We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

  “Stop thinking,” Asher says, shoving my shoulder, probably knowing I’m too deep in my head but, fortunately, not knowing why. Her phone lights up on the coffee table, and she snatches it, eyes going wide when she sees who’s calling. “I have to take this.”

  Because of course B+B is always there, ruining my rare sister time like it’s ruined everything else.

  “Go,” I say, shooing her as she answers the phone on her way to the kitchen. I hear a couple gasps, a few wows, and then a reassurance that we have everything under control. I’m not entirely sure whether whatever’s happened is good or bad.

  Asher’s grinning when she gets back to the living room, a few strands escaping her topknot. “That was Victoria,” she says—one of our clients, who needs only one name because she’s semifamous. “Hold on. I need to process this.” And then she downs the rest of her mug of wine.

  My family has planned some high-profile weddings—a TV meteorologist, a governor’s daughter, a local musician whose band played the reception. But Victoria and Lincoln, her fiancé, with their swanky art museum wedding happening in late August, are their most famous clients to date.

  They met on a Streamr reality show called Perfect Match I hate-watched with Julia last year before realizing, halfway into reading my twentieth think piece about it, that maybe I wasn’t hate-watching it after all. The premise: after filling out a detailed questionnaire and undergoing personality testing, contestants dated a half dozen potential partners deemed their perfect match and another half dozen who were their polar opposite. At the end of the season, they picked one person to propose to, and only after that did they find out if that person was their perfect match or not. I was definitely more interested in the drama than the romance, since the couples almost always split before the season finished airing.

  After Victoria proposed to Lincoln, she found out he was her opposite, and yet they stuck it out. She designs book covers for a small local publisher, and Lincoln, an environmental lawyer, moved here after filming so they could get serious about trying to make their relationship work off camera. When they started thinking about their wedding, Victoria found my parents through the Jewish grapevine.

  Finally, Asher regains her composure. “Streamr wants to film the wedding.”

  “Well, sure, we already knew that,” I said. “I thought Victoria and Lincoln wanted to keep it private. No media.”

  “They offered an amount of money that was impossible to turn down, so… it’s not exactly going to be private anymore.”

  “One of our weddings is going to be on Streamr?”

  Asher breaks into another smile and lets out a little squeal. “Yes. Holy shit, I can’t believe it. I’ve dreamed of something like this for a long time, but I never thought it would actually happen. I have to call Mom and Dad. I have to call the Mansours, and the photographer, and the florist, and I have to—”

  “Breathe,” I say as the cookie I’m chewing turns to chalk in my mouth. A Borrowed + Blue wedding, available for anyone to watch at any time. My mind can’t make sense of that jumble of words and what it might mean for our family.

  “I’m not even mad that this wedding is overshadowing mine,” Asher continues. “This could really launch us into the spotlight. Imagine if we did more high-profile weddings. If we could travel.”

  “I—wow, I can barely imagine it,” I say, and at least that isn’t a lie.

  I want to be happy for Asher, for my parents—but I can’t ignore the panic building inside me, the fear that a bigger B+B would be even harder to leave.

  This must make me the worst sister, the worst daughter. The worst employee. I know I have to tell them. I just want some confirmation I’d be gaining more than what I’d be giving up, and that must be why I haven’t been able to express how I really feel.

  Nothing less than our best. It’ll only be multiplied by a hundred for Victoria and Lincoln’s wedding.

  “You okay?” Asher asks, and I rearrange my face into something resembling happiness.

  “Yeah, sorry, just overwhelmed.”

  For a moment I want to tell her how I’ve been feeling: about B+B, about college, about my black hole of a future that will drain everything that makes me Quinn. But there’s no way it wouldn’t offend her—she’d think her job was a handout, that she doesn’t work hard. She’s so in love with the idea of us continuing to do this as a family.

  “That I can relate to,” she says. She jumps off the couch and does a little dance. “Ooh, the place cards Gabe and I ordered arrived yesterday. Did I show you?”

