We Can't Keep Meeting Like This

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Despite the bus, it’s not a raucous, Magic Mike kind of bachelorette party. Our first stop is dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant with trapeze artists performing above the tables. I order the cheapest thing on the menu and poke at it for an hour and a half, not unaware that my mom is watching me the whole time.

  Afterward, we drive through the city blasting all my least favorite reception songs before ending up at Whitney’s place for dessert and games. I sit on the couch with a half-eaten cookie on a napkin in my lap, laughing when I’m supposed to, unearthing embarrassing stories about Asher when the mood calls for it.

  “Thank you all so much for this,” Asher says during a rousing match of Pin the Sweater on Chris Evans. “Really. I can’t imagine getting married without all of you here. Yes, even my mom.”

  Brianne reaches across the couch to give her a sloppy hug. “You gave me my dream wedding. It’s only fitting for you to have yours.”

  Karina, another bridesmaid, shoves up her blindfold to gauge the space between her sweater cutout and the poster of a smoldering, shirtless Chris Evans. “Damn it,” she mutters, passing the blindfold to my mom. “I was this close.”

  Mom’s sweater lands on Chris’s left foot. I’m up next, and as she holds out the blindfold, she says quietly, “I know you’re not speaking to us right now. And you have every right to be upset.”

  That surprises me. “Mom, I—”

  She cuts me off with a shake of her head. “I know this isn’t the place to get into it. But… we’re here. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Hey, who’s next?” Whitney asks.

  I take the bandanna from my mom. “I think Chris Evans is getting cold.”

  “I’m just trying to understand.” Her voice is so soft now, I’m not even sure if she wants me to hear. “I want to understand you.”

  And if that doesn’t make two of us.

  * * *

  With the exception of my mother, everyone opts to spend the night at Whitney’s. Most of them pass out early, until eventually Asher and I are the only ones awake.

  “This reminds me of crashing your sleepovers when I was little,” I tell her as we set up blankets in the living room. “Except I didn’t understand half of what you guys were talking about.”

  “For good reason. You would have been traumatized.”

  “You do not want to see my search history from that point in my life,” I say. “You had a good time tonight?”

  “Amazing. Thank you. It was everything I wanted.” She nods to the Chris Evans poster. “I’m getting that framed.” Then she sits down, and I slide to the floor next to her. “We should talk, though. About everything that’s been going on with you.”

  “I don’t want to ruin your party.”

  “I’ve partied an adequate amount. You’re not ruining anything.”

  “Mom and Dad probably told you what happened. What we fought about.”

  “They did. But I wanted to hear it from you.”

  So I settle in to tell her the whole story—about my parents and B+B, yes, and about Tarek, too.

  “I wish you’d told me this sooner,” she says when I’m done. She’s put her crunchy waves back into her usual topknot.

  “I wanted to. But I was worried you’d think I was offending you, saying I didn’t want this free ticket into B+B.”

  Asher snorts. “I did not get a free ticket.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had to beg them to let me help out when I was younger. I was always getting in the way, and I think it took them a while to realize I was genuinely interested in wedding planning.”

  “Ah, so you’re the one who fucked things up for me, with them assuming I’d join the family business too.”

  “Guess so. Sorry, kid.”

  I swat at her with one of Whitney’s seventy decorative throw pillows before turning serious. “We also haven’t been… as close as we used to be this summer.” I grab another pillow, fidget with a stray thread. “I’ve always assumed you’d be on Mom and Dad’s side.” Like her love was conditional on me being part of B+B, the way I thought my parents’ was. “It’s this one thing we all do as a family, which sometimes doesn’t leave any room for us to do anything else.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She stares down at her nails, painted white to match the romper she wore. “I want to say it’s because I’ve been wrapped up in the wedding, but that’s not an excuse.”

  “That’s what I’ve been worried about too. That you’ll be married, and your work is all about weddings, and I wouldn’t be part of any of it. I just—I don’t know what our relationship is like if we don’t have that connection.”

