

The honeymoon. In three days, Gary and Lila will be on a plane to St. Thomas. They will be married. They will be drinking champagne with rings on their fingers. And where will Phoebe be?

“On a Saturday?” Phoebe asks.

“We’re open until noon.”

Gary’s office is in Tiverton. It looks like a house. Sits on the side of a beautiful coastal road, because most of the roads are beautiful here. On the edge of the country. It gives Phoebe this feeling like she is just about to fall off.

Inside, the receptionists see Gary and get excited. They have missed him, but they also want to know what the hell he is doing here.

“We’re not supposed to see you until tomorrow at the wedding!” one of the receptionists says.

It is nice, she thinks, how he invited his whole staff to the wedding.

“I just couldn’t stay away,” Gary teases, and then goes into his office.

Phoebe waits on the chairs outside. She tries to imagine Lila and her father here doing the same, but it’s hard to picture it. She listens to patients stand at the counter, casually spewing their tragic family histories aloud to the receptionist who asks about gaps in their medical history. Grandparents wiped out by lung cancer. A father who the daughter doesn’t know. Many brothers and sisters, she adds.

“But I don’t know those, either,” the woman says, and she doesn’t sound ashamed. It’s just a fact. She has no family. Then she sits down, and Phoebe is impressed. Phoebe makes a note to start practicing that—not feeling ashamed of her family history but understanding it as just a fact.

On the wall, there are computer screens you can touch to learn more about your diagnosis. A playset in the corner for children. Seasonal decorations for every holiday. On the way out, Gary explains that there’s no point in taking them down just to put them up. And they like having all the holidays with them at all times of the year.

“That’s nice,” Phoebe says. “Why not?”

“Exactly,” Gary says.

This is Gary’s life, she thinks.

 

AT THE TAILOR, the woman tells him he has the build of a football player. She tells him to spread his legs.

“Good, fits well,” she says and looks at Phoebe. “What do you think?”

Does she think Phoebe is the fiancée? Gary looks at her, like he’s waiting to hear what she thinks, too. And why? If she doesn’t like it, is he going to ask for a new one? Is he not going to get married? No.

“Looks good,” Phoebe says. “You look like … a groom.”

Outside on the street, where honest communication is possible again, they don’t speak. Here they are, alone together, headed to the car. Here they are, on the precipice of the rest of their lives.

“So if you become a winter keeper, that would mean you would move here and quit your job in St. Louis?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says.

“You would just leave everything behind?”

“That’s the plan.”

He pauses like he is skeptical of this. “You won’t miss it?”

“Of course I will,” she says. “But even when I was there, I missed it. I missed everything all the time.”

They get back in the car. She wonders if her feelings for Gary could be a new form of love, one she’s never known before: love without expectation. Love that you are just happy enough to feel. Love that you don’t try to own like a painting. But she doesn’t know if that is a real thing. She hopes it is. She looks out at the parking lot all around them, like she’s a kid going on an errand with her father, announcing whatever she sees.

“That’s a creepy billboard,” she says. “What’s Mummy’s Favorite Music? Why would that be a billboard?”

“I think it says, What Is a Mummy’s Favorite Music? Not, What’s Mummy’s Favorite Music?”

They try to guess what kind of music a mummy might like.

“Baroque?”

“It would really matter when the mummy died.”

“Synth-pop.”

“A postmodern mummy.”

She turns on the car.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready,” she says.

But they continue to sit there for another moment, and it feels like the hot tub all over again, as if something is supposed to happen now, as if she should say a thing that will start her brand-new life, but what?

She can’t destroy a wedding. This wedding is too big to fail. This wedding is like the revolution of the earth. It’s going to happen whether Phoebe says anything or not. Whether anybody is in love or not. What right does she have to say anything?

“Where to?” she asks.

She needs to go back, needs to get out of this car before she says anything.

“To the barber,” Gary says.

 

THEY GO TO this guy Nick that he used to see when he was a boy. It’s out of the way but worth it, he says on the drive. Nick used to carve lightning bolts in the side of his head. Nick gave him his first buzz cut. Then a shave for his first wedding. But it’s been years—Gary invested in self–hair cutting tools during Covid and never looked back. Yet here they are, pulling onto a side street, and Gary sounds excited, like they’re traveling back in time.

“You got an appointment?” Nick says as soon as they walk in, but he doesn’t turn his head from the man’s hair he is clipping.

“You don’t do appointments,” Gary says.

“I do appointments now,” Nick says. “Since Covid.”

Gary looks at the line of men waiting on chairs and says he would have made one had he known.

“I’ve got some room on Monday,” Nick says.

“Monday is too late. But thanks anyway, Nick.”

“Too late? You off to fight the British or something?”

“Getting married,” Gary says.

“Are you the lucky bride?”

“No,” Phoebe says. “I’m just a friend.”

Nick looks at the two of them like he doesn’t quite believe it. Why else would she be here, watching him get a shave?

“For you, the groom, I’ll make time,” Nick says. “You’ll just have to wait.”

While they wait, they don’t talk. They listen to the men on TV talk about the Celtics. Then the wind turbines going up on the coast. Then the hotly debated bike lanes in Providence. There is something routine about the silence, like sitting in a church pew where everybody knows not to talk, even the small boy who just kicks his legs. It’s not until the last man is called to Nick’s chair when Gary speaks.

“So you really won’t miss teaching?” Gary asks, as if they had been in some long conversation about it.

“I’ll miss some things about teaching,” Phoebe says.

“Which things?”

“The moments of connecting with students,” she says. “The moments when they really do learn something. The back-and-forth. The way it feels to have a really good class. I did love it when I first started.”

“What won’t you miss?”

“The pretending,” she says. “I never realized how much pretending was involved.”

“Pretending to be what?”

“Pretending to be excited. Pretending you haven’t said the same exact joke over and over again. Pretending knowledge is some beautiful, fortuitous interweaving quilt of facts. Pretending that everything that happens can be strung along a satisfying, linear narrative.”

“Is that what you said during your job interview?”

“I said something worse. I invoked Marx.”

“Solid move. Everybody wants to hire a Marxist.”

“I was pretty committed to pretending I was a Marxist then. I went on and on about how difficult it is to measure student progress, how there’s no guarantee that they’ve learned anything, and how teachers, too, are alienated from their labor. We so rarely get to understand our effect on the students, yet we work anyway.”

This is why she always needed research and writing.

“It was nice to create something,” she says. She loved the thrill of discovery, of being able to look at the document at the end of the day and say, I did that. Like being a barber, she imagines. Getting to see the final creation. Trimming a man’s hair just over the ears, then dusting him off. And when she stopped wanting to write, it was an actual loss. She can see this now, how she has been grieving that, too. The loss of her creativity.

“Bastards put in meters while we were all asleep during Covid,” Nick says. He picks up change out of an old ash tray. “Got to feed this thing four times a day. When I’m back, you’re up.”

Then they’re alone in the shop. They don’t speak. It is only the sound of the TV that threatens to dull the moment, turn it into nothing.

“Are you pretending to be something right now?” Gary asks.

“Excuse me?”

She grows hot. She is pretending, yes. She is pretending to talk about pretending to be a Marxist when really she just wants to tell him that she thinks she might be in love with him, that she hasn’t felt this connected to anybody ever, not even her husband, because she has never looked her husband in the eye and admitted she wanted to die, never actually showed her husband her full self. This whole week has bonded her to him and running errands with him does not help. Something about watching him sign papers at the office, watching him wait at the barber, watching him just be ordinary Gary.

But she had love once, great love, and that didn’t end up mattering.

“I’m pretending not to be confused,” Phoebe says. “How am I doing?”

