by Nancy Thayer
The florist lifted two red velvet pillows and two golden rings and placed them in the little boys’ hands.
“I’m doing this,” Hunter said, and took off, walking rapidly, Luke following.
When they got to the white aisle inside the tent, they stopped for a moment, giggling and nudging each other. They settled down inside the tent, walking down the aisle a lot faster than they’d been taught in rehearsal.
Then it was time for the women.
“You first,” Felicity told her sister.
Jane looked alarmed. “I’m going to throw up.”
“You’re a lawyer,” Felicity chided. “Get it together.”
“But it’s Mom!” Jane whispered.
“Go.” Felicity gave her sister a nudge.
Bouquet in hand, Jane hurried down the boardwalk. At the tent’s entrance, she stopped, and gathering her dignity, she went slowly down the aisle to the altar.
Felicity followed, biting her lip so she wouldn’t dissolve into tears.
“Okay,” Alison said to her flower girls. “You know what to do.”
Off the little girls went, Canny first, then Daphne, and finally, Alice.
Alison took a deep breath, and followed.
Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” sounded as Alison stepped into the tent. On either side of the aisle, people rose, their finery fluttering. Her best friend, Margo, wore a fabulous fascinator and a huge grin. Dr. Abbott and his wife, and all three of the dental hygienists Alison had worked with were together in one row. Heather and Cecil were there, at the end of an aisle. Charlie and Henry sat next to them, not a muscle twitching, elegant in their black bow ties. Other friends of David’s were there, and two of the girls who had been friends of Jane and Felicity since childhood. A bolt of nerves struck Alison, and for a moment she paused. Then she saw them waiting for her, her family, all of them, and her beloved David, so handsome in his tux. Alison broke out into a great huge smile that lasted as she went down the aisle to stand by his side.
They had wanted the ceremony to be brief, and it was. It passed in a blur. The minister’s words. The vows, when she and David gazed into each other’s eyes as if gazing into the future. The exchanging of rings. And finally, the kiss.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister proclaimed. The congregation cheered and applauded. David and Alison proceeded down the aisle, and Alison smiled and wept tears of happiness.
They stepped out of the tent and onto the green velvet lawn. In front of them, the harbor waters glittered in the sunlight.
“Look, Grandma,” Alice cried excitedly. “The water is covered with diamonds!”
The attendees filed out of the tent onto the grass. Near the outdoor patio stood a long table centered with an enormous arrangement of flowers and piled high with delicious finger foods. As people gathered on the lawn, waiters appeared with trays of champagne and sparkling water. People congratulated the newlyweds, and everyone told everyone else how gorgeous they were, and as friends met friends, cries of delight flew up in the air like small birds. Patrick helped Poppy to a chair on the patio where she sat in her expansive black pantsuit, hundreds of sequins and her mother’s diamonds flashing in the sunlight, her belly proudly bulging. Ethan introduced Esmeralda to the guests. Esmeralda, wearing an impressively tight and low-cut emerald gown, languidly extended her hand, allowing people to shake it.
And then the family went to the boardwalk in front of the harbor and gathered together for the photographer to snap some formal shots. The little boys mugged and twitched and couldn’t hold still. The little girls giggled and preened. Scott stood with his good arm around Jane. Felicity and Noah stood side by side, not touching. Esmeralda insinuated herself into the family, standing with one possessive hand on Ethan and one on Canny. Poppy pulled Patrick’s arm and led him to the opposite side of the group. Everyone in the party gathered on the lawn to watch the photographer.
“Throw the bouquet!” Felicity ordered her mother. She called out, “Heads-up, everyone. The bride is tossing the bouquet!”
The party gathered expectantly on the lawn, laughing, the few unmarried women coaxing each other forward.
“Right!” Alison yelled back. “Here goes!”
She turned her back to the crowd and tossed the bouquet.
Charlie, the Lab, seeing something fly his way, performed a spectacular leap and caught the flowers in midair. The crowd cheered.
Alison slipped off her heels. The grass beneath her feet was warm and soft. In front of her the crowd returned to their conversations and champagne. Behind her, the harbor waters beckoned like magic.
Holding on to David’s arm, she stepped onto the beach.
“I want to wade in the water,” she said.
“On your wedding day?” David asked.
“Absolutely on my wedding day.”
“But what about our guests? Dinner should be served soon.”
“David, look at our guests. They’re happily guzzling fabulous champagne and being served delicious canapés.”
“Well,” David said. “You continue to be an unconventional woman.”
Alison lifted up her wedding skirt to a few inches above her knees. She smiled at David.
“I suppose I need to be an unconventional man,” David said, and leaning over, he untied his black dress shoes and slipped them off, then removed his black socks and rolled up his trousers.
Hand in hand, Alison and David waded into the water until it was up to their knees.
“It’s cold,” Alison said.
“It will feel warmer in a minute,” David assured her. He put his arms around her. “Maybe if I hold you, you’ll warm up.”
“Maybe if you kiss me, I’ll warm up faster,” Alison said.
David kissed her, a slow, deep, satisfying promise of a kiss.
“Hey, Grandma! Granddad!”
Alison and David turned to see who had called them. Five grandchildren held their phones high, snapping shots of Alison and David, radiant and joyful, in the gleaming blue water. These would be the photographs they would frame in silver and set on their mantel and in David’s office and in their kitchen.
They waded out of the water onto the shore, and walked barefooted among their guests, and toasted each other with champagne, and went into the enormous white tent with its King Arthur banners flying, and sat at the head table for dinner. Later, there were speeches and toasts and wedding cake.
