It Had to Be You

by Georgia Clark

  Zia breathed in once, twice, and set off on her bike, coasting down the wide, sunny street. You’re free, she told herself, still trying to believe it.

  10

  It was a gorgeous, sunny morning in SoHo—the kind that makes the city look like a backdrop for a movie where everyone gets what they want in the end. Sunshine splashed over the yellow cabs and glinting skyscrapers. Why would you live anywhere else?

  The bagel shop guy rang up Darlene Mitchell’s breakfast order. “Eighteen dollars.”

  Ouch: that was why. Darlene was frugal, but being frugal in New York was like trying to be sober at a wedding. Still, it was satisfying the order came out even. Darlene’s car volume, thermostat, and her alarm were always set to even numbers. Just a little bit of symmetry in an uneven world.

  She was humming as she reached for the twenty-dollar bill tucked in her wallet. The twenty-dollar bill that was decidedly not there. No: it had to be. She definitely had a twenty. A twenty… that she spent on a cab last night. She’d waited three hours for a five-minute slot at a crappy open mic in Sunset Park. By the time her name was called, it was 2:00 a.m. and the audience had reduced to drunk white guys who stared at her boobs. A cab seemed like an act of self-care. Now, the familiar low-grade panic about being a doomed, broke musician made it look like a foolish indulgence. Darlene handed over a credit card, trying not to think about her elephantine student loans and astronomical rent. She left a good tip—relying on tips herself, it was impossible not to—and stepped outside.

  A few minutes past their agreed-on time, Zia glided to a stop, dismounting her bike with the ease of someone who enjoyed outdoor activities. “Hey babe. Sorry I’m late: took the scenic route. Such a beautiful day!”

  “Hey lady.” Darlene hugged her tightly. “So good to see you!”

  She and Zia had met while carpooling to an In Love in New York wedding years ago. They talked so much Darlene had to remind herself not to overdo it before singing all night.

  “How was Cambodia?”

  Zia locked up her bike. “Incredible: the food, the kids—I wanna go back.”

  “Take me with you,” Darlene groaned. “The most adventurous thing I’ve done since I saw you last was go to Sunset Park.”

  Zia laughed. “Where’s Zach?”

  It was 10:35 a.m. “Officially five minutes late. But if he appeared right now, he’d actually be fifteen minutes early, according to Zach time.”

  They got into the rental car parked outside Zach’s chrome-and-steel apartment complex. Zach rented his condo from his parents, probably for less than Darlene paid for her postage-stamp-size spot in East Williamsburg. The two women began on breakfast: cream cheese bagel for Zia, who had the metabolism of an Olympian, and a large green juice for Darlene.

  “Oh my God,” Zia groaned. “So good. I want to marry this bagel.”

  “A lot of men are going to be sad they lost out to a piece of boiled bread.”

  Zia snorted. “Yeah, right.” She’d always regarded her attractiveness with neutral detachment, even mild embarrassment, which Darlene both admired and felt a little jealous of.

  “What about you?” Zia asked. “Still dating that political commentator guy—Charles?”

  “Broke up a few months ago.” Darlene flipped the driver-side mirror down and adjusted the wig she usually wore to wedding gigs. Bouncy waves of shiny black tickled her skin. “My love life is officially on hold until I record an EP.”

  “Awesome.” Zia licked cream cheese off her pinkie. “How’s all things music?”

  It was a polite inquiry, and a genuine one. Everyone was interested in the path of the artist, excited for success, sympathetic about setbacks. Firm in their belief that for good people, tenacity and talent paid off. But what Darlene didn’t realize about choosing to forgo a reliable nine-to-five in favor of the nebulous dream of being a full-time musician was how often she’d have to play the role of optimistic striver. No one wanted to hear that dream chasing could be tiring, demoralizing, and financially crippling. Not that she wanted to share that uncomfortable truth. While Darlene Mitchell could sing songs that were full of emotions, she was not particularly good at expressing them. There was something about that sort of vulnerability that made her feel exposed. Or worse still, pitied. So when people asked about how her music “career” was going, she’d usually slap a smile on her face and say, Great! I’m performing pretty much every weekend! (Unpaid open mics or jazz gigs covering other people’s songs, but still: the truth.) But Darlene didn’t need to pretend around Zia. She huffed an exasperated breath. “I’m twenty-nine. I need to get off the wedding-party circuit and into an actual studio. Record my own songs.”

