London Is the Best City in America (20 page)

When I opened my eyes that morning of Meryl and Josh’s wedding, this was the first thing I felt—that a wedding was going to happen today, that it absolutely would (which meant it should), and that everything was going to move forward as planned. It was bizarre to me that this was my gut reaction.

And yet, for that first seemingly honest minute after I awoke, I got to believe that this feeling cemented something—that any doubts I had been having about whether or not they should get married had turned out to be misguided. For that first minute, it didn’t seem to matter much what had happened yesterday. All of it—the farm and Elizabeth and even Grace—felt like a dream. Maybe I had dreamed it. Because a wedding was going to take place today. I was sure of it. I was so sure of it that I didn’t want to think about the rest of it, and it was the only time since Friday night, since sitting with Josh at the fireworks, that this felt like the right move. Maybe it would all die, disappear somehow, under the importance of what was about to happen.

Then, as if in a rush, I started feeling around for something else that was going on inside me—the stirring up in my stomach—and I remembered. I got to remember again. Matt. Seeing Matt. The two of us sitting together by the waterfall. What was said.

I ran my finger over my lower lip, replaying the scene in my head, slower this time, looking for hints in it. Not so much as to what I should do—which I still couldn’t begin to think about—but what had been done. Was Matt a stranger to me now? Was he anything close to the version of himself that had been living in my head—my heart—for the last several years? Which version was I really holding on to? I wasn’t sure I could formulate anything resembling a real answer. All I knew was that his coming back to me felt so different than I’d imagined it feeling. There wasn’t that element of relief I’d anticipated. It was more complicated than that, less precise. And I didn’t know for certain what had inspired it—his decision to want to try again. But part of me knew him, knew him still, and understood that despite what he had told me, despite his saying that nothing else made him as happy as we had made him, he was also just scared. I had seen it in his eyes. He was scared to go to Paris, scared to take this next big step alone, and he could be sure I would back him up there.

What would happen, though, when Paris wasn’t scary anymore? Would he still be so sure that I was the one he wanted to be with, or would other things—other people—again hold more interest? Would I have to feel again like his love could disappear at any time?

I got out of bed, heading straight to Josh’s room, but he wasn’t in there. The bed was already made, the window wide open. If he had even slept in there at all, he was already up and gone.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to really wake myself up, and moved over to the window. Outside was all sun: the ground dark and hot, everything tinted red. It wasn’t even nine, and it was burning out. I didn’t have to turn on the radio to hear for sure what everyone had been saying. A summer heat wave was raging. Heat already here, and getting stronger. Stay inside unless you really have to be somewhere. Stay inside with the air conditioner on until this whole thing passes us by.

It gave me hope.

The wedding was scheduled for four, but the house was already busy with all of it. I could hear my mother downstairs—sausage frying, the phone ringing. I went down into the kitchen to find my mother by the stove, cooking two large griddles’ worth of pancakes, fresh blueberries melting into them, bananas already in the mix.

“Don’t tell me no one’s going to eat this,” she said as I sat down on the stool, leaning my elbows on the counter.

“I’m going to eat it,” I said.

She turned and looked at me, the spatula in her hand. “I love you,” she said. “Go put some socks on.”

“It’s a million degrees outside,” I said.

“I don’t care. Sickness comes in through the feet.”

She put the spatula down and reached into the cabinet under the sink, emerging with a pair of clean, white tennis socks wrapped in plastic. You would think she had had to be kidding, but of course, she wasn’t. She looked at me imploringly until I reached over and took the socks from her. Then she went back to her pancakes, flipping the soft batter over.

“Have you ever heard of using peanut butter to fry something instead of oil? It’s really good. It gives it a sweet taste.”

“Can we skip the crazy talk this morning?” she asked, not turning around, just motioning with the spatula for me to cover my feet.

I did what I was told, pulling the first sock on.

“So,” she said, “someone left the dinner a little early last night, yes? Tell me. Do we like Mr. Silverman?”

“
We
are too busy thinking about running into Matt.”

She turned and looked at me carefully. “Really?”

