In the morning, Marla was in the conservatory. She announced she wasn't leaving until she saw Gary. In the meantime, yes, she was absolutely going to eat the wedding brunch.
"Carlson's is the one who put it out," Marla said.
"I didn't say anything," Phoebe said.
"Is there some rule about only getting to eat the brunch if the wedding takes place?"
"It just feels a little wrong, no?"
"What feels wrong is watching avocado turn brown right in front of your face."
"It feels like someone died," Juice whispered.
"Nobody died," Marla said. "This is just food. And somebody needs to eat it."
"Did it have anything to do with us?" Juice asked.
"We could have been nicer," Marla said.
"But that's not why she left," Phoebe assured them.
Soon, others joined. The mother, the father. Marla's husband. Jim, too. But no groom. They ate cantaloupe and told stories about Gary in his absence, stories that had nothing to do with Lila. Stories of Gary's past. That time he hid the statue of David when he threw a party in high school. When he was a small boy sneaking something off the counter. Phoebe got the feeling they were telling the stories for her.
"He was seriously in love with doughnuts," Marla said to Phoebe. "I mean, it was a problem. Our mother used to keep them up on the highest shelf above the stove, and he was trying to climb up to get them and somehow accidentally turned the burner on. He didn't realize it, though. Went upstairs. By the time he had finished the whole box of doughnuts, the house was on fire."
"Ever since that fire, Gary's tried to be Mr. Perfect," Gary's mother told Phoebe.
Each time someone new walked in to join them, Phoebe hoped it was Gary. But it never was. It was Uncle Jim. It was Roy.
"It's the whole goddamned family!" Jim shouted into the phone. "Get your ass down here, Gary."
"Is he okay?" Gary's mother asked Jim.
"Oh, leave the man alone!" Gary's father said. "He was just dumped."
But Phoebe pulled out her phone. She didn't want to leave him alone. The man was just dumped. Right now, he should not be alone if he didn't want to be. He should at least have the option.
*You should know that the family is telling stories about you right now,* she texted Gary.
Her phone dinged right away. But it was just her ex-husband, texting to say he had made it back to St. Louis alive. She wondered when he would stop texting her proof of life. Perhaps that would be the true end of the marriage, when they no longer needed to know: *Are you still alive?*
IN THE LOBBY, new wedding people were arriving with titanium-strength suitcases, looking for places to store them while their rooms were cleaned, and it reminded Phoebe that she needed luggage.
"Custom Canvas is on Thames," Pauline suggested.
"Is there, like, a Marshalls or something?" Phoebe asked, and Pauline wrote down an address. Then Pauline went to put up a new sign in the lobby: WELCOME TO THE WEDDING OF SOPHIA AND STEPHEN.
She was glad that Lila was not here to see it. Awful for the bride to watch another bride take her place—even if she was not really the bride anymore. She was just a woman who was eating poutine in Canada with her mother.
*My mother keeps hitting on our waiter solely because he is getting a master's in pre-Raphaelite art,* Lila texted.
The early birds milled around, some already holding little white welcome bags. Half the room was saying hello, half was saying goodbye. They were exchanging numbers, saying, *Stay in touch, let's get together in a year,* and she wondered if they would. She hoped they would but suspected they wouldn't. Perhaps this week was just a special moment in time. All of them together here, in this lobby, never to be so again.
"So how long is too long to wait before we call them?" Jim asked.
Phoebe smiled. "I'm sure Lila will explain that to you in detail when you call."
"Well, Phoebe, I do hope we're not done with each other just yet," Jim said.
Phoebe hoped for that, too. So she did what felt like the most ridiculous thing to her: She gave him her number, hugged him, and said, "Let's be friends."
It made her feel five years old in the best way.
"As long as you don't use me for my weed hookup," he said. "I'm never getting high with you again."
"Two weeds, please," she said.
Jim laughed. Phoebe watched him get in his Uber. He stepped into the dark hole, just a person in jeans and a T-shirt. No longer the best man. An engineer on his way to Pawtucket, where there were apparently no more socks.
She wondered if this transformation had already happened to Gary. She wondered where and when he had shed his tuxedo. She wondered if he was somewhere still wearing it.
IN MARSHALLS, SHE stood in a long line of other people buying things when she got his text.
*Is it the story about hiding the statue of David when I threw a party in high school?* Gary asked.