  I shake my head as she retrieves a box from the second bedroom, trying not to think about how it would feel to lose all of this—to lose her—again.

  6

  I’m feeling about as out of place as I usually do as a Jew in a church, which is to say, considerably.

  As the Berkowitz on the lowest rung of the B+B ladder, I’m in charge of the least glamorous things: coat check, program placement, bathrooms. And when the couple asks for it: Canon in D. I set up my harp near the pulpit and begin rehearsing the Bach piece the bride and groom requested for the recessional. Asher and Gabe are at a wine tasting, and I’m already nostalgic for the evening we spent at her place last week. I have no idea when we’ll get the chance to do that again.

  Asher’s absence also means I’m in charge of catering and floral. I coordinated with the elder Mansours and with the florist via text, and they’re already setting up for the reception. Maybe I won’t need to talk to Tarek at all.

  The priest seems amused by my playing the harp. “Forgive me,” he says from the pulpit, where he’s reviewing some notes, “but most of the harpists I’ve worked with are at least thirty years older than you.”

  “I’m actually forty. Good genes.” This doesn’t get a laugh. Damn. Are all priests this tough a crowd? Fleabag betrayed me.

  While I’ve never felt wholly welcome in a church, I haven’t yet burst into flame inside one. There’s no one narrowing their eyes at me, wondering what I’m doing here, telling me I don’t belong.

  Except the middle-aged woman already seated in the second row, but I’m fairly certain that’s unrelated to religion. She’s in a sequined black dress and matching wrap, her white-blond hair cut short at severe angles. She appears older than my parents, but she has this striking, sophisticated aesthetic, and she’s watching me with a look of something that might be disappointment, which is odd because I’ve never seen her before and therefore haven’t had a chance to disappoint her.

  I switch songs, from Bach to Beethoven. Still, her expression doesn’t soften. Okay then. Sorry the sound of the world’s most pleasant instrument somehow offended you.

  There’s always at least one sour person at every wedding, someone who thinks one partner could do better or is using the other for their money, or knows some salacious secret about the couple. Usually a family member, sometimes a concerned friend. Very rarely, a jilted ex-lover. I’ll tell my parents to keep an eye on her.

  Other guests file in and find seats. Most of the time, my hands feel as though they’re moving of their own accord, up and down and over and under, the texture of the strings imprinted in the pads of my fingers. I used to love this—there’s enough video evidence of that—and yet I can’t find the remnants of that love when I’m up here like a harpist robot. I am meant to always look serene, which usually feels like erasing all emotion from my face. I’m not supposed to steal attention from the couple, but if people do notice me, I should look flawless.

  Nothing less than our best.

  It’s not that I don’t enjoy playing in front of people. It’s that it’s been so long since I played for myself, since before my grandma passed away. It’s that I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing Canon in D, that ubiquitous wedding song everyone exclaims sounds just so beautiful on the harp. And sure it does, the first hundred times.

  But after a while, you grow weary of beautiful.

  * * *

  At the venue, I
swap my dull lavender dress for black pants and a button-up. Despite the low-level cynicism I carry with me like an emotional support animal, this place is a favorite of mine. It’s a converted warehouse with exposed wood and high ceilings, flooded with natural light. The whole place has a chic but urban feel. Indoors, because early June in Seattle can be unpredictable, which of course means it’s seventy-five and sunny today. MOG and FOG spent most of the morning complaining about this, which upset the groom, who requested I keep his parents as far away from him as possible.

  “What’s today’s bet?” Dad asks when I return from stowing my harp dress in our van.

  Even if I don’t want this to be my future, I’ve always loved this little tradition of ours: betting on which overplayed songs will make it onto the reception playlist. “Hmm… let’s say ‘Love Shack.’ This seems like a B-52s kind of crowd.”

  “Ten bucks?”

  “You’re on.” We shake hands.

  It’s cute how excited my parents have been about the Streamr news, which soothes a little of my perpetual anxiety. I can’t hate something that puts my parents in that good a mood. They toasted with champagne when Asher told them, and my dad is obsessively rewatching Perfect Match. I imagine my dad and I won’t be making any bets at that wedding.

