He raised a brow of his own and shook his head with a slight smile.
“You’re crazy, you know that? The Benadryl should kick in soon, though.”
“Were you afraid of losing me back there?”
“No buddy dies on my watch,” Mike vowed.
“And nobody ambushes the bachelor party on my watch,” Tim declared, flipping his middle finger back in the direction of Bally’s.
“Take that, you snobby motherfucker! And I’m maxing out your corporate card in the process.” He high-fived Jules, who had buckled himself into the sideways seat. The satisfied grin on Jules’s face told me playing doctor beat teaching college students how to use the card catalog by a long shot.
Tommy slid open the small window partition. “You guys okay with us making a couple stops along the way?” he asked, giving me a wink.
Tim gave him a salute, then turned back to me.
“When you shot me that coercion sign back at the bar, I knew it was going to be a delicate mission,” he bragged.
“Most people would consider coercion by a rich blonde with tits the size of the Grand Tetons a first-world problem,” Mike said, stripping off the white coat and scrubs. Like a superhero, he transformed back into Playboy Doc on His Day Off: crisp khaki linen trousers, white cotton shirt, and huaraches.
“Huaraches? What kind of doctor on call wears huaraches?”
“Asks the guy in the Italian bespoke suit and twenty-dollar Chucks,” Mike retorted. “I’m beach ready. Too bad Grand Tetons turned down the ride in the ambulance after all. I bet she looks great frolicking in a bikini.”
“Hey, I can give you her number. You and I, our paths never have to cross again.” I laughed.
“You’d be dead to us, Mikey.” Tim sounded like a character out of The Godfather. “You hear me?”
“Actually,” I said, trying to smile through the swelling, “I think she has her eye on another man.”
“Really?” Jules looked flabbergasted. “That was quick.”
I thought back to my conversation with Remy. “More like a long time coming.”
With that, I reached for my phone. This was going to be the easiest text I’d ever had to write Sloane.
Come to the Pop-Up Chapel in the lobby of the Cosmo tonight, 5 p.m. sharp. Alone. Bring your wedding dress.
Her reply was almost instantaneous, and understandably accusatory.
Why should I? I thought you were allergic to feathers.
I touched my cheeks. It felt like the swelling was starting to go down, thanks to that shot of prescription Benadryl. I always responded well to the over-the-counter version, which I’d pop after sleeping on a feather pillow by accident, so I was confident I’d look and feel normal again by the time we got to Kauai. Thinking about getting to the island and finding Laney made my heart drum double time.
I am. But Remy’s not. He’ll be there waiting for you.
I waited a beat before adding:
He never wanted to break up with you, Sloane. It was your father’s doing.
It took her a while to text back. Maybe she was putting a lot of thought into what she wanted to say to me, for once.
OMG. U R Gr8!
Or . . . maybe not.
But another text quickly followed that one up, asking me not to hate her and wishing me well. That was all I needed.
“Enough,” I said to Mike, as he came at me with the stethoscope one more time. “I’m fine. But I need to make a call.”
• • •
Warren let out a long slow whistle. I had relayed the entire story to him, starting with Laney and ending with detailed instructions on how to wipe our computers clean. “So we’ve lost a few patents. And we’re losing our funding and our distribution. But . . . we still have our integrity. It’s okay, Scout. We’ve always landed on our feet, haven’t we?”
“Yeah, we have,” I said.
Tim had mentioned it was a skill he admired in me, but I had learned a lot from Warren over the years. More than I had previously owned up to. He had really taken over where my father had left off.
He had taken care of me, and now I was going to make sure he was taken care of. I reached for my laptop. Time to take Bidwell-Butler Solutions through a little “penetration testing,” as we computer geeks called it.
“And, Scout?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. My dad would’ve been proud.”
“No, I was going to say your dad would’ve been laughing his ass off. Remember all his magic tricks? He always loved a good disappearing act.”
Girl Talk
“Hit me.”
Dani picked at the cucumber seaweed mask caking around her mouth. We had lost our spa house call, due to my tardy ETA, so we had decided to go the DIY route Friday afternoon: facials as we lounged in the hot tub behind our bedroom bungalow on the resort property.
“Favorite erogenous zone?”
Since meeting Noah?
“Pass.”
Ankles.
Dani smacked me on the head with the Naughty Sleepover Q&A card.
“That’s the third time you’ve passed, Laney. This is getting boring. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were passing just to get drunk.”
I shrugged and took a swig of the mai tai she had strongly prepared.
“I might be trying to ‘tai’ one on. Get it?” My best friend groaned at my lame joke. “Actually, it’s hard to drink with this junk hardening on our faces.”
“Yeah, it gives a whole new meaning to trying to ‘crack’ a smile.”
She demonstrated, and a hunk of blue-green gook fell to the frothing water. We squealed with disgust. “What a glamorous night in, huh?”
“Just five more minutes, then we can wash it off.”
Dani fanned the deck out in front of me. “There’s got to be one question in here that you will answer. Pick. And answer.”
I haphazardly pulled one out, sinking down in the Jacuzzi until the water was up to my neck. I breathed the steam in deeply before glancing at the card.