*Yes. And also the one about you lighting the house on fire.*
*So predictable.*
*Why did you hide your mother's statue of David?*
*This was pre-Wendy. I couldn't see art yet, remember? All I saw was a naked man sitting on my mother's console.*
*You definitely didn't use the word console then.*
*No, I just found out about the word, actually. I can't stop using it. Hey, where are you?*
*In Marshalls trying to decide what suitcase to buy.*
*What are the options?*
*Is this something you really want to know right now?*
*Anything helps.*
*Either a hard-backed case that could survive space travel or a soft shell that can somehow charge my cell phone.*
*Guess it depends. Are you going to the moon?*
*St. Louis.*
She didn't realize it until she typed it. But she needed to go back before she moved into the mansion. She needed to say goodbye to Harry. She needed to clean the crumbs off the counter. Turn off the water. Pack up her things. Get it ready to sell. Set herself up for the next part of her life. She felt strong enough now to face it.
*Oh,* Gary wrote. *That moon.*
*Not forever,* she wrote. *Where are you?*
*In the hot tub.*
*Don't move.*
SHE TAKES A CAB back, but there was so much traffic, she decided near the end that it would be quicker to run. But running with a giant suitcase was difficult, and she was tired and sweating by the time she made it back to the hotel.
In the lobby, everything was so still and serene, she slowed down. This was one of those really great moments, she thought. This was everything she loved about life. She wanted to savor it. She left the suitcase with Pauline. She trailed her fingers on the wall like she was already the winter keeper, checking for dirt. She admired the trim along the bookcase. Flipped a book around, then nodded at the new wedding people. Poured herself a glass of the spa water, which she knew was just regular water with cucumbers in it. It wasn't magic water. But everything felt like magic inside of her.
Outside, there was Marla, two legs in the tub. Juice, submerged up to her ears. The clouds, protecting them all from the vast, unknowable void. And there, underneath it all, the groom.
THE GROOM IS no longer a groom. Now he was just a man in a hot tub, wearing an orange bathing suit so bright Phoebe could see it glow through the water.
"Don't tell me you've been here this whole time?" Phoebe asked Gary.
"It's become medically unsafe," Gary said.
"Dad's having a spa day," Juice said.
They laughed.
"He deserves it," Marla said.
"It's no Bourbon Bubbler," Gary said. "But it'll do."
Juice stood up. Her face was flushed. "I need to get in the pool."
"You should get out, too, Gary," Marla ordered.
"I will, when my back stops hurting."
"You need to see a doctor about that when you get home," Marla said.
"He is a doctor," Juice reminded them.
"But you can't be the doctor of your own back," Marla insisted.
"That's certainly not how I'd go around phrasing it," Gary said.
They all laughed.
"Hi, I'm Gary. I'm a doctor of my own back," Juice practiced.
"See?" Gary said. "Doesn't sound right."
Marla got out. "Time to go."
"Time for the pool," Juice said, and did a cannonball before Marla could reach her.
Phoebe dangled her legs in the water. She felt nervous for a moment but then remembered: This was Gary. It was okay to say anything to Gary. Gary had watched a woman die. Gary had been left at the altar. Gary was just a regular man in a hot tub.
"So," Phoebe said.
"So," Gary said.
They both laughed again.
"How are you doing?" Phoebe asked. "You know, besides your back."
"Oh," he said. "I'm feeling very weird right now."
"Weird how?"
"I have been having some very weird thoughts."
"Go on."
"Well, a butterfly landed on my forearm a bit ago, and I thought, *Oh, how sweet. How nice.* But then I thought, *What if it's not nice?*"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, do we actually know why butterflies land on us?"
"I'd like to believe science has progressed beyond that point."
"Well, I've never heard any theories on it."
"Should we be suspicious about that, though?"
"Yes! We don't think it's sweet when flies land on our food. Because flies vomit every time they land on food. Did you know that?"
"That's not a myth?"
"No. They need to do it, to digest the food," he said. "So what if butterflies are like that, too? What if they, like, orgasm every time they sit on your forearm?"
"You think that's why they do it?"
"The horny bastards."
"And we think it's so sweet."
"And they're like, *Uh huh.*"
"So I see things are going really well for you here, Doctor."
He laughed. "Now it's your turn."
"For what?"
