The Key to Happily Ever After

by Tif Marcelo

  And Pearl . . .

  Her baby sister was convinced she wanted this job, but she hadn’t a clue what it entailed. Pearl gravitated to her whims with such fervor but lost interest in a hot minute, except for yoga.

  And that was partly Mari’s fault. Because of that night, that one incident, with him, the whole family guarded Pearl, too much she was realizing now. Their mother had demanded the same kind of perfection she did from her eldest two, but Pearl was allowed to “seek,” to “explore.” What the hell did that mean, anyway? After graduating from William & Mary, changing her major twice in the process, Pearl had jumped into dabbling in different interests—radio journalism and blog writing—while working at Rings & Roses. What guaranteed that she wouldn’t lose interest in working with a top halfway to the finish line?

  For Mari, it had only taken that one night to understand that passive action was foolhardy, that results occurred through decision and action.

  As if the universe had read her thoughts, Pearl stepped out of the building’s renovated birdcage elevator, carrying a bundle in her arms so only her eyes could be seen.

  “What the heck?” Jane jogged toward her, and Mari paced close behind.

  Pearl’s chest heaved as if she’d run the entire fourteen flights up. Her beanie cap was covered in droplets. “There’s a vintage specialty store three blocks down—and I happen to know the owner. And guess what she had in her stock?” She gestured to the bundle with her lips. “Go ahead. Take it off.”

  Jane peeled off the damp sheet, revealing fur. Brown, gray, white. “What is this?”

  “Faux fur stoles and there’s even a caplet in there. In exchange for a shout-out online, our wedding party can use them. We have to return them before the night is over.” Pearl’s gaze darted from Jane to Mari and back. “I mean, it’s worth a try, right? Snow-bridesmaids? A quick shoot outside if the wind lets up?”

  Mari let out a smile. “That is a freaking fantastic idea. I swear, Pearl, you can turn things around. Great work.”

  Jane took her sister’s cheeks in her hands. “I owe you one. I’m going to tell the ladies after the ceremony. Cross your fingers that it all works. Do you mind finding hangers—one of the hotel staff can help you, and could you hang them in coat check?”

  “Of course.” She spun and headed in the opposite direction.

  Jane snapped to. “What were we doing? Oh right—to the waiting rooms.”

  Mari, too, picked up on her last thought. “When Pearl does things like that, I want to give her the world. But giving her a top? I’d consider another client who’s lower profile, less risk. Let her get her feet wet without compromising our financial future with a potential mistake.”

  Jane sniffed a rebuttal as she took off to an anteroom, passing a catering cart and picking up a navy blue table cover. “I don’t agree. She’s ready.”

  Mari followed a step behind. “She’s scatterbrained. She spends half the time at yoga, and the events she coordinates always feel a little messy. Remember the Orbinson wedding? She didn’t follow the standard checklist. That’s planning 101. Mommy would have tricep-pinched us if we made the same mistakes. And did you know she faked a relationship with Trenton to get to Daphne? Deception from the jump. What am I supposed to think?”

  “Her mind is everywhere because she’s been too busy making us look good on the internet. And anyway, we can’t expect others to be like us, just as we are not like our mother, who isn’t perfect herself. Must I remind you that she and Daddy are the ones who left us with such messy books and missing inventory? Which, by the way, you need to address.”

  “I know I do. But they’re on vacation now, so . . .”

  They arrived in one bride’s anteroom, cozy and sparse except for leather couches pushed up against the exposed brick walls. A table was set up in the middle. Jane parked herself on one side of the table, while Mari stood at the opposite end. Jane tossed a hem of the tablecloth across it.

  “I call bullshit. You’re avoiding approaching Mommy because we’ve been taught that questioning authority is a sin that will take us straight to hell or get us struck from the will. But that’s your job as a CEO. See? Not everyone is perfect.” Jane continued. “Pearl has her own process, but you can’t deny she gets it done. Feedback from her clients tells us that they love her spirit. What you call messy, they call exciting and flexible. And I know our sister’s heart. It’s not malicious. She needs direction, not a stop sign.”

