“Point in her favor I suppose. So why can’t you see her? Is she closeted, or a nun or something?”
“No. She—I kind of left without saying goodbye.”
Millie’s eyebrows shot up as William said, “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“That is a daft loser move.”
“Newsflash from the Ministry of the Manifestly Obvious.”
“You’re a walking riot,” William said. “So call her up. Send her an email. Snapchat her a naked picture of your jolly bits.”
How to explain to anyone that she would only be able to find Paris by going to Boston and hanging out in a bar on certain days of the week between noon and three p.m.? That she’d be going to those lengths after a single night together over a woman she scarcely knew? That she was exactly the kind of person that Paris didn’t need in her life because of all the other activities she’d never told her family about? That she’d already looked her up last night and discovered that Paris Ellison didn’t exist on the Internet, except in articles about the pushback she’d received about a blog that was also no longer on the Internet. Only the Wayback Machine had a record of her and she’d cried over every picture of that Paris, one she would never know. “It’s not that simple. I don’t see why she’d forgive me.”
“Everybody does stupid things when they’re scared. Coming out isn’t easy,” Millie said quietly. “I know that from Todd’s journey. Even with love and acceptance it’s scary.”
Hours later, tramping around the garden and woods for fresh air, Diana was still asking herself if Millie had been right. Millie thought it was a scared-to-be-gay thing, but that wasn’t it. At least Diana didn’t think so.
It was more of a scared to be in love thing.
Chapter Thirty-Two
An indignant meow at the door brought a smile to Paris’s face for the first time since she’d arrived home last night. Hobbit, right on time. “Did you miss me?”
Hobbit pointedly sat down next to his empty dish, rigid back to her.
“You did miss me or you wouldn’t be pissed.” She dumped a small scoop of food into the dish and set down a bowl of fresh water. “Here’s your Second Breakfast.”
He scarfed up the food and promptly wanted out again. “I get it, the cold shoulder. Fine. Believe me, you’re not the first this week. Enjoy Elevenses wherever you’re headed next.”
Peering out the door after the tabby revealed a bright and cheerful spring morning, one that didn’t match Paris’s mood. Thankfully, she had Susannah’s fictional life to escape to. She would lose herself in a world she’d made where everything turned out the way she intended. So what if the story so far seemed flat and dull and full of sticky, ooey-gooey saccharine ideas about love and sex and relationships that weren’t real?
Looking at the garden made her think of flower pots peeking over balconies in New York, and then she was thinking about Diana again. Feeling scattered and unfocused was one of her anxiety triggers, so she finally decided to do yoga, followed by a hot shower. If that didn’t help, then a long walk. After coping pretty darned well with everything that had happened in New York, there was no point in losing a battle to Boss Anxiety now over her stupid, romantic proclivities.
She was wrapped in a towel and feeling squeaky clean when she noticed her landlady Adya in the garden, snipping at the aromatic lavender bush as she often did. However, instead of jeans and a work shirt, she was wearing black trousers with a blazer the color of ripe eggplant. A special occasion—and then Paris remembered. Foul word! How could she have forgotten about their wedding? She meant to bring them home a gift from New York.
Her brain slipped into hyperdrive, rocketing through the long list of everything she’d lost when the online bullies had stolen her life. A home, a girlfriend, the world of gaming that had been a passion and her livelihood. Hiding herself from discovery had scared her away from travel. From having a smartphone for all the ways it made modern life easier. From signing books for fans. From going to a wedding for two women she really cared about.
The greens of the garden wavered to gray. Too much to think about and a lot of regrets. She wasn’t sorry she’d run from San Francisco. Her only goal had been to survive, and she’d done that.
She hadn’t just survived, she’d found another way to succeed. She’d just proved in New York that she’d leveled up. Walk into a Meeting Full of Strangers—achievement unlocked.
When car doors slammed outside she winced. She was missing out. Again.
She couldn’t get Diana back, but if she called for a cab now…
* * *
Boston City Hall was a monolith of concrete slabs arranged in stacks at odd angles. Paris didn’t know if it was the deliberate antithesis of the gold-domed, historic statehouse a few blocks away, or if it had been built during a passion for modern design. What it most certainly had were lots of active surveillance cameras.
Though it was not really reasonable to think that any of the a-holes who had wanted to maim and murder her would actively be hacking government video feeds and running facial recognition software, it was a scenario her brain was more than capable of making seem possible. The anxiety spike she anticipated was beginning its rise and she focused on taking deep, steady breaths.
She was at least thirty minutes behind the wedding party, but she hadn’t had to park a car, tough duty in Boston. With any luck they’d still be finalizing paperwork and paying fees. After needlessly smoothing the slacks of her last clean suit, she squared her shoulders and went through the metal detector queue. Deep breath. Count to ten.
The signs for wedding ceremonies were easy to follow in the maze of drab corridors. To her relief she spotted Grace and Adya at one of the counters. She noticed, too, that other people were watching them with indulgent smiles. They would all be looking at her if she joined them. They weren’t hostile, she told herself. Deep breath.