“Excellent performance,” he says. “You never seem confused.”

“Well, I’m confused.”

“What are you confused about?”

“Whether or not you are pretending to be something right now.”

He pauses. “I’m pretending I don’t want to say something to you right now. I’m pretending that it does not make me very nervous.”

“Can I ask what’s so scary about it?”

“I don’t know how to phrase it. I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know what happens after I say it.”

She gets the feeling that if this conversation continues, something irrevocable will happen.

“But unfortunately there’s no one else I can tell,” he says. “No one to talk to about it with … except you.”

“Then talk to me about it.”

“It’s so easy with you,” he says. “I don’t understand it.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“I felt it when we talked that first night. I honestly cannot stop thinking about that first night in the tub. And trust me, I’ve tried. I have been trying to figure out why I can’t stop thinking about you, because I am getting married tomorrow.”

“Yes,” she says. “You are getting married tomorrow.”

“But I feel so drawn to you,” he says. “I just want to be around you, Phoebe. Because when I’m around you, I feel good. I feel honest. I feel like myself. Like maybe I understand what life is again. I know what to say, finally, after years of never knowing what the hell to do or say. Do you know what I mean?”

Phoebe knows. She feels this way, too. Exactly. And she wants to tell him. It would feel so good to tell him.

“Is that crazy?” Gary asks. “You’re looking at me like that’s crazy.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy. I think it’s scary.”

“It’s scary,” he says.

“It’s very scary that you’re saying this all to me the night before your wedding,” she says. “I don’t think you should be doing that.”

“When else am I supposed to be doing it?” Gary asks. “If I don’t do it now, when do I do it?”

The door dings. Nick is back.

“You got to use a fucking credit card now,” Nick says. “So, the usual?”

“The usual,” Gary says.

Gary gets up, slowly. Phoebe watches as Nick takes the clippers to the thick mass of Gary’s beard. Phoebe watches Nick work, like a sculptor, who is trimming off layers of Gary, until he arrives at “the usual.” It makes Phoebe nervous, seeing pieces of Gary fall off in giant clumps to the floor. After, Nick puts a towel over Gary’s face and, for some reason, when he starts to shave him, Phoebe can’t watch. Looks down at her magazine. She has always liked the sound of the razor against a man’s stubble. Like the sound of a mason spreading mortar on a brick.

When he’s nearly done, Phoebe looks up, and they lock eyes in the mirror. They stay like that for a moment, just looking at each other. Nick nicks him on the back of the neck. Phoebe instinctively leans forward as if to help with the blood. But Nick’s got it.

“Happens all the time,” Nick says, and puts a towel to his skin.

“I’m not sure I’d go around telling your clients that,” Gary says, and the two men laugh.

“So you’re still a wise ass,” Nick says.

 

THE WHOLE WAY home, it’s like driving with a different Gary.

“Is it weird?” Gary asks. “Do I have beard face?”

“What’s beard face?”

“It’s like glasses face. When you’ve only seen someone with glasses and they take them off, and all of a sudden, they’re a different person.”

“Maybe,” she says. “I think it’s more like when someone brings a dog to the groomer and the dog comes out looking like it’s been robbed.”

“Oh, gee, thanks. A dog that’s been robbed. Totally the look I was going for.”

They laugh. He looks at himself in the mirror, rubs his chin, like he can’t get used to it.

“I do feel a little like I’ve been robbed,” he says.

Maybe this is when one of them would have started up their conversation from Nick’s again, but Gary says, “Shit, I forgot about cash for the vendors. I’m sorry. One more thing.”

“No problem,” Phoebe says.

 

THEY CAN’T TAKE out enough cash at the first bank, so they drive to another bank, and at the second bank, Phoebe just waits in the car. She watches him disappear into the building, and then studies the strangers on the road. She sees families on vacation. Non-wedding people eating ice cream. Collagen shot lattes. People just shopping, carrying on. People who have no idea that Lila and Gary exist.

Amazing to think that just last week, Phoebe was one of those people, too. She had been so bold then, doing exactly what she wanted for maybe the first time in her life. She wants to feel that feeling again, the one she felt in the elevator, the one she felt in the tub, the feeling of standing up proudly in her lingerie, of owing Lila absolutely nothing, being loyal to nobody but herself. Because Phoebe knows what Lila cannot know yet: There is no reason to make decisions you don’t want to make at twenty-eight. No reason to marry a man with gray sideburns if you hate the look of them. They are only going to get grayer.

Yes, Lila will be just fine, she thinks.

But then she sees Gary come out of the bank and put the money in his wallet, the wallet in his pocket, and something about this looks so final to Phoebe. He looks like such a groom, clean-shaven, putting money in his wallet to pay the vendors for his wedding. And Phoebe feels like the maid of honor again, with the box of booze heavy in the back seat.

She is loyal to Lila now. Loyal to the production that is this wedding— that’s the truth of it.

When Gary gets back in the car, he says, “Should we finish our conversation?”

But Phoebe says no. “I honestly don’t think there’s anything left to say.”

Phoebe just drives.

WHEN THEY STEP in the lobby, the hotel feels very empty. Like a stage just before the big performance. Everybody must be off doing their last-minute tasks before the rehearsal, getting dressed in their costumes.

Gary and Phoebe are quiet in the elevator, quiet as Gary carries his tux and Phoebe carries the box of liquor down the hallway. Gary says, “Do you mind holding this?” and gives her the tux as he gets his key. It feels so intimate, like they are opening the door to their home after a long day of errands.

But before they enter, there is Lila coming out of her room. Lila looks at Gary and then back at Phoebe. A flicker of realization—Phoebe is certain that she saw it. Certain that Lila knows. Women can feel these things. They know. Phoebe knew. Phoebe knew in that moment when she saw her husband laugh with Mia. Love is visible—it paints the air between two people a different color, and everyone can see it.

But all Lila says is, “Gary, oh my God, your face looks so different!”

“Good different?” Gary asks. “Or bad different?”

Bad different, Phoebe thinks. He is the clean-shaven groom ready for his ceremony. A man she will probably never get to know. By the time the beard starts to grow back, they will be strangers again.

“Good different, of course,” Lila says.

Phoebe puts the booze down on the desk. Outside through the window, Phoebe can see Carlson setting up the chairs for the rehearsal dinner tonight. Phoebe feels a fog of grief, a sudden depression moving in like an afternoon storm. Like if she doesn’t run now, it’ll take her alive.

“I should go get ready,” Phoebe says.

Lila gives Phoebe a big strong hug like she did the first day they met. Maybe Lila doesn’t know. Maybe all Lila can feel right now is fear of what Lila doesn’t want, all the bad things circling around her like a boa constrictor, closing in tight.

“Two things,” Lila says. “It’s just you and me driving to the wedding tomorrow. And can you make sure my mother doesn’t get too drunk tonight? Apparently, she started drinking at two. Why does she do that?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but Phoebe can’t help herself.

“She can’t drink at night,” Phoebe says. “You’ll understand, when you’re older.”

Lila’s mother is sober by the time they get to the Breakers.

“Honestly, I’m ready for a nap,” Patricia says to Phoebe.

In the Great Hall, the wedding people are all lined up in order of importance, as decided by Nancy, the events planner for the Preservation Society. First there is Gary’s cousin Roy, the officiant for the wedding, likely the only family event at which he has been deemed the least important. Then the groom’s parents. The flower girl, the ring bearer. The bridesmaids. The maid of honor. The mother of the bride and her grandmother. And, then, of course, the bride.

“Do not touch the walls. Do not touch the windows,” Nancy says. “Do not touch anything here but your spouse! I find that’s generally a good rule for life, and also the Breakers.”

