Just Watch the Fireworks

by Monica Alexander

  He grew up in a huge house on the water in Marblehead with a maid, a cook and a gardener. His mother has never worked a day in her life. She raised Ryan, his younger brother John and his older sister Lisa and volunteered in the community. Lisa and her husband James met in college, got married after graduation, and she worked for a non-profit organization until their daughter Madeleine was born three years later. They have three kids and one on the way, and she hasn’t worked in nine years. The unspoken expectation for Ryan and John is that they will also settle down with wives who will stay home and raise kids. This knowledge has always made me slightly uncomfortable when I’m around his family since that plan doesn’t jive with my plan.

  Not that I don’t think being a stay-at-home mom is an honorable thing; I just don’t think it’s for me. I’m not sure I even like kids very much. They’re always sticky, way too loud, and utterly demanding. Of course, the only kids I know are Ryan’s nieces and nephew who might be a teensy bit spoiled, so I might be wrongfully biased. Kids aside, however, I plan on having a career. I can’t see myself ever not working. It’s just how I was raised. Ryan’s mother always said that she admired that I wanted a career, but I didn’t buy it. Something in the way she said it always made it seem like a backhanded compliment.

  In truth, I know Ryan’s parents aren’t all that fond of me, and I am pretty sure they were disappointed in their oldest son when he brought me home to meet them for the first time. Ryan took me to Sunday brunch a few months after we started dating, excited that I would get to meet his parents. As we’d gotten to know each other, he’d painted a pretty picture of his childhood and his family, telling me how much I would love his mother and sister. Soon after meeting his family, I realized that from the outside looking in his family portrait was pretty crooked.

  The first thing his mother, Lydia, did was give me a dirty look when she saw I was wearing jeans. To my credit, Ryan never told me I needed to dress up, so how the hell was I supposed to know? I did not grow up brunching at a country club, and for the record they were really cute Marc Jacobs dress jeans, but his mother still scowled at me for half the meal. Talk about petty. She was also disappointed that I didn’t play tennis and didn’t know how to sail. When she asked me what charities I supported, I said the ASPCA, since it was the first thing that came to my mind as I’d just adopted my dog. She just smiled politely before sharing the details of a benefit she was organizing to raise money for cancer research. When she asked if I’d like to buy a ticket to the event, I said yes to appease her, but then proceeded to choke on my omelet when she told me one ticket was five hundred dollars. Ryan recovered for me by telling his mother he’d buy a table for us, but I knew the damage had been done.

  Ryan’s father, Charles, didn’t say much to me throughout the meal. He mostly talked to Ryan about business. He did ask what my father did for a living but didn’t seem impressed when I told him he worked in advertising. When we were leaving the club, Charles went to get their car from the valet, and Lydia stopped to talk to two women she knew. One looked to be in her fifties, and the other was around my age. In a baby blue sleeveless dress, pearls and heels, she was my polar opposite.

  Ryan and I stood nearby, holding hands until his mother beckoned him over. He went, leaving me standing alone like an idiot, so I had no choice but to watch their exchange as Lydia introduced him to the woman and the girl in the blue dress. The girl smiled sweetly at him as she tucked a piece of her blond bob behind her ear. Even without hearing what they were saying, I could tell she was flirting with him. Thankfully, Ryan stayed only long enough to be polite before excusing himself.

  We left then, and as we waited for Ryan’s Porsche to be pulled around, he confirmed that his mother had been trying to set him up with the girl, whose name was Trish. He laughed it off, but I knew in that moment that Lydia had high hopes that we’d never make it as a couple.

  Since then I have tried my hardest to please her as she definitely calls the shots in their family. I have learned how to dress, what to order and how to act, staying away from beer, denim and profanity, which I sometimes have a penchant for using – a definite no-no in the Carson household. Honestly, it can be quite exhausting to keep myself in check around them, so it’s good that we don’t see them very often.

