Once and for All

by Sarah Dessen

  Ugh. I let it go on for a long enough period so as not to seem totally rude, then sat back up. “Well,” I said, as he pulled back, his eyes sort of dazed, “I should go. It’s late.”

  “Now?” He looked at the house again. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” I made an effort to look apologetic, like this was not actually my choice. “I have an early day, and all. . . .”

  “Yeah, okay, cool,” he said, cutting me off. “I get it.”

  I stood up, aware of the dampness from the grass on my back. “I’ll see you around work, I guess?”

  “Sure.”

  I started up the walk, relieved to finally be wrapping things up. I’d only taken a few steps, though, when he said, “It’s the bet, right? Just dates, nothing more. FYI, I didn’t really want that either.”

  Pausing, I said, “Okay.”

  “It is,” he replied, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. Ugh. At least he’d waited. “Okay, I mean.”

  Right, I thought. He was still there on the curb when I went inside.

  So that was my night. Not totally terrible, just weird. It did not, however, leave me humming, whistling, and walking with a literal bounce in my step, something I noticed as Ambrose passed me, heading out for the coffees.

  “You want anything?” he asked. “Maybe a nice melty doughnut?”

  “No,” I told him. Then, realizing I sounded surly, I added, “Thanks, though.”

  He gave me a thumbs-up, then pushed out the door. Ira, tied up to the nearby bench and wearing a green bandana, got right to his feet, wagging happily. As Ambrose bent over him, petting his head, I saw he was whistling again.

  Just then, my phone rang. Enough time had passed that, sometimes, I didn’t even notice my Lexi Navigator ringtone anymore. Today, though, for whatever reason, the opening chords made my heart hurt in a way it had not in a while.

  “Hey,” Jilly said, sounding especially cheerful herself, considering it was morning and I knew she had all four kids with her for a full day. “Happy Wednesday!”

  “Is it?” I asked, doing another card with a bit of extra force on the fold.

  “Sure!” she replied. “It’s hump day, sunny and gorgeous, and we are on the way to get one of the best biscuits in town. It’s perfect!”

  I blinked. In the background, Crawford spoke for me, saying, “You’re being weird today.”

  “Oh, hush. Can’t a person be happy once in a while?” she asked. To me she said, “The GRAVY Truck is actually right over near you. Can you take a break? I want you to meet Michael Salem.”

  “Does he always go by his first and last names?”

  “Salem is his middle name,” she corrected me, “and I think it’s cute.”

  “This the guy from the party last night?” I asked.

  “I met him there, yes,” she replied. “But he’s not just a guy from a party, if you know what I mean.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Just that, you know . . .” She lowered her voice. “I like him. A lot. Like, very much a lot.”

  I was about to tell her she’d only just met him, that it couldn’t possibly be that serious. But I knew the tone of her voice, that buoyant giggle, the sudden glint the world got on a morning after like this. Clearly, epic was going around. Too bad I’d already had my turn.

  “That’s great, Jilly,” I said. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “Well, I mean, it’s early,” she replied, sounding anything but under-confident. “But he’s just . . . he’s so nice, Louna. And totally not my type! He had on a hoodie and carried a skateboard the entire time we were together. And he’s a redhead. With freckles!”

  I smiled. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Then come to the truck. Their chicken biscuits are to die for.”

  “I wanted a muffin,” Crawford said.

  “Me, too,” said KitKat. “We hate biscuits.”

  “Hush up,” Jilly sang out, hardly bothered. “Louna?”

  I looked back at the office, where my mom was still on the phone. “I can’t. We’ve got this huge rehearsal dinner and wedding this weekend. There’s tons to do.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She sounded disappointed. For about two seconds. “But you will meet him, and soon, okay? We’ll double date, you and the Lumberjack. Hey, how did that go, anyway? You looked like you were having fun.”

  “It was fine,” I told her, as Ambrose came back in with the coffees, then hummed his way past me, giving me a jaunty salute with his free hand. I tried not to grimace, probably failed. “I’ll fill you in later.”

  “Do that. Or call if you do get a break. I’m in the car or the truck until at least five. Have a great day!”

  “Okay,” I said, not even trying to match her enthusiasm. I put down my phone, then picked up another card, folding it and adding it to the stack. As I reached for another one, a book suddenly dropped onto the table beside me. A slim paperback, the cover featured a line drawing of a field, one crow flying overhead. HARVEST, it said on the cover. I looked at Ambrose, who was taking his seat beside me. “What’s this?”

  “A loan from Leo,” he replied, starting in on his own stack of cards. “He said to take your time with it.”

  I pulled the book over, flipping it open. A NOVEL BY MCCALLUM MCCLATCHY, said the title page. I turned another page, which had passages highlighted, notes scribbled in the margins, and read the first line.

  In a world, in a field, a plow sits. Harvest has come.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said out loud, pushing it aside.

  Ambrose glanced at me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, a bit too forcefully. “I just want . . . to work.”

  “Sure.” He folded another card. “Let’s work.”

  A moment later, he started humming again.