  “With Zach?”

  Darlene let out a soft snort. “No.”

  “Why not? You always say he’s so talented.”

  “He is. But Zach has other… priorities.”

  As if on cue, a uniformed doorman opened the building’s front door for Zach and a buttery blonde in a miniskirt. This was Lauren (Laura?), a pharmaceutical rep. They’d met at a wedding; she’d been a bridesmaid. She and Zach had been dating for about six weeks. Zach dated someone for about six weeks a lot.

  Lauren (Laura?) put her arms around Zach’s neck. He leaned down for a kiss, which quickly lengthened into a full-on make-out.

  A scalding rush of anger that only Zach could inspire exploded in Darlene’s stomach. Could he go one month without charming the pants off some Bachelorette wannabe? And did they all have to constantly hook up in front of her? She leaned on the horn, hard. The sound broke the lovers apart with a satisfying jump. Zach shot her an apologetic grin, the kind of warm, winning smile that forgave just about anything. After one more stomach-churning kiss, he loped toward the car… before stopping to let a jogger pass. Then a dog walker. Then he was chasing the dog walker halfway down the block to return the guy’s dropped glove. Jesus, they were already late! Finally, he popped the trunk to store his guitar, the case plastered with UK flags and a BRITS DO IT BETTER sticker.

  “Morning, Mitchell.” He slid into the back seat. “Hello, Zia, love: long time. Ooh, is that bagels I smell?”

  The trio hadn’t worked a wedding together since November, nearly six months ago. The one on Long Island, where a flock of pigeons got loose in the kitchen and Liv found out poor Eliot had died. The last time Darlene had seen Liv was at the funeral. She’d been surprised to get another booking. In Love in New York was still alive.

  “Hey, Zee-Bot.” Zia twisted around in her seat. “Blondie was cute. Predictable, but cute.”

  “Don’t get attached.” Zach arched his back like a satisfied cat. “I think our time together is coming to an end.”

  You could set your watch to it. Darlene pulled into traffic.

  Zach eyed the bagel in Zia’s hand and tickled Darlene’s neck. “Tell me you got ol’ Zachie some breakfast, Darlene, my darling?”

  She swiped him away. “You didn’t reply to my email about the new arrangement for ‘At Last.’ ”

  He met her eyes in the rearview mirror, eyebrows up. “The one you sent at midnight last night?”

  “ ‘At Last’ is the first dance,” she pointed out. “It’s special.”

  “I know, I know. Well, we can go through it now. We do have a three-hour drive ahead of us.” Zach ran a hand through his hair and yawned. “As long as I can work in a quick nap. Barely got a wink last night.”

  “You’re so unprofessional,” Darlene muttered, changing lanes.

  “They’ll put it on my gravestone. Here lies Zach. He lived unprofessionally.”

  He did. Lavishly and without regret. With his flop of light brown hair, decent body, and that outrageously effective smile, Zach was cute. Less hot, more attainable. Very, very attainable. And so Zach Livingstone lived unprofessionally. Sometimes twice a night. He fixed Darlene with disconcertingly blue eyes through the rearview. “Bagel?”

  Darlene sighed and plucked the bag between her legs. “Sesame. With scallion cream chee
se.”

  “My favorite!” Grabbing it, he smooched Darlene’s cheek. Scratchy stubble and warm, soft lips. The spot where he kissed her pulsed, sending a false alarm down her entire body. Flustered, she almost swerved into the next lane.

  “Watch it,” she snapped, as the car next to them blared its horn. “Or that gravestone’ll become a reality.”

  “Easy, Mitchell. I come bearing treats.” Zach leaned forward between the girls, presenting both fists. Zia tapped the closest. He opened it to reveal a fat joint. In the other, a lighter.

  Zia laughed and high-fived him.

  “You’re not smoking that in here,” Darlene said.

  “Duh. We’ll get high at a rest stop and buy loads of terrible junk food. My treat.” Zach grabbed the car’s auxiliary cable and plugged in his phone. The swaggering, slippery groove of Salt-N-Pepa filled the car: “Shoop shoop ba-doop shoop ba-doop, shoop ba-doop ba-doop.”