  “I’m not denying anything.” Mari smoothed out the linen on her side. “You’re making it sound like I personally don’t want her to succeed.”

  “Don’t kill the messenger, but if it quacks like a duck . . .”

  The hair on the back of Mari’s neck stood; the statement prickled down her spine. These were familiar words. Mari had accused her mother of the same thing when she’d wanted to move away from home. And where did that get her except in a bad relationship that almost broke their family apart? “I’m trying to protect her.”

  “From what?” Jane moved the couch back so it was perfectly parallel to the wall, then ran a finger against the leather to check for dust. Mari trailed behind her as she walked out of the room. “I’m grateful Pearl schmoozed a potential top. Finding another one was the first ‘to do’ item on our Save Rings and Roses Checklist. When did she send out the contract?”

  “Sunday.”

  “So . . . a week ago. Do you expect an answer soon?”

  “Anytime now.” Mari bit her lip.

  “If you’re asking my opinion, I don’t see the problem.”

  They’d reached the other bride’s anteroom. The table was already covered, with a similar orchid centerpiece. Right on time, the catering manager entered the room and delivered French pastries, two champagne flutes, and a copper ice bucket with the neck of a bottle of Cristal sticking up from the ice.

  Mari couldn’t concentrate on the details with the pros and the cons list materializing in the air in front of her. It was a risk either way: a monetary risk if Pearl didn’t do a good job, a personal risk if Mari didn’t let her try.

  “Checking in,” a man’s voice said from the doorway.

  Mari jolted at the sight of the six-footer at the door. He had a shock of black hair that swooped to the back and wore a short-sleeve shirt open over a white tank. She flashed back to a decade ago, to a similarly dressed man—Saul—who used to unbutton his shirts during the hot Virginia summers.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Mari, this is Peter of Good Vibrations, our DJ,” Jane said.

  Mari blinked, swallowed the image away. Right. Not Saul. “Hi.”

  “The roads weren’t too bad. I’ll go ahead and set up.” Peter grinned, then stepped away.

  Jane brushed a hand over the linen to straighten it. “You didn’t answer my question. What are you trying to protect her from?”

  “From failing.” The words fell from her lips, mind still reeling at the slip to the past.

  Jane frowned, reflecting back the sadness that had crept into Mari’s conscience. “We all have failed at one time or another. And we’re always there for each other, aren’t we? We’ll be there for her,” Jane said.

  “It’s not that.” The unease grew. Protectiveness was only one part of it, though she couldn’t put words to the dreadful knot in her belly.

  “This is not Saul,” Jane reminded her. “This is not a repeat of history.”

  Or was it? It was, after all, Pearl pushing her way in once again. Of her possibly being exposed in a space where she was not prepared. History didn’t have to replay itself in its entirety. History sometimes came back in snippets to teach the same old lessons foolish people didn’t learn the first time around.

  “Ate Mari.” Jane was at the front door now, pulling her from her thoughts. “Time to go. It’s showtime.”

  Mari shuffled out. From afar she watched a bride enter the anteroom, beautiful and hopeful. Today was her day, her day when the future forecasted an infinite number of possibilities.


  For Mari, there would only be two choices if Daphne and Carter were to sign with Rings & Roses: keep the client under her control, or let Pearl take the reins to appease her and risk a less than perfect outcome.

  With the success of Rings & Roses on Mari’s shoulders, there was only one right choice.

  Mari had awakened on her secondhand microfiber couch. At first, she was discombobulated. The air was smoky with the sweet smell of weed. Bodies milled above her in zombielike movements. Had she been taken in her sleep and transported to some party house? Was she dreaming? But with the leftover taste of alcohol on her tongue, she remembered the three solo cups of a sweet cocktail Saul had magically concocted, which she’d downed after a long day at Rings & Roses.

