Lila's mother was sober by the time they arrived at the Breakers.
"Honestly, I'm ready for a nap," Patricia said to Phoebe.
In the Great Hall, the wedding party was lined up in order of importance, as dictated by Nancy, the events planner for the Preservation Society. First came Gary's cousin Roy, the officiant for the wedding—likely the only family event where he was deemed the least important. Then the groom's parents. The flower girl, the ring bearer. The bridesmaids. The maid of honor. The mother of the bride and her grandmother. And then, of course, the bride.
"Do not touch the walls. Do not touch the windows," Nancy said. "Do not touch anything here but your spouse! I find that's generally a good rule for life, and also for the Breakers."
Everyone laughed.
"I'll be back," Nancy said. "And when I come back, be ready."
As soon as she left, the tension eased. Marla walked over to introduce her son, Oliver, to Phoebe, because Phoebe was a professor of literature. Oliver got excited about this in a way a twelve-year-old normally did not.
"I've read all the *Percy Jackson* books," Oliver said. "My favorite by far is *The Titan's Curse*. Have you ever read it?"
"I'm afraid I haven't," Phoebe said.
Oliver looked disappointed but then ran off with Juice to see who could get closest to the walls without touching them.
Bootsie started pointing out the things she found most objectionable about the Breakers to Lila and Patricia, while Phoebe's phone buzzed with a call from her husband. She silenced it. She didn't want to hear his voice tonight. Not here, in this Great Hall, which felt more like a courtyard. Not now. Phoebe was already confused enough. She dropped the phone back in her purse, and Marla pulled out hers.
"I sent my last sext to Robert before he got on the plane this morning," Marla whispered to Phoebe. "He hasn't responded since, and now I'm worried it's weird."
"Why would it be weird? Isn't he right there?" Phoebe asked, looking at a tall, thin man who had walked over to steer the kids away from the walls.
"Yeah, that's why it's weird. I told him that my tiny little pussy is wet and waiting for him, and then we just greet each other at the Breakers with dry kisses on the cheek," Marla said. "I mean, shouldn't we be beyond this stage now? We've been married for fifteen years."
"Maybe it's the right place to be," Phoebe said. "If you're starting over, you're starting over."
Then Nancy returned and said, "Go, go, go!" as if they were kids entering a soccer field for the big game. When Phoebe walked past Nancy and through the door, she waited for a slap on the ass that never came.
Outside, the sun was bright. She took slow steps toward the pergola. She paused in front of it, in front of Gary. She looked at Gary's face, but the sun was too bright behind him. She kept her eyes low, focused on Jim's shiny shoes. She wondered if they were the same ones he wore to Wendy's funeral.
Phoebe walked to the left, completing the line of women that would stand at Lila's side. From there, she watched Lila walk slowly up the aisle in her white reception dress. Lila beamed at Gary so brightly it felt like the moment in the barbershop was long forgotten. It felt like all the moments that came before this one were irrelevant. This is what the wedding ritual did to Phoebe—even just the rehearsal of it: Nothing could compete.
"Okay, then we'll cut the music and you stand here and look deeply into each other's eyes," Nancy said, and she turned to Roy. "Then you will say whatever meaningful thing it is you are going to say."
"And then we'll be married and hooray," Lila said.
They kissed, just for good measure.
It was over, and they walked out, one by one, each woman pairing up with a groomsman. Phoebe linked arms with Jim. His arm felt good in hers. It was solid, the arm of a man who probably balanced well on a ridgeline.
*Maybe tonight I'll sleep with Jim,* Phoebe thought.
She was surprised by the thought. Jim felt more like a brother to her. But maybe they both needed to redirect their desire. Have a night with each other. She'd never had sex with a younger man before. Something about spending too much time around students. Their youth was appalling to her. How much they didn't know. How little they thought about the Battle of the Bulge.
But Jim was a good man. An engineer. He was building a seaplane.
"You ever finish that speech?" Phoebe asked him as they turned the corner back into the Great Hall where they started.
"I did, actually," Jim said, and he sounded proud.
Back at the hotel, the patio had been transformed into a magical fairy-tale forest for the rehearsal dinner. Oak farmhouse tables were set up in rows, torches lining the border of the stone floor. White roses hung from the balconies above. And right in the middle of it all stood Lila and Gary, staring at the giant painting of Patricia naked.