  Zach turned it up, seat-dancing in time with Zia, twisting left, then right, left, then right. “ ‘Here I go, here I go, here I go again…’ ”

  As if Darlene could expect anything less from Zach “I Bring the Party” Livingstone. And it was always fun to hear him sing in an American accent. Giving up, she joined in—“ ‘Girls, what’s my weakness? Men!’ ”—pulling onto the West Side Highway.

  * * *

  Just over three hours later, the trio pulled into the service parking lot of Dave and Kamile’s wedding venue. It was a glorious May day in the Catskills. A warm breeze ruffled the apple tree blossoms, sending white petals floating through the clean, country air. Darlene was still climbing out of the front seat when a very enthusiastic blonde appeared out of nowhere, introducing herself as “Savannah Shipley, from the emails.” A small-town beauty queen not quite pretty enough to take State. She handed Darlene a form. “It’s an NDA.” Evidently, Savannah-from-the-emails was excited by this. “Nondisclosure agreement. We have a celebrity guest attending today’s wedding.”

  Darlene skimmed the form and scrawled her signature. She’d performed at plenty of weddings with high-profile guests. They didn’t really affect her but for the fact the other guests were usually paying more attention to them than her, the person onstage.

  Savannah thrust a form at Zia, beaming. “You’re a server, right? You’ll be circulating around our celebrity guest.” She bounced on her toes. “It’s Clay Russo!”

  The name was vaguely familiar, but Zia couldn’t conjure a face. “Football player?”

  Savannah’s jaw dropped. “Movie star.”

  Zia didn’t really keep abreast of popular culture. The idea of sitting in a dark room for hours on end, staring at a screen, felt a bit oppressive. She’d rather be outside, in her body, in the air. She signed the NDA and handed it back. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “It’s better you don’t keep an eye out,” Savannah corrected. “He’s actually very private, and I think he’s going through a breakup, according to the tabloids, so we should all—Oh. Hello.”

  Zach emerged from the back seat, yawning. “Gosh, I just had the most amazing dream.” He locked eyes with Savannah. “Or maybe it hasn’t yet ended?”

  Darlene shuddered. Zach did land most of their gigs by flirting with female wedding planners or bro-ing out with male venue bookers. But seeing white male privilege in action was still gross.

  “This is Liv’s new business partner,” she said pointedly.

  “Welcome to the family.” Zach smiled. “Although surely you being here is a little unfair.”

  The girl’s eyes pulsed in… was it alarm? “What do you mean?”

  Zach’s smile was conspiratorial. “How does it look for the wedding planner to be more beautiful than the bride?”

  Darlene mimed gagging to Zia and popped the trunk. “We have to set up.”

  Savannah addressed Zach. “You’re the DJ, right? Do you need a green room?”

  Darlene exchanged a look of incredulity with Zach. Not the first time he was treated like an artist, while she was treated like staff.

  “I don’t need a green room.” Zach winked at Savannah. “But next time, feel free to offer that to Darlene too. She’s the actual talent here.”

  The two musicians lugged their equipment to a small wooden stage overlooking the grassy field where they’d be playing cocktail hour. It was a pretty venue, typical for the area, but Darlene wasn’t taking in the lush trees and nearby pond. The thought of Zach seducing Savannah made her feel a bit ill. Reading her mind, Zach chuckled.

  “Don’t worry. She’s not my type.”

  “She’s the human equivalent of a vanilla cupcake.” Darlene plugged in the amp. “She’s exactly your type.”

  Zach laughed and placed the mic stand center stage. “What, are you jealous?”

  “Besides losing my voice or waking up with crab claws for hands, dating you is actually my worst nightmare.”

  “A fair point, well made.” Zach plugged the mic into the mixer and started adjusting the levels. “How’s everything going with your EP?”

  Darlene glanced over in surprise. She’d only mentioned her dream of recording an EP—a shorter version of a full-length album—to Zach once.

  “I remembered.” He almost sounded offended. “I’m excited for you. You’re a genius, Mitchell, and soon, everyone will know it.”