  Mari’s vision was wavy and fuzzed at the edges; she stood carefully. Where was that boyfriend of hers? Annoyance pricked through her in between the thumping beats of music. Someone in her apartment had changed out the playlist and an unrecognizable nineties new wave song filtered through her speakers. She squinted at the dozen bodies in her living room and at the couple making out in the corner and winced. The neighbors would surely complain. She’d moved in less than two weeks ago.

  Her thoughts tumbled into the abyss of what would come next. Her parents would find out about this somehow since they cosigned the lease. They’d find out she’d gotten back together with Saul.

  She had tried to stay away from him. For a bit she’d even resisted his calls, his texts, his unannounced visits. But oh, he was convincing. His lips, his body, the way he’d begged her to give him another chance. She’d taken him back after he’d vowed for the hundredth time that they would be equals, that this time he would keep his temper in check.

  “Where’s Saul?” Mari yelled above the music to Brendan, Saul’s buddy, who currently had one hand hooked around his boyfriend’s neck. They were staggering to her U-shaped kitchen, tiny and tucked into the back of the third-floor apartment. A woman was sitting on the kitchen countertop, legs wrapped around her partner.

  “Dunno.” A cigarette dangled from Brendan’s lips and it bobbed up as he spoke. “Somewhere around this dump.”

  “Hey. Respect,” she snapped back, showing him her palm, and walked toward the bedroom. She passed another couple, and said to no one in particular, “You all need to go soon.”

  Annoyance turned to guilt as she surveyed the accuracy of Brendan’s words. Her place was a dump. How long had she been sleeping? Tomorrow was Saturday. A Wedding Day. She’d have to see her parents face-to-face, and they’d know. They’d know that she’d been partying, that she’d been with Saul, that she’d gone back on her word.

  He isn’t good for you, her mother had insisted. Saul was different; he was older. Yes, he partied. Yes, he sometimes asked for too much. Yes, he yelled. He’d insisted on his way. But her mother hadn’t seen his good side, hadn’t witnessed how he’d known exactly what to say, how he really was sorry for his terse words. That when they’d made up, it was heaven on earth.

  But this party—this party was a bad call. And this time, she couldn’t help but think that maybe her mother was right. This pressing feeling of all of these people around her—she wanted out from under it.

  The buzzing in her head permeated throughout the rest of her body.

  Oh, her phone.

  She reached into her back jean pocket, pulled out the bright screen, and saw Jane’s face staring back at her. Shit. One rule between her sisters—they always picked up. They might’ve screened their mother’s calls, but never each other’s.

  Mari cleared her throat and willed a steady, lucid voice. “Hey.”

  “Where the fuck have you been, Mari?”

  Mari pulled the phone away from her ear, confused. She looked at Jane’s smiling picture once again. Goody Two-Shoes Jane who did everything perfectly. In their home, it was Jane who was the perfect one, who kept to the straight and narrow. The eldest wasn’t revered, not in that way. Pearl looked up to Mari because she rocked the boat, but Jane was the golden child because she didn’t.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mari snapped.

  “Where’s Pearl?”

  She frowned. “How the hell should I know? You’re the one who lives at home.”

  “Because she was headed to you.”

  “What?” Mari’s apartment was clear across Falls Church, miles from Duchess Street in Old Town. “How is that even possible?”

  “She left a note in her room. She had a fight with Daddy, and you know that never goes well. Is she there?”

  “No!” Was her first answer, though worry eclipsed her drunkenness, because it was a lie. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know. You’re at your apartment, aren’t you?”

  Her fingers found their way to her forehead. It was slick. “I am . . . I mean.” She scanned the living room again. No, none of those women were her sister. None were fifteen years old, with her baby face or her innocence. Someone came out of the bathroom, snatching Mari’s gaze. Scratch that, it was a couple, holding hands, passing her closed bedroom door.

  “What’s all the noise in the background?”

  She lowered the phone from her ear, not wanting to hear her sister’s demands, and her legs took her to her bedroom. She turned the knob and opened the door.

  What she saw froze her in place: Saul and another woman, a woman Mari recognized from the bar down the street, standing next to the bed. Saul with a blunt between his lips, unbuttoning her shirt. His face lazily scanning the room when the door creaked. Confusion materializing on his face when he caught Mari’s eyes.