Everyone laughs.

“I’ll be back,” Nancy says. “And when I come back, be ready.”

As soon as she leaves, people slacken. Marla walks over to introduce her son, Oliver, to Phoebe, because Phoebe is a professor of literature. Oliver gets excited about this in a way a twelve-year-old child normally does not.

“I’ve read all the Percy Jackson books,” Oliver says. “My favorite by far is The Titan’s Curse. Have you ever read it?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” Phoebe says.

Oliver looks disappointed but then runs off with Juice to see who can get closest to the walls without touching them.

Bootsie starts pointing out the things she finds most objectionable about the Breakers to Lila and Patricia, while Phoebe gets a phone call from her husband. She puts her phone on silent. She doesn’t want to hear his voice tonight. Not here, in this Great Hall, which feels more like a courtyard. Not now, not tonight. Phoebe is already confused enough. She drops the phone back in her purse, and Marla pulls out hers.

“I sent my last sext to Robert before he got on the plane this morning,” Marla whispers to Phoebe. “He hasn’t responded since, and now I’m worried it’s weird.”

“Why would it be weird? Isn’t he right there?” Phoebe asks, looking at a tall, thin man who has walked over to get the kids away from the walls.

“Yeah, that’s why it’s weird. I told him that my tiny little pussy is wet and waiting for him, and then we just greet each other at the Breakers with dry kisses on the cheek,” Marla says. “I mean, shouldn’t we be beyond this stage now? We’ve been married for fifteen years.”

“Maybe it’s the right place to be,” Phoebe says. “If you’re starting over, you’re starting over.”

Then Nancy returns and says, “Go, go, go!” as if they are kids entering a soccer field for the big game. When Phoebe walks past Nancy and through the door, she waits for a slap on the ass that never comes.

Outside, the sun is bright. She takes slow steps toward the pergola. She pauses in front of it, in front of Gary. She looks at Gary’s face, but the sun is too bright behind him. She keeps her eyes low, focused on Jim’s shiny shoes. She wonders if they were the same ones he wore to Wendy’s funeral.

Phoebe walks to the left, completes the line of women that will stand at Lila’s side. From there, she watches Lila walk slowly up the aisle in her white reception dress. Lila beams at Gary so brightly, it feels like the moment in the barbershop is long forgotten. It feels like all of the moments that came before this one are irrelevant. This is what the wedding ritual does to Phoebe—even just the rehearsing of it: Nothing can compete.

“Okay, then we’ll cut the music and you stand here and look deeply into each other’s eyes,” Nancy says, and she turns to Roy. “Then you will say whatever meaningful thing it is you are going to say.”

“And then we’ll be married and hooray,” Lila says.

They kiss, just for good measure.

It is over, and they walk out, one by one, each woman pairing up with a groomsman. Phoebe links arms with Jim. His arm feels good in hers. It is solid, the arm of a man who probably balances well on a ridgeline.

Maybe tonight I’ll sleep with Jim, Phoebe thinks.

She’s surprised by the thought. Jim feels more like a brother to her. But maybe they both need to redirect their desire. Have a night with each other. She’s never had sex with a younger man before. Something about spending too much time around students. Their youth was appalling to her. How

much they didn’t know. How little they thought about the Battle of the Bulge.

But Jim is a good man. An engineer. He is building a seaplane.

“You ever finish that speech?” Phoebe asks him as they turn the corner back into the Great Hall where they started.

“I did, actually,” Jim says, and he sounds proud.

 

BACK AT THE hotel, the patio has been transformed into a magical fairy-tale forest for the rehearsal dinner. Oak farmhouse tables, set up in rows, torches lining the border of the stone floor. White roses hanging from the balconies above. And right in the middle of it all stand Lila and Gary, staring at the giant painting of Patricia naked.

“Who brought this painting here?” Lila asks when Phoebe and Jim join them. “I did not ask for this to be brought here.”

“It was your mother’s idea,” Gary says. “She wanted to surprise you. She knows how much it means to us.”

“Right,” Lila says, and nods slowly. “But there are children here.”

“Technically only two,” Jim says.

“Juice has seen this painting a million times,” Gary says, confused.

“And Oliver seems … advanced,” Phoebe says.

Phoebe looks at the painting of Patricia for the first time. There stands the cubist abstraction of a naked mother in the bright sun of a hyperrealistic garden. If the mother didn’t look so fragmented, or if the garden didn’t look so dead, it wouldn’t work. But it does. It’s beautiful. And sad. Beautiful because it’s sad or sad because it’s beautiful.

“I’ll grab us a drink,” Gary says to Lila.

When he walks away, Lila says, “I just don’t understand why my mother must make even my wedding about her naked body.”

Jim walks closer to the painting as if he might figure it out.

“Please do not get so close to my mother, Jim,” Lila says.

He points to the book that Withers painted in Patricia’s hand.

“Is the title of this book really No One Gardens Alone?” he asks.

“Wait, seriously?” Lila asks. She bursts out laughing. She looks closer at the painting. “I bought my mother that book for her birthday. I thought she might like, need a hobby or something.”

Jim looks at her. “See? In that way, this painting actually is all about you.”

“From one bullshitter to the next, that is some serious bullshit,” Lila says.

He laughs.

“But thanks for trying,” Lila says.

She stares at Jim tenderly, and Phoebe looks away as if she is witnessing a private moment she shouldn’t. Something about the exchange, the meeting of their eyes. An uncanny moment when the universe is presenting the right order of things, or at least another possible order of things. If Lila’s father had chosen a different doctor. If Jim hadn’t brought Gary to the gallery that day.

But in this universe, she watches the two of them walk away from each other. Lila headed for her drink at the bar, Jim looping arms with Gary’s mother. She wonders what will become of Jim, and worries that losing Lila might set him back another decade. Imagines he might become a man who finds it easier to build a seaplane before he builds a family. The kind of man who lives alone for so long, he ends up treating his own house like a country, carrying everything he needs as he walks the perimeter, his loud laugh the anthem the neighbors hear from afar. But maybe one day, he’ll finally scrub the oil off his hands for the last time and think, Where did everybody go?

And Lila—where will she be by then? Ten years into marriage with Gary. Perhaps with two children. Already on her second sleeping pill in the upstairs bedroom. Starting to understand why her mother day drinks.

 

“SO, WHAT DID it actually feel like to be a sniper?” Phoebe asks Roy by the appetizer table. Maybe she’ll go for Roy instead, she thinks. Roy is the only man here seemingly not in love with someone else. And he is big, tall, like some action hero who is too large for every suit in the known world.

“It was phenomenal,” Roy says.

“Phenomenal?” Phoebe says. “You mean in the traditional sense of the word?”

“What do you mean, in the traditional sense of the word?”

“Like when people back in the day used to say phenomenal to describe something celestial made visible.”

“Huh?”

“Like a shooting star was phenomenal, because they believed it to be a sign from God.”

Roy gives her a long look like maybe he understands what she’s trying to say. But then he leans in and whispers, “Want to fuck?”

Perhaps it is not so strange of a request, two people at a wedding not their own. It happens in movies all the time. It probably happens to Roy all the time.

“Do people fuck you just because you ask?” Phoebe asks, genuinely curious.

“The ones who look me in the eye,” he says. “In Iraq, the only women who look men directly in the eyes are prostitutes.”

“That can’t be true,” Phoebe says.

“It is,” he says.

He thought it was weird at first but then got used to it and thought it was amazing what you could get used to over time. He says it’s really hard being back in the States.

“Women here have no problem looking you in the eye,” he says. “Like you, right now. You’re doing it. What does it mean?”