  “Candles,” William said, handing me the long plastic lighter. “Don’t forget the ones by the gazebo.”

  I nodded, then walked over to the nearest table, set with thick linens and gold-rimmed china, a huge collection of white lilies at its center. As I bent over the three pillar candles arranged just so around the place settings, I breathed in their fragrant smell, hoping it might improve my mood. It couldn’t hurt.

  So the week hadn’t been great. At least it was busy, with the details for this weekend’s Elinor Lin rehearsal dinner and wedding distracting me from Ambrose’s cheerful mood and Jilly’s own epic night, which I’d heard all about in the days since. Michael Salem (he was indeed always referred to by this double moniker) had just graduated from the Fountain School, skateboarded in competitions, had four siblings, too, just like her! She’d showed me a picture, of him leaning out of the GRAVY Truck, smiling, a dour-looking Crawford reflected in his big, white-framed sunglasses. He was cute, and, yes, not her type at all. You just never knew, I guess.

  I moved on to the next table, lighting the candles there. Behind me, distantly, I could hear my mom talking with Elinor Lin’s mother, who had proven to be the biggest wrinkle in the fabric of this weekend’s events. Mothers of the bride were always a factor: they had Emotions and Opinions and were often enlisted to convey certain messages or directives the bride was too timid to deliver herself. Elinor Lin didn’t need anyone to speak for her, though: she was smart, assertive, and knew exactly what she wanted. I’d thought she was tough until I met Mrs. Lin, who was all of these things but louder, bossier, and ready to spar at any second about whatever didn’t suit her. In another world, she and my mom might have been friends, purely out of their similarities. In this one, though, they were anything but.

  “People will need direction as they come in,” Mrs. Lin was saying as she dabbed her face with a Kleenex, of which she kept an impressive supply in the bodice of whatever she was wearing. The first time I’d noticed her yanking out a tissue from this area, it had startled me, but now it was
all I could do not to reach over and do the same when the pollen count got high. You got to know people in weird ways at weddings. “And it’s rude to not have someone there to greet them.”

  “Elinor felt,” my mom replied, using the two word prefix she always utilized with Mrs. Lin in these conversations, “that having the table assignments in the gazebo as guests entered would be enough.”

  “Well, I don’t. So put someone there.”

  With that, she walked away. I risked a glance at my mom, who was watching her go, face calm but eyes narrowed. There really was no counterargument to a person telling you that you are wrong and then what to do, even if you were Natalie Barrett, and I felt a rush of protectiveness toward her. When she glanced at me, though, I quickly went back to the candles.

  Just as I lit the wick of a round candle in a glass votive, someone leaned over me and blew it out. Annoyed, I glanced up. Ambrose.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I just can’t light a candle without making a wish and blowing it out. It’s some kind of birthday neurosis.”

  I looked at the plastic lighter in his hand. “Then you definitely should not be doing this particular job.”

  “It’s okay,” he assured me. “I’m just lighting them, wishing and blowing, then lighting them again.”

  Granted, it had been a long day. Just about anything had the potential to cross the line of Just Too Damn Much. But there was something about this that shot me over it. “Are you serious?” I demanded.

  “What?”

  “That is the stupidest, most waste-of-time thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Ouch.” He raised his eyebrows. “Are you mad at me about something?”

  “It’s not professional! Making wishes, lighting candles twice. You’re here representing our company. You need to act like it.”

  I watched him as he took an exaggeratedly slow look around the backyard of the historic mansion that was our venue. Besides us, there was only the string quartet, tuning up, and a couple of caterers. “Okay. I’ll stop. Sorry.”

  With that, he went on to another table, and I went back to my own work. I found myself pausing, though, with the next candle I lit, thinking of what he’d said. But I didn’t make a wish. What was the point?

  By six fifty-five, when all the candles were done and the first guests were pulling up at the valet stand, my mom came over to me. “I’m going to need you to stand by the gazebo and direct the guests to their tables.”

  Her face was sour as she said this, clearly not happy. That made two of us. “Sure,” I told her. “But I don’t think we need it. People can figure it out for themselves.”

  She gave me a smile, squeezing my arm, and walked away. Over in the gazebo, I double-checked that all the tea lights were lit, the seat assignments lined up neatly on the table in front of them. When an older couple came through, I smiled, ready to guide them, but they just took their cards and walked on, not even looking at me. One point to Natalie Barrett.

  As another group of guests approached, I looked across the tables to the small pond on the backyard’s edge, where Ambrose was standing with William, talking about something. His face was animated as he gestured, smiling frequently, as William nodded politely, seeming kind of charmed. I thought of Jilly earlier, and all day really, the unique quality to a person’s voice when you know they are just as happy to hear themselves say something as they are to tell it to you. Of course I couldn’t say Ambrose was definitely talking about Lauren: it could have been Ira, or anything. And yet.

  “Louna?”