"Who brought this painting here?" Lila asked when Phoebe and Jim joined them. "I did not ask for this to be brought here."
"It was your mother's idea," Gary said. "She wanted to surprise you. She knows how much it means to us."
"Right," Lila said, nodding slowly. "But there are children here."
"Technically only two," Jim said.
"Juice has seen this painting a million times," Gary said, confused.
"And Oliver seems… advanced," Phoebe said.
Phoebe looked at the painting of Patricia for the first time. There stood the cubist abstraction of a naked mother in the bright sun of a hyperrealistic garden. If the mother didn't look so fragmented, or if the garden didn't look so dead, it wouldn't work. But it did. It was beautiful. And sad. Beautiful because it was sad, or sad because it was beautiful.
"I'll grab us a drink," Gary said to Lila.
When he walked away, Lila said, "I just don't understand why my mother must make even my wedding about her naked body."
Jim walked closer to the painting as if he might figure it out.
"Please do not get so close to my mother, Jim," Lila said.
He pointed to the book that Withers had painted in Patricia's hand.
"Is the title of this book really *No One Gardens Alone*?" he asked.
"Wait, seriously?" Lila asked. She burst out laughing. She looked closer at the painting. "I bought my mother that book for her birthday. I thought she might like, need a hobby or something."
Jim looked at her. "See? In that way, this painting actually is all about you."
"From one bullshitter to the next, that is some serious bullshit," Lila said.
He laughed.
"But thanks for trying," Lila said.
She stared at Jim tenderly, and Phoebe looked away as if she was witnessing a private moment she shouldn't. Something about the exchange, the meeting of their eyes. An uncanny moment when the universe was presenting the right order of things, or at least another possible order of things. If Lila's father had chosen a different doctor. If Jim hadn't brought Gary to the gallery that day.
But in this universe, she watched the two of them walk away from each other. Lila headed for her drink at the bar, Jim looping arms with Gary's mother. She wondered what would become of Jim, and worried that losing Lila might set him back another decade. She imagined he might become a man who found it easier to build a seaplane before he built a family. The kind of man who lived alone for so long he ended up treating his own house like a country, carrying everything he needed as he walked the perimeter, his loud laugh the anthem the neighbors heard from afar. But maybe one day, he'd finally scrub the oil off his hands for the last time and think, *Where did everybody go?*
And Lila—where would she be by then? Ten years into marriage with Gary. Perhaps with two children. Already on her second sleeping pill in the upstairs bedroom. Starting to understand why her mother day drank.
"So, what did it actually feel like to be a sniper?" Phoebe asked Roy by the appetizer table. Maybe she'd go for Roy instead, she thought. Roy was the only man here seemingly not in love with someone else. And he was big, tall, like some action hero who was too large for every suit in the known world.
"It was phenomenal," Roy said.
"Phenomenal?" Phoebe said. "You mean in the traditional sense of the word?"
"What do you mean, in the traditional sense of the word?"
"Like when people back in the day used to say *phenomenal* to describe something celestial made visible."
"Huh?"
"Like a shooting star was phenomenal, because they believed it to be a sign from God."
Roy gave her a long look like maybe he understood what she was trying to say. But then he leaned in and whispered, "Want to fuck?"
Perhaps it was not so strange a request, two people at a wedding not their own. It happened in movies all the time. It probably happened to Roy all the time.
"Do people fuck you just because you ask?" Phoebe asked, genuinely curious.
"The ones who look me in the eye," he said. "In Iraq, the only women who look men directly in the eyes are prostitutes."
"That can't be true," Phoebe said.
"It is," he said.
He thought it was weird at first but then got used to it and thought it was amazing what you could get used to over time. He said it was really hard being back in the States.
"Women here have no problem looking you in the eye," he said. "Like you, right now. You're doing it. What does it mean?"
He said he could never tell who wanted to fuck him and who was just being polite.
"That must be really hard," Phoebe said.