  From the first time I met his family, I began to wonder when the other shoe would drop. I was convinced that Ryan would realize that I wasn’t from his world, didn’t fit in with his family, and wasn’t the marrying kind. In the back of my mind, I always pictured him leaving me for someone like Trish, but he never did. So I had to figure he was okay with the real me, and as long as he loved me for me, his family and his money didn’t factor into the equation.

  “Sure, that red was great,” I said, as the cab barreled down Storrow Drive at a breakneck speed. I gripped the seat for some extra security, definitely feeling like I might not make it to dinner at that point.

  “Okay, I’ll order the calamari that you love, too,” Ryan said, and I knew in that moment that although we came from different worlds, he still got me. No matter how much I had to conform for his family, he loved me for me – jeans and all.

  “You’re perfect,” I said, as I dreamed of calamari dipped in marinara sauce.

  “Back at you,” he said, as he hung up, and I felt relief wash over me.

  Not only had he not picked a fight with me over being late, but he was being more amiable than he’d been in a while. I found myself suddenly itching to see him and have his strong arms wrap me up in a hug. It seemed we might be moving toward solid ground after all.

  It was like that when we were apart, though. I would miss him at first, then I’d get used to being alone and could justify that I wouldn’t be crushed if he ended things with me. Then, when I’d see him again, all the incredible feelings I had for him would come rushing back, and I couldn’t imagine life without him.

  Two

  Thanks to my cab driver with a death wish, I reached the restaurant in record time. I flung the door open with more force than necessary, causing a gust of wind to blow my long brown hair back. I imagined I was in a commercial with fans blowing my hair as I sexily crossed the room to meet my gorgeous boyfriend. Yeah, sometimes I don’t live in reality.

  As soon as he saw me, Ryan stood at the table and smiled at me, his dimples popping. I loved his dimples. They provided a boyish twist to his usually stoic banker look and reminded me of when we first started dating. When I’d met him at UMass, he hadn’t been working, so he’d let his hair grow out. His blond curls combined with his dimples gave him the look of a young frat boy. Add the Red Sox hat he wore constantly back then and he looked five years younger. I used to love how his curls would stick out from his hat, but he’d cut his hair as soon as he’d started working at his firm again. I wished he’d grow it out again, since it was what was familiar to me, but I knew he never would.

  “Hi hon,” I said, as I joined him at the table.

  As much as I wanted to fling my arms around him in a moment of passion, I knew Ryan would think that was neither the time nor the place, so instead I settled for a brief hug and a small kiss on the lips before sitting down across from him. He immediately got to work pouring me a glass of wine from the bottle on the table. As soon as he finished, I took a big swig in an attempt to calm myself down. I was usually not that frazzled, but for some reason that night I was slightly giddy, and my tardiness hadn’t helped my anxiety.

  It could have had something to do with finally living in the same city as my boyfriend or the fact that he’d gotten out of work before eleven at night or maybe just the fact that in seeing him I realized how happy I was to be with him. Either way, I found myself flushed and out of breath. I paused to take in some air, willing my heart to slow its rapid beating as Ryan smiled at me from across the table. I took another big swig of wine, not really tasting it on the way down.

  “Take it easy, Court,” Ryan said, reaching across the table for one of my hands. His touch instantly calmed
me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, taking another deep breath. “I had every intention of being on time, but I was on the phone with the florist in Watertown for an hour, and then Kate and I had to go over the details for the Scarletti/Friedman wedding, and there have just been so many issues with that because of the combined Catholic and Jewish ceremony, so we had to check everything twice because Mrs. Scarletti is crazy, and if anything interferes with her Bianca’s big day, she will have both of our heads. And, well, you know how bad that would be.”

  Ryan just grinned at me from across the table. Okay, something was up. Usually he hated hearing about my insane clients, but he hated it even more when my job made me late. Could it be that he was suddenly finding both my penchant for complaining openly and my tardiness adorable?