  Asher’s face falls. “I had no idea. Oh my god. Quinn, I—I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I’m not becoming a different person just because I’m getting married. I still have hopeless crushes on both Chris Evans and John Oliver. And you’re going to be part of my life whether we’re working together or not. Sure, that’s easier when we’re working for B+B, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop seeing each other now that you’ve left. Which, if I’m being honest, is still hard for me to wrap my mind around.” She offers a small smile. “I’m working on it, though.”

  I want to believe her—that we won’t stop seeing each other. Even if logically, I know we won’t, it’ll still take time before we feel as close as we once did.

  “I can’t help thinking about how it felt when Mom and Dad separated. That’s the other reason I held on for so long.”

  Something strange flutters across her face, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s recognition. And that’s a shock, since the separation is so often on my mind. “Right. The separation,” she says. “Sometimes I forget that even happened.”

  “I guess you weren’t around very much.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry again.”

  “I get it. You were fifteen. The last thing you wanted to do was comfort your little sister. But… we never talked about it, Asher. No one talked about it, which made it a thousand times more confusing.”

  She’s quiet for a while, taking all of this in. “You need to talk to Mom and Dad about it.”

  “Like they’ll want to.”

  “Trust me. Ask them about it.”

  I do trust her, so I promise I will.

  After a few moments, she lies down, tapping my ankle with her toes. “Should we talk about Tarek?” she asks.

  “I think I’ve deeply fucked it up, so there’s probably no point in thinking about it.” I hold a pillow over my face, muffling my words.

  “You don’t think all couples fight? Last week, Gabe and I argued for twenty minutes about the proper way to load the dishwasher.”

  Tarek said the same thing, but I don’t know how to explain to her that it felt worse than a fight. The look on his face, the knowledge it was my fault…

  “I wouldn’t know how to fix it, even if I wanted to,” I say, but as the words leave my mouth, I’m not sure they’re true. All I know is I don’t want to not be with him. “I’ve spent so long convincing myself that romance isn’t real.”

  To her credit, Asher doesn’t bat an eye. “Even me? With Gabe?”

  “Well…” I trail off, unsure how to respond. “You don’t feel like you’re performing, in a way?”

  “Quinn. We’re all performing. Like, all the time. You think I act the same way around you as I do around Mom and Dad? Or that Whitney pole dances in front of her third graders?”

  “One would hope not.”

  Maybe what I’ve been most scared of is really wanting the kind of love I’ve been around all my life and not receiving it in return. I chose hookups so I could convince myself that was what I wanted: to not be loved. Any time those relationships flirted with emotion, I ran. Over and over, I put myself in these situations that guaranteed I’d get an outcome that confirmed what I already believed: that I didn’t want romantic love.

  Except with Tarek, I wanted more. For the first time, I let myself have a taste of it, and then once again, I sabotaged mys
elf. I was so close to that feeling in his favorite movies, the one where you lock eyes with someone across a crowded room like they’re the only one there. The one where you just know, the way Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks do at the end of Sleepless in Seattle.

  And now I’m certain he wants nothing to do with me.

  “How do you convince yourself that it’s worth it?” I ask, voice shaking. “Even knowing it might end in disaster someday?”

  “You take a chance,” she says simply, like it really is that easy to close your eyes and leap. “And you hope the other person takes the same one.”

  27

  An unexpected upside of having attended hundreds of weddings over the course of my life: I know exactly how to crash one.

  You want to wear something that helps you blend in. Bright patterns will get you noticed by the guests and wedding coordinators right away. Larger weddings are, of course, easier to crash, easier to lose yourself in. You don’t want to catch anyone’s attention, either—no rushing the dance floor when your favorite song comes on.

  We’ve dealt with our share of crashers. Most of them, my parents have politely asked to leave, though at one wedding, the bride and groom were so amused, they let them stay.