Phoebe made her way back to Jim at the bar. She passed Nat and Suz in floral dresses down to their ankles. Marla and her husband, picking at the olives, trying to talk in real life. Then Gary and Lila, who had become unreachable during the height of cocktail hour. They stood near the door, greeting new people, holding drinks that matched the sunset. When Lila laughed, Gary put his hand on her back like he did on the boat. They already looked married. She remembered her own wedding, how just making all those decisions together in some way married them. Each handshake was a way of saying, *I do, I do, I do.*
Phoebe ordered a margarita. She wondered if she'd ever be able to drink gin and tonics again. She watched the bartender squeeze the lime.
"You finish your speech?" Jim asked.
"I did," Phoebe said. "And I learned never to write a speech after I've had two weeds."
Jim laughed so explosively it seemed like there was a good chance he might die before the end of it. Even Gary and Lila looked over as he held his chest. They all watched as the laughter trickled out like exhaust from a tailpipe. But he survived. He put his arm around Phoebe, and Gary looked over. They met eyes, but then another wedding guest came to shake Gary's hand.
"You make me laugh," Jim said. "Sit next to me tonight."
"I think we have assigned seats," Phoebe said, picking up the card with her name on it. Phoebe felt proud to be at Table 1 for the first time in her life, assigned to the seat directly across from the bride and groom. Jim was seated beside her.
"It's fate," Jim said.
Lila picked up her glass, clinking a spoon against it. Gary raised a champagne flute.
"We can't tell you how grateful we've been for your support and your community this week," Gary said. "It's wonderful to be here, in this beautiful hotel, with you all."
When talking to his guests, it felt like the Gary who was sitting next to her in the barbershop was truly gone. This Gary was beardless and had nothing to do with Phoebe at all. But when Gary turned around to gesture at the magnificent ocean behind them, Phoebe saw it: the tiny spot of blood where the barber had nicked him earlier.
"The dinner will be a five-course meal," Lila said. "With a palate cleanser in between. And then after, we'll go down to the beach to enjoy the fireworks and s'mores for the kids. So please enjoy and take your assigned seats."
As they all sat down, Gary's mother stood up.
"Let's hold hands and say grace," Gary's mother said.
Phoebe held hands with Patricia, whose hand was as smooth and dry as a stone, and she worried about crushing it for some reason. On the other side was Jim.
"Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord," Gary's mother said. "Amen."
While half of the room did the sign of the cross, Juice reached out for Jim's wine.
"Can I have a sip?" Juice asked.
"No," Jim said.
"But everyone else is drinking," Juice said.
"When you're older, you'll have time to drink more drinks than you'll ever want. Trust your uncle on this one."
Gary was just watching all of this, always a little stunned by Juice's attempts to get older. Or maybe he was just studying Jim, who was leaning into Phoebe now, very obviously, whispering something in her ear.
"What the fuck is a palate cleanser anyway?" Jim whispered.
"A lemon thing on a spoon," Phoebe said.
"Oh, right, that makes perfect sense."
Phoebe laughed, and in this space so close to Jim, it felt safe to return Gary's gaze. But Gary had already looked away, and it was so strange to Phoebe that humans had learned how to do that—how to look away just in time.
"But what if I die? Not everybody gets their time," Juice said.
"You will not die," Gary said.
"You don't know that," Juice said.
"Yes, I do," Gary said.
"Are you God?"
"He's an adult human," Jim said. "Statistically, most children in America live to see their own drinking age."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I'm an adult human! I know things," Jim said.
Every so often Marla and her husband talked to each other by asking Oliver to do something completely inappropriate, like publicly conjugate a Latin noun, which made the table supremely uncomfortable, though everybody did a good job of not showing it.
"Your second course," the waiter said, and Gary's mother stood up.
"Let's hold hands and say grace," she said.
Lila looked at Phoebe, and Gary and Marla glanced at each other, like they weren't sure if it was the early signs of dementia or the late-stage Catholicism that was making her insist on saying grace before each course. But nobody stopped her.
"Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty," Gary's mother said.
Jim ran his finger alongside Phoebe's palm.
"Through Christ, our Lord. Amen."
After, Jim didn't let go of her hand. Gary and Lila just stared at the two hands, while Phoebe tried to make jokey conversation about when and how often people should say grace in a five-course dinner.
"It's a good question," Jim said. "Which one is the real meal? Which one is the actual dinner for which we must be the most grateful, Professor Stone?"