As she approached the wedding party, however, it was clear that something was wrong. The Kerns, their long-term bridge combatants and friends, were standing with them. Marva Kerns was digging frantically in her handbag while her husband paced.
“Bill can run right home and get it but I don’t know that he will get back in time for the cut off,” Marva was saying. “I feel like a fool.”
“It’s all right,” Grace said. She was lovely in a silver dress with beading all around the high neck and shoulders, and all the more charming for the silver-spangly Birkenstocks that peeked out at the bottom. “We can come back tomorrow.”
“In that case,” the weary clerk at the desk said, “I could be helping the next couple in the queue.”
Paris startled them all by asking, “What are you missing?”
“Dear, you came? But why?” Grace looked very pleased and yet confused.
Adya, her wild hair combed neatly for the first time since Paris had known her, clasped her hand in greeting. “Isn’t this going to overwhelm you?”
“Not today,” Paris said firmly. “I would really love to see you get married, if there’s room. What’s wrong?”
Marva was near tears. “I forgot my ID.”
“I have mine,” Paris said. “If that’s okay with the brides and with you.”
“Perfect,” the entire wedding party chimed.
“Perfect,” the clerk echoed briskly, seizing a document.
Paris passed over her Massachusetts identification card and filled out the portion of the paperwork for Witness #2. Colorful posters against the drab, government-gray walls bleached out in suddenly bright lighting. Deep breath. This is an okay reaction to what you’re doing, she told herself. It’s only the color shift, you know you can deal with that. It’s not an anxiety attack. Deep breath. She’d been a vapor in the world for five years, and now she was going to be real again. It meant risk, but only a small one, and she could handle it.
She wasn’t going to be closed out of life anymore.
Grace and Adya were very grateful and Paris was equally heartened by hugs from both o
f the Kerns. The process complete, the clerk gave them the next time slot for their ceremony. Grace and Adya held hands as they all walked down the hall to the ceremony waiting area.
The duly authorized representative of the Commonwealth was a kind-faced black woman in a pink blazer. She seemed genuinely touched by the prospect of marrying the two old women.
“You’ve been waiting for a long time, so let’s not linger,” she said. “I have a traditional ceremony and one that’s been adapted for long-term couples.”
“We want that one,” Adya said.
“As long as it begins with ‘dearly beloved,’” Grace added.
“It does. If the guests would be seated?”
There were four chairs and Paris quelled her urge to fidget away some of her excess energy.
“Dearly beloved…”
She wasn’t embarrassed that she cried. Marva, after pressing tissues into the hands of the weeping Grace and Adya, gave one to Paris as well before blowing her own nose. Bill’s eyes were gleaming and all three of them clapped when the short ceremony concluded with the traditional kiss.
More signatures and Paris’s hand wasn’t even shaking. She knew she had to keep herself safe, but this small risk she was taking was in service of love.
And she still believed in it, it seemed.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The next three days blurred together for Diana. There was the final fitting for yet another bridesmaid dress. At least the gowns were a lush, bearable shiraz in color, and there were no poufy sleeves. The fitting had been followed by a formal tea hosted by Millie’s redoubtable mother, and that had been followed by a night of raucous clubbing in London.
The sun was up Saturday morning when the limousine dumped the hen party at the inn in Kent where the wedding guests were staying. Diana found her little sister waiting for her in the room they were to share. The table was littered with texts, notebooks, and study guides.
“You’ve been having fun,” was all Florence said as Diana shut herself in their bathroom and regretted the last Slippery Nipple for about an hour.
When she finally dragged herself to her bed, she mumbled, “Thank goodness there’s only the rehearsal dinner to get through today.”
Florence looked up from her laptop. Like William, she had thick black hair, dark eyes and smooth golden brown skin inherited from their father, and like Diana, their mother’s hawkish nose. Still a teenager, Florence was already adept at looking down it, especially at the sins of her elders. “I will never understand the need to get stinking blotto.”
“You’re too young to understand,” Diana said. “Count your lucky stars.”
“William said you had news.”
“Damn him.”
“He said I couldn’t tell Mum. He didn’t say anything about Dad or the Telegraph.”
Diana rolled onto her back, glad the room had stopped spinning. The light from the window was distressingly bright. “I think I’m not going to die now.”
“Changing the subject are we?”
“Whose idea was it to let you join Debate?”
In a voice that sounded exactly like their mother’s, Florence said, “And still changing the subject.”
A cold cloth was settled on her forehead. She opened her eyes.
“You’re welcome.” Her sister’s gaze was slightly worried, but largely disapproving.
It wouldn’t help if she told Florence that in this light she looked forty. “Thanks. I truly don’t know what I was thinking. Except I was bored and that’s no reason to drink.”
“It’s no reason to do anything.” Florence sat down on the edge of the bed. “So? News?”
“I’ve fallen in love with a woman.”
“Oh.” Florence frowned. “Is that all? For heaven’s sake, I thought you were pregnant, or had to have back surgery or something.”
Diana closed her eyes again. “Not everybody is going to be as thrilled as you are.”
“If you’re here and drinking, I’m thinking there’s a story and it’s not a good one.”
“I’m a complete loser. Ask William.”
