by Amy Poeppel
Nicholas decided to go to bed as well. After his high-maintenance guests finally departed the next morning, he would clean up after them and spend the whole afternoon reading and writing with music in the background, tea on his desk, and his books to keep him company.
He turned off all the lights, stepping on one of Danny’s Legos as he walked through the living room. Tiptoeing past the guest room, he overheard Juliette and Gavin in the middle of an argument.
“Why did you say we would consider staying longer?” Juliette whispered angrily. “I want to go home. Just do what you came here to do, deal with Bridget, and then we’ll put this whole matter behind us.”
“Unless we can’t,” said Gavin. “It depends. If they’re mine—”
“You can’t go back in time,” she said, “so staying longer would serve no purpose whatsoever. Why even play the stupid piece with them at all? Find out the truth and end this.”
“I can’t explain it,” he said firmly, but not unkindly. “Whatever happens, I want to be friends with them again. The three of us are connected somehow. I don’t want to end anything.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the point of playing music with a pair of lesser musicians who you haven’t seen in ages in some back-ass country barn…?”
“Well,” said Gavin with a laugh, “if Yo-Yo Ma can perform in a barn, then so can I.”
“Yo-Yo?” she asked. “Who’s that?”
Gavin didn’t miss a beat. “A very famous cellist,” he said.
Juliette made a sound of exasperation. “Oh, great,” she said, “another cellist. Did you get her pregnant, too?”
Nicholas couldn’t decide if that line was the funniest thing he’d ever heard or the most scandalous. Pregnant? He waited to hear more, but when neither of them spoke, he went to his room and closed the door.
Bridget, he thought, looking at the picture of her Edward had given him. She was exquisite, truly. He would be himself. He would hope to deserve her. He would muster up the courage to ask her to dance.
25
“Right here, under the big windows,” Bridget told Lottie as they walked around the barn, “will be the dance floor. And over here will be the bar, where people can pick up a glass of champagne before dinner. I think that will work best for the flow of the room.”
Lottie’s face was missing its usual bright, engaged expression, and Bridget couldn’t read her mood; her expression was part Valium, part Botox, part constipation. She was staring vaguely around the room with her bright red lips pursed together and her eyes slightly glazed. Whether she hated this idea or was completely preoccupied with something unpleasant was unclear.
“We already put lights in the trees on this side of the barn,” said Bridget, “so when your guests look out the windows next week, they’ll see the branches lit up.”
“Bridget…”
Bridget waited, wondering if Lottie was about to criticize her wedding venue.
“You tried the dress I sent you for the Hochzeit?”
“Yes,” said Bridget, remembering the strain of the blouse buttons, the futility of trying to get the skirt to close. “It’s perfect.” Bridget hadn’t dared to try the dress on again, but she hoped that all the pacing and humming, meditating and eating nothing but nuts and vegetables was doing more than improve her brain function and attitude. Juliette Stark was right: over time, the hunger had vanished and was replaced with an odd sense of resignation. Bridget wasn’t feeling the ecstatic waves of energy described in the book. Rather, she felt peacefully zoned out. Nothing bothered her. The London orchestra had never called. Oh well. Neither had Randall. Whatever. Elliot had not asked her out, Oscar had not returned for a visit, and Gavin had never followed up to explain what he meant by “We need to talk.” So what? She wasn’t anxious or upset about any of these issues. Bridget was giving in to the universe, not passively but with tranquil acceptance. She was floating above it all, unconcerned and unhurried. Whatever happened would happen.
The bride, on the other hand, who was wearing a knee-length white skirt and pretty white flats as though she were heading out for her bridal shower at Per Se, seemed troubled and was looking at her doubtfully. “I’m—how do you say—überrascht? Surprised but relieved, ja? You remember ven you were a Mädchen? I got you a dress that vas too big. I didn’t vant to make the same mistake again.”