He says he can never tell who wants to fuck him and who is just being polite.

“That must be really hard,” Phoebe says.

 

PHOEBE MAKES HER way back to Jim at the bar. She passes Nat and Suz in floral dresses down to their ankles. Marla and her husband, picking at the olives, trying to talk in real life. Then Gary and Lila, who have become unreachable during the height of cocktail hour. They stand near the door,

greeting new people, holding drinks that match the sunset. When Lila laughs, Gary puts his hand on her back like he did on the boat. They already look married. She remembers her own wedding, how just making all those decisions together in some way married them. Each handshake was a way of saying, I do, I do, I do.

Phoebe orders a margarita. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to drink gin and tonics again. She watches the bartender squeeze the lime.

“You finish your speech?” Jim asks.

“I did,” Phoebe says. “And I learned never to write a speech after I’ve had two weeds.”

Jim laughs so explosively, it seems like there’s a good chance he might die before the end of it. Even Gary and Lila look over as he holds his chest. They all watch as it trickles out like exhaust from a tailpipe. But he survives. He puts his arm around Phoebe, and Gary looks over. They meet eyes, but then comes another wedding person to shake Gary’s hand.

“You make me laugh,” Jim says. “Sit next to me tonight.”

“I think we have assigned seats,” Phoebe says, picking up the card with her name on it. Phoebe feels proud to be at Table 1 for the first time in her life, assigned to the seat directly across from the bride and groom. Jim is seated beside her.

“It’s fate,” Jim says.

Lila picks up her glass, clinks a spoon against it. Gary raises a champagne flute.

“We can’t tell you how grateful we’ve been for your support and your community this week,” Gary says. “It’s wonderful to be here, in this beautiful hotel, with you all.”

When talking to his guests, it feels like the Gary who was sitting next to her in the barbershop is truly gone. This Gary is beardless and has nothing to do with Phoebe at all. But when Gary turns around to gesture at the magnificent ocean behind them, Phoebe sees it: the tiny spot of blood where the barber nicked him earlier.

“The dinner will be a five-course meal,” Lila says. “With a palate cleanser in between. And then after, we’ll go down to the beach to enjoy the

fireworks and s’mores for the kids. So please enjoy and take your assigned seats.”

As they all sit down, Gary’s mother stands up.

“Let’s hold hands and say grace,” Gary’s mother says.

Phoebe holds hands with Patricia, whose hand is as smooth and dry as a stone, and she worries about crushing it for some reason. On the other side is Jim.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord,” Gary’s mother says. “Amen.”

While half of the room does the sign of the cross, Juice reaches out for Jim’s wine.

“Can I have a sip?” Juice asks.

“No,” Jim says.

“But everyone else is drinking,” Juice says.

“When you’re older, you’ll have time to drink more drinks than you’ll ever want. Trust your uncle on this one.”

Gary is just watching all of this, always a little stunned by Juice’s attempts to get older. Or maybe he is just studying Jim, who is leaning into Phoebe now, very obviously, whispering something in her ear.

“What the fuck is a palate cleanser anyway?” Jim whispers.

“A lemon thing on a spoon,” Phoebe says.

“Oh, right, that makes perfect sense.”

Phoebe laughs, and in this space so close to Jim, it feels safe to return Gary’s gaze. But Gary has already looked away, and it’s so strange to Phoebe that humans have learned how to do that—how to look away just in time.

“But what if I die? Not everybody gets their time,” Juice says.

“You will not die,” Gary says.

“You don’t know that,” Juice says.

“Yes, I do,” Gary says.

“Are you God?”

“He’s an adult human,” Jim says. “Statistically, most children in America live to see their own drinking age.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’m an adult human! I know things,” Jim says.

Every so often Marla and her husband talk to each other by asking Oliver to do something completely inappropriate, like publicly conjugate a Latin noun, which makes the table supremely uncomfortable, though everybody does a good job of not showing it.

“Your second course,” the waiter says, and Gary’s mother stands up.

“Let’s hold hands and say grace,” she says.

Lila looks at Phoebe, and Gary and Marla glance at each other, like they’re not sure if it’s the early signs of dementia or the late-stage Catholicism that is making her insist on saying grace before each course. But nobody stops her.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty,” Gary’s mother says.

Jim runs his finger alongside Phoebe’s palm.

“Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

After, Jim doesn’t let go of her hand. Gary and Lila just stare at the two hands, while Phoebe tries to make jokey conversation about when and how often people should say grace in a five-course dinner.

“It’s a good question,” Jim says. “Which one is the real meal? Which one is the actual dinner for which we must be the most grateful, Professor Stone?”

“Sorry, I don’t do philosophical inquiries,” Phoebe says. “If you want to debate the categorical nature of a meal, you’ll need my ex-husband for that. He’s the philosopher.”

They laugh and let go of each other.

“We don’t need Socrates to tell us that this isn’t a meal,” Gary’s father says. “This is just frou-frou soup. And why’s it cold?”

“It’s gazpacho,” Lila says.

“Gazpacho?” Bootsie says. “Who is Spanish here?”

Gary hands Bootsie’s Tupperware to the waiter. “Can you put this in a nice crystal?” he asks.

Then they eat in relative silence, which stretches too long. The clinking of spoons against bowls becomes unbearable, the acknowledgment that the families have nothing to say to one another, except for Phoebe and Jim.

“I can’t believe I haven’t asked you this yet,” Jim says, “but where are you from again?”

“Missouri,” Phoebe says. Phoebe is acutely aware that everyone is listening. “You?”

“Pawtucket, Rhode Island,” Jim says. “The last place in America to make its own socks.”

“What do you mean?” Phoebe asks.

“Factory closed, and now America doesn’t make any of its own socks,” Jim says.

“Nowhere in America?” Phoebe asks. She finds this both hard to believe and not at all surprising.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Lila says. “Jim just likes to say that for some reason.”

“Because it’s unbelievable,” Jim says. “What can we say about a superpower that doesn’t make its own socks?”

“Something about frostbite,” Phoebe says.

“Death traditionally starts in the feet,” Gary finishes.

“That’s a little morbid, Gary,” Lila says.

The waiter puts down the next course. “Filet mignon.”

They all wait to see if Gary’s mother wants to say grace again, but she is already cutting into her meat. The platter of tiny steaks seems like a mistake next to the linen suits, the white lace trim of their lives. Some of the blood pools at the ridges of the serving plate, and Jim asks, “We’re supposed to be doing the speeches after the fourth course, right?” But Lila shushes him.

“Let’s just make sure we get through the meal first,” Lila says.

Phoebe notices the lost button on Patricia’s blouse. The yellow on Gary’s mother’s teeth. Oliver, who shows too much white of his eye when he speaks. Juice, who smells faintly of wet grass and booze. The food in Lila’s teeth.

“Lila,” Phoebe says, trying to get her attention.

But Lila is worried about the time. “Is the fourth course on its way?” she asks the waiter.

“Yes,” he says.

Lila expresses concern about missing the scheduled fireworks at nine, and the waiter assures her he will put in an order to speed things along. And he does. The fish fillets arrive almost immediately, and Gary’s mother stands up again.

“Jesus Christ,” Patricia says. “Once is fine, expected. Three times, I can’t. Enough God! Did God pay for this meal? Did God buy all these tiny steaks? No. I did.”

“Actually, Dad did,” Lila says.

“Yes! And we should be thanking Henry,” Patricia says as she stands up.

“Does this family ever tire of talking about the Trash King?” Bootsie asks, and takes a sip of her gimlet.

“Thank you to the Trash King of Rhode Island,” Patricia says to everyone. “And of course, the American people for producing so much trash, for never recycling properly, they have made it possible for all of us to be here tonight.”

