“Ben oui,you get a plus-one! And the gift I want is for you to dance at the beginning of the night, when the party needs help getting started.”
“I can dance. It’s mom dancing, though. Not good.” Sharon experimentally shakes her butt.
Béa’s left eye twitches. “No, that’s helpful. The worse you are, the more people will join. What about you, Liz?”
“Are you sure? What if you look back in ten years and there’s this random Liz Lewis person in your pictures?”
“You won’t be the most random thing at my wedding. It’s very possible my aunt Jacqueline will kidnap the officiant so she can perform our ceremony herself. And she can’t remember Stéphane’s name for more than five minutes. Sylvain, Simon, Serge, everything but Stéphane. Nightmare.” She grabs my hands. “Please come. Bring your husband with the cool name. I’ll invite McHuge and Jason, too; it can be a reunion! We can bond, to get ready for the improv showcase.”
A front-of-house person would say yes.
And for once, Iwantto do the thing I’m supposed to do. Suddenly, I’m someone who gets spur-of-the-moment invitations to my brand-new friends’ weddings.
“I’d love to come.”
“Ahhhh, this is making me so happy! And your husband?”
Sharon watches me, her eyes altogether too knowing. Now isn’t the time to unload my marital troubles—not when Béa’s inviting us to her wedding—but I bet Sharon could advise me whether to bring my almost-husband.
Pro: it’s a date we could go on, before we walk into the mouth of the beast at his mom’s house.
Con: it’s awedding. In our twenties, people didn’t ask someone to be their wedding date unless they were serious or desperate. Everyone knew the dangers: huge hooking-up energy, the pressure to make a commitment.
Weddings were evenings where Tobin interrupted his fun to take me home early after I flamed out on unfamiliar faces, stilted conversation, and too many drinks drunk too fast so I’d have something to keep my hands busy.
This time, I promise myself, itwillbe different. Not like my birthday. I’m a front-of-house person now.
“I’ll see if he’s free.”
Béa claps her hands. “It’s beachy semiformal dress.”
“Oh god. I don’t know what that is.”
“I can raid my daughter’s closet if you’re stuck,” Sharon offers. “So. Many. Dresses.”
“Perfect! Bring a layer in case you’re feeling romantic and decide to enjoy the gardens.” Béa winks.
There was a time when Tobin and I sneaked off to make out at weddings, before we were married. At a winter wedding a few months before ours, we held hands during the ceremony, squeezing each other’s fingers with the unsullied confidence of people who have no idea what the hell they’re getting into.That’ll be us soon,I squeezed at him, when the couple cried at the sight of each other in their wedding clothes even though they’d lived together for half a decade.I can’t wait,he telepathed back.
What made me tear up wasn’t the couple, though. It was the tenderness of a community coming together, everybody in the room united in love and hope.
Some weddings aren’t like that. Sometimes the groom’s sideleaves him impossibly torn between chastising his unrepentant father, comforting his inconsolable mother, or paying attention to his new bride. Sometimes the bride’s side overshadows her wedding with somebody else’s divorce, and then makes a prediction for the marriage that might as well be a curse.
I want to feel hope at a wedding again. I want to run out of tissues and have Tobin pass me one of his. I want to embarrass myself on Béa’s dance floor.
I want to dance with somebody who loves me.
“I can’t wait,” I say, realizing it’s true.
Béa does that infectious Gen Z squeal with jazz hands, all three of us hopping with excitement. Well, not Sharon, but she goes so far as to give a little shimmy as we reach the green.
A familiar voice interrupts our fun. “Sharon. Hey, Sharon!”
Craig, Naheed, and David walk up, a teenaged copy of Craig trailing behind. There’s no way they haven’t seen the grass stain. I smooth my ponytail nervously, coming away with a dry leaf.
Comeon.
Sharon’s face morphs from a girls’-day-out expression to something I’ve never seen before. Business Sharon. Barracuda Sharon. She looks like she should be on a website or a brochure. I have that uncomfortable feeling south of my sternum, of realizing too late there’s another memo I’ve missed.
