Mom goes first. “I scheduled a final venue walk-through with the film crew next Thursday, which Quinn’s going to do with me. And she’s agreed to stop by the museum this week so we can have a sense of what the space looks like with their new exhibit.”
Dad shares about a new client, a couple referred to us by friends whose wedding we planned last year, and Asher talks about the wardrobe for a 1920s-themed wedding taking place in the fall. There’s a palpable excitement in the air, mugs being waved for emphasis, mimosas flowing freely for everyone but me.
“Quinn?” Dad says. “You’re up.”
Well, I’ve been making out with our caterer’s son. He’s as good at kissing as he is at cooking, and we all know he’s very good at cooking.
I’ve also been taking secret harp lessons in exchange for helping build harps.
And I’m trying to figure out how to tell all of you I want to quit.
“We finalized Victoria and Lincoln’s menu with Mansour’s,” I say. “And Asher and I decided her entrance song would be Smash Mouth’s ‘All Star,’ so I’ve been learning that on the harp.”
“Is it too late to change my mind?” Asher says. “I was thinking we could do ‘Tubthumping.’ Chumbawamba’s lyrics really speak to me.”
“Anything for the bride.”
My parents look grim, as though worried Smash Mouth or Chumbawamba will actually be played during the processional.
“You two are going to send us to early graves,” Mom says. “Not that Smash Mouth doesn’t have their time and place—they always get people dancing during the reception, but—”
“Mom. We’re doing Etta James. Don’t worry.”
Mom visibly exhales, and I can’t help laughing at this, too. This kind of inside joke with my sister won’t happen when I’m no longer part of B+B. Work brunch and betting on reception songs with my dad—gone.
“I can work next weekend,” Asher is saying. “I’m actually feeling pretty great about where everything is? I haven’t had a stress dream in at least a week. All that’s left is for me to show up looking flawless.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Mom says. “We could use an extra pair of hands.”
“Next weekend,” I say, sensing an opportunity here. “That’s the Stern-Rosenfeld wedding, right?” Even though it’s right there on the calendar in the kitchen, the one behind my back.
“Yep,” Dad says. “Should be really spectacular.”
“The Salish Lodge always is,” Mom puts in.
“I, um—I’m not sure I’ll be able to go?”
Everyone’s head whips toward me. “What?” The angle of my mom’s ponytail somehow manages to look just as perplexed as she does.
And then there’s this moment. An opportunity. I’ve had a handful of them over the years, and I’ve always backed away, content in my cowardice. What if I told them now? There’s this other thing that makes me happy, I’d say. I really want you to be happy for me. They’d be furious, but they’d get over it. They’d have to. Sure, it would probably cast a shadow over my sister’s wedding, and she might resent me for years to come, but at least it would be out there. My anxious brain wouldn’t have to war over it anymore.
Even inside my head, the suggestion is absurd.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it on Saturday?” I say, phrasing it like a question again, hating the way my voice slides up at the end.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Dad laughs. “Should we check with your secretary?”
“No, I mean—I told Julia I’d help her with a new mural.” I realize how half-assed the lie is as soon as it slips past my lips.
“Julia will understand this is important,” Mom says. “She always has.”
That’s what they’ve always said. Julia will understand. Your teachers will understand. Everyone will understand.
Just like that, the moment is gone. The laptops come out to review Victoria and Lincoln’s master timeline, and the best part of work brunch is over.
* * *
“I know what’s going on with you,” Asher says later, when we’re washing plates in the kitchen. Our parents have moved to their office.
“Yes, it’s a new shampoo from Julia’s parents, and I agree, my hair looks great.” I slide a bowl onto the drying rack.
“Well, now that you mention it, there’s definitely a bit more volume there. But no. The reason you’ve been acting off lately. You disappeared for a while at Kaci and Mariana’s wedding, and then the floral consultation you didn’t show up to, and now this, trying to get out of a wedding? None of it’s like you.”
“I am an onion.”