"Sorry, I don't do philosophical inquiries," Phoebe said. "If you want to debate the categorical nature of a meal, you'll need my ex-husband for that. He's the philosopher."
They laughed and let go of each other.
"We don't need Socrates to tell us that this isn't a meal," Gary's father said. "This is just frou-frou soup. And why's it cold?"
"It's gazpacho," Lila said.
"Gazpacho?" Bootsie said. "Who is Spanish here?"
Gary handed Bootsie's Tupperware to the waiter. "Can you put this in a nice crystal?" he asked.
Then they ate in relative silence, which stretched too long. The clinking of spoons against bowls became unbearable, the acknowledgment that the families had nothing to say to one another, except for Phoebe and Jim.
"I can't believe I haven't asked you this yet," Jim said, "but where are you from again?"
"Missouri," Phoebe said. Phoebe was acutely aware that everyone was listening. "You?"
"Pawtucket, Rhode Island," Jim said. "The last place in America to make its own socks."
"What do you mean?" Phoebe asked.
"Factory closed, and now America doesn't make any of its own socks," Jim said.
"Nowhere in America?" Phoebe asked. She found this both hard to believe and not at all surprising.
"I don't think that's true," Lila said. "Jim just likes to say that for some reason."
"Because it's unbelievable," Jim said. "What can we say about a superpower that doesn't make its own socks?"
"Something about frostbite," Phoebe said.
"Death traditionally starts in the feet," Gary finished.
"That's a little morbid, Gary," Lila said.
The waiter put down the next course. "Filet mignon."
They all waited to see if Gary's mother wanted to say grace again, but she was already cutting into her meat. The platter of tiny steaks seemed like a mistake next to the linen suits, the white lace trim of their lives. Some of the blood pooled at the ridges of the serving plate, and Jim asked, "We're supposed to be doing the speeches after the fourth course, right?" But Lila shushed him.
"Let's just make sure we get through the meal first," Lila said.
Phoebe noticed the lost button on Patricia's blouse. The yellow on Gary's mother's teeth. Oliver, who showed too much white of his eye when he spoke. Juice, who smelled faintly of wet grass and booze. The food in Lila's teeth.
"Lila," Phoebe said, trying to get her attention.
But Lila was worried about the time. "Is the fourth course on its way?" she asked the waiter.
"Yes," he said.
Lila expressed concern about missing the scheduled fireworks at nine, and the waiter assured her he would put in an order to speed things along. And he did. The fish fillets arrived almost immediately, and Gary's mother stood up again.
"Jesus Christ," Patricia said. "Once is fine, expected. Three times, I can't. Enough God! Did God pay for this meal? Did God buy all these tiny steaks? No. I did."
"Actually, Dad did," Lila said.
"Yes! And we should be thanking Henry," Patricia said as she stood up.
"Does this family ever tire of talking about the Trash King?" Bootsie asked, and took a sip of her gimlet.
"Thank you to the Trash King of Rhode Island," Patricia said to everyone. "And of course, the American people for producing so much trash, for never recycling properly, they have made it possible for all of us to be here tonight."
"Mom," Lila hissed. "This is not about you."
"I know that, Lila," Patricia said. "Nothing is about me. I'm aware!"
Gary's mother was still standing, confused, so Gary got up to join her.
"Let's all hold hands," Gary said, and Lila rolled her eyes. But they all held hands and said grace one last time.
"Now we're going to be late to the fireworks," Lila announced after.
"Can we really miss the fireworks?" Jim asked. "We can see the whole sky from up here."
"Yes, Jim, one can miss the fireworks," Lila said. "Because there is a setup down on the beach with a bonfire and blankets and a guy who is probably already making s'mores for everyone."
"Isn't the fun of s'mores that you make them yourself?" Marla asked.
Lila looked like she might explode, but instead she turned to Phoebe and Jim.
"Actually, I think we might have to cut your speeches," Lila said.
"Cut the speeches?" Gary asked.
"Jesus Christ, Lila," Jim said.
"What?" Lila asked.
"Jim worked hard on his speech," Gary said, visibly disappointed by Lila's decision.