“He may have said that.”
“I think I’m done discussing this with you. Unless you’d like to share details of your love life in return?”
“What details? I have exams in two weeks.”
Florence’s voice faded to nothing, and what seemed like moments later it was back.
“Wake up. Mum says we shouldn’t be late to lunch.”
Diana pried open one eye. “Where’s that from?”
“What?” Florence followed Diana’s squinting gaze. “My T-shirt? Some online shop.”
“No—what’s on it?”
“It’s Link playing the Ocarina of Time. Since when are you interested in Zelda?”
“I saw that same shirt recently.” She wasn’t going to explain that she’d last seen the T-shirt on the floor next to a fainting couch in a New York hotel room.
Florence gave her a suspicious look. “You must have really noticed the shirt, or whoever was wearing it. This woman, she’s a gamer?”
For someone who was as adept as she at keeping secrets, she was having spectacularly little success with her family at the moment. “Was.”
“Cool. I’m going to shower and try to look like I wasn’t up most of the night.” Florence nudged the bed and Diana winced. “I recommend you do the same thing.”
Lunch was a gracious and elegant event, or at least Diana was certain it must be. She viewed it all through sunglasses, a fact that did not please Evelyn, Countess Weald, one bit. Thankfully, she was not the only one doing so in the inn’s dining room—groomsmen and bridesmaids alike had adopted dark glasses and ordered black coffee and little else.
After managing toast and a wedge of cheese, Diana huddled in the common room with the other bridesmaids, yawning into yet more coffee.
Millie was not quite as poorly off as the rest of them. That, or she was putting up a good front. “We’d all feel better if we went for a walk. The grounds are very pretty and peaceful.”
“There’s a lovely picture window. So bright, letting in all that sun.” It was making Diana’s eyes water. “I bet that if all of you went into the gardens I would be able to sit right here and wave.”
William had slumped into an armchair. “The Best Man now has my permission to strangle the next person who suggests alcohol.”
“What if it’s the Best Man?”
“Then the Maid of Honor can strangle him.”
The Maid of Honor, Carrie or Mary or Quite Contrary—Diana hadn’t caught her name—groaned from the window seat where she was prone. “Don’t discuss homicide. We’re in an English country inn, and that’s where all the murders happen.”
“Don’t give me any ideas,” Diana muttered. The way she felt had to be somebody else’s fault. She couldn’t have brought it on herself.
* * *
By the time the rehearsal dinner began, Diana could look at food again. That turned out to be a good thing, because the menu served in the inn’s private dining room was a tribute to William’s Punjabi heritage from his father’s side. Served family style, the long tables were laden with tureens and platters that left the air steamy with coriander, masala, and fennel. She stuffed herself with fresh rosemary-scented popadoms wrapped around homemade paneer. It was hard to be depressed with her mouth comically puckered from the so-sour-it-hurt fruit pickle.
As hosts, her mother and stepfather were each presiding over a table. Her mother was at the other table and Diana was happy to be seated out of her mother’s line of sight.
“Did you pick the menu?” Diana asked her stepfather. “The chana is delicious.”
“Your mother did. I’m the father of the groom with no official duties but dancing with my new daughter-in-law tomorrow evening.”
Anwar was earth and water to her mother’s air and fire. Her three-year-old self had lost her heart completely to him the day they’d met. He’d inquired politely after the h
ealth of her ragged Paddington Bear and asked the restaurant to bring another chair so Paddington could dine with them instead of sitting under the table. When her mother had protested that it wasn’t exactly what one did at whatever Michelin-starred eatery they’d been in, he had simply said, “When we dine together we show who we are.”
Within weeks Diana knew she would never be afraid of Anwar the way even pictures of her birth father made her afraid. An outsider looking in might see only a clinging socialite wisely marrying a wealthy businessman, but Diana appreciated that together they made a whole. It was why she believed in love, and why she’d hoped to experience it even when her body hadn’t been interested.
Until Paris.
She’d drifted off in mid-sentence and realized Anwar was looking at her with concern. “Evelyn said you were all quite indulgent last night. Are you well?”
“Well enough, Pita. I don’t normally drink like that and I’m still paying for it. Your flight was on time this afternoon?”
“On time after a delay in Belgrade. Where have you been visiting? What roles did you play this time?”
She told him about Boston and Tartuffe, and found herself mentioning the cozy bar where she’d had lunch and the interesting writer she’d met.
He sounded overly casual when he asked, “Is that Paris?”
“I’m going to kill William.”
“Florence told me.”
“I’ll kill them both. After the wedding, or Mum will have my head.”
He smiled at her silliness. “We take notice because it is notable for you to be suffering in this way. I don’t want to add to your suffering. You know that my family didn’t like that I married your mother. Someone so different from our blood—they were sure it would be a disaster. She would take all the family money. She would put her child first. She would bring shame on us all. They didn’t know your mother.”
“They’ve never wanted to either.”
“No, which is a waste.” He smoothed his neatly trimmed mustache, dark eyes fixed on her. “God is love. God is good. Love always brings us closer to God. Love cannot be a sin.”
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