Once and for All

by Sarah Dessen

  So Jilly would spend the weekend corralling her siblings and working the Cheese Therapy register while scoping out cute boys in a bigger city. Meanwhile, I’d go to Colby, where I’d spend Friday night assisting my mom and William with the rehearsal dinner—a clambake on the beach with a Tiki Hut theme—and Saturday working the main event (formal, at a hotel overlooking the ocean, surf and turf stations to follow).

  If I’d actually been a guest, this probably would have sounded great. As it was, all I could think about was the combination of food and sand (never good in practice) and a very important wedding taking place in a venue I’d not yet seen. At home, we had extensive notes on every place we’d staged ceremonies, detailing pertinent issues like hard-to-find exits, squeaky floors, or rattling pews. Out of town, though, we were everywhere for the first time.

  At least it was a nice weekend, warm with sunny and clear skies forecast, and I would be at the beach. With this in mind, I’d splurged earlier in the week on a new black sundress and gold-accented sandals for the occasion. As we drove east, the subdivisions and interstates giving way to farmland and two-lane roads, I could feel the work-related kink in my neck slowly relaxing. I could only hope the drive was having the same effect on my mother in the van ahead of me.

  Once over the bridge to Colby, we turned onto the main road, which was bottlenecked with tourists. FRESH SHRIMP! read one sign I studied as I crawled along, followed by WHO NEEDS TRAFFIC? RENT A BIKE FROM ABE’S! with an arrow pointing to the nearby boardwalk. After what felt like an hour of exhaust, brake lights, and the occasional glimpse of ocean, blue and wide, we finally turned into the lot of a high-rise hotel called the Piers. The main building was so white in the bright sun that just looking at it made my head hurt. As I parked, pushing open the door, I could already hear my mother complaining. So much for a relaxing drive.

  “This sun!” she said to William, instead of hello, as he walked over. As usual, he was perfect and unruffled in his khakis, short-sleeved checked shirt, and very clean white Adidas sneakers. In contrast, my outfit, after three hours in the car, looked like I’d balled it up in my hand multiple times. There were a lot of things I envied about William (just about everything, actually) but top on the list was how he always looked serene and flawless, even under the most dire of circumstances. “Old New England suppression and denial,” he called it, which made it sound less like something to covet. I still did, though.

  Now he just looked at my mom, reflected in his aviator sunglasses, flapping her arms around and trying to kick up a breeze as she continued, “At almost exactly this time tomorrow, we’ll have a sixteen-member wedding party in full dress out in this. If everyone doesn’t faint it will be a miracle.”

  “You’re forgetting the pergolas,” he said mildly. “We didn’t insist on them, and the fluttering tulle, purely for the looks of it.”

  “We’ll need a lot more than fluttering tulle to deal with this,” my mom grumbled, dabbing at her (not sweaty, from my view) brow. “But that’s tomorrow. Let’s find the caterer and see how this dinner is shaping up. Louna, can you start the unloading? The ballroom door is supposed to be just over there, behind the Dumpsters, and unlocked. They’re expecting us.”

  Great, I thought, even as I nodded. They’d go into the A/C to talk tiki torches while I schlepped boxes of centerpieces, my mother’s preferred table linens, and glassware across a hot parking lot. I could still hear her complaining as they walked away.

  That night, the rehearsal went well, with only a few basic wrinkles. (Meltdown from flower girl, bossy wedding planner wannabe aunt of bride, impatient officiant. This last was a pet peeve of us all. Nobody liked a snappy minister.) By the time Margy and her groom, Josef, play-walked down the aisle together, with her carrying the bouquet of ribbons from her bridal shower, everyone was ready for a drink. As they adjourned to the beach, my mother had the caterers waiting with trays of champagne, the tiki torches lit and flaming around them. Let the party begin.

  “Well, that’s done,” she said to William, giving a cordial-but-not-exactly-warm nod to the bossy aunt as she passed us. “Here’s hoping the actual event goes so smoothly.”

  “That was smooth?” he asked, his eyes following a bridesmaid in wobbly platform sandals who was trying to navigate the steps to the beach. “Just once I’d like to get an officiant who was happy to do their job.”

  “Like you’re always happy to do yours?”

  “Exactly,” William replied. A pause. Then they both laughed, as if this was hysterical. I rolled my eyes, turning back to the party as two of the groomsmen walked by us. One of them was about my age and built like a football player, with dark hair cut short and blue eyes. The kind of boy that you can easily picture as a little kid, that cute. As he passed by, he smiled at me, and I felt my face flush, even as I tried to imitate my mother’s efficient, businesslike nod in return. Once he went down the stairs to the beach, I realized William was watching me, amused, and felt embarrassed all over again.

  After the dinner, the guests moved the party to the hotel bar and, thankfully, out of our jurisdiction. I helped my mom, William, and the caterers break down the tables and chairs, then brought a purse, a phone, and a monogrammed flask to the hotel lost and found. (Someday, I’d write an entire book about the things people left behind at weddings. I just had this feeling it all meant something.) By ten thirty, I was back in my room eating a pack of crackers from the vending machine and texting with Jilly, who was in a hotel room with Crawford watching a marathon of swamp fishing shows while the “youngers” (her term) all slept.