"I said a weird thing so now you need to say a weird thing. Balance me out."
"Fair enough. Okay. Well. I don't wash my back unless I'm married to someone."
"That's not weird. Who washes their back?"
"Obviously not you."
"That's the worst you got? That's your secret? That your back is filthy?"
"Yep."
"I, for one, am scandalized."
A squirrel hopped along the ridge of the hot tub.
"So where did you go yesterday?" she asked.
"The cemetery," he said.
He had spent the night driving around, unsure of where to go. He just had to get out and away from all the people. He couldn't face them.
"I wanted to talk to you," he said. "But it would have been too confusing."
So he drove to the cemetery and sat by his wife's grave until he fell asleep.
"Jim was right," he said. "I was a totally different man with Wendy. A better person. Because I was in it. But with Lila, I really was just standing there. I let her run the whole relationship. Like she was my camp counselor or something. And I did love her for it. How could you not? I felt such… gratitude, if that makes any sense. Such appreciation. She made things happen. She performs life very well. If it's her birthday, she throws a party. If there's a week off, she'll book a grand tour of Europe. If she's getting married, she'll throw the goddamned most elaborate wedding possible. That kind of thing made me feel… part of the world again. Part of something bigger than myself, you know?"
"I know."
"But then all the people would go home or we'd be on the airplane, and there'd be nothing to say. Or I felt like everything I said annoyed or bored her. And I guess I kept trying because it felt like my fault. Maybe I was annoying? Or really boring? And here was this wonderful woman who was offering me a second chance at a normal life, a wonderful woman who just booked us a trip for two to Paris, and Germany, and all the places I dreamed of going, so don't screw it up. Don't sit on the plane and cry about your dead wife. Instead, I'd sit on the plane trying to come up with things to talk about at dinner. Would literally plan out topics of conversation. Like I was practicing being a person. And she was right to run away from all that. Lila was brave. I told her that back at the hotel. I told her she was very brave."
It occurred to Phoebe that maybe, in some way, they were all brave. Even her husband—not for lying, not for cheating, that was not brave. But for going after what he wanted. For being the one who could admit when something was wrong. For packing a suitcase and leaving the house because the house was sick.
"And Lila told me everything," he said. "How she had actually been interested in Jim, and Jim had been interested in her, and how much she hates art. Honestly, that was the part that confused me the most. She kept going on about how she didn't want to be in a marriage where she was expected to sit around and talk about the Cubists every day. Which was very confusing, since I don't think I've ever said one thing about the Cubists in my life."
"Now you have."
"And she wanted to go to Canada? Said something about learning how to ski."
"She doesn't know how to ski already?"
"I know, I was surprised," Gary said. "I was like, *Wait, this whole time you didn't know how to ski! Had I known, I would have called the wedding off months ago.*"
"Obviously."
"It spooks me," he said, "that I didn't call off the wedding. After the rehearsal dinner, when I came to you, I knew something was wrong."
"So what happened?"
"I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust what I was feeling."
"Funny how you can live long enough, go through enough, and learn how to stop trusting yourself."
"And by funny, I assume you mean terrifying," Gary said. "Because I mean, I wasn't happy, but I didn't think that was a problem, because I was convinced happiness wasn't real. Until I met you. But I didn't trust that feeling, either. I just met you. It was my wedding week. And then your husband showed up, and so after I left you in your room, I waited for hours to see if you would text me. Like that would decide it. Like it was some kind of test of the universe. If she texts me, this is real. If she texts me, I'll call it off. I'll take the plunge."
"But I didn't."
"I should have done it anyway."
It was not an easy thing to do, walk away from what you've built and save yourself. Destroying Phoebe's marriage felt like destroying herself. Walking out of the classroom felt like killing the twenty-two-year-old who tried to save her own life by applying to graduate school. It was so much easier to sit in things and wait for something to save us. For the past two years, Phoebe sat in the bad things the way she used to sit in the snow as a child. An hour would go by and it would be very hard for her to get back up. Eventually she looked down at her toes and became confused: *Why are they frozen?* It was her father who picked her up, said, *It's time to come inside.* But now she had to learn when it was time to come inside. She had to learn to check in with her toes when nobody else was looking. To care for them when no one else would.
The new bride walked out onto the pool deck.
"The rain is going to be a problem," the bride said. "But the tent will be set up here for tonight?"