Phoebe was disappointed, too. She didn't have a speech, but she was still looking forward to getting up there, speaking in front of the crowd, saying nice things about what Lila had meant to her this week, and really taking her place as Lila's friend. But maybe this was why Lila had no real friends, Phoebe thought. She didn't know how to keep them. She kept trading them in for something else.
"Well, I'm sorry," Lila said. "We're paying a thousand dollars a minute for those fireworks. And we're late already. You can email me the speech tomorrow if you like."
For a moment, Jim looked bereft, as if he might cry, as if this moment had become the moment he feared. He really would get cut out of the family's scheduled programming. But then he smiled to himself, as if he'd just learned something vital. He folded his napkin, put it on the table, and went up to give his speech.
"Jim!" Lila hissed. But he didn't stop. Didn't pull out a piece of paper. He just began talking.
"Well, Gary," Jim said, "we've been through a lot."
He began by listing all the things they did together over the years, like riding horses in Wyoming and building a sandbox for Juice in the backyard.
"But the biggest thing we did together," he said, "was watch my sister"—and that's where Jim got stuck.
He couldn't finish the sentence without crying. Lila held her dessert fork tightly in her hand. Gary looked down at the table. Phoebe felt suddenly nervous for Jim, the way she felt when an unprepared student gave a presentation. Jim bit the side of his fist to keep from crying, and each time he seemed ready to speak, he started to cry again. Eventually, Gary's father stood up and started clapping and said, "We're here for you, Jim." Then everybody started clapping, everyone stood up, and this made Jim cry and laugh at the same time. Finally, when Jim had composed himself, he finished.
"I know I'm not supposed to stand up here and talk about my sister," he said. "But I don't know how else to talk about Gary. I've never known the kind of love that Gary has shown both me and my sister over the years. I never watched a man endure something so painful with so much grace. And on top of all that, he still has time to answer all your questions about whether the colors of your shits are normal—"
Everyone laughed. Lila blushed. Juice took a sip of Jim's wine.
"I mean, the man even asks follow-up questions," Jim said. "Would you say it's more of a mauve? Or a maroon?'"
The room laughed even harder.
"Gary is the best. We all love Gary. Everybody loves Gary. Gary is good. But the one thing he's not good at? Being a wingman," Jim said. He looked at the painting on display. "Because when we were at the gallery that day, I thought I was the one who was hitting on Lila."
The crowd laughed. They heard all of this as a joke—but Lila froze. Lila seemed to know it wasn't a joke.
"I thought, *Who is this enchanting woman?* Because that is one thing we know about Lila. She's enchanting. She has such a big personality. So many ideas. The most particular person I know, you know? Lila knows exactly what she wants. I mean, look at this place—look at these centerpieces, look at how amazing it all is."
The first firework of the evening went off. It exploded behind Jim with a big red burst, but Lila did not see it. She was transfixed by Jim's words.
"Listen to that firework," Jim said, and the crowd laughed. "Who else would have had fireworks? Who else could have made this happen? Who else would have asked us to stay here for an entire week?"
"Six days, Jim," Lila corrected, and the crowd laughed again.
"Not including the travel days," Jim said.
They were good together. A comedy duo.
"See? Lila's bold—God, I really do love it. That's her great gift. That's what is going to make life with Lila so fun. So much bigger than the rest of us could dream for ourselves. And I'm so grateful to have been brought here, after a really dark time, to be given this chance to be included in that dream, to play my small part, to come together. It's what I've missed more than anything."
Another firework. Jim paused, as if he was waiting for the lights to burn out of the sky. Then, he raised his glass. The whole room was moved, and Phoebe could feel it, too.
"A toast, to Lila and my brother Gary," Jim said.
Gary's eyes were bright red with tears. Everyone clapped, and Gary stood to hug Jim. Juice took another swig of Jim's wine just before he took his place back next to Phoebe.
"You going to finish your fillet?" Jim asked.
"No," Phoebe said.
Lila just stared at Jim in silence as he finished the fillet.
"That was so wonderful!" Suz and Nat said, and another firework went off in the distance.
Phoebe looked at Lila. Pointed to her own teeth.
"Oh," Lila said. "Excuse me."
"Was Jim seriously just hitting on me during his best man speech?" Lila asked as soon as they were in the bathroom. "Why is he like that?"