“Mom,” Lila hisses. “This is not about you.”

“I know that, Lila,” Patricia says. “Nothing is about me. I’m aware!”

Gary’s mother is still standing, confused, so Gary gets up to join her.

“Let’s all hold hands,” Gary says, and Lila rolls her eyes. But they all hold hands and say grace one last time.

“Now we’re going to be late to the fireworks,” Lila announces after.

“Can we really miss the fireworks?” Jim asks. “We can see the whole sky from up here.”

“Yes, Jim, one can miss the fireworks,” Lila says. “Because there is a setup down on the beach with a bonfire and blankets and a guy who is probably already making s’mores for everyone.”

“Isn’t the fun of s’mores that you make them yourself?” Marla asks.

Lila looks like she might explode, but instead she turns to Phoebe and Jim.

“Actually, I think we might have to cut your speeches,” Lila says.

“Cut the speeches?” Gary asks.

“Jesus Christ, Lila,” Jim says.

“What?” Lila asks.

“Jim worked hard on his speech,” Gary says, visibly disappointed by Lila’s decision.

Phoebe is disappointed, too. She didn’t have a speech, but she was still looking forward to getting up there, speaking in front of the crowd, saying nice things about what Lila has meant to her this week, and really taking her place as Lila’s friend. But maybe this is why Lila has no real friends, Phoebe thinks. She doesn’t know how to keep them. She keeps trading them in for something else.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Lila says. “We’re paying a thousnd dollars a minute for those fireworks. And we’re late already. You can email me the speech tomorrow if you like.”

For a moment, Jim looks bereft, as if he might cry, as if this moment has become the moment he feared. He really will get cut out of the family’s scheduled programming. But then he smiles to himself, as if he’s just learned something vital. He folds his napkin, puts it on the table, and goes up to give his speech.

“Jim!” Lila hisses. But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t pull out a piece of paper. He just begins talking.

“Well, Gary,” Jim says, “we’ve been through a lot.”

He begins by listing all the things they did together over the years, like riding horses in Wyoming and building a sandbox for Juice in the backyard.

“But the biggest thing we did together,” he says, “was watch my sister”—and that’s where Jim gets stuck.

He can’t finish the sentence without crying. Lila holds her dessert fork tightly in her hand. Gary looks down at the table. Phoebe feels suddenly nervous for Jim, the way she felt when an unprepared student gave a presentation. Jim bites the side of his fist to keep from crying, and each time he seems ready to speak, he starts to cry again. Eventually, Gary’s father stands up and starts clapping and says, “We’re here for you, Jim.” Then everybody starts clapping, everyone stands up, and this makes Jim cry and laugh at the same time. Finally, when Jim has composed himself, he finishes.

“I know I’m not supposed to stand up here and talk about my sister,” he says. “But I don’t know how else to talk about Gary. I’ve never known the

kind of love that Gary has shown both me and my sister over the years. I never watched a man endure something so painful with so much grace. And on top of all that, he still has time to answer all your questions about whether the colors of your shits are normal—”

Everyone laughs. Lila blushes. Juice takes a sip of Jim’s wine.

“I mean, the man even asks follow-up questions,” Jim says. “‘Would you say it’s more of a mauve? Or a maroon?’”

The room laughs even harder.

“Gary is the best. We all love Gary. Everybody loves Gary. Gary is good. But the one thing he’s not good at? Being a wingman,” Jim says. He looks at the painting on display. “Because when we were at the gallery that day, I thought I was the one who was hitting on Lila.”

The crowd laughs. They hear all of this as a joke—but Lila freezes. Lila seems to know it’s not a joke.

“I thought, Who is this enchanting woman? Because that is one thing we know about Lila. She’s enchanting. She has such a big personality. So many ideas. The most particular person I know, you know? Lila knows exactly what she wants. I mean, look at this place—look at these centerpieces, look at how amazing it all is.”

The first firework of the evening goes off. It explodes behind Jim with a big red burst, but Lila does not see it. She’s transfixed by Jim’s words.

“Listen to that firework,” Jim says, and the crowd laughs. “Who else would have had fireworks? Who else could have made this happen? Who else would have asked us to stay here for an entire week?”

“Six days, Jim,” Lila corrects, and the crowd laughs again.

“Not including the travel days,” Jim says.

They are good together. A comedy duo.

“See? Lila’s bold—God, I really do love it. That’s her great gift. That’s what is going to make life with Lila so fun. So much bigger than the rest of us could dream for ourselves. And I’m so grateful to have been brought here, after a really dark time, to be given this chance to be included in that dream, to play my small part, to come together. It’s what I’ve missed more than anything.”

Another firework. Jim pauses, as if he’s waiting for the lights to burn out of the sky. Then, he raises his glass. The whole room is moved, and Phoebe can feel it, too.

“A toast, to Lila and my brother Gary,” Jim says.

Gary’s eyes are bright red with tears. Everyone claps, and Gary stands to hug Jim. Juice takes another swig of Jim’s wine just before he takes his place back next to Phoebe.

“You going to finish your fillet?” Jim asks.

“No,” Phoebe says.

Lila just stares at Jim in silence as he finishes the fillet.

“That was so wonderful!” Suz and Nat say, and another firework goes off in the distance.

Phoebe looks at Lila. Points to her own teeth.

“Oh,” Lila says. “Excuse me.”

 

“WAS JIM SERIOUSLY just hitting on me during his best man speech?” Lila asks as soon as they are in the bathroom. “Why is he like that?”

“Because he loves you,” Phoebe blurts out.

“He does not love me. He’s had about fifteen girlfriends since I met him,” Lila says. “He doesn’t love anyone.”

“That’s not true, and you know it. Jim’s actually a pretty good guy.”

Lila turns to the mirror.

“God, why do I always get food stuck in this one little spot,” Lila says. She blames this on her mother, too. Her teeth are too crowded in her mouth. Too big and white and shiny. She picks at her teeth, and the gesture is so familiar, it makes Phoebe feel like they are back having their first conversation in the Roaring Twenties.

“Well, you just don’t say things like that in a best man speech,” Lila says. “He never knows what’s appropriate. He’s like, feral or something.”

“But isn’t that what you like about him?” Phoebe asks.

“What do you mean?”

“That he just says things. That he calls you on your shit.”

“My shit? What shit?”

“I mean, he tells you the truth. Makes a stupid joke about your mom’s painting and makes you laugh.”

Lila turns to Phoebe. “If he loves me, then why is he hitting on you, too?”

“Because you’re getting married tomorrow!” Phoebe says. “I’m his backup plan. His consolation fuck.”

“Wait, are you going to fuck Jim?”

“There’s a decent chance I might, yes.”

“So something really is happening between you two? I kept telling Gary that I couldn’t picture it.”

“Why not?” Phoebe asks.

“You’re like, so not his type.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re just very brainy. In a really lovable kind of way. But you’re not a cheerleader type, you know? You’re a little … well, suicidal.”

Phoebe is shocked by how casually she says it. As if it’s no big deal to be suicidal. To have shown up here wanting to die. As if this is just another one of Phoebe’s lovable quirks.

“Yeah. And did you ever wonder why I was suicidal?” Phoebe asks. “Did you ever once ask me, Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Well, I didn’t want to pry.”

“No,” Phoebe says. “You just wanted to talk at me. You don’t care what I have to say.”

“That’s not true,” Lila says. “I literally asked you to stand up and give a speech at my wedding.”

“Yeah, and then you cut it.”

“I really don’t have time for a fight,” Lila says. “This is my rehearsal dinner.”