I nodded. “At the 7-Eleven last night,” I said. “Kind of near the Slurpee machine. I tried to hide, but, you know I tend to be a little less than quick on my feet.”

She leaned across the counter, reaching for my hand, uncharacteristically not saying anything, which was a good thing. Because if she asked even one other question, I’d have to tell her about his son. I’d have to tell her my heart still seized up at the sight of him, and that I was supposed to see him again tonight. Go through it again tonight. I’d have to tell her the whole story, which I couldn’t begin to get a handle on yet.

“He’s moving to Paris in a couple of weeks,” I offered instead. “He’s looking for a job there now.”

Her eyes stared back at me, small and worried. It was the look she reserved for when she was too worried to even say she was worried. I hated seeing it. I hated doing anything but making her happy. “I’m okay, Mom,” I said. “Really. I just wanted you to know what was going on.”

“Which is what?”

I thought of what Matt had said yesterday about wanting me with him, how that, again, could actually be possible. Maybe more possible than ever, more possible than it even was years ago, because he was ready for it too. He was certain.

“Nothing,” I said.

She nodded, even though I knew she didn’t believe me. Even though I could feel her wanting to say something else. Only before she could even decide whether to, we were interrupted by my ringing telephone. MERYL. Cell.

She looked down at the caller ID so she could see too. “You’re not going to get that?”

“I’m getting it,” I said. But I didn’t make a move to yet, trying to decide what I could say to Meryl to sound the most like myself—the most like a version of myself she’d recognize.

So my mother did it for me. “She’s right here, love,” she said to Meryl, looking at me. “I’ll hand you over.”

I took the phone reluctantly, trying to smile at her as I did, looking totally unsuspicious. I was fairly sure I hadn’t pulled it off. But she returned to the stove anyway, just as I put the phone to my ear.

“Hey there,” I said into the receiver. “How’s the bride?”

“Good,” Meryl said.

But her voice came out quiet, sad, as if she were anything but. In the sound of it, the image of Dr. Moynihan-Richards standing in the dark came swimming back to me. Maybe he’d told her what he heard. Maybe she was sad because she now knew.

“Bess just planned this awful beauty day for me, at the hotel pre-wedding,” she said. “Like a really bad surprise. Or just her attempt to distract me from the fact that it’s two million degrees outside.” She paused. “I was hoping you’d come in and keep me company.”

I looked at the clock. It was only 9:45. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the entire day with Meryl—in case everything came up, or in case nothing did. Either way I’d feel terrible. I wasn’t the one being dishonest with Meryl. Only now I was the one being dishonest with Meryl.

“What time were you thinking?” I asked.

“How’s twenty minutes ago?”

I looked in the direction of the doorway, as if Josh was going to appear and tell me what do. But I knew what he’d want me to do. He’d want me to go. “I’m on my way,” I said.

My mother watched as I hung up the phone. “And that’s the end of you?” I nodded. “Good. It will give me more time to work on my this-is-what-it-all-means speech,” she said.

“You think I need one of those speeches?” I said.

“I think several people around here need one of those speeches,” she said.

I looked down at the list she’d written on the countertop notepad: CALL 4 EXTRA FLOWERS, BAND CHECK-IN AT 2:30 [Sam], SMALL PRESENT FOR BESS, MERYL’S GARTER, COORDINATE AIRPORT PICK-UPS [Sam], EMMY’S VIDEOS TO HOTEL [Sam].

“What’s this?” I said, running my finger over VIDEOS TO HOTEL.

“Oh, I thought it would be fun to watch them tonight after the wedding. We have the suite there, and we can order in popcorn and relax. Have a little Emmy time before you leave us again.”

Leave, again. I should have felt a relief just at the words—at getting out of this situation where things, major things, seemed to be changing every second. But I didn’t feel relief. If it made me feel anything—the thought of going back to quiet Rhode Island, that empty, peaceful house—it made me feel lonely. Before I could argue, though, explain that I didn’t
have
to leave immediately, she stopped me.

“Your dad already has them in the car,” she said, shaking her head. “Under the air conditioner, of course. We’re looking forward to it. It’s already done.”