"Because he loves you," Phoebe blurted out.
"He does not love me. He's had about fifteen girlfriends since I met him," Lila said. "He doesn't love anyone."
"That's not true, and you know it. Jim's actually a pretty good guy."
Lila turned to the mirror.
"God, why do I always get food stuck in this one little spot," Lila said. She blamed this on her mother, too. Her teeth were too crowded in her mouth. Too big and white and shiny. She picked at her teeth, and the gesture was so familiar it made Phoebe feel like they were back having their first conversation in the Roaring Twenties.
"Well, you just don't say things like that in a best man speech," Lila said. "He never knows what's appropriate. He's like, feral or something."
"But isn't that what you like about him?" Phoebe asked.
"What do you mean?"
"That he just says things. That he calls you on your shit."
"My shit? What shit?"
"I mean, he tells you the truth. Makes a stupid joke about your mom's painting and makes you laugh."
Lila turned to Phoebe. "If he loves me, then why is he hitting on you, too?"
"Because you're getting married tomorrow!" Phoebe said. "I'm his backup plan. His consolation fuck."
"Wait, are you going to fuck Jim?"
"There's a decent chance I might, yes."
"So something really is happening between you two? I kept telling Gary that I couldn't picture it."
"Why not?" Phoebe asked.
"You're like, so not his type."
"What does that mean?"
"You're just very brainy. In a really lovable kind of way. But you're not a cheerleader type, you know? You're a little… well, suicidal."
Phoebe was shocked by how casually she said it. As if it was no big deal to be suicidal. To have shown up here wanting to die. As if this was just another one of Phoebe's lovable quirks.
"Yeah. And did you ever wonder why I was suicidal?" Phoebe asked. "Did you ever once ask me, Hey, what's wrong?"
"Well, I didn't want to pry."
"No," Phoebe said. "You just wanted to talk at me. You don't care what I have to say."
"That's not true," Lila said. "I literally asked you to stand up and give a speech at my wedding."
"Yeah, and then you cut it."
"I really don't have time for a fight," Lila said. "This is my rehearsal dinner."
So perhaps they weren't going to be friends. Perhaps they were back where they started, Lila obsessed with making sure that nothing ruined her perfect wedding, and Phoebe, always just about to ruin it. Perhaps there really was no such thing as friendship, just as Phoebe thought on the darkest nights back at home.
But Phoebe couldn't let herself fully believe this. It seemed truer to say that friendship was just hard. It required radical honesty. A kind of openness that Phoebe felt for the first time in her life that night she arrived at the hotel, so free and unburdened by anything. So ready to leave this world. But now she was no longer free—she was a person at this wedding, and the responsibilities of being a good friend had already started to change her. She could feel herself wanting to hide things from Lila. Nurture secret feelings in the dark of her mind, because total honesty was terrifying. It felt like it could ruin everything. And maybe this was what Patricia meant about saving yourself. What the Sex Woman meant when she said that Phoebe, for the rest of her life, would have to keep "checking in." Look in the mirror and repeatedly ask herself, *Am I being honest right now?*
"Can I be honest with you about something?" Phoebe asked.
Phoebe didn't want to be like Mia. She didn't want to pretend that her feelings for Gary weren't a real thing growing between them. But she didn't know what being honest in this moment meant. Was telling the bride about her feelings for the groom the most selfish act or the noblest act? She didn't know. The only thing she could think to do was let the bride decide.
"I mean, when do you ever hold back?" Lila asked. "Isn't that kind of your thing?"
"Is it?"
"The first time I met you, you told me you wanted to kill yourself."
Phoebe nodded. It seemed unbelievable to her that she would have told a total stranger that, but now Phoebe could see it clearly as an act of desperation.
"I'm sorry I did that to you," Phoebe said.
"It's all good," Lila said. "But I seriously can't handle any more honesty right now after Jim's speech. I really just need the night to go smoothly. And some floss."
"But I thought you wanted to stop pretending."
"And I thought you were my maid of honor."
"I am," Phoebe said.
"So help me."
Phoebe opened her bag. "Here," she said. "Use this."
"Your table card?" Lila asked, but took it. Started using the sharp corner of the card to poke between her teeth. She got it out. Victory. She reapplied her lipstick. Smacked her lips. Looked at Phoebe like she couldn't be more grateful.
