One Last Time: A Second Chance Romance

by Roxie Noir

  Vera sighs.

  “And you don’t want some random weirdo at your table during dinner, right?” I cajole. “What if it turns out that he’s deep in some pyramid scheme and he spends the entire time trying to sell us essential-oil-infused leggings?”

  “All right, all right,” Vera says, holding her hands up. “If you’re really that committed, fine. Shrug your shoulders?”

  I shrug my shoulders. Inside, I’m pumping one fist because hallelujah, hallelujah, I get to attend this wedding solo.

  It’s a mid-January miracle.

  “Now relax,” Vera says. I do, and her eyes flick from elbow to elbow, searching for the barest hint of blue or black or red peeking out from the bottom of the cape.

  I stand there, statue-still, heart racing. Not because of the cape. At the last fitting, where it was decreed that bridesmaids would be wearing (faux) fur capes, I was measured and fitted and re-measured and re-fitted, so there’s no doubt in my mind that my half-sleeve tattoos are adequately covered.

  But what if I did take him?

  It’s not even a real question. I can’t take him, and I won’t, and I shan’t.

  Seth and I have a pact, and attending a wedding together would definitely violate its terms.

  “Ava, does this look all right to you?” Vera asks, standing off to my left side. “I can still see a few lines that the cape isn’t covering, but I’ll leave it up to you whether we re-hem or not.”

  Ava puts the iPad down and stands, swishing her long blond hair over her shoulders. My youngest sister still moves like the cheerleader she used to be, her steps five percent bouncier than average.

  “Where?” she asks, standing next to Vera.

  “Here,” Vera says, tracing one finger right above the crease of my elbow. “It’s not much, but — Delilah, shrug and relax again.”

  I do it, having long ago accepted that my role as bridesmaid is essentially decorative, like a throw pillow.

  “It’s barely visible under the lace,” Ava says. “And we’re standing so close, I think from any further away you won’t be able to see it at all.”

  I turn my head. The two of them could be twins, born thirty years apart. They have the same willowy figures, the same blonde hair, the same blue eyes and high cheekbones.

  I stick my tongue out and cross my eyes at them.

  “Hold still, we’re almost done,” Vera says. “If you hadn’t gone and done that to your beautiful skin we’d be done already, you know.”

  She doesn’t like my tattoos. It’s not a secret. She didn’t like the bird I got on my hip right after my divorce, she didn’t like it when I got two half-sleeves and an upper back piece, and she certainly didn’t like it when I decided to become a tattoo artist.

  Admittedly, I’m successful enough that she’s come around on that last part. I even heard her bragging about her small-business-owning stepdaughter once.

  If she knew about my chest piece, currently hidden under a thick layer of coverup, she wouldn’t like that one either.

  I put my hands up to my head and make moose antlers, still sticking out my tongue and crossing my eyes.

  “Now we can really see them,” Ava deadpans as Vera just sighs.

  “I’m gonna stand exactly like this for your entire wedding ceremony,” I say.

  “Moooooom,” Ava says, laughing. “Make Delilah be normal.”

  “Delilah, don’t pretend to be some sort of… deformed moose monster… on your sister’s wedding day,” Vera says.

  “Fine,” I say, and resume a normal stance.

  We discuss the clasp on my cape. We discuss what we’re going to do with my hair. The seamstress — whose name is Louise, I think — chimes in with some updates on my derriere.

  Then, at last, I’m done.

  The rest of the afternoon passes in pleasant chaos, as I put personalized Hershey’s Kisses into the small fancy boxes with the snow globes, call the florist, help with seating charts, and do a hundred other minor pre-wedding tasks.

  I wonder, privately, if the days before my own wedding were this chaotic. Were our place cards embossed? Did each of our guests get chocolate with our names on it?

  All I really remember is a sense of uncertainty that got worse every day.

  I’m putting on my coat and scarf, about to go home, when Vera stops me.