I squeezed her arm. “Thank you, Mom.”

She smiled. “Don’t thank us. Thank your friend Berringer.”

“Berringer?”

“It was his suggestion that we all watch the videos tonight. He mentioned it when he came to pick up your brother for a morning jog. In this heat, they went. Does that seem like a good idea?”

She shook her head, and I started to walk out of the kitchen, thinking about Berringer, how he had done that, how he cared enough that he wanted to not just hear what I was doing, but see exactly what I was doing.

“Is there something you want me to tell him for you?” she said, stopping me. “Your brother, I mean. I don’t think they’ll be back before you leave.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, but she was looking at me like she did already.

“How did he seem this morning, Mom?” It was the closest I’d come to acknowledging that something was wrong.

She smiled at me. “What are you looking for me to say, Emmy? Like a man who’s about to get married?”

My maid-of-honor dress—the long and strappy number—was being
protected
by a thin, silver garment bag, which actually added a strange light to the dress, making it look closer to sheer. But it was still a bridesmaid dress, and the worst kind of bridesmaid dress—the one the bride would try to convince you that you could wear again. To a southern wedding, maybe, or the Kentucky Derby. Who was going to those places anytime soon? And how was this dress the answer to a future trip? I wasn’t all that thrilled about wearing it even this time. Long dresses like this gave all my curves their chance to shine, and not in a good way.

While a
nice
boyfriend might say it was a good look for me, a more honest one would admit that straight and sheer like this made me look a little un-thin. But at this point I was so full of guilt about everything I knew and everything I couldn’t do that I was anxious to wear this dress if it could make everything okay for Meryl—if it could somehow make yesterday and Elizabeth and Grace keep feeling far away. Not because I wanted to forget them, but because I wasn’t sure how I could go on remembering them, and ever forgive Josh. In this, I knew Josh and I were still the same. I knew he wanted to forget them too—had probably spent years trying to do so—so he could start to forgive himself. How had that worked out for him?

I carried the dress and the rest of my belongings back through the bushes over to the Wademans’, where June’s Volvo was waiting for me. I got in, squeezing into the already overcrowded backseat my garment bag and purse and the key chain I’d bought for Meryl in Newport last week. This had been my plan for my toast. To give Meryl the key chain with just one key on it and to tell her the story about Josh and me and our key collection. To say that it was so nice that now he had the one key that could open any door. It was corny, I knew, but I also thought they’d love it. Meryl and Josh. And this had seemed like the point. Now it seemed like I needed a new plan, a more honest one.

I backed the car out of the parking spot quickly, heading for the Hutch. To get there, I had to pass by the turnoff for Matt’s street, which was something I couldn’t bear doing right then.

“He has a
son.
” I said it first in my head—then out loud to myself, so I’d have to hear it, this time, what it really meant. Any woman he was with now would assume that was the reason she didn’t have his full attention. That the child was the reason. That he was the main reason there was just a piece of Matt she didn’t have. And she’d be able to forgive it. His absence.

When I hit the highway, I turned on the radio just in time to hear a local DJ talking about the weather today. “If it gets any hotter out there,” he said, “I can scramble an egg on my own forehead.”

“God knows you have enough grease on that skin of yours,” the sidekick answered him.

Gross. I was sick of hearing these weather reports. I was sick of hearing about records. I changed the station. Air Supply. It wasn’t the song “Making Love Out of Nothing at All,” it was the other one by them that everyone knew. The one that ended well. Josh and Meryl’s wedding song. It seemed like hearing it signified something, but I didn’t know what. Except a reminder that Air Supply sucked.

My cell phone rang in the glove compartment. I reached for it, grabbing it on the third ring. JAMES BERRINGER. James Berringer? I hadn’t put his number there—had never in my life even called him James.

“Hello?” I said, confused.

“Hello yourself,” he said.

I double-checked the caller ID—then triple-checked it—as if his voice hadn’t been enough to make me sure that it was, in fact, him. “How did your number get stored in my phone?”

“I put it there after you took off last night.”

“You put it there last night?”