"When we get back there, I want you to give your speech," Lila said. "I'm sorry I cut it. I really want to hear it. I just get so worked up sometimes, you know?"
"I know," Phoebe said.
But when they returned to the patio, they found it nearly empty.
"I told everybody to head down to the fireworks," Gary said. "We'll meet them there."
"But Phoebe hasn't given her speech!" Lila cried. "And we didn't even eat any of the palate cleansers, did we?"
"You don't eat palate cleansers, you have palate cleansers," Marla corrected.
"Jesus Christ, Marla, who cares?" Lila said. "We didn't eat or have any of them, am I right?"
"I do not recall a palate cleanser, no," Gary said.
"For the best," Jim said. "I'm stuffed."
He rubbed his belly like it got bigger during dinner, which it didn't.
"But we paid for them," Lila said.
Lila signaled for help, but it wasn't the waiter who came over. It was Pauline.
"Yes, I'm so sorry," Pauline said. "The waiter came to me with your concerns, and we made the decision to omit the palate cleansers so we could get you all to the fireworks in time."
"You omitted the palate cleansers?" Lila asked.
"I am afraid we did omit them, yes," she said. "The meal was taking a little longer than planned, and we made an executive decision."
"Oh! As long as it was an executive decision," Lila said.
"Lila," Gary said. "It's okay."
"No, it's not okay! This is unacceptable. We ordered one hundred and sixty palate cleansers!"
"I hope you're donating them," Marla said.
"Do people donate palate cleansers?" Phoebe asked. "That just seems… cruel."
"Oh my God, can someone just tell me what a palate cleanser is?" Juice asked.
"Like a lemon thing on a spoon," Jim said.
"A lemon thing on a spoon?"
"I don't know. Ask the professor," Jim said.
"It's just what they always are," Phoebe clarified.
"Pauline, thank you," Gary said. "We'll take it from here."
Pauline nodded, left, and in her absence there was a lot of discussion about whether the hotel had the right to do that—to omit the palate cleanser, to make an executive decision without consulting the bride and groom.
Gary seemed to think it was his responsibility as a kind person to forgive the waiter for whatever choices he made, because he was just a man with no good options, and Lila seemed to think it was her responsibility as the bride to not have her dead father's money wasted on food they were denied.
"We paid a lot of money for this meal," Lila said.
"Okay," Jim said. "Here we go again."
"What do you mean, Here we go?" Lila asked.
"I mean, we know how this is going to play out, because this is how it always plays out, so why don't we just skip over it all and head down to the fireworks to enjoy our night?"
"How does this always play out?" Lila asked.
"You really want to know?"
"I don't think we want to know," Gary said. "Jim, I think you need—"
"No, I really want to know," Lila interrupted.
So did everyone else watching.
"You get upset about something very small and minor," Jim said. "And Gary takes deep breaths and says, Okay, okay, we'll fix this, and then he is going to fix it, and then you'll feel better, until tomorrow when you find something else pointless to melt down about."
"It's not pointless," Lila said.
"It's a lemon thing! On a spoon!" Jim said. "Who cares?"
"I care!" Lila screamed. "I care! What is so wrong about caring? What is so wrong about wanting things to be done right? That's how you make big dreams happen, Jim. That's how you actually build a seaplane. You have to order all the parts and then make sure you get all the right parts, because if you are missing even just one, the seaplane doesn't work!"
"What does any of this have to do with my seaplane?" Jim asked.
"You don't even have a seaplane!" Lila said. "For two years, you've been talking about it like you have this seaplane, but you don't! You haven't even ordered the frame! Because you don't take anything seriously, not even your own dreams. You just sit around and talk about all the shit you're never going to do and all the people who aren't here, and I'm sorry your sister is dead, but you seriously have to move on and start building your seaplane! All of you do."
The family looked at Lila, a little stunned.
"This is tiresome," Jim said. "I'm tired of this."
"Tired of what exactly?"
"I'm tired of you overreacting like this," Jim said. "Yelling at everyone. And Gary just standing there. Look at him. He's just standing there."
They all looked at Gary, and Gary cleared his throat. But he didn't speak. He just continued standing there.
"You're both better than this," Jim said.