  “Delilah,” she says, crossing the high-ceilinged foyer, walking between the two staircases. “You’re sure?”

  I free my hair from the scarf and settle it around my neck.

  “About Beau?”

  “About not taking a date to the wedding,” she says, her voice quieter as she steps up to me, one hand on my shoulder, her touch light through my thick wool coat.

  “Yes,” I say, instantly. “I’m really sure.”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” she goes on. “I know how awkward it can be to go to something like this alone, when everyone else is paired off, and how lonely it can feel.”

  Her hand squeezes my shoulder lightly, and I look into her face, filled with nothing but motherly concern.

  Vera’s not wrong. When I was Ava’s age, I didn’t think I’d be single at thirty. I figured that I’d still have a husband and some number of adorable children. I thought we’d be that family who sent an irritating Christmas newsletter every year about how wonderful and great and perfect their lives are.

  Clearly, that didn’t happen, but I’ve never been able to convince Vera that I’m happier for it.

  “Vera, it’s fine,” I say. “Promise.”

  “I worry,” she says, softly.

  “I promise the answer isn’t Seth Loveless,” I say, matching her tone.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean him specifically,” Vera says. “I just want you to be happy, and if I can help, so much the better.”

  “I’m happy alone,” I tell her. “Really.”

  “Okay,” she says, and gives my shoulder one more squeeze. “Love you. Drive safe. Watch out for cops at that curve right before you cross the creek, they’ve been hiding in a blind spot lately and I know how you like to speed.”

  “Thanks,” I say as she stands on her toes and presses a quick kiss to my temple.

  “Don’t be late tomorrow!” Vera calls after me as I open the heavy front door of her house, then let it fall shut behind me.

  I exhale, my breath fogging in front of me like I’m a dragon with its light extinguished, and I head down the front stairs of my parents’ mansion and onto the curved, paved driveway, the fountain in the center shut off for the winter and oddly quiet.

  Everything is quiet, stark, dead. It’s not even five o’clock yet, but the sun is a faded memory in the western sky, the moon and stars hard and bright above. The trees that line the long driveway to the house are bare, branches stabbing at the sky like skeletal hands.

  Virginia is far enough north that it gets cold but too far south to get much snow, so for four months every year the world is dead and brown and gray. The little we do get sends everyone into a panic for forty-eight hours before melting into dirty scraps at the side of the road, so it’s not much help.

  I head for my car. I breathe the cold air deep, then exhale hard. It’s cold and gray and shitty, the time of year when it feels like spring will never come, and I had to think about Seth again today.

  I don’t want to think about Seth. I don’t want to think about our shared past, and I particularly don’t want to think about it this close to Ava’s wedding, but here I am.

  As I’m driving down the tree-lined lane, away from my parents’ house, I wonder how much longer it’s going to take to get over him.

  I tap my pen against the paper as Vera slows to a careful stop. In the backseat there’s the swish of drycleaning in garment bags swinging together.

  “Is there anything else we need on the absolutely do not play list?” I ask, trying to think.

  “You’ve got Lay Lady Lay on there?”

  “There’s a zero percent chance that the band is going to play a wei
rd Dylan song at Ava’s wedding,” I point out as she eases the car forward.

  “There’s a zero percent chance if you put it on the no list,” she says.

  I write Lay Lady Lay on the list, just to humor her.

  “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” she goes on. “Pour Some Sugar On Me. They’re stripper songs.”

  “Sure, that’s why,” I tease, writing them both down.

  “They are.”

  “You’re just afraid that you won’t be able to hold back your true inner self if they come on,” I say. “I’ve seen pictures of you from the eighties.”

  “Delilah, are you calling my true inner self a stripper?”

  “I’m calling your true inner self an Axl Rose fangirl who might not be able to resist an air guitar solo,” I say, grinning. “Nonna told me all about your bedroom walls in high school.”

  There’s a secret, sneaky smile on Vera’s face, and she glances at me quickly while she drives.