  SO BORED, she reported. IF I SEE ANOTHER CATFISH I MIGHT SCREAM. TELL ME YOU ARE GOING TO GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING EPIC TONIGHT.

  OF COURSE I AM, I wrote back.

  SURE. I BET YOU ARE IN BED ALREADY.

  I balled up the cracker wrapper, threw it in the general direction of the nearby trashcan, and missed.

  I’LL DO EPIC TOMORROW. PROMISE.

  YOU BETTER. IF I CAN’T, YOU HAVE TO!

  I made a face. This was a familiar rant from Jilly, who had been long convinced that I squandered the relative freedom I enjoyed as an only child of a single, non-food-truck-owning parent. In my shoes, she was fond of telling me, she’d be the kind of person who was always out Doing Stuff and Making Things Happen. (The specifics of what, exactly, these terms meant were never explained; as with any fantasy, vagueness was part of the appeal.) Moreover, it wasn’t just a waste of my life but of hers as well, that I willingly spent time away at the beach sitting in bed watching a news special about a murder mystery while covered in cracker crumbs. I wasn’t Jilly, and never would be, but I would have given her some of my open hours if I could have. She definitely deserved them.

  The next morning, I went for an early run and jumped into the hotel pool before showering and meeting my mom and William for our scheduled nine a.m. strategy breakfast. Over a table of pastries, coffee, and fruit, we synchronized schedules, divided up our to-do list for that morning, and went over the cheat sheets I’d printed out in the hotel business center. By ten thirty, I was back in one of the vans, navigating the streets of Colby in what was basically a glorified scavenger hunt. According to my (bullet-pointed) list, we needed a hardback, attractive but not too embossed bible (the family one had been forgotten back in California), four black bow ties, and “two rolls of pennies, preferably polished.”

  These items could have been challenging to procure even back in Lakeview, which had several malls and a thriving retail district downtown. Colby, however, offered up much less in terms of options, which was why an hour later I’d only gotten the bow ties. Lillie’s Occasions, the only formal wear place, did not look kindly on renting out accessories last minute. I had to promise they’d be returned by noon sharp on Sunday, pay twice the normal price, and slip the owner forty bucks cash before she’d let me take them, and even then I could feel the stink eye on me all the way out to the parking lot
. So I was already visibly beaten down by the time I found a bible at the local bookstore and basically pleaded with them for some rolls of pennies from their safe, which they gave me purely out of pity.

  “There you are,” my mom said to me when I finally returned to the private dining area off the ballroom we were using as ground zero for our planning. All the flower arrangements were lined up on a nearby table, programs already folded and stacked beside them. “Did you get the pennies?”

  “I got some pennies,” I said, pulling the rolls from my pocket and putting them next to where she was sitting at the head of a table, her folders organized in a clock face pattern around her. Each one held a task that needed to be completed before the ceremony began, and she’d move through them accordingly, checking each off as she went. “But they aren’t polished.”

  “That’s not as important as getting them on the cards.”

  “Cards?”

  Instead of answering, she reached for a yellow folder not in the clock face, pulling it toward her. Everything at Natalie Barrett Weddings was color coded, so I didn’t even have to see the (neatly printed in William’s writing) label on it to know it held Last-Minute Items. She flipped it open, taking out a sheet of paper and handing it to me. “Josef’s mom was named Penny. She died of cancer when he was ten. They’ve decided to honor her by handing out cards with her name, dates, and a bright, preferably shiny penny to each guest.”

  “And this happened in the last two hours?” I asked, having no recollection of hearing anything like it during the previous months of planning.

  “It was decided last night, at the gathering after the dinner.”

  This was such a dreaded practice we actually had an acronym for it: a last-minute DAB, i.e., Decided at Bar. “Please tell me you are kidding.”

  “I wish I was.” She sighed, her face tired. “Now, I know you are going to hate me, but I need you to go back out and pick up the cards from the printer. They were a rush job and are already paid for and ready.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I said you’d hate me,” she replied, as if this actually made anything better. And plus, I couldn’t hate her, anyway; she’d never made a DAB. She was way too organized. “Just remember; next summer, you’ll be almost out of here to college. No more tasks like this. You can get a nice, normal job, like selling produce.”

  This was what she’d started saying to me at times like this, as if a promise of weighing cucumbers in the future softened any current blow. It was also as close as she’d come to addressing me leaving for school, something so fraught with emotion she wasn’t even able to joke about it. Yet. I said, “I know you’re trying, but the idea of working at a farmers’ market is hardly a comfort right now.”

  “No?” She gave me a sympathetic look. “How about this: get the cards and I promise, barring any unforeseen disasters, you can knock off early tonight.”

  “Define disasters.”

  “No. I refuse. It’s like tempting fate.” She shut the folder. “Just say yes to the offer, will you? A free night at the beach! You can study up on the produce business.”

  “You’re not funny,” I grumbled.

  “Maybe not. But I am desperate.” She took a quick, apologetic glance at the van keys, which I’d deposited next to the pennies. “In all seriousness, I wouldn’t push on this. But . . .”