She was surprised that Lottie even remembered. “I grew into it soon enough,” Bridget said, unable to recall if she’d ever actually put on the dress again. “So what do you think?” Bridget asked, indicating the clean, empty space. “We’re still adding finishing touches, more lighting, more landscaping—”
But Lottie was clearly feeling needled by something other than her wedding venue. “Hans, my son, is a difficult man, weisst du? I always vanted a girl. I envied your mother.”
“She probably envied you,” said Bridget, “for having a boy.”
“I don’t sink so,” Lottie said. “Hans did not bring out envy in other parents. He was a sulky child, always scowling.” Lottie walked slowly around the perimeter of the room. “I missed Sophia after she died. I should have done more for you. I should have asked if you girls needed anysing. I deeply regret it.”
Bridget hadn’t expected this kind of heart-to-heart when Lottie had asked to come over. “We were all right,” she said. They weren’t, of course. But she doubted hearing from Lottie would have helped lessen the pain much.
“You liked traveling so much ven you vere small. Do you still?”
“I love it,” said Bridget, “although Will and I get tired when we’re on the road.”
“I am so looking forwards to September. Vat could be better than starting off on a big adventure?” Lottie was beginning to look more like herself again, smiling and posing as though Bridget had a camera pointed at her. “I only vish for Hans to have a distraction. A romance perhaps.”
Bridget felt silly stating the obvious: “Hans is married.”
“His wife left him recently, and they’re divorcing. He’s focusing all his frustrations about his life onto me. He’s become quite bitter.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“I know what he tells me,” she said, “but how would a mother know the details of what goes on in her child’s life? How he behaves in a relationship?”
Bridget nodded, understanding her predicament only too well.
“Hans works all the time and can’t let go of his need for independence.” She took a step toward Bridget. “Gwen was always so much like him. Am I right about that?”
Bridget smiled, knowing how much her sister would hate to hear her name and Hans’s linked together. “I don’t know.”
“They hated each other so as children. I always thought it was because they are similar. They always vanted the same sing, the same toy or the same Süssigkeiten, and neither wanted to share with the other, not a wooden animal and certainly not a candy.” Lottie perked up suddenly. “Do you sink Gwen could pick Hans up from JFK before she drives up next week?”
No, Bridget almost said. “I’ll ask her. Send me his flight information.”
Lottie turned and looked out the window as a hawk circled overhead. If Bridget concentrated, she could feel the slightest change of the seasons coming, the angle of the sun, the tired, muted green of the leaves, and a dry, earthy smell. “I know this barn isn’t what you had in mind when my father proposed,” Bridget said, sorry that she didn’t feel more like the cheerleader Lottie seemed to need. “I know it’s not especially elegant or glamorous, but I hope your wedding will be… memorable.”
Lottie smiled, holding out her arms to indicate the room around her, the pickled floors, the beams and the rafters. “But Bridget, I love it so much. It’s going to be ausgezeichnet, ja?”
Bridget didn’t know what that word meant but could tell it was positive. She also didn’t know if Lottie and her father would have two years together, or five, or ten, or maybe more, but she hoped that whatever time they had left on this
earth, it would be—what had Lottie said?—“Ausgezeichnet,” repeated Bridget, feeling the word getting mangled in her mouth. And then she noticed a lightness, a fleeting jolt of elation in her calmly beating heart.
* * *
The next morning, exactly one week before the big event, something in Bridget had shifted. She woke up early, realizing that her energy must have returned in her sleep, and she all but popped out of bed when she opened her eyes. She went to the kitchen to retrieve her cell phone, where, according to the rules of Ancient Practices, Modern Life, it had to stay overnight, every night, banned from the bedroom where it would interfere with sleep.
At the sound of the ringing doorbell, she went to let in a crew that had been sent by Marge, who apparently had little faith in Bridget’s cleaning skills. Throughout the morning, the brand-new laundry machines ran incessantly, and soon there were fresh sheets on all the beds and towels in the bathrooms that smelled like lavender. The carpets were cleaned, the hardwood floors were buffed, and the windows were scrubbed inside and out.