  “I’ve still got some of the pictures,” she says, raising an eyebrow like she’s being really bad. “Don’t tell your father.”

  I make a lip-zipping motion, then throw away a pretend key.

  “And Don’t Stop Believing,” she says. “You young people have ruined that song for me.”

  I sigh and write it down, even though I kind of like it.

  It’s Friday, the day before Ava’s wedding, and I’ve been out with Vera since nine this morning running wedding-related errands. In the back we’ve got bridesmaids’ dresses, cummerbunds, the flowers girls’ and ring bearers’ outfits, plus all the outfit-related odds and ends anyone could possibly want. There’s a roll of duct tape back there, next to a small sewing kit. I don’t know what it’s for. I’m afraid to ask.

  Officially, she wanted me to come along because she also dropped in to see how the flowers and cake were coming, and I’ve got an “artist’s eye,” but really, I think having someone along on these errands soothes her anxious, micromanaging psyche.

  If Vera were acting this way about a Saturday afternoon barbecue, I’d push back. But it’s Ava’s wedding, which is a very big deal. I’m pretty sure she’ll be back to normal some time next week. At least, that was the case with the other three weddings she’s planned — mine, Winona’s, and Olivia’s — so I just need to smile and nod until it all blows over.

  “Any other beloved anthems you want to make sure people don’t hear?” I tease, looking down the list of songs that includes all of the above, as well as The Chicken Dance, The YMCA, and Friends in Low Places.

  That last one was Ava’s addition. She hates that song.

  “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.”

  “I’m not writing that down, there’s absolutely no way that —"

  I glance out the front window as I’m talking and realize we’re not in town anymore, nor are we on the road back to my parents’ house.

  “— where are we going?”

  “Oh, I have to run one more quick errand,” she says. “It’ll just take a few minutes.”

  I glance down at the dashboard clock.

  “I promise I’ll be in and out,” she says, and because it’s Vera, I do not make a that’s what he said joke.

  “My hair’s not gonna tame itself,” I say, pointing at my high, messy bun, tendrils already popping out all over the place. “And I told Winona I’d help her with makeup and she’s got that hideous mole —”

  “She does not,” Vera says. “Be nice to your sister. It’ll be five minutes, I just need to swing by the brewery and order some more beer, because more of your father’s golfing buddies are going to be there than I originally accounted for.”

  Then it clicks. This is the road to Loveless Brewing, which is a little ways out of town and, yes, it’s owned by that Loveless.

  My heart starts knocking against my ribcage as if it would like to be let out, and I’m immediately suspicious. Vera was being real cagey about where we were going, not to mention our delightful discussion of Seth yesterday, a topic I thought was closed.

  “We can’t just call?” I ask, stating the obvious.

  “I’ll feel better if we go in person,” she says. “The telephone is just so impersonal, don’t you think?”

  “We’re adding to a beer order, not asking someone to prom,” I say.

  We go around a curve and the brewery comes into view: a large, low-slung building styled after farm outbuildings.

  “Yes, I know,” she says. “But since this is a last-minute request, I think a little face-to-face contact is nice.”

  Something is up, and I suspect that we’re not so much working on Project: Ava’s Wedding as we are Project: Find Delilah A Man, a project that I have repeatedly and firmly denounced.

  She flicks on the turn signal with one manicured hand. This time, I say nothing. What’s the point? She already knows my opinion on this, and furthermore, if I accuse her of dragging me specifically to the brewery, she'll scoff and tell me that she just needs to order more beer.

  They’re going to have Loveless beer at the wedding, so of course that’s the one and only reason we’re going to the brewery, and do I always have to read devious motives into something so simple?

  According to my therapist, that's called gaslighting. Also according to my therapist, there's little we can do to change the people we love, we can only change our reactions to them, particularly when they're your stepmom and have been set in their ways for longer than you’ve been alive.

  “The rehearsal dinner starts at five and you said you wanted to be there by four,” I remind her, closing the binder on my lap. My fingers slide a little along the smooth plastic, my palms already lightly sweaty, my heart thumping just a little too much.