  I turned to see Ben Reed standing by the place card table, wearing a shirt and tie and smiling at me. He’d sat beside me for an entire semester of the most boring World Civ class ever, during which we’d taken turns keeping each other awake and always partnered for projects. He was a nice guy, funny and sweet, with a longtime girlfriend, Amy Tellman, who he’d dated since middle school. “Hey,” I said, then gave him a hug. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tennis,” he explained. Ben had played for the varsity team; until that moment, I’d never seen him without a racket poking out of his backpack. “Albert Lin and I grew up doing the camps and tournaments together. Our moms are tight. What about you? How do you know Elinor and Mark?”

  “My mom’s the wedding planner. I’m working,” I explained, then turned to the table, scanning the cards until I found his name. I picked it up, holding it out to him. “And you are at table six.”

  “Thank you,” he said, taking it from me. He glanced out into the yard. “Looks fancy. Now I wish I’d brought a date.”

  “How is Amy?”

  He winced, hearing this, basically answering the question. “I wouldn’t know. We broke up a couple of weeks ago.”

  “What?” I said, shocked. He winced again. Whoops. “I’m . . . God, I’m sorry. You guys were so . . . wow. I’m sorry.”

  He nodded. “Thanks. It was her decision. Last summer before college, wanting to make a fresh start at UC Berkeley, blah blah. I should have seen it coming.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Me neither. I’m basically gutted.” He sighed, looking down at his card. “Anyway. It’s great to see you. Especially without having old Partone droning on about global implications in front of us.”

  “He did love the big consequences,” I agreed, as two women entered the gazebo. “Have fun tonight.”

  At this, he made a face, then smiled as he started across the lawn to his table. Halfway there, he turned back and glanced at me, looking away quickly when he saw I was still watching him.

  “Wait, what is this? The tables? How do we know which number we are?”

  I sighed inwardly, then turned around to help the two women. One point to Mrs. Lin. No matter the issue, there was always an ongoing tally, somehow.

  The end of a rehearsal dinner is different from that of a wedding. Even if it’s late, there’s still that sense of anticipation and excitement, the big event still ahead. That is, if you’re a guest. When you’re working, it’s one down, one to go.

  “You’re sure? You won’t get upset?”

  I gave Ambrose an apologetic look, knowing I deserved this. “No. And I shouldn’t have earlier. I’m just super grumpy, for some reason. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. Then, as I watched, he briefly closed his eyes, blowing out the pillar between us. I wondered what he wished for. I’d never ask, though. “I didn’t realize Leo was such a bust as a date.”

  “He wasn’t,” I told him, blowing out the next candle. “It’s me.”

  “Lauren seems to think otherwise.”

  “You talked to Lauren about this?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. He glanced at me. “You weren’t yourself, and Leo is her best friend. I figured she’d have insight.”

  I suppose I deserved this, too, but it was harder to take somehow. “Did she?”

  “She said,” he replied, moving to the next table, “that he is great if you’ve known him forever, like she has, but that in college he’s become a bit . . .”

  I waited, curious about exactly what adjective would follow. This was not a case when you filled it in.

  “. . . insufferable,” he finished. He blew out another candle. “She blames his writing professor and hopes it’s just a phase. But she understood he probably isn’t the best boyfriend material right now.”

  “Good thing I’m not the one who has to stick in the long-term relationship,” I commented.

  “Oh, I’ve got you beat, no question,” he replied. “Lauren will make it easy.”

  After all the whistling, humming, bouncy steps, and general good cheer, the fact he felt this way shouldn’t have been any kind of surprise to me. But hearing it, for whatever reason, was still difficult. I had a flash of him standing behind me, cutting that cake, then quickly pushed it away. “She seems great,” I said
.

  “She’s awesome.” He moved over to the next table. “Don’t feel bad, it was just a super stroke of luck she showed up when she did that night.”

  “I’m still in this,” I reminded him. “All I have to do is date a bunch of people once, and I’m doing that.”

  “True, true,” he agreed. Out on the street, someone zoomed past, tires squealing. I could only hope it wasn’t one of the valets. “So you’re saying you have another prospect already lined up?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie, if thinking counted as working. What I’d actually been mulling, a bit worriedly, was that if Jilly was so into Michael Salem, I’d be losing the one person who was happy to set me up repeatedly. Unless he had a friend. Or, um, lots of friends.

  “Well, good,” Ambrose said. “It’s no fun if we can’t keep it interesting.”

  “Don’t worry about that. You just focus on you,” I said, walking over to another table and bending over the row of small votives there to blow them out. Once done, I looked up to see him staring at me. “What?”

  “You really don’t make a wish? Like, ever?”

  “It’s not my birthday, and this isn’t a cake,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be. Why wouldn’t you ask for something, given the chance?”

  “Birthdays are special. These are just candles.”

  “Still counts,” he said firmly.

  “Ambrose, come on.”

  “What? You don’t need anything? Your life is perfect?”

  “It’s just a wish,” I said. “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but just because you make them doesn’t increase the chances of them working.”

  “You’re still putting it out there, though,” he countered. “Into the universe. Has to count.”

  I looked down at the row of four flames in front of me, still lit. “Let’s just agree to disagree, okay? It’s your thing, like stealing dogs and doing the conga. Doesn’t mean it has to be mine, right?”