Even later, the band filled the tent and the lawn and the air with music. They played a mix of their own gypsy jazz and the traditional favorites, starting with “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys. Alison slipped her shoes on for the first dance with David. Soon other couples joined. The party spilled out on to the grass, almost everyone dancing. The moon was a crescent and the night was brilliant. At midnight, they were still dancing. David danced with his daughter and new stepdaughters and his granddaughters. Alison danced with Ethan and then with Patrick, who surprised her by morphing into a fabulous John Travolta when the band played “Night Fever.” Jane danced with Noah and accidentally trod hard on his foot. Felicity told Scott he was so sweet for letting the children draw flowers and balloons on his cast; weren’t children wonderful! Heather and Cecil sat while surreptitiously slipping Henry and Charlie nibbles of wedding cake. Ethan danced with Canny, Alice, and Daphne all at the same time. Esmeralda danced with Hunter, who came away with stars in his eyes. Luke performed his own hyperactive version of break dancing. Ethan and Esmeralda quietly vanished. Scott and Noah and Patrick sat at a table, talking about real estate prices on the island. Jane and Felicity danced together like wild women under the starry sky, and on an impulse, they each took one of Poppy’s hands and pulled her up to dance with them.
It was after one in the morning when everyone yawned and kissed goodbye and slowly, some carrying their shoes, left the pa
rty. Some drove home, some went up to their rooms in the hotel. The band packed up, the crowd left. Alison and David hugged their daughters and sons and grandchildren and friends. The newlyweds were staying in a special cottage on the hotel grounds, so they stood on the grass waving their loved ones off.
When everyone else had gone, Alison and David lingered for a while, catching their breath, whispering and yawning and blissfully tired but, like children on Christmas night, unable to surrender to their sleepiness and go to bed.
Behind them, the harbor glistened, the waves whispering of seasons of sunshine and sensuality, cool water, warm sun, the busy rush of days, the deep, sweet sleep of night.
In front of them, the future unfolded like a sparkling trail of moonlight on water.
For Charley
I want to hold your hand
acknowledgments
Here I sit, once again, in my aerie on Nantucket, all alone (Charley’s downstairs), while the wind howls and the rain falls and for the first time in my thirty-three years here, we have dolphins swimming in our harbor.
I spend so much time alone, writing. When I’m not writing, I’m thinking about fictional people. So I’m enormously grateful to the real people who keep me sane and happy.
Especially in the winter, Nantucket is a small town, and really, it is out of a storybook. Hugs and smooches to Tricia Patterson, Gussie Manville, Sofiya Popova, Alexandra LePaglia, Katie Hemingway, Joann Skokan, Ive Nakova, Curlette Anglin (aka The Orchid Whisperer), Jan Dougherty, Mary and John West, and Deborah and Mark Beale. I’m very grateful to the charming and capable Christina Hall of Nantucket Island Resorts, who helped me envision the wedding in my book.
Special thanks to Jeff Lee, who bid an astonishing amount at the Safe Harbor for Animals auction so I would use the names Charlie and Henry in this book, and then brought his two gorgeous Labradors to meet me. They impressed me so much that they jumped right in as characters.
Nantucket is fortunate to have its own bookstores, and again and always, thanks to Wendy Hudson, Wendy Schmidt, Laura Wasserman, Christina Machiavelli (I really want to use her name in a book!), Dick Burns, and Suzanne Bennett. Many thanks to bookstores everywhere, and of course, to libraries, who make it possible for everyone to hold a book in their hands.
Sometimes I leave the island and go to the big city, and wow! The energy there is inspiring! I’m grateful to my incomparable editor Shauna Summers ,and my dynamite team at Ballantine: Gina Centrello, Kara Welsh, Christine Mykityshyn, Maggie Oberrender, Lexi Batsides, Hanna Gibeau, , and Stephanie Reddaway, and to Madeline Hopkins. I know I’m blessed to work with Kim Hovey. Enormous thanks to Meg Ruley, Michael Conroy, and Christina Hogrebe at the Jane Rotrosen Agency.
I send my love and thanks to off-islanders Jill Hunter Burrill, Martha Foshee, Toni Massie, Sara Manela, Julie Hensler, Lisa Winika, Tommy Clair, and Sam Wilde and her Fantastic Four.
Finally, but really firstly, because these are friends I communicate with every day, thank you—heart heart heart flowers smiley face—to my Facebook friends. Thank you for being my readers.
BY NANCY THAYER
A Nantucket Wedding
Secrets in Summer
The Island House
A Very Nantucket Christmas
The Guest Cottage
An Island Christmas
Nantucket Sisters
A Nantucket Christmas
Island Girls
Summer Breeze
Heat Wave
Beachcombers
Summer House
Moon Shell Beach
The Hot Flash Club Chills Out
Hot Flash Holidays
The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again
The Hot Flash Club
Custody
Between Husbands and Friends
An Act of Love
Belonging
Family Secrets
Everlasting
My Dearest Friend
Spirit Lost
Morning
Nell
Bodies and Souls
Three Women at the Water’s Edge
Stepping
about the author
NANCY THAYER is the New York Times bestselling author of A Nantucket Wedding, Secrets in Summer, The Island House, The Guest Cottage, An Island Christmas, Nantucket Sisters, A Nantucket Christmas, Island Girls, Summer Breeze, Heat Wave, Beachcombers, Summer House, Moon Shell Beach, and The Hot Flash Club. She lives on Nantucket Island.
nancythayer.com
Facebook.com/NancyThayerBooks
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