“Laney, jeez! What?” Dani looked alarmed as tears streamed down my green cheeks.
It was the “one that got away” question card.
I held it up for her to see.
“Oh, honey.” Dani dog-paddled to my side. “Don’t. You’ve wasted too much time on Allen Burnside. Not a minute more, do you hear me?”
“I’m not thinking about Allen,” I sobbed. “It’s Noah. I think he’s the one that got away. Because I told him to stay away! I make a mess of everything and I . . . I was afraid of complicating his orderly, awesome life.”
Love is wanting the best for someone, I heard Allen schooling me back at the Lake Shore Hotel. Even if it makes you feel fucking awful. I no longer heard the venom in his voice. Love and time had worn that away, leaving only truth.
“He’s better off without me. And vice versa.”
“Pfft, please,” Dani razzed. “I bet Tech-Boy could use some upgrades to his life. Look at you! Laney 2.0, new and improved. With radiant skin.”
I wiped the mask and the tears from my face with a washcloth.
“Believe me, I’m not compatible with the type of software he’s used to . . . girls with tiny pores and big trust funds. Classy. The only way I land in first class is by lying.”
We had weathered out a storm together, but the storm had passed. There was probably nothing but sunny skies ahead for Noah and his bride. And for my mother and Ernie’s wedding.
And just a big shit cloud of nothing following me back to New York in a couple of days.
I climbed out of the hot tub and wrapped a towel around my bikini-clad body. The additional hours were catching up on me; the time change God’s cruel joke. Giving me extra hours to rehash what I could’ve done differently when all I really wanted was to turn the clock back and f
orget.
“We need to get you a lei,” Dani insisted, wiping the last bit of green from her temple and shaking out her damp curls behind her.
“Please. The last thing I need is to get laid.”
I moved behind the bamboo half wall of the outdoor shower and stepped into the spray. The cool water soothed my skin made raw from the long hot tub soak.
“I said lei, you perv. As in flowers. Hawaii, remember? Let’s throw on a dress and get in the spirit. There’s got to be a luau happening somewhere. You know, where they dig up the pig that’s been cooking all day under the sand?”
“That sounds kosher.” I laughed.
The smell of hibiscus was all around me, and as I turned away from the spray, I realized there was one growing just three inches from my nose. Hawaii was real-deal beautiful. I needed to get my head out of the clouds . . . and my mind off the guy from seat 3A on Flight 1232.
Noah
T.C.B.
I didn’t even have time to be nervous as the midsized, twin-engine aircraft came into view. “Move it out, men!” Tim was our fearless leader, doing head counts and getting us on board in an orderly fashion.
For once, I was filled with relief instead of dread as we roared down the runway and lifted, weightless, into the air, away from the strange land of Sin City. I watched as the landscape receded, everything shrinking into square patches of green, black, and terra-cotta. It looked exactly like the motherboard of a computer, with the roadways becoming a network of wires. I stared long after I could no longer see anything recognizable and my eyes had begun to water from the strain.
The clouds descended, then broke, and I gasped as mountains appeared, their faces striped like Indian war paint. Laney came to mind, sitting in the airport terminal and swiping wasabi over her sushi roll.
“I’m not running away.”
I must’ve reminisced Laney’s words out loud, because Tim replied, “Nope. You’re running toward it. Five hours, as the crow flies.”
Black Elvis, who was a real jazz cat named Stanley, turned in his chair. “You’re taking care of business, man! Just like the King himself: T.C.B.”
“How you doing, bro?” Tommy asked. He was in the seat across from me. Although his feet didn’t even reach the ground, he threw his confidence around like a man twice his size.
“Better now,” I said.
He held out his fist for a knuckle bump and almost broke my hand with his two huge gold rings: a big shiny lion head with glittery diamond eyes, and a sparkling horseshoe of stones.
I turned my attention to the photo gallery on my phone. I looked at the picture of Laney, working on her sketch by the dry fountain.
“This is nuts,” I said. “No one falls in love in a span of four days.”
“Romeo and Juliet did,” Nate, our resident high school English teacher, supplied.
“There you go,” Tim said.
I had a feeling he hadn’t read the CliffsNotes to find out how that Happily Ever After had ended.
Full Circle
I was last in line for the bridesmaid processional, with Dani directly in front of me. We fiddled with our lone white orchids serving as bouquets and whispered like schoolgirls as we waited our turn.
“Think I’ll get to walk with the Tight End?” Dani speculated, sneaking a peek at the rears of the groomsmen. Back in school, we would’ve passed a note back and forth with puffy bubble lettering to circle: Yes or No. Now, I used my pretty painted toe to trace a big Y in the sand.
Suddenly, we both froze and looked at each other.
Godzilla had spoken.
Or rather, he had roared from the beaded clamshell purse Dani had tucked under her arm. “Hurry, hurry!” I urged.
I had asked her to carry my phone and had forgotten to turn off the sound. She yanked it free and passed it to me.
Three o’clock, on the dot. He had set a task reminder.
A photo of me, clowning around in those shoes and wearing the dress, filled the screen. Tears filled my eyes.
Beneath it, his text read: Has anyone told you today how incredible you are?