She rolls her eyes. “You and Tarek,” she says triumphantly, waving a whisk and flicking suds onto me. “You’re together. I’ve been picking up on some vibes.”
“Vibes? There are no vibes. We’re friends. If anything, you picked up on friendship vibes.”
“I do not vibe like that with my friends.” She wrinkles her nose. “Okay, I’m over the word ‘vibe.’ What I mean is, there was some tension between the two of you.”
I let out a deep breath, relenting. It’s much easier than telling her the real reason. “Yes. Well, we’re not together, but we’ve been hanging out. A little.”
“I love being right. You guys have always been adorable.”
It’s strange, Asher not knowing the whole story. Julia’s the only person I told about the email, and while Asher knows some of my hookup history, my crush on Tarek always felt too tangled with work. She was such a mini-Mom that I could never be sure how she’d react. Evidently, it doesn’t bother her at all.
“We’re not labeling it or anything,” I say, accepting another clean bowl from her. “Please don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
Asher sets her mouth in a firm line. “Sure. What’s another secret I’m keeping for you,” she says, and when I flinch at this, she says, “Wait. Quinn. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”
“I know I should have been there last week. I messed up.”
We never fight, and I don’t want to start now. I’m not used to disappointment from her either. We’ve always felt like equals, but her disappointment reminds me of the years between us. That sometimes she feels more in charge than my equal.
It makes me wonder, not for the first time this summer or even this brunch, how well we know each other anymore. It’s fine that she wants to keep kosher, but it’s a sudden change, a clear sign that she’s about to become someone new. Of course, I know “wife” won’t be the sole piece of her identity. But it will be a new part of her identity, and it will be something I can’t possibly understand. And, of course, I hope her marriage lasts, that it makes her happy, but that cynical piece of me that never sleeps wonders if that happiness has an expiration date.
“We’re all under a lot of stress right now,” Asher says, but when aren’t we? Weddings are stressful. That’s a simple fact.
When we finish up, Asher pats my shoulder in a way that’s supposed to be sister-friendly but instead makes me feel very, very young. Then she disappears into the office with my parents, their door cracked so that I can’t see them, but I can hear them. The three of them in there with this business my parents built from nothing.
Despite what Julia says, what Tarek says, maybe it would be easier to keep pretending. After all, I already know how to do that. Maybe business classes wouldn’t be too terrible. Because the idea of not being part of this in the future… It’s heartbreaking. A specific brand of loneliness I’m not sure I want to become familiar with again.
The horrible truth is this: I don’t know how to be part of my family if I’m no longer part of the family business.
20
Two days before the Stern-Rosenfeld wedding, I tell my parents I’m sick, and yep, I hate myself for it. I was calculated in the way I worked up to it: told them I felt feverish and fatigued on Thursday but that I’d probably be fine by Saturday, thought I was getting better Friday afternoon, but couldn’t peel myself out of
bed Saturday morning. Mom brought up a bowl of matzo ball soup, our go-to Berkowitz cure for a variety of ailments. It slid down my throat, slicked with guilt.
It was the only way. I just have to buy a little time before I tell them the truth. I’m losing track of the number of secrets I’m keeping, and the idea of maintaining my double life beyond this summer makes me want to crawl back into bed with a vat of matzo ball soup. Or directly into the vat. I’m flexible.
I’m waiting in line outside the downtown music venue with Tarek, Julia, and Noelle, clutching a bouquet like a child unwilling to let go of their favorite toy. Julia has been teasing me about the flowers nonstop, and now that Tarek and Noelle are here, they’ve joined in. Yes, I spent fifteen minutes at Metropolitan Market picking out the right flowers. Yes, I took one bouquet to the self-checkout before realizing it wasn’t quite right, doubling back, and selecting a different one. As the daughter of wedding planners, I should probably know more about flowers than I do. In all seriousness, I’m not sure how to explain to them how much I love Maxine’s workshop, how much it’s meant to me.