  It’s another one of those perfect Seattle summer days, ideal for a brunch wedding reception. By the time Julia arrives, I’ve narrowed my list down to three venues holding weddings today, based on some late-night social media sleuthing. It would have been too easy if Mansour’s had been catering one of ours. My parents would be horrified if they knew what I was doing, but since it’s in the name of romance, maybe some part of them would be pleased.

  “I feel like we’re undercover,” Julia says in the car. “Can we have code names? I want something badass. Like… Lilith Copperstone.”

  “Why do I feel like you’ve been waiting to use that name? You came up with that way too quickly.” I check my mascara in my rearview mirror. I’m wearing one of my harpist dresses, ideal for blending in, my hair loose and wavy. “And no, we are absolutely not using names that might make us stand out in any way. You’re still Julia.”

  The idea came to me last night, when I was in the middle of an intense mope session after texting Tarek. I can’t even begin to explain how sorry I am, I wrote. Do you think we could talk?

  He didn’t reply. There had to be a way to show him I wasn’t the person I was last year, because, of course, he wasn’t either. I had to show him I’d finally figured it out. Tell him he’s never been nothing to me.

  And then it hit me. The biggest—dare I say grandest—way to show I’ve changed.

  “What do we say if someone asks who we know?” Julia says.

  “Hopefully they won’t. But ‘family friend’ is probably the easiest, or that our parents are friends with the POGs or POBs,” I say. “We’re more crashing the wedding vendor as opposed to the actual wedding.”

  “Not nearly as exciting.”

  “Have I said thank you enough yet? Because seriously, thank you.”

  “A few more times wouldn’t hurt.”

  Our first attempt is a winery out in Woodinville, but when there’s no Mansour’s van out back, we move on. The next one is a hip event space in Capitol Hill. We get there right as guests are arriving, and Julia squeezes my hand as I square my shoulders and charge forward, using any amount of confidence and elegance I’ve gained over the past eighteen years to pretend like we fit in.

  We fall in line behind a family with two young kids, one of them complaining about how long the ceremony was. “You’ll get to have cake soon, I promise,” the father is saying.

  When we get inside, most people are checking their sweaters and bags, making their way toward the hand-lettered seating chart to see where their table is. Instead, I drag Julia down a skinny hallway, where I’m guessing there’s some kind of prep area for the caterers.

  “Do you want me to stay out here? Keep watch or something?” Julia says.

  “Sure,” I say. I’ve needed the moral support, but I need to do this next part on my own. “Thank you.”

  On the other side of a glassed wall, waiters swarm around trays and plates and pots of hot food. My stomach turns over when I spot Harun, and then Tarek’s mom, and then Tarek, busying himself with a platter of what look like mini quiches.

  It’s been only a week and a half, but he somehow manages to look both different and painfully familiar, his hair slightly longer, his jawline scruffier. If his posture indicates anything less than his usual confidence, I must be seeing things, wishing them into being.

  I’m about to open the door when he heads toward it with the tray of quiches. And suddenly this whole thing seems like a terrible idea. He’s working. There’s barely enough time for me to flatten myself against the wall as Julia flashes me a panicked “What are you doing?” look. I motion to the door just as it swings open, and then I close my eyes and hope he doesn’t see me.

  “Quinn?”

  Slowly, I open one eye and give him a pathetic little wave. “Hi,” I say as an anxiety-laugh slips out.

  He doesn’t seem to find it funny. “What’s going on?” From the expression on his face, dark brows pinched, it’s clear I’m the last person he wants to see. “What are you doing here?”

  “I needed to talk to you, and you weren’t answering my texts, and—”

  “Huh. Generally, if someone doesn’t respond, it means they don’t want to talk to you.”

  “That’s what I thought for a year. But we both know that wasn’t true.” I take a step closer, and he seems to soften for a moment before shaking himself out of it.