  Dad confers with the videographer while I make a sweep through the tables. The centerpieces, a mix of lavender hydrangeas and blue gerbera daisies, are all where they should be. Place cards, table settings… everything looks good.

  “Excuse me.” There’s a hand on my arm, and when I turn around to see it belongs to a fortyish man in a gray suit, I recoil. Not a fan of uninvited physical contact. “You’re one of the wedding… people, right?” He finishes this with a dismissive wave of the hand that isn’t touching me.

  Certified wedding person, that’s me. “Hi,” I say, doing my best to project peppiness. “We’re still setting up in here, if you don’t mind, but we have some cocktails at the bar in the—”

  “I was hoping to catch you beforehand, actually.” He retracts his hand and gives me a sheepish look. “My family, we’ve been doing this vegetarian thing”—he says “vegetarian thing” like it’s some trendy new diet no one’s heard of—“since last month, so I didn’t mark it on the RSVP site. I figure, there’s got to be plenty of food back there and it wouldn’t be an issue?”

  “How many vegetarian meals would that be?”

  “Five. My wife, me, and three kids. Looks like we’re at table seven. Oh—and I should mention, one of them isn’t the biggest fan of anything green, but if you have to put it on the plate, we can work around it.” Sir, I am awed by your flexibility. “We just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be a problem for any of you.”

  “Not at all,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’ll go let the caterer know.”

  I stalk toward the kitchen, face forward, determined not to let my gaze linger on anyone in a caterer’s uniform. The vegetarian main is soy chorizo with mole and mashed avocado. Deep breaths in through my nose, out through my mouth, ignore the tightening of my lungs. I’ll ask the Mansours for the extra meals and hope there’s enough food. If I have time, I can schedule a panic attack right before the cake cutting.

  I pause in front of the long stainless-steel counter, where Tarek’s dad is chopping hunks of rich dark chocolate. The kitchen smells incredible.

  “Hi, Murad,” I say, my stomach already rumbling. “Is that for Mansour’s famous mole?”

  “The one and only,” he says in his slight French accent. He’s an older, shorter version of Tarek, his black hair streaked with gray. MANSOUR’S is stitched in black over the pocket of his white chef’s jacket.

  On the other side of the kitchen, Zainab Mansour is plating salads: fresh corn and jicama and red pepper. “He already has a big head about it,” she calls over. “You’re making it worse, Quinn!”

  “I only speak the truth!” I call back.

  Even if Tarek and I are at odds, I’ve always loved his parents. Their history is what some might call romantic and what others—namely, me—might call a coincidence of epic proportions. Twenty-five years ago, Murad was in culinary school in Paris, where he grew up, and Zainab was there studying abroad for a semester. Her parents had moved to Washington State from Alexandria in their twenties, and Zainab had spent her whole life in the Seattle area. On New Year’s Eve both of them were ditched by their coupled-up friends and wound up alone at the Eiffel Tower. They’d barely said a few sentences to each other before the clock struck midnight and, given everyone around them was doing the same thing, kissed as near-strangers. They spent the rest of the night wandering the city, then went their separate ways without exchanging last names or phone numbers. They didn’t live in the same country, after all. It wouldn’t have worked.

  When Zainab got back to school in Washington, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, though all she knew was that Murad was studying to become a chef and that he was born in France to Egyptian parents. Zainab had a friend who worked at a local TV station, and one evening they were low on content and looking for human-interest pieces, so Zainab went on camera and made a plea: for the Egyptian boy she’d kissed at the Eiffel Tower to meet her back there when she returned to Paris after her graduation in a few months.

  The story was picked up by the national media, and when Zainab flew to Paris, a camera crew followed her—and there he was. They were engaged by the end of the summer, their story making headlines all over the world. It’s wild they managed to find each other pre–social media, that they went viral before going viral was a thing. But that’s all it is: coincidence. Not fate, not soul mates. Tarek has always wanted a story like theirs, though, and it’s a piece of his family history he carries with pride.