"Yes," Pauline said, taking notes.
The bride gave the two of them in the tub a look, like she was suspicious of them—they were strangers in a tub who did not give a shit about her wedding. They had the power to make the bride's wedding totally ridiculous with one glance, make the fuss of it all seem so unnecessary. Turn her into a queen or a fool, just like that.
But Phoebe smiled, and the bride smiled back. It was too easy to turn the bride into everything we wanted to be or everything we once were and could never be again. Too easy to forget that she was brave, too, her heels clicking as she circled the pool, dreaming up a whole life.
"I feel like we're supposed to get out or something," Gary said.
"We still have twenty minutes until checkout," Phoebe said.
"Good."
Gary leaned his head back against the edge of the tub to look up at the sky, while Phoebe looked around at all that was before her. She felt the wind against her cheek and the warmth of her toes. She felt excited about the rain that was going to come soon. She listened to the birds in the trees and the sounds of other people's children swimming in the pool. Juice, who would one day grow up and forget what she ever loved so much about hotel pools. She would stay at beautiful hotels around the world and never once use the pool. She would look in the mirror and think, *Who the fuck am I? Why did I ever want to be called Juice? My name is Melanie.* She would have to practice saying her full name—all of them would. Because Gary was not wrong—becoming who you wanted to be was just like anything else. It took practice. It required belief that one day, you'd wake up and be a natural at it.
"I'm going to become a winter keeper," Phoebe said.
"Congratulations," Gary said. "Though I knew Geoffrey was going to give you that job."
"Because it's classic Geoffrey?"
"It's classic you," he said, and it felt exhilarating to hear him say that. To talk about her like he knew her. "Who else would be better at living in a mansion with terrifyingly large gargoyles on the roof?"
"In theory, the gargoyles will be there to protect me," she said.
"Is that in their contract?"
"Since the thirteenth century."
"I like that you know when gargoyles were invented," he said.
Phoebe laughed. "I like that you just used the word *invented*."
"Well, that's how it happened," Gary said. "Some little boy in the thirteenth century had a dream that one day he'd grow up and invent gargoyles and he did. Don't ruin this for me, Phoebe."
"They were basically just the plumbing at first," Phoebe said. "Just harmless, medieval gutters."
"Medieval gutters that happen to be shaped like monsters," Gary said. "How does that not scare you?"
"I don't know—it might," Phoebe said.
When they got out of the hot tub, Gary looked at her and she looked back at him. "You know I meant it about you calling me if you see a ghost."
"What if I don't see a ghost? Some in the scientific community might argue that there is no proof of their existence."
"Call me anyway," Gary said.
UPSTAIRS, SHE PACKS her suitcase. She liked her new luggage, how sturdy it was. When she left, she rolled it with ease down the hallway, past the copper sconce. By the time she was in the elevator, she was convinced it would do everything the label promised it would do.
In the lobby, she stopped in front of the bookcase. She put *Mrs. Dalloway* back on the shelf, spine facing out. She was so good at predicting what would happen in books, so bad at predicting what would happen in life. That was why she had always preferred books—because to be alive was much harder. To be alive, she must leave this hotel, despite the uncertainty of everything. Walk down the long hallway of that mansion come winter, not knowing what would become of her, which was a thing that did scare her. But she also felt a thrill imagining the candles she'd light at night. Frank, the nineteenth-century yellow dog, who would sleep on her bed as she wrote. The snow dusting the ocean.
She walked through the marble lobby, and it felt like something huge was ending, but she knew it wasn't. She knew this was a story that she would tell again and again for the rest of her life, and that one of these days, she'd tell it as a beginning. Some of the details would be long forgotten by then, but some would live on each time she and Gary bickered over the most unimportant parts, like what exactly was coastal business casual and why were all the books turned backward and are coconut pillows really better than regular pillows?
"Thank you, Pauline," Phoebe said, stopping just before the front doors to say goodbye. But Pauline was focused on the new wedding people, looking one of them so deeply in the eye, she didn't see Phoebe wave and walk out through the heavy velvet drapes and into the bright light.
"Your car," the doorman said, and took her luggage.
Phoebe paused on the stoop for just a moment, tempted to see everything as she did when she first arrived, as if the people and the brick walkway and the trees were props in a play. But then she tipped the man in burgundy and stepped forward into the world.