At noon, Emma and Elliot came over to make a final wedding party to-do list. The temperature was a bit cooler even though the sun was bright.
“This is so exciting,” Emma said. “You have to bear with me; a barn is my all-time favorite event venue.”
“It’s a blank slate, which I guess is good,” said Bridget, walking around the cavernous space, “but it still feels sort of cold in here.”
“We’ve gone all out on the flowers,” Emma said. “Since the party’s here instead of at your dad’s, I decided to do something more rustic and unruly. Wildflowers in mason jars for the tables and birchbark vases for larger arrangements. I still think we could use some additional landscaping, say three dogwoods by the barn entrance? And I’m thinking we could install wooden window boxes along the first floor, with flowers and ivy draping down, like those glorious boxes you see in Austrian villages.”
Elliot was excited that the work he’d done was being given a chance to shine. “We’re going to string lights across all the beams,” he said. “And then—if you like the idea—I’m thinking we could go find an oversize, campy, antique chandelier to hang from the rafters. It would give the barn a kind of shabby-chic elegance.”
“Perfect,” said Emma.
“I wonder,” said Elliot, studying the entrance, “if Kevin should put up a temporary railing along the ramp for your geriatric guests. And if the electrician should come back to install more tree lighting so they can see the path clearly. It’s a pretty uneven walk to get out here.”
Bridget’s mind felt sharp and full of inspiration. “I could call the tent company and have them cover the pathway and put down flooring to make it a nicer route to the party, especially if it rains.”
Emma seemed to like the idea, but Elliot shook his head, looking outside at the cloudless blue sky. “That’s going to be—what?—thirty yards to cover?” he said. “There’s no rain in the forecast, so it’s not necessary.”
“But it would be so much more elegant,” said Emma.
“And very expensive,” said Elliot.
“But better for high heels and long dresses,” she argued.
“I think it’s worth it,” said Bridget. “It’ll be like our version of a red carpet.”
While the two of them considered the idea, Bridget’s phone rang, showing an international call on the screen. She excused herself, going outside the barn to the spot where the dogwoods could be planted.
“Bridget?” she heard. “Hans Lang here, Charlotte’s son.”
At the sound of his name, a clear memory of Hans popped into her head from their childhood: Gwen, who couldn’t have been more than six or seven at the time, was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room, watching him line up little animals—molded plastic? porcelain?—in a long row, toys he wouldn’t let her play with. Bridget had been old enough that she didn’t particularly care, but Gwen got so mad when he refused to let her touch them that she stomped on one of them, making him cry. Bridget vaguely remembered that the fight got physical.
“Hi,” said Bridget, noticing as she looked across at the house that the gutters needed cleaning; there was a plant growing out of the one by the kitchen window. “We’re excited for you to get here. I’m going to ask Gwen if she can drive you—”
“I’m sure you’re both as upset about this insanity as I am.”
Bridget looked out at the new fence that was currently being erected around the tennis court. She’d gone to a lot of trouble over the past two weeks to get everything finished, but she wouldn’t go so far as to call it insanity. “Not at all, Hans. We’re looking forward to the party.”
He cleared his throat. “You’re happy about this? I’m not. I’m not happy, especially that my mother is behaving like a rebellious teenager. And why is she still staying at that house? I’m worried about her safety.”
“The damage wasn’t that serious,” Bridget said. “It’s perfectly safe. You’ll be staying there, too, I understand.”
“Certainly not. I’m of the opinion,” Hans said slowly, “that we need to rethink.”
Bridget waited, and then asked, “Rethink what?”
“Rethink the wedding.”
Bridget was stunned.
“It’s happened too fast,” he said.
“Meaning…?”
“My father died less than a year ago, and I’m concerned about my mother, and about Edward, too, frankly. Aren’t you?”