  “I’m sure everything will work out fine with Mrs. Scarletti and her Catholic/Jewish wedding,” he said. “The important thing is that you’re here now, and we can celebrate. Happy Anniversary.”

  “Oh, Happy Anniversary,” I said, smacking my forehead with my hand. “I’m sorry. I’m just still so rattled. This is more work than I’ve ever done, and now that I am officially in charge of a wedding, well, there’s so much more on the line.”

  For as many years as I’d been involved in planning weddings, I had only ever been an assistant. I answered phones, supported the full-time planners with whatever they needed, and worked the weddings we planned, but I had never been in charge. The responsibility of planning a full wedding was enormous.

  Ironically, it actually hadn’t ever been my dream to plan weddings, but sometimes you don’t realize until you’re knee-deep in something that you’re actually good at it and can make a career out of it – especially when your other options are pretty much nonexistent.

  I met my friend and business partner, Kate Lance, at Bliss Weddings. She was two years older than me, but we started around the same time. Kate had dreamed of being a wedding planner, so she couldn’t have been happier to be booking fittings and scheduling engagement photo shoots for the happy couples. I had gotten the job through my mom who had three years in the business as a photographer. I needed a part-time job during college, so she called in a favor to Marion Bliss, and suddenly I was in the wedding business.

  I proceeded to work hard, collect my paycheck and get my degree in English so I could graduate and do something besides plan weddings. Then I discovered that a degree in English didn’t offer much in the real world, so I decided to get a master’s degree. Then came the time for me to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. What I really wanted to be was a writer, but until that career took off and my first book, which had yet to be written, was picked up by a publisher, I needed to have an income. I’d started to apply to some publishing houses in Boston, thinking that if I could get my foot in the door, maybe I’d have an in when I finally got around to writing my novel, but those jobs were harder to come by that I thought.

  Up until that point my writing talents had been limited to several short stories I had published in college and my two year old wedding blog that had surprising success. Vendors all over Western Massachusetts had signed on as advertisers, and I made a good side income from posting weekly entries, tips and advice for brides-to-be. My goal was to add some Boston vendors to the mix as soon as I increased my contacts, so I could in turn increase the number of people who followed my blog. The entries gave me some joy since I was writing, but at the end of the day, writing a blog is not the same as being a published author.

  Around the time I was sending out resumes to publishing houses and not getting any calls back, Kate called to see what my plans were after graduation. We’d remained friends after she’d graduated from UMass and moved to Boston. She had spent three years working as an events coordinator for a trendy hotel before she opened her own business, Weddings by Kate.

  She had been open for exactly a year when business took off, and she realized she needed help. Hence her call to her good friend, Courtney, who had six years of wedding planning experience under her belt and was in need of a well-paying job so she and her dog wouldn’t be homeless. After not hearing back from any of the places to which I’d sent my resume, I signed on with Kate, figuring I could still write in my spare time.

  I’d been working at Weddings by Kate for exactly two weeks when I realized Kate wasn’t exaggerating when she said business was booming. As soon as I’d started she’d given me two weddings that were scheduled for the fall, a wedding at the end of July that she’d been working on and the dreaded Scarletti/Friedman wedding which she had complained to me about ever since Mrs. Scarletti had hired her the year before. I thanked her openly for that gem.

  Of course, working the magic that I possess, I was able to maintain order and keep Mrs. Scarletti’s voice at a normal decibel each of the fifty-two times we’d spoken. Granted, it took five phone calls and endless questions fired at me as if I were a contestant on a game show, for me to prove that I had the right experience to handle her event. Once she saw that I was able to solve every other last minute crisis she threw at me, she finally gave me her approval. That very afternoon she’d called me ‘honey’ as she pinched my cheek, and as degrading as that might seem, I considered it a major breakthrough.