I heard Dani’s gasp. I hadn’t told her about my little drunken fashion show.
“Your mom would completely kill you if she knew.”
“Oh, Dani. If she even knew the half of it,” I said, shaking my head with a smile. I touched my knuckles to my mascara-laden eyelashes, preventing the tears from forming inky rivulets down my perfectly made-up face.
Before I could even think of replying to his message, another one was delivered with a roar. Wedding guests turned in their seats to seek out the source.
“Laney,” Dani hissed through gritted teeth, “we’d better put it away.”
Or how beautiful you look?
It was the photo of me, eyes turned upward angelically, with a dreamy smile on my face. Clutched in my hands was that minibar bottle, empty of Jack, with Noah’s remembrance poppy spryly poking out.
One of Ernie’s groomsmen had taken the arm of my cousin Miriam, who was the bridesmaid in front of Dani. It was almost go time, but I couldn’t bear to part with the phone, my only connection to those two magical days with Noah. I moved to hand it back, right as another photo popped up.
It was our selfie, cheeks pressed together. My eyes weren’t closed, as I had claimed to him that night. They were wide and brightly shining. His were dark, warm, and sparkling. Maybe 90 percent due to the alcohol, but I knew there had been a tiny bit of both of us just being high on the moment, on the hopes of better things to come.
The delay had been an inconvenience, yes, but perhaps it had been the catalyst to jump-start each of our lives forward.
I wish I could tell you those things every day. I’m so glad I met you, Laney.
My tears were full-on faucet now. Dani went into defense mode and blocked the advance of her groomsman’s arm.
“Hold your horses, buddy. The ocean isn’t going anywhere. You okay, sweetie?”
She handed me a Kleenex. I quickly composed myself, setting the phone on vibrate and surrendering it. This was my mom’s day. And I was truly happy for her and Ernie, for their chance together.
Dani tucked my phone back into her bag and kissed my cheek before heading down the sugary white sand strewn with red rose petals. She turned to give me one last wink before leaning into the crook of Tight End’s arm and making her way down toward the water.
The chuppah could not have been any more beautiful: a simple bamboo structure with white sheer fabric twisting around it and billowing in the breeze. Ribbons as dark as my blue dress and as vibrant as the bridesmaid’s seafoam hue wove through the white as contrast and looked stunning against the backdrop of the pristine sea.
In a few moments, my mother and her future husband would be underneath the peaceful canopy, uniting in marriage. But first I had to get down the aisle.
The string quartet, whose elegant sounds had blended in with the lapping sounds of the waves up until now, paused for a moment. Two of the women picked up ukuleles and began to play a song I knew, the Beatles’ “Long and Winding Road,” as my foot came down on the first cool, dewy rose petal. I couldn’t help but think of Noah’s red poppy, from where I found it in the snow.
I was vaguely aware of the smiling faces to my left and right and the whir and click of the photographer’s camera.
But ahead of me was the limitless horizon of the blue Pacific. I was at the edge of an island, the place I had told Noah I liked best, back in Jughead’s Diner.
You always know where you stand, I had told him.
I knew where I stood now. It was on my own two feet.
And perhaps good things came in threes:
I had a new starting point with my mother.
Allen was the wonderful part of my past that happened to include a killer soundtrack, as well as a song of my own that
maybe I would let Three on a Match record someday.
And my future was like the favorite part of my sketchbook: a blank page.
A light ocean breeze blew against me, then it changed direction, pulling just a few strands of hair loose from my neat French twist.
Ernie smiled at me from under the chuppah. He looked like a million bucks in his white suit and traditional wedding lei of green maile leaves hanging around his shoulders like a vine. I kissed his cheek and moved to the other side of the chuppah to wait for the bride.
The ukuleles and strings began to play a beautiful rendition of the Beatles’ “Two of Us” as my mother approached. It was a perfect song, given her and Ernie’s history and memories. I don’t know if it was Vera transforming the dress, or the dress transforming Vera, but my breath was taken away and my heart filled to bursting.
She looked as if she had just stepped out of her favorite fragrant garden. Around her neck was a triple-strand lei of tiny white flowers, and she carried a cascading bouquet of white orchids. Looped on each arm were three purple orchid leis. Ernie came halfway down the makeshift aisle of roses to meet her, grinning all the way, and they walked the last half together. They approached me, Miriam, and Dani first. My mother held out her arm and Ernie removed one orchid lei at a time. We each in turn bowed our heads to receive them.
“Good things come in threes, too,” my mom whispered, her eyes lighting on mine. Now that was a Veraism I’d like to cross-stitch and hang on my wall.
They moved over to the groomsmen and bequeathed the remaining three leis before turning to the rabbi.
I tried to concentrate on the service itself, but my thoughts kept drifting, keeping time with the sound of the waves lapping at the shore behind me. Even with my toes gripping the warm sand, my mind was back in the snow.
With Noah at the fountain, the feel of his hands gripping my waist on the ice rink, and lying next to him on the freezing concrete under Cloud Gate. A delicious shiver of memory left me with goose bumps as I recalled our bodies crashing hot against each other in the hotel.
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