  It's no big deal, I remind myself. You probably won't even see him, and even if you do, it's fine. You're adults.

  You've made small talk before, for fuck's sake.

  Vera pulls carefully into a space and turns the car off.

  My stomach whirls. Still. Even after all this time, seeing him makes my insides twist and knot like a tree growing from a cliff’s edge, buffeted for years by the wind.

  “Come on,” Vera says, getting out of the car. “Ten minutes, I swear.”

  Chapter Two

  Seth

  The big metal refrigerator door closes behind us with a whomp, and I put one hand on it, just to make sure it seals.

  “I’m just saying that technically, it’s child labor,” I say.

  “She also sells Girl Scout cookies,” Daniel points out. “Is that child labor?”

  “That’s a volunteer position for a nonprofit organization.”

  Or at least, I assume it is. Surely the Girl Scouts of America are tax-exempt.

  “Well, she gets fifty bucks per half-bushel,” he goes on as we walk back toward our offices, past the huge silver cylinders. Each of them has a nozzle and a dial, and out of sheer habit, Daniel gives each one a quick look as we pass it by.

  “Fifty? Are we a charity?”

  “Those things are tiny,” he says, sounding a tad defensive. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to pick half a bushel of juniper berries? Besides, it’s skilled work, you’ve got to find the right tree and get a ladder —”

  “All of which her uncle does for her,” I point out.

  “If you want to renegotiate her rates, you’re welcome to try,” he says, a small smile on his face. “Eli made some kind of pact with her about cake a few years ago and she still gets payment. Ruthless, I tell you.”

  He’s right. At nine years old, his daughter Rusty has all four of her uncles wrapped around her little finger.

  “Did you have her fill out a W-9?” I ask. “Or is she also dodging her taxes?”

  He stops, leans toward one dial, then looks up at the tank. It all looks fine to me, but then again, this part isn’t really my specialty. I can run it just fine if Daniel’s not around, but he’s the brewmaster.

  I’m the spreadsheet master. It sounds less sexy, but trust me, it’s
just as important.

  “You gonna call the IRS on her?” he asks, looking at me and grinning. “Maybe you could also mention the time she set up a lemonade stand and didn’t collect sales tax.”

  “That’s more of a county matter,” I deadpan.

  “Look, Rusty likes hanging out with her Uncle Levi and collecting juniper berries,” Daniel says. “It’s a good bonding experience for the two of them.”

  “SETH!” a voice hollers behind us, and we both turn.

  Catherine, our operations manager, is standing at the far end of the row of steel tanks, waving both arms in the air.

  I wave back.

  “Someone here to see you,” she calls out, walking toward us.

  “Who?” I call back.

  “Am I your secretary?” she says as we meet in the middle of the room, under the steel tanks.

  “Do you have any information at all about this mystery person?” I tease. “Or am I walking blind into some kind of ambush?”

  “It’s a fancy-looking blonde, so you tell me,” Catherine says, raising both her eyebrows. “Hopefully she just wants beer. You know what I told you about hanky-pank during work hours.”

  “Was it that as the owner, I can hanky whatever pank I want?” I shoot back, but I’m just razzing her. I know my reputation. I’m the one who earned it.

  Behind me, Daniel sighs.

  “You want me to take this one?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest. I’m ninety percent sure he’s giving me a hard time, but my annoyance flickers anyway.

  “No, I’d like to make sure that this beer order is properly logged, accounted for, and doesn’t fuck up the rest of this month’s numbers,” I say, a little testy.

  “I did that once,” he says. “Three years ago.”

  “Yeah, and Nancy still calls me every month to make sure that the Dixie Pub is getting the right kegs delivered on the right day,” I say.

  “She calls you because she’s got a crush and because you always remember her grandchildren’s names,” he says, a sly smile starting to take over his face. “Do you know I once overheard her talking about the things she’d do to you if she were twenty years younger?”