  All I had left for her event was the finalization of the seating chart, the rehearsal dinner and the wedding in two weeks. After that I would never have to hear her grating New York accent again. Good riddance, crazy lady from Queens.

  “To us,” Ryan said, pulling me back to the moment and what we were celebrating, “and, to two great years with the most amazing woman.”

  See, this was why I loved the man sitting across from me. Talk about smooth.

  I clinked my glass against his. “I love you, baby.”

  ***

  After dinner, Ryan and I walked from the restaurant, hand in hand, stuffed and happy.

  “It’s a nice night,” he said. “Do you feel like taking a walk?”

  I looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful night with thousands of stars overhead. “Sure, let’s take a walk,” I said snuggling closer to him. It was chilly even though it was mid-May.

  As we walked away from the North End and down to the waterfront, I smiled as I inhaled the smell of the harbor and listened to the sounds of the boats that were tied up knocking against the wall of the marina. It was so quiet at that time of night. The noises from the city were blocked out by the buildings lining the harbor.

  “Let’s sit down,” Ryan said, gesturing to a bench nearby.

  As soon as we did, I realized exactly where we were and my heart started pounding. I’d been there before. I looked behind me and saw the Marriott extending high above us. It was where we had stayed – not Ryan and me, but me and Him.

  Two and a half years earlier we’d been at The Marriott for his parents’ 30th wedding anniversary celebration on New Year’s Eve. We’d snuck out of the party just before midnight and walked out to the water. He’d sat down on the edge, his legs hanging over, dangling above the freezing, lapping water six feet below. He’d patted the space beside him, indicating he wanted me to sit next to him. I’d hesitated for a moment, hugging my wool coat tighter around my body. The temperature was below freezing that night, so I wasn’t sure what he was doing. Finally, I acquiesced, sitting down and letting my feet dangle next to his.

  I remember him reaching over with the toe of his shoe and nudging my ankle, making me smile. He told me he loved me, which he’d said thousands of times, but I never got tired of hearing him say it. Then he pulled a small box out of his coat pocket and set it between us. I remember looking down at it and then up at him. His eyes were so eager, like a kid at Christmas while I imagined my own eyes to show some serious confusion since that was what I was feeling in that moment.

  “Open it,” he said softly, and I could hear the excitement in his voice.

  I remember swallowing hard. It felt like there was something in my throat. Of course I’d already figured out what wa
s in that little box, so I was starting to melt down. Slowly, I moved my hand toward the box, clasped my fingers over it and lifted it to my lap. I let it sit there for a few seconds, balancing it carefully, afraid that any quick movement might knock it into the bay. Then I took a deep breath, picked the box up again and handed it back to him.

  “Courtney, open it,” he said, trying to hand it back to me in confusion.

  The tears sprang to my eyes, and I shook my head back and forth, my gaze fixed on the bow of a boat ten feet away, moving up and down in the water.

  Up and down, up and down. I couldn’t look at him.

  The clock struck midnight, and fireworks started to burst high above us, signaling the start of a new year. I looked up to see the colors lighting up the night sky. I looked out over the water. I looked down at my hands, but I didn’t look at him. Beside me he sucked in a deep breath. He knew.

  Now I was back in that same spot, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of the place I’d sat while I broke the heart of the first man I’d ever loved. I was there now with Ryan, another man I loved, but I couldn’t shake those feelings of how badly I’d hurt Him. It had been years, but in that moment, I felt as raw as I had that night.

  It had been a long time since I’d let myself think of him, but I couldn’t help it. The feelings had suddenly rushed back. It was crazy. I had moved on. I was with someone else, but He was unexpectedly on my mind as I remembered that night in vivid detail. All those years earlier, I had been the source of the worst pain he’d ever felt. I know this because he told me as he sat next to me with tears in his eyes that he’d tried to wipe away so I wouldn’t see them. To see someone you love cry because of something you directly did to them is the worst kind of pain, and I knew I’d never be able to let go of that night no matter how hard I tried.