So perhaps they aren’t going to be friends. Perhaps they are back where they started, Lila obsessed with making sure that nothing ruins her perfect wedding, and Phoebe, always just about to ruin it. Perhaps there really is no such thing as friendship, just as Phoebe thought on the darkest nights back at home.

But Phoebe can’t let herself fully believe this. It seems truer to say that friendship is just hard. It requires radical honesty. A kind of openness that Phoebe felt for the first time in her life that night she arrived at the hotel, so free and unburdened by anything. So ready to leave this world. But now she is no longer free—she is a person at this wedding, and the responsibilities of being a good friend have already started to change her. She can feel herself wanting to hide things from Lila. Nurture secret feelings in the dark of her mind, because total honesty is terrifying. It feels like it can ruin everything. And maybe this is what Patricia meant about saving yourself. What the Sex Woman meant when she said that Phoebe, for the rest of her life, would have to keep “checking in.” Look in the mirror and repeatedly ask herself, Am I being honest right now?

“Can I be honest with you about something?” Phoebe asks.

Phoebe doesn’t want to be like Mia. She doesn’t want to pretend that her feelings for Gary aren’t a real thing growing between them. But she doesn’t know what being honest in this moment means. Is telling the bride about her feelings for the groom the most selfish act or the noblest act? She doesn’t know. The only thing she can think to do is let the bride decide.

“I mean, when do you ever hold back?” Lila asks. “Isn’t that kind of your thing?”

“Is it?”

“The first time I met you, you told me you wanted to kill yourself.”

Phoebe nods. It seems unbelievable to her that she would have told a total stranger that, but now Phoebe can see it clearly as an act of desperation.

“I’m sorry I did that to you,” Phoebe says.

“It’s all good,” Lila says. “But I seriously can’t handle any more honesty right now after Jim’s speech. I really just need the night to go smoothly. And some floss.”

“But I thought you wanted to stop pretending.”

“And I thought you were my maid of honor.”

“I am,” Phoebe says.

“So help me.”

Phoebe opens her bag. “Here,” she says. “Use this.”

“Your table card?” Lila asks, but takes it. Starts using the sharp corner of the card to poke between her teeth. She gets it out. Victory. She reapplies her lipstick. Smacks her lips. Looks at Phoebe like she couldn’t be more grateful.

“When we get back there, I want you to give your speech,” Lila says. “I’m sorry I cut it. I really want to hear it. I just get so worked up sometimes, you know?”

“I know,” Phoebe says.

 

BUT WHEN THEY return to the patio, they find it nearly empty.

“I told everybody to head down to the fireworks,” Gary says. “We’ll meet them there.”

“But Phoebe hasn’t given her speech!” Lila cries. “And we didn’t even eat any of the palate cleansers, did we?”

“You don’t eat palate cleansers, you have palate cleansers,” Marla corrects.

“Jesus Christ, Marla, who cares?” Lila says. “We didn’t eat or have any of them, am I right?”

“I do not recall a palate cleanser, no,” Gary says.

“For the best,” Jim says. “I’m stuffed.”

He rubs his belly like it got bigger during dinner, which it didn’t.

“But we paid for them,” Lila says.

Lila signals for help, but it’s not the waiter who comes over. It’s Pauline.

“Yes, I’m so sorry,” Pauline says. “The waiter came to me with your concerns, and we made the decision to omit the palate cleansers so we could get you all to the fireworks in time.”

“You omitted the palate cleansers?” Lila asks.

“I am afraid we did omit them, yes,” she says. “The meal was taking a little longer than planned, and we made an executive decision.”

“Oh! As long as it was an executive decision,” Lila says.

“Lila,” Gary says. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay! This is unacceptable. We ordered one hundred and sixty palate cleansers!”

“I hope you’re donating them,” Marla says.

“Do people donate palate cleansers?” Phoebe asks. “That just seems … cruel.”

“Oh my God, can someone just tell me what a palate cleanser is?” Juice asks.

“Like a lemon thing on a spoon,” Jim says.

“A lemon thing on a spoon?”

“I don’t know. Ask the professor,” Jim says.

“It’s just what they always are,” Phoebe clarifies.

“Pauline, thank you,” Gary says. “We’ll take it from here.”

Pauline nods, leaves, and in her absence there is a lot of discussion about whether the hotel had the right to do that—to omit the palate cleanser, to make an executive decision without consulting the bride and groom.

Gary seems to think it is his responsibility as a kind person to forgive the waiter for whatever choices he made, because he was just a man with no good options, and Lila seems to think it is her responsibility as the bride to not have her dead father’s money wasted on food they were denied.

“We paid a lot of money for this meal,” Lila says.

“Okay,” Jim says. “Here we go again.”

“What do you mean, Here we go?” Lila asks.

“I mean, we know how this is going to play out, because this is how it always plays out, so why don’t we just skip over it all and head down to the fireworks to enjoy our night?”

“How does this always play out?” Lila asks.

“You really want to know?”

“I don’t think we want to know,” Gary says. “Jim, I think you need—”

“No, I really want to know,” Lila interrupts.

So does everyone else watching.

“You get upset about something very small and minor,” Jim says. “And Gary takes deep breaths and says, Okay, okay, we’ll fix this, and then he is going to fix it, and then you’ll feel better, until tomorrow when you find something else pointless to melt down about.”

“It’s not pointless,” Lila says.

“It’s a lemon thing! On a spoon!” Jim says. “Who cares?”

“I care!” Lila screams. “I care! What is so wrong about caring? What is so wrong about wanting things to be done right? That’s how you make big dreams happen, Jim. That’s how you actually build a seaplane. You have to order all the parts and then make sure you get all the right parts, because if you are missing even just one, the seaplane doesn’t work!”

“What does any of this have to do with my seaplane?” Jim asks.

“You don’t even have a seaplane!” Lila says. “For two years, you’ve been talking about it like you have this seaplane, but you don’t! You haven’t even ordered the frame! Because you don’t take anything seriously, not even your own dreams. You just sit around and talk about all the shit you’re never going to do and all the people who aren’t here, and I’m sorry your sister is dead, but you seriously have to move on and start building your seaplane! All of you do.”

The family looks at Lila, a little stunned.

“This is tiresome,” Jim says. “I’m tired of this.”

“Tired of what exactly?”

“I’m tired of you overreacting like this,” Jim says. “Yelling at everyone. And Gary just standing there. Look at him. He’s just standing there.”

They all look at Gary, and Gary clears his throat. But he doesn’t speak. He just continues standing there.

“You’re both better than this,” Jim says.

Another firework goes off in the distance. “Good night,” Jim says, and then leaves like this was the real speech he had been writing inside his head all week. All year.

Phoebe half expects Lila to yell for Jim as he walks away, but she says nothing, as if she’s already trying to be her better self.

“Did you know that shrimp eat themselves from the inside?” Juice asks, holding a glass of wine in her hand.

“Are you drinking?” Gary asks.

Marla puts up her hand. “I’ll handle it,” she says.

“Juice,” Gary says. “Why are you drinking?”

“I’ll handle it,” Marla says. “Go down to the Cliff Walk and enjoy the fireworks with your fiancée. That’s an order.”

Lila and Gary look at each other, a kind of helpless look, as if they have no idea how to enjoy the fireworks now. But they leave, and Oliver looks distressed, like he just realized that something is deeply wrong with the adults in his life. Phoebe remembers sensing the same thing as a child, seeing her father walk a woman to the door after dinner. Never inviting her to stay. Never allowing anyone into his life after her mother. He said goodbye to the woman, whoever she was, and Phoebe could feel him making a mistake, could feel that sometimes doing nothing was the biggest mistake of all.