  He stepped back from the woman. “This isn’t—”

  Mari, overcome by a violence unrecognizable to her, with an anger beyond any she’d ever experienced, pulled this woman away from Saul. She battered him with her fists, cursing his betrayal and her own foolishness.

  It all became fuzzy after that. Saul seemed to transform. His features turned into a monster’s. His voice escalated to a roar, and his hands fell to the front of Mari’s shirt, tearing her away from him. She staggered toward her windows and she clawed hopelessly at the mini blinds for purchase before falling on the floor. Back against the wall, she looked up at Saul’s ominous figure. His hand rose. Mari’s anger flipped to fear; she shut her eyes in the anticipation of pain. Cowered. In the past, he’d only struck with words, but she knew this would be more, like she had been slowly preparing for this inevitability.

  But Saul paused; he grunted. Mari opened her eyes, seeing him turn to someone behind him. From between his legs, Mari glimpsed Pearl standing at the doorway, frightened. Shame rained over her. She was Marisol de la Rosa, raised proud and independent, now under the thumb of a man who liked to hurt her.

  Shame, until Saul turned to Pearl with fury in his face, sputtering with rage. In that split second, shame became ferocity.

  She clambered to her feet, grabbed the first thing within reach, a wooden candlestick she’d picked up for a client, and held it like a bat. As Saul snatched the front of Pearl’s flannel shirt with both hands and hefted her off her Vans-clad feet, Mari swung the candlestick at Saul’s skull.

  Mari jolted up in bed, face covered with sweat. Her chest heaved. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, to her neat, sparse bedroom, to the empty space on her queen-sized bed. Her surroundings told her she wasn’t back at that apartment with Saul, but the images had been vivid. Too real.

  After the burst of adrenaline, she wanted to be outside, to reassure herself that that was all in the past. She shuffled out of her room and unlocked the French doors that led to her snow-covered patio.

  The forecasters had overshot their estimated snow total. Only two inches had fallen since the Rhockenzie wedding, and the band of the storm had headed north and east. Luckily for them, there had been just enough snow to create the snow-bride photos Pearl had suggested but not enough to deter the rest of the party.

  Mari slipped on her rain boots and walked outside; the floodlight
s turned on. She raised her face to the dark sky, shut her eyes, and breathed in the frigid night air.

  It was just a dream.

  A chunk of snow fell from above. She turned in the direction it came from; another chunk flew toward her and she stepped aside just in time. “Hey!”

  Soft snowballs were being lobbed in her direction. From 2402. Her face warmed despite the weather. Reid.

  “Those monkey pajamas aren’t the proper outerwear for this kind of cold, Ms. de la Rosa. Even a southerner like myself knows that.”

  Mari wasn’t sure if she was more embarrassed or thrilled. She hiked her hands on her hips, squinted at his shadow on the balcony. “Haven’t you realized? They make us hardy up here.”

  “Oh, I know how hardy you are. Like a rose. With thorns and everything.” His voice was light, flirtatious.

  “I’m proud to be prickly, Mr. Quaid. If you can’t take the thorns, you don’t deserve the bloom.”

  “Well, if that isn’t an invitation, I don’t know what is.”

  She felt her grin widen at his cool attitude, happy that he could dish it right back. “Welcome back to Northern Virginia.”

  “Got in before the snow started.”

  “Lucky for you. What are you doing out here?”

  “Chilling.”

  “Literally.” She laughed. The hint of smoke reached Mari’s nose. “I smell differently.”

  “You caught me. Bad habit, occasional now.”

  “No judgment.” At the lull, she pointed at her lit kitchen. “I’m headed in. I might be hardy, but I’ve got nothing on under this and—” She halted, realizing what she’d said.

  He laughed. “Wait. Why are you outside?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Though, admittedly, since seeing the man, the memory of her nightmare had fallen away. What replaced it was giddiness. It was a silly, almost innocent emotion.

  It gave her an idea. “If you come down here, I’ll tell you all about it.”