Another firework went off in the distance. "Good night," Jim said, and then left like this was the real speech he had been writing inside his head all week. All year.
Phoebe half expected Lila to yell for Jim as he walked away, but she said nothing, as if she was already trying to be her better self.
"Did you know that shrimp eat themselves from the inside?" Juice asked, holding a glass of wine in her hand.
"Are you drinking?" Gary asked.
Marla put up her hand. "I'll handle it," she said.
"Juice," Gary said. "Why are you drinking?"
"I'll handle it," Marla said. "Go down to the Cliff Walk and enjoy the fireworks with your fiancée. That's an order."
Lila and Gary looked at each other, a kind of helpless look, as if they had no idea how to enjoy the fireworks now. But they left, and Oliver looked distressed, like he just realized that something was deeply wrong with the adults in his life. Phoebe remembered sensing the same thing as a child, seeing her father walk a woman to the door after dinner. Never inviting her to stay. Never allowing anyone into his life after her mother. He said goodbye to the woman, whoever she was, and Phoebe could feel him making a mistake, could feel that sometimes doing nothing was the biggest mistake of all.
But Oliver was just pointing at the nude painting of Lila's mother.
"Is that you?" he asked Patricia.
"That's me," Patricia said.
It was Juice who exploded, all over the table. Red vomit everywhere.
"Oh my God," Marla said, hand to forehead.
Marla looked at Phoebe.
"I'm sorry, I just can't," Marla said, and took her husband's hand for the first time since he arrived. "Vomit makes me vomit."
Juice walked silently under the wing of Phoebe's arm, all the way into the elevator.
"I'm so sorry," Juice said.
"I know," Phoebe said.
"I mean, I'm so sad."
"I know."
"I miss my mom."
"I know."
"I wish she could be here."
"I know."
Phoebe felt powerless to help. She imagined this was what mothers often felt. Powerlessness was part of the package. So she did what she could: She brought her to the room Juice shared with Gary. But at the door, Juice just cried.
"I don't want to be in my dad's room," Juice said, and it sounded like she was about to hyperventilate. Like she almost did that day at the wharf. "I just want my mom."
Phoebe felt Juice's cry deep in her heart—she felt it as her own.
"Let's go to my room," Phoebe suggested.
Inside, Phoebe got her a glass of water. She took off Juice's gold shoes. She put a blanket over her. She sat at the edge of the bed and thought, *I would have been a good fucking mother,* and then stroked Juice's hair.
"I'm sorry your mom isn't here anymore," Phoebe said. "But that doesn't mean you're alone."
Juice cried, curled herself into a ball, pulling the blanket up to her chin. Phoebe hoped Lila would grow into the role of mother. She hoped Lila would at least be stepsisterly. That the two of them would bond while watching shitty movies and eating cookies late at night.
"You'll be okay," Phoebe said. "I know you don't believe that now. But you will."
"How do you know, though?"
"Because I didn't have a mother, either," she said. "And I'm okay."
"You're okay?"
"I am okay," Phoebe said, and it felt true. *I am okay. I am alive. I am here.*
When Juice fell asleep, Phoebe looked at her phone. Three missed phone calls from her husband. He has lost control, she thought. She started to listen to the first message but was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"I couldn't just sit there watching the fireworks," Gary said. "Is Juice okay?"
"She's okay now," Phoebe assured him.
"I mean, clearly, she's not okay," Gary said.
"This is hard for her."
He sat down on the love seat. "I kept thinking that at some point it would be easier for her. Maybe as the engagement went on, this would all feel right. I thought my getting married again would be good for us."
The fireworks were loud outside, but Juice didn't budge.
"She must be really drunk," Gary said.
They watched the green and red and blue explosions in the sky.
"Jim was right," Phoebe said. "There's no missing the fireworks."
"Jim is often right." He sighed. "Life is never what you think it's going to be, is it?"
"No," she said. "It's been a very surprising week."
He looked at her. "I certainly didn't expect you."
"I didn't expect any of you. Any of this."
"Phoebe," Gary said, like he was about to start up their conversation from earlier. "I think I'm making a terrible mistake."
But then there was another knock on the door. She could hear her husband's voice asking very loudly, "Phoebe, are you in there?"