But Oliver is just pointing at the nude painting of Lila’s mother.

“Is that you?” he asks Patricia.

“That’s me,” Patricia says.

It’s Juice who explodes, all over the table. Red vomit everywhere.

“Oh my God,” Marla says, hand to forehead.

Marla looks at Phoebe.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t,” Marla says, and takes her husband’s hand for the first time since he arrived. “Vomit makes me vomit.”

 

JUICE WALKS SILENTLY under the wing of Phoebe’s arm, all the way into the elevator.

“I’m so sorry,” Juice says.

“I know,” Phoebe says.

“I mean, I’m so sad.”

“I know.”

“I miss my mom.”

“I know.”

“I wish she could be here.”

“I know.”

Phoebe feels powerless to help. She imagines this is what mothers often feel. Powerlessness is part of the package. So she does what she can: She

brings her to the room Juice shares with Gary. But at the door, Juice just cries.

“I don’t want to be in my dad’s room,” Juice says, and it sounds like she is about to hyperventilate. Like she almost did that day at the wharf. “I just want my mom.”

Phoebe feels Juice’s cry deep in her heart—she feels it as her own.

“Let’s go to my room,” Phoebe suggests.

Inside, Phoebe gets her a glass of water. She takes off Juice’s gold shoes. She puts a blanket over her. She sits at the edge of the bed and thinks, I would have been a good fucking mother, and then strokes Juice’s hair.

“I’m sorry your mom isn’t here anymore,” Phoebe says. “But that doesn’t mean you’re alone.”

Juice cries, curls herself into a ball, pulling the blanket up to her chin. Phoebe hopes Lila will grow into the role of mother. She hopes Lila will at least be stepsisterly. That the two of them will bond while watching shitty movies and eating cookies late at night.

“You’ll be okay,” Phoebe says. “I know you don’t believe that now. But you will.”

“How do you know, though?”

“Because I didn’t have a mother, either,” she says. “And I’m okay.”

“You’re okay?”

“I am okay,” Phoebe says, and it feels true. I am okay. I am alive. I am here.

When Juice falls asleep, Phoebe looks at her phone. Three missed phone calls from her husband. He has lost control, she thinks. She starts to listen to the first message but is interrupted by a knock on the door.

“I couldn’t just sit there watching the fireworks,” Gary says. “Is Juice okay?”

“She’s okay now,” Phoebe assures him.

“I mean, clearly, she’s not okay,” Gary says.

“This is hard for her.”

He sits down on the love seat. “I kept thinking that at some point it would be easier for her. Maybe as the engagement went on, this would all

feel right. I thought my getting married again would be good for us.”

The fireworks are loud outside, but Juice doesn’t budge.

“She must be really drunk,” Gary says.

They watch the green and red and blue explosions in the sky.

“Jim was right,” Phoebe says. “There’s no missing the fireworks.”

“Jim is often right.” He sighs. “Life is never what you think it’s going to be, is it?”

“No,” she says. “It’s been a very surprising week.”

He looks at her. “I certainly didn’t expect you.”

“I didn’t expect any of you. Any of this.”

“Phoebe,” Gary says, like he is about to start up their conversation from earlier. “I think I’m making a terrible mistake.”

But then there’s another knock on the door. She can hear her husband’s voice asking very loudly, “Phoebe, are you in there?”

“Matt,” Phoebe says when she opens the door.

“Phoebe,” Matt says.

Her husband is here. Because if she’s being totally honest with herself, he is still her husband. When she sees him she thinks, Oh, my husband is here. He looks as he always did. He stands in the hallway like he has stood in every hallway she’s ever seen him in.

“Hi,” Gary says. “I’m Gary.”

Matt must be so confused to see her here with this stranger behind her, this girl in her bed.

“I’m Phoebe’s husband,” Matt says.

She waits for Matt to correct himself, but he doesn’t. She can’t tell if Matt is the one who seems weird next to Gary or if Gary seems weird next to Matt.

“Nice to meet you,” Gary says. He looks at Phoebe, as though trying to send a message with his eyes, but Phoebe can’t pick up on it. Her husband’s presence has short-circuited something. “Well, I should bring my daughter to her room.”

They watch silently as Gary picks up Juice from the bed and carries her out the door.

When they are alone, Matt says, “Who were those people?”

But Phoebe doesn’t answer. She refuses to explain the wedding people to him. They are hers, not his.

“You’re my husband?” she asks.

“Sometimes it still feels that way to me.”

Matt sits on the bed.

“Stop,” Phoebe says. “Don’t sit on the bed.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Phoebe feels very protective of her space. She doesn’t like seeing him under the canopy. This is her room. Her hotel.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I called you a million times, Phoebe,” he says. He stands in front of the balcony door and answers into his hands. “I’m sorry to show up like this, I

really am. I know it must seem crazy. But you have to understand that for a few days, I really was going crazy. I thought you might be dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Phoebe says.

“I can see that.”

He comes up to her, like he wants to put his arms around her, but he is scared.

“You just disappeared, Phoebe,” he says. “On the first day of the semester. You would never do that.”

“You don’t know what I would or wouldn’t do anymore,” Phoebe says.

“I know you wouldn’t just take off without it being an emergency. We were all worried sick about you. We thought something terrible happened to you. Like Larry.”

Larry was a professor who stopped showing up to classes without emailing. When they found him, he had been vomiting for days.

“You thought I had a stroke?” she says.

“I could only think the worst.”

She was not in the house when he went to check, and there was nothing missing, no signs of any real departure.

“And then I couldn’t find Harry,” he says. “And you don’t know what that felt like, finding him down there in the basement. Digging his little grave.”

The thought of Harry snaps her back into her old self.

“Thank you for doing that,” she says.

Matt starts to cry just thinking about Harry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I tell you? You left.”

“I loved Harry,” he says. “You know that.”

“You loved Harry?”

“I loved you, too. I still do. I always will. I know that now.”

He takes her hands.

“When I saw you on Monday, I was so stunned. I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t know how. And then I thought you were dead, and I just … couldn’t handle it. Why did you just leave like that?”

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to say anything. He is technically not her husband anymore. She doesn’t owe him the deep truth about her

life.

“How did you find me?” she asks.

He says it was easy. Too easy. “You never took me off our bank account.”

He saw the charge for the airplane and the Newport hotel, and he remembered the name, the Cornwall. He couldn’t remember why it sounded so familiar to him, maybe they went there once, maybe they were supposed to go there.

“But why? Why leave like that, so cryptically, to come to … a wedding? And whose wedding is this?”

“Lila’s,” Phoebe says. “And Gary’s.”

“Gary? The man who was just here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” he says. “But it seemed like … I thought … never mind.”

“And so you just fly here? After two years of living fifteen minutes away from you, never visiting me once, you fly all the way here to find me?”

“I missed you. More than you know. I’ve thought about you every day since we got divorced. I wanted to call or text. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to say. I was so awful to you. And then you were just gone. You weren’t answering my texts or calls. And Bob said your email was really cryptic. I’m sorry, I just had to come. I had to make sure you were okay.”

“I wasn’t okay,” she says. “I was … very upset. I’ve been upset since you left.”

“I know. I’m so sorry I did that to you.”

But now it annoys her that he thinks this was all about him. And while he was certainly a large part of it, he was not all of it. This was bigger than him. She knows this now.

“It’s not just about you leaving,” she says. “It’s everything. It’s about the way I’ve been my entire life. I’ve been so … contained.”

“What do you mean, contained?”

“I mean, I just lived my life in such a small way,” she says. “It was too small. I was so convinced there was only one way to live my life.”

“I liked our life,” he says.