  “I just had a guest ask for five extra vegetarian meals,” I tell the Mansours. “Is that going to be doable?”

  If I waver on the last sentence, it’s only because I spot Tarek out of the corner of my eye, adding spices to a giant pot while other waiters ferry ingredients back and forth around him. Black pants, white jacket hugging the lines of his shoulders. His eyebrows are pinched in concentration, but every so often he smiles to himself, like he and the food are in on a joke.

  It really is amazing, the things one can observe out of the corner of one’s eye.

  Murad gives me a grim expression. “Five? That might be difficult. Tarek’s working on the veggie mains.” He calls over to his son. “Tarek, how do you feel about five bonus vegetarian meals?”

  Tarek pauses his stirring but doesn’t glance up. “Uh, not great, Baba.”

  “We have a guest demanding them,” I say, trying to maintain eye contact with Murad. “Apparently, his family just decided to become vegetarians.”

  This is how I survive: by keeping things between us strictly business. He needs to realize we’re not friends, not the way we used to be. That I haven’t forgiven him. We’re not going to raid the refrigerator to taste-test what goes best with his dad’s leftover mole later. (Pizza, yes. Sushi, not so much.) He’s not going to ask me if I’ve seen his new favorite rom-com or give me the smile that makes me melt like a bar of milk chocolate left in the sun.

  “Sounds convenient for us.” Tarek finally glances our way, his eyebrows pinched again. Yes, please make my job harder.

  “We don’t have time to argue about it,” I say. “Please tell me there’s extra food.”

  “Of course there’s extra food. It just may not be the right food,” he says. “We’ll have plenty of mole, but we can’t feed them that by itself. Soyrizo isn’t cheap, and we ordered exactly enough for the number of guests we have. We’re serving small enough portions as it is. Maybe you guys should have pushed a buffet harder.”

  “We always do,” I say through clenched teeth. When it’s in the couple’s budget. “Awesome. So what do you want to do, pour some mole in a bowl and tell them it’s spicy chocolate soup?”

  Murad seemed content to let us hash this out, but he must have noticed our raised voic
es because he’s standing in front of us, holding up a hand to stop our bickering. “Let’s try to remain calm. We’ll figure this out.” His eyebrows pinch together in the same way Tarek’s did. “What’s going on with you two? You used to be so close.”

  Neither Tarek nor I volunteer an explanation.

  “We’ll have to make something different,” Tarek says. “It won’t look the same as all the other dishes, but at least it’ll be vegetarian.”

  Murad nods. “We’ve done it before. No problem. There’s a grocery store a few blocks away. How about we get a couple boxes of tofu, grill it up, and serve it with the mole and some Spanish rice?”

  “I’ll grab it,” Tarek says, already unbuttoning his jacket, untying the apron around his waist. Then, to his mom: “The mole’s ready for the chocolate, by the way.”

  Zainab’s already at the stove, stirring in the dark chocolate pieces. They start melting as soon as they hit the pan. Torture. “Quinn, do you have time to make sure he doesn’t get sidetracked? Tarek in a grocery store is a dangerous thing.”

  “I take offense at that,” Tarek says, but he’s grinning. The way his family controls the kitchen, anticipating each other’s next move, is this finely tuned choreography. There’s an ease to their interactions I don’t always feel with my own family.

  I tell Zainab I’ll check with my parents via group chat, but unfortunately, we’re ahead of schedule. “Yay,” I say quietly, and if I’m not mistaken, I think I catch Tarek smiling out of the corner of his mouth.

  * * *

  We fall into step—or as into step as we can be with his much longer legs. Thank god the walk is only two blocks. Two sweaty, silent blocks.

  “Should we get a basket, or…” I ask when we get to the grocery store, the AC slapping my face and arms with cold, but he’s already taking off toward one of the aisles. I huff out a breath, snatch a basket, and hurry to catch up.