Bridget thought of the fall her dad took earlier that summer, the sight of him in a hospital gown. “Sometimes,” she admitted.
“Lottie’s been in good spirits since this… romance began, and we like Edward, of course. However, we feel it would be best…”
There was a pause, and Bridget took the opportunity to ask, “Who’s ‘we’? ‘We’ as in you and Lottie?”
He sighed. “Habit,” he said. “I mean ‘I.’ I feel it would be best to slow this down.”
Bridget felt a panic starting to rise. “Hans, the wedding’s in one week. Couldn’t you have brought this up before—?”
“I assumed you and your sister were going to put a stop to it, especially after your father started a fire in his own house. And I can’t have my eighty-four-year-old mother traipsing off on some endless excursion with a man who has enough to worry about looking after himself. What if he lights their hotel room on fire in the middle of… Siberia?”
The arson comment was rude. But Bridget felt a needling of guilt. Had she and Gwen been overly cavalier about their father’s plans? It hadn’t occurred to her to put on the brakes, and Edward wouldn’t allow her to even if it had. “My sister and I have talked to him about it,” she said, “and Lottie, too, and they’re looking forward to traveling. I hate to infantilize them by telling them what they can and can’t do at their age,” said Bridget. “They’re adults.”
“They’re old,” he said flatly. “I can’t be expected to hire a helicopter to airlift my mother out of Mongolia or Montmartre when she falls and breaks a hip or your father when he has a heart attack. I have a demanding career, and I need to know my mother is okay and within reach should something happen. Your father is being foolish, and I won’t have him drag my mother along on this absurd excursion.”
Bridget was so accustomed to hearing people speak reverently of her father that this whole conversation was jarring. Lottie probably wouldn’t appreciate her son’s tone either. “I thought your mother was a cocaptain of this adventure. She was just telling me that traveling is her passion as well.”
“They’ve gotten carried away, and I simply want to know that you view the situation as I do.”
Bridget would have liked to have been on the same page with Hans, but she wasn’t. And she didn’t see what she could do about his concerns anyway. Edward and Lottie had money, free will, and use of their limbs and brains. How exactly were they to be stopped?
“Are you upset about the wedding or the trip?”
“Both,” he
said.
“What if we modified the trip?” said Bridget, feeling a need to compromise.
“At the moment, and I’m sorry to be rude, I don’t trust your father in his own house, much less on such a voyage. I’ll put it plainly,” said Hans, as if he hadn’t already. Bridget imagined him sitting in an office, little porcelain animals lined up on his desk, not to be touched. “This wedding announcement came as a great shock to me. But because I know Edward and respect him, I’m willing to put on a good face and go along with the wedding. But the travel is not happening.”
“Have you told your mother that?” she asked, remembering that Lottie had complained that Hans was “a difficult man.”
“If they insist on taking this absurd trip, I won’t come to the wedding.”
Bridget was stunned. “You want Edward to choose between Lottie and the trip?” she said, appalled that he was willing to blow up the whole relationship. “Maybe there’s a better way to handle this?”
Hans didn’t answer.
Bridget tried to think of a way to appease him. “They could go on a cruise instead.” Even as she said it, she knew Edward would despise the idea.
“Go on,” said Hans.
“Well,” she said, “what if they start in Athens as planned and then take a yacht out for a week or so around the Mediterranean? Not much could happen to them on a boat,” said Bridget.
“I don’t know,” said Hans, probably recalling the numerous stories of tourists toppling overboard after too many daiquiris or getting violently ill from norovirus.
“I’ll talk to them,” Bridget said, dreading the conversation. “I’ll get them to make adjustments so you won’t have to worry so much.”
Hans didn’t answer.
“Please don’t boycott your mother’s wedding; none of us will be able to enjoy it if you’re not there. In fact, your mom will probably cancel the whole thing, and she’ll resent you for it. I’ll get him to rein in the trip. Deal?”
Hans sighed. “I’ll consider it.”