  That was the thing about Zach. Just when you decided to be annoyed with him, he’d turn around and be disgustingly earnest. “I haven’t got any finished songs yet. But I found a producer I like. He’s not cheap, but he’s good, and he gets me. Now I just need the cash.” She positioned the tip jar at the front of the small stage.

  “Why can’t you just ask your dad for money? Didn’t he write a million books?”

  “He’s written four.” Darlene’s father was a professor of African American studies at Oberlin. But the Mitchell family motto was basically Do it on your own. “I haven’t asked my dad for a thing since I moved out.”

  “There’s such a thing as being too self-sufficient. Let people help you.” Zach plugged the pedals into his guitar, testing them one by one. “You know what they say. Behind every strong woman is an almost-as-strong man.”

  “Not behind me. I don’t want my success handed to me. I want to earn it.”

  “Honorable. You know you’re my hero, Mitchell.” Zach pushed his hair out of his eyes, watching her reach up to swivel the PA. “I might actually be in love with you.”

  Darlene rewarded this with a withering smile. “Save it for the bridesmaids, Livingstone. All I need to hear is you learning the first dance in less than thirty minutes, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Zach pulled a guitar pick from his pocket and faultlessly started the new arrangement of “At Last.”

  11

  One of the things a newly engaged couple didn’t realize about their decision to have a wedding was that their task was not to plan a ceremony. Or a party. It was a show. A high-stakes, high-drama, once-in-a-lifetime show. That was one of the things that hooked Liv in—the sight of everyone dashing around as they drew closer to the curtain call, perfecting the set for the arrival of the cast (the wedding party) and the audience (their guests). It recalled the thrill of acting in New York in her early twenties, except these shows were real life, and she was actually being paid.

  But today, Liv was an actor who couldn’t remember her lines. She kept feeling there was something missing. Over and over again, she’d check the run sheet, sensing a major oversight. And every time, she remembered what it was. Or rather, who it was. Eliot and weddings were as interconnected as an infinity ring. They’d met at the very first one Liv had planned.

  She was twenty-five. Her hair was long, and her dresses were short. The dream of becoming the next Winona Ryder was starting to crumble under the weight of ego-crushing auditions. Appalled at what a snobby Manhattan planner was charging an old friend from acting class, she offered to help. It turned out beautifully, a relaxed late-summer affair in Prospect Park with a jazz q
uartet and lawn games. The couple said their I dos with wet cheeks and full hearts, and just for a moment, the world was perfect. Love was real, and people were good, and there was hope for the entire human race. Liv didn’t know it at the time, but that sort of feeling would sustain her for years to come. It renewed her passion, buoying her through the less fun (aka utterly shitful) aspects of full-time wedding planning. Maybe she’d catch it in the father-daughter dance, or the best man toast, or the way a newly married couple would gaze at each other, so full of wonder. The world was run by madmen and bastards. But we could also love one another. We could also be tender.

  As the dinner finished up, and everyone was feeling nicely tipsy, Liv had tucked her long locks behind her ears and tapped her glass, commanding the attention of the guests. She’d told a few jokes and a suitably embarrassing story about the bride mistaking an audition call for Sun-Maid raisins as being for A Raisin in the Sun and presenting a theatrical monologue for a dried-fruit commercial, to waves of satisfying laughter. “I want to end with one of my favorite poems. ‘Pathways,’ by Rainer Maria Rilke. To me, this poem speaks to how much everyone needs love. Even the loners. The seekers. The wanderers.” She cleared her throat, and began. “ ‘Understand, I’ll slip quietly, away from the noisy crowd, when I see the pale stars rising, blooming, over the oaks. I’ll pursue solitary pathways, through the pale twilit meadows, with only this one dream: You come too.’ ”

  The crowd murmured their appreciation.

  Liv raised her glass, addressing the newlyweds. “May you always walk side by side, seeking the stars and new horizons. To love.”

  “To love,” echoed the crowd.

  Liv sat back down, giddy with a post-performance rush. She was only able to refocus as one of the groom’s college friends took the microphone. He wore a tux with a bow tie undone. Dark hair, confident nose; Jewish, like her. Handsome, with a glint in his eye. Liv sat up straighter.