It’s a posh, artsy crowd, and though we are not a dressy city, most people are summer formal. I’m wearing a chambray maxidress, my hair pulled back and half braided on one side. When Tarek got here, he pulled me close, placed his lips beneath my ear, and said, “I like your hair like this.” And I felt myself melt a little bit into the sidewalk.
Not a date, not a date, not a date.
Julia leans in to adjust the thin strap of Noelle’s dress, which has been on the verge of falling down her shoulder for the past five minutes. It’s a simple, almost effortless little gesture, and Noelle gives her an appreciative grin before Julia slides her hand into hers.
“How long have you been dating?” Tarek asks. What he’s wearing isn’t too unlike his catering uniform, though he’s traded his starched white shirt for one that’s soft and slate gray, the top two buttons undone.
“Officially? A few weeks,” Julia says. “But it probably would have been longer if I hadn’t been so awkward about everything in the beginning.”
“It was endearing,” Noelle assures her.
They talk about college, and I try my best not to feel left out. Julia and Noelle have been stalking their roommates-to-be on Instagram, and Tarek says he’s rooming again with Landon, his freshman-year roommate. From what I gather, Landon seems to be his closest friend from school. Tarek even gives them tips on how to dress up dorm food and what you should and should not attempt to make in a microwave.
There’s a silent auction happening in the lobby to benefit a local music charity, two rows of items ranging from fancy gift baskets to spa trips to vacations. Maxine’s even auctioning off a harp. Though I’m sure none of us can afford anything, we pretend we can.
“Ah, yes, I’d certainly bid on this trip to Martha’s Vineyard if I hadn’t just summered there last year,” Julia says in her best rich-person voice.
Noelle adjusts the brim of an invisible hat. “It would be an embarrassment to summer in the same place two years in a row.”
As we turn to the other side of the table, something catches my eye: backstage passes to the Seattle Rock Orchestra. I haven’t heard of it, so I step closer to read more. “Oh wow. This one is actually really cool.”
The Seattle Rock Orchestra, I learn, is exactly what it sounds like: an orchestra that plays rock music. They’ve done the Beatles, David Bowie, even Lizzo. I had no idea something like this existed—I assumed orchestras only played music that had been around for hundreds of years. It’s wild, really, how much I don’t know about music, this thing that’s been in my life since I was born.
“You could try for it,” Tarek says.
I peer down at the bids. “For six hundred dollars? My parents don’t pay me nearly that much to play Pachelbel’s Canon every other weekend.”
Serious bidders have started to give us sour looks. I don’t want to embarrass Maxine, so we head inside the auditorium and take our seats. The harp is already onstage, waiting for her.
“You seem nervous.” Tarek places a hand on the knee I can’t stop jiggling up and down. “Everything okay?”
“I mean, have you met me?” I say, forcing a laugh. But he’s not wrong. Maybe it’s that I know how long it’s been since she performed like this and I have secondhand nerves. There are so many people here to see her. At weddings, I’ve only ever been part of the scenery.
I wonder what it would feel like to build the instrument and then play it in front of a sold-out audience like this one.
“She just hasn’t played in a while,” I continue. “I’m probably projecting. She’s a professional. I’m sure she’s extremely calm.”
“But she’s, like, world-famous, right? You said she played on the soundtrack of Dragonthrone?”
“Oh, I loved that show,” Noelle says. “But I’m still bitter about the last season.”
Before the curtain goes up, I get a text from Asher. How are you feeling? The guilt rolls back in like a storm cloud, and I dash off a quick a little better, probably going to sleep soon before I stow my phone.
There’s no opening act, and during the first half, Maxine plays some popular, recognizable songs, including the theme to Dragonthrone. Then she moves on to her original pieces.
I’ve seen her play in videos and in her studio. I’ve been working alongside her for the past month. But here, I am riveted. The audience is holding its breath, and it’s wild to see so many people on the edge of their seats for the world’s tamest instrument. She’s just that good. The sound is rich, warm, at times light and lovely and at others deeply haunting. Her hands, flying up and down it in a way that looks somehow both natural and precisely choreographed.