  “I’m working,” he says, bouncing the quiches. I spy a patch of red on his wrist. A flare-up. “I have to take these out.”

  “Wait. Wait. Just hear me out. I promise, I’ll be fast.” I didn’t plan this far ahead. I assumed he’d be so swept away by the gesture that he’d wrap me in his arms, tell me he saved a slice of cake for us. But, ugh, I guess grand gestures tend to be accompanied by grand speeches. And I have no idea what to say. “I screwed up.” I have to show him I can do the kind of romance he wants. That I can be in a relationship—that I want a relationship. With him. “I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things about you—to you. I don’t feel that way at all.”

  “How do you feel, then?”

  “I… want a relationship.” There it is.

  He snorts. Not the reaction I was expecting. “Really,” he says, deadpan. “Why? Why now?”

  “Because I miss you. I care about you.” I fling an arm up, motioning to the venue around us. “Why else do you think I’m doing this, this grand gesture?”

  At that, he just blinks at me. “So that’s what this is.” He switches the tray to his other hand. “A grand gesture is supposed to be this earnest, selfless declaration of love. This just feels like a performance.”

  “And everything you did for me wasn’t?” I say. I didn’t want to fight with him, but I’m not the only one who messed up. Again and again, he didn’t listen to me.

  “I know. I can see it now, and I’m sorry.” He sounds genuine. As though realizing he’s made mistakes too, he leans against the wall, draws a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and you’re right that this was all I knew how to do. I wanted my relationships to look a certain way from the outside, and maybe that’s why none of them lasted longer than three months—my record, as you so kindly pointed out. Underneath all the gestures, they were superficial.”

  Some of the tension in my shoulders eases. He’s opening back up.

  “Not entirely superficial,” I say gently. I don’t want him to be this hard on himself. They were coming from a good place—I know that now.

  “And what you said before, about wanting you to fall at my feet? I was horrified when you said it, but I think that’s because, in a way, part of me did want that. And that wasn’t right at all. I thought if I did enough gestures, you’d eventually realize you wanted a relationship with me, despite how ofte
n you told me you didn’t. I wanted what my parents had so badly, and I guess I thought I could, I don’t know, conjure it for myself.”

  “Force it, you mean.”

  He grimaces. “That’s one way of looking at it. Maybe they were a performance, but… I don’t know, I still want to believe parts of them were genuine. That they were sincere, even though I know they weren’t. And I only know that because of what I had with you. But you showing up here, while I’m working… I don’t know, Quinn. It isn’t you. I don’t know what this is supposed to mean, aside from potentially pissing off a bunch of people who paid a lot of money for this day to be as close to perfect as possible. This is the performance.”

  “It’s not. I swear,” I say, but maybe he’s right. I thought I could waltz in here, declare I’m ready for a relationship, and he’d want me back.

  “Okay. Then tell me how you feel about me.”

  I stare at the floor. “I like you,” I say in a small voice. I’m not sure I’m ready for what comes after that. The other word is too foreign, too grand. “You know I like you. Why can’t that be enough?”

  “Because I—I loved you, okay?” He presses his lips together, like he didn’t mean to say it.

  I loved you.

  That word does something to my heart.

  I loved you. Past tense.

  “I loved you for a while, knowing you didn’t feel the same way,” he continues. “Then, when I thought there might be a chance, you confirmed over and over that you were never going to return those feelings. You went out of your way to tell me, even when we were doing all these things that made us feel like a couple. It was a mindfuck, Quinn.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Tarek. I’m so sorry.”

  “I forced myself to be fine with it, but I’m not anymore. And I’ll gladly accept some of the responsibility here. It’s my fault too. I wanted too much that you weren’t going to give, and I’ve accepted that. Maybe we can even be friends again, one day. But right now I can’t be around you.”

  With that, he walks forward, and a bearded man in a suit approaches me, a stern expression on his face. “Excuse me, miss,” he says. “Are you supposed to be back here?”