  “. . . the client gets what the client wants,” I said, before she could complete yet another one of her mantras. I picked up the keys. “But I am not polishing pennies. I draw the line there.”

  “That’s fine. William will do it.”

  “Wait, what?” William said, entering the room at precisely that moment. “What am I doing?”

  My mom pretended she didn’t hear him. “Just think about weighing those cucumbers next summer!” she called out as I started to the hallway. “So easy! So relaxing!”

  I didn’t reply, just waved a hand behind me as William said, confused, “Cucumbers?”

  At six p.m. sharp, Margy walked down the aisle on the arm of her father, looking gorgeous in her cap-sleeved gown with a bejeweled bodice, and crying happy tears. We’d hit the jackpot on the weather: warm but not too hot, a good breeze but not enough to send veils and dresses billowing up. The only wrinkle was a loud Coast Guard Helicopter flying by low over the beach and drowning out the beginning of the vows. Even my mother couldn’t control the military, although I would not have put it past her to try.

  After the ceremony, I sat in the BRR as the wedding party and then guests exited to the ballroom, where the bars were open and the DJ already playing beach music, the bride and groom’s favorite. Once the chairs were empty, I helped some guys from the Piers fold and stack them to clear space for what would later be the dance floor. Left behind were crumpled programs, a few stray tissues, and, to me, entirely too many of the penny cards William and I had hastily assembled in record time before the ceremony. Oh, well.

  Once the ceremony was complete, there was always an easing in my mother’s tension. So I wasn’t entirely surprised when she joined me during dinner as I stood guarding the display of M & J cupcakes on the cake table. While guests rarely messed with a wedding cake, something about cupcakes brought out serious grabby hands, and not just in children. Until the pictures were taken, though, they were off limits, which meant body blocking them while saying “Not yet!” in a cheerful, yet firm, voice to anyone who tried to approach. It was one of my least favorite jobs, and one William loved. But he was tied up taking over for a queasy bartender until backup arrived, so it fell to me.

  “Did you see how many people ditched those penny cards?” my mother said, her eyes moving over the crowd in front of us. “Talk about dishonoring the dead.”

  “DABs are always a mistake,” I told her, as a flower girl, carrying a full plate of steak and pasta, started for the cupcakes. When I stepped forward, she veered off, her dress hem dragging on the carpet behind her. “If any idea is good, we’ve already thought of it.”

  She looked at me, smiling, proud. “Listen to you. Spoken like a real wedding planner.”

  “Or a future cucumber seller,” I replied. “And I’m still knocking off early tonight. You promised.”

  “I know, I know.” She reached behind us, picking up a stray crumpled napkin and tucking it in her pocket. “I also know I’ve been lucky to have you working with us these last few years. Although it’s not like I really gave you a choice.”

  “I am getting another job once I start college,” I told her.

  “God, I hope so.” She shuddered theatrically. “I cannot be responsible for sucking someone else into a lifetime of this business. I already feel bad enough about William.”

  I looked over at the bar across the room, where at that moment the man in question was chatting away while salting the rim of a margarita, two older women in jewel tone dresses hanging on his every word. “I don’t think he minds it so much.”

  She smiled, seeing this too. “Oh, he does. He just can’t do anything else, like me.”

  This was big talk, and I was used to it. My mom and William always discussed the business as if it, too, was a bad relationship they couldn’t wait to break off. And yet, they kept coming back, bickering over choices of clients and laughing at inside jokes I’d never understand. The longest, most successful relationship either of them had ever had was with this business and each other, and they knew it. Maybe it wasn’t true love, but it worked. Somehow.

  Finally, Margy and Josef cut the cake, each feeding the other a bite (skipping the smashing of it in each other’s faces, which we as a company lobbied against, always). With the dessert table fair game, I went to the bathroom, where I checked all the toilets for problems and paper and wiped down the sink counter. Then it was back through the ballroom and outside to the patio, where a few kids were running around on the dance floor as the DJ got ready to start playing the real music. I sw
ung by the nearby bar, picking up two waters, then delivered one to him, asking if he needed anything. When he said no, I walked over to the steps that led to the beach, where someone had left a couple of little plates and a wine glass with a napkin stuffed into it. I was just putting them on a tray table when I heard the early first notes of a Motown song. By the time I turned around, people were already coming through the doors, following the music.

  There are always phases to dancing at receptions. Usually kids and older people are first to take the floor, due to a lack of self-consciousness. By the second song, you could count on a few of the more tipsy people to join them, often in the form of a clump of girls, all out shaking it together. Younger couples were next, followed by single guys, who tended to need some coaxing to join in. Eventually, though, if the drinks were flowing and the DJ decent, you had a packed floor of all types. William always said the best part of weddings was the dancing, and I had to agree with him. People just stopped caring. One night away from the norm, with the people you know best or barely at all. If you couldn’t cut loose then, when could you?

  I edged past a circle of bridesmaids bumping hips, then an older couple doing some complicated spin-out-and-back footwork, my eye on a nearby ledge cluttered with empty champagne glasses. I was so focused I didn’t even notice the young groomsman from earlier approaching until he was right beside me.