The harp she’s playing—I know how it began. Several pieces of wood, cut and sanded (and sanded and sanded and sanded) and glued and stained and strung. I know the number of hours it must have taken, the sharp smell of the lacquer when it was freshly painted, the tediousness of getting all the strings and levers just right. I know the way it might have felt when she sat down and played a song all the way through for the first time.
I know all of these things, and that makes my heart swell in my chest.
“Wow,” Tarek says under his breath. His hand stays on my knee, his thumb tapping along, and I’m too entranced by Maxine to unpack what that might mean. “She’s incredible.”
And that’s enough to fill me with pride. He sees it too. It’s not just me mesmerized by what this instrument can do, what the right person can create when they’re playing it. I’ve been performing for years, both literally and figuratively, but I’ve never truly played. Not like this.
What about music? Noelle asked at the farmers market earlier in the summer. Was it too obvious? she wanted to know.
Maybe it was, and I just couldn’t see it yet.
* * *
“These are for you,” I blurt, passing Maxine the bouquet that’s now a little lopsided after sitting on the floor during her performance. I hope she doesn’t notice.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says as she accepts it. “Thank you.”
We waited in the lobby as Maxine made the rounds, greeting people she knew and some she didn’t, thanking them for coming and for supporting this cause, a local music charity. When she spotted me, her eyes lit up, as though she was surprised I’d shown up.
She’s dressed in black pants and a capelike shirt that makes her look vaguely medieval. She’s wearing only a bit more makeup than she usually does, some shimmer on her cheeks, a mauve lipstick. A pair of wooden earrings I imagine she carved herself.
“That was amazing. Beyond amazing. And I, uh, brought some friends.” It’s frustrating that I’m still anxious around her, this adult I’m trying to prove myself to. I do some quick introductions.
“It wasn’t too boring for all of you?” Maxine asks. She seems genuinely touched that I brought people with me.
“Nowhere near,” Tarek says. “I had no i
dea you could do things like that on the harp.”
Maxine smiles. “That’s what I try to convince people. Even Quinn.”
“I’m fully a convert, don’t worry.”
Someone calls her name. “I have a few more people to thank, but I appreciate this so much.” She raises the bouquet. “Quinn, I’ll see you this week? And thank you for coming. Really,” she says with a quick squeeze of my hand, and maybe she really didn’t think I’d be here.
We all decide to grab some food nearby. My parents won’t be home until late, so I might as well get my mileage out of this lie. Before we go, Julia announces she has to go to the bathroom. “Quinn’s coming with me,” she says.
“Sorry, she’s not potty trained yet,” I tell Tarek and Noelle as Julia drags me to the bathroom. “That wasn’t subtle. Like, at all. You know that, right?”
Julia shrugs as she leans close to the mirror to brush away a stray eyelash. “I’m aware. I just wanted to talk to you. About Tarek.”
“There’s nothing to say.” My face is flushed, and I rinse my hands before patting my cheeks, hoping to return them to their regular shade of pale. “We’re friends with benefits. This is the friend part. I’m sure we’ll get into some of those benefits later.”
“Quinn. Sweetie. Darling. Treasure of treasures. That boy really likes you.”
“You sound so surprised. I’m very likable!”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m serious. He sat through two hours of harp music for you.”
“So did you.”
“But my hand wasn’t on your knee the whole time.”
“I know what it might look like,” I say, “but I don’t want a relationship.”
“And why is that, again?”
About a hundred reasons that sounded a lot less fuzzy in my brain a couple weeks ago. “You know why. You know what my parents went through.”
“You’re not marrying the guy.”
“Okay, obviously. But you and Noelle—that seems to be going well?” I hope she doesn’t see it as the clear subject diversion it is.
We Can't Keep Meeting Like This Page 18