“Apparently not.”

“I was going through something, Phoebe. But I know that’s no excuse. I know I could have handled it differently.”

“Ha!” she says. “That’s one way to put it. You were awful.”

“I know.”

“You abandoned me. Christ, you don’t have to be with a person forever. But you don’t have to abandon them. You were such a coward. I’m so glad I can see that now.”

“I was a coward,” he says. “I can see that now, too.”

“I hated you,” she says. “I still sometimes hate you.”

Yet she feels glad that he tracked her down. Glad that he worried about her, glad to find out that his love did not disappear. And then she feels shame that she feels glad that a man has stalked her. Then she remembers she is not supposed to be feel shame, according to her therapist and Thyme. She is supposed to be kinder to herself, because this habit of tearing herself down every three seconds in her mind makes her feel ashamed. But at least she notices it. At least she is becoming aware of these things now.

“It would kill me if you hated me,” he says.

“I don’t actually hate you,” she says. “Not anymore. I’m feeling better now. I really am.”

“Because of that guy?”

“Don’t even begin to get jealous.”

He knows. He is ashamed about that, too. He is sorry he is jealous, sorry that he left. Sorry that he cheated on her. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do. But he felt like he was drowning and it’s no excuse, yet he didn’t know what else to do.

“Be honest?”

“I couldn’t,” he says. “After Mia and I slept together, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I had done it. I couldn’t imagine a more horrible thing to have done after I did it.”

He had been so mad at Phoebe for being depressed and so mad at himself for being mad that his wife was depressed and also not to mention, a little depressed himself, and working so hard not to slip into that deep,

dark hole with her, that by the time he found himself alone in a room with Mia, it felt like an opportunity.

“An opportunity?” she screams.

“To be a father,” he says. “To be a good partner again. I felt like I was vanishing.”

“So did I!” she yells. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

She yells it so loudly, she imagines someone might call, maybe Pauline, and maybe her father, to say, Calm down, this is too much, you are being too much. She expects her husband to walk out. But he doesn’t. When she’s done yelling, she feels calm. She feels sorry, too. She knows what it feels like to be vanishing. She can understand now what he means by opportunity. She feels it every time she looks at Gary.

“I’m so sorry,” Matt says. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know,” Phoebe says. “I know.”

“She made me feel alive. I just wanted to feel alive again and I didn’t know how else to do it. It’s a—”

“Terrible cliché.”

She hates to hear herself say it. She doesn’t want this thing with Gary to be a terrible cliché. She wants it to be more because it feels like it’s more. But how does she know? Her husband thought he knew. Her husband was so certain when he left her.

But now he’s here. Now he’s sorry. Why would this thing with Gary be any different?

“I understand,” she says. “I get it now.”

He comes closer to her.

“You look beautiful,” he says. “You really do.”

His compliments make her feel smaller than she felt all week. She suddenly feels like an entirely different person than the one who just put Juice to bed. In her husband’s presence, she feels like his wife again. He comes closer and touches her shoulder. She backs away.

“No,” she says. “I understand, but I don’t want that. I’m not the same person anymore.”

She looks out over the balcony to see if she can find Gary in the darkness, but she can’t.

“Neither am I,” he says. “Most days, I wake up in Mia’s house and I think, Where the fuck am I? I am here, with someone else’s child, making pancakes on someone else’s stove. A fucking electric stove that basically takes an hour to heat up. Mia and I, it’s not right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I was being selfish, and I made a mistake, and our marriage has been the only meaningful thing of my life, if I’m really being honest about it.”

“Then why didn’t you call or text or write during that whole time?” she asks.

“I felt like I couldn’t,” he says. “The break between us was so hard. So official. God, that day on Zoom. Phoebe, that was awful. I cried for hours after. But I couldn’t call you. I didn’t want to mess with your head. I didn’t even know what to say. I wanted to be sure about it when I finally spoke to you. And I’m sure.”

“Sure what?”

“That I want to try again.”

“Try again?” She laughs. “Are you kidding me?”

“I love you. I always will, Phoebe. What we had. It was the best part of my life.”

“But that’s over now.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You said that!”

“We were married,” he says. “I honestly don’t think I realized what it meant to be married until I left. How do you know, until you can look back at what it was? After I left, I could see it so clearly. I saw this beautiful thing that I had destroyed.”

He clears his throat. He sits down on the bed.

“But during it, I somehow stopped seeing the big picture. I was thinking so narrowly. I kept thinking everything had to happen a precise way. Like there would be something awful about adopting. Of course we can adopt. Of course we can do surrogates. We can do whatever. If we want a family, we can make it work. We can have a family, Phoebe.”

She feels herself softening at the word family. The whole gang shows up in her head again—their little family. Their little noses. Their little laughs.

Their little fingers, picking strawberries. Always their fingers, always their noses, never their whole faces. When she tries to imagine their faces, all she can see is Juice, throwing up at the table. The bright red chunks of it all.

“How about a drink?” Matt says.

“No,” Phoebe says. “I need to go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know,” she says. She wants to call Gary. She wants to finish their conversation. But when she looks up, Matt has already poured something amber in the little glasses.

“I should warn you that’s like a million dollars,” she says.

“Good,” he says.

Maybe he is different now, too. She watches him take a sip. They sit on the love seat. Every time he leans forward to get a sip of his drink, their knees touch. She wonders if he is making this happen, if he keeps putting the glass farther and farther away from him on the table so he can touch her. It’s like Matt to appear so casual, so effortless, but as his wife, she is the only one who knows how much time and effort he puts into appearing relaxed and easygoing. He does breathing exercises in the morning so he can face the day. He does eighteen drafts of his lecture so it can sound off the cuff. He looks in the mirror and says, Okay, here we go.

“Bob is utterly dumbfounded that you took off,” he says. “The whole department is truly worried about you.”

“They should be.”

“They are.”

“Good,” she says. “They didn’t worry about me enough.”

“I know.”

The more her husband speaks about their life, the more it reminds her he was her husband. He is Matt, who got her a beer on the first date. Matt who wrote her letters from Edgar Allan Poe’s desk that month he was in Baltimore. Matt, whose brother used to bury him in the sand and put breadcrumbs around his head for the seagulls. She puts down her drink, reclines, and knows it’s him, and yet she stares at her husband like he’s someone she’s looking at from very far away. He has gained a little weight, now puffier in the cheeks. But it’s not just that. He is someone who has

fucked Mia now. He parts his hair on the other side. He wears a shirt he must have bought after the divorce. And this all weirdly makes her want to touch him. Like this is really her fantasy now—her husband is a total stranger.

“Remember the eclipse, when I proposed?” he asks.

She nods. They were staring at the sky then, too. She listens to the fireworks in the distance. She feels that same feeling she had when they watched the eclipse, that same intense desire to make it meaningful, turn it into a metaphor. But she can’t quite make it work: The fireworks are the opposite of an eclipse, man-made light bursting open into a dark sky. She doesn’t know what it means.

He kisses her, and it makes her cry.

“I love you, Phoebe,” he says. “I’ve loved you since the first second we spoke.”

She hears the wedding people outside. She hears the fireworks in the distance. She feels the wedding going on without her. She knows that life, real life, is waiting for her on the beach. Yet in here, it is warm. Here is her husband.

He has learned a new way to kiss with Mia. He uses too much tongue. But when she turns away, he rubs his finger down her back. She can feel how he is ready to worship her in this moment if she lets him. She can see the whole thing, how he will spread her legs, how he will enter her, how good it will feel to touch this total stranger, even before it happens. It makes her feel excited and sick all at once. It feels like the worst part of her that wants him. But it has been so long.