* * *
By six a.m. I am out of sticks, but most of the tree and its branches are covered. At first, I was gluing them to the wall in uniform lines, but as I went on I started placing them in a more organic way. I used to do things like this when I was a kid. I used to just follow myself into the night, into an idea that was going to either work or not. As I look at the wall now, I know that what I’ve created is not beautiful. It may even be a mess. But it’s something.
I sleep for a few hours and find my mom at the kitchen table doodling and nursing a cup of coffee. “Wild night?” she asks me.
“I don’t know what got into me. I just had to cover that tree in my room with texture. And your stick collection was exactly the thing.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
“You may need to burn the house down.”
She laughs. “I don’t want to hear that you’re tired today, because there’s a lot to do. I was going to start addressing these envelopes. You have an appointment at Ginnie’s to taste the cake at one and then at the Old Sloop Inn to look at linens at two.”
“Great,” I say. “Wyatt said he’d come with me.”
“How’s your head?” she asks, and I misunderstand the question. I’m about to say it’s clearing up, that I caught a glimpse of myself and I want to see more of her. I want to say that I’m afraid if I let her out she will fall madly in love with Wyatt and ruin my life. But she’s looking at the Band-Aid on my forehead.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I say. She goes back to her doodling. I open the freezer and find a frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I unwrap it and hold it, cold in my hand. I love that she’s still buying these, waiting for her little girl to show up and eat them. “Mom, I’m sorry I’ve stayed away from the beach for so long.”
She looks up at me and puts down her pen. “Me too. But I feel you coming back.”
“Same,” I say, and kiss the top of her head.
52
It feels funny walking down Main Street with Wyatt. In fourteen years, stores have turned over and lots of faces are new, but I can’t shake the feeling that the town itself remembers us. The streetlights and the garbage cans, the red brick post office on whose steps we sat to watch the Fourth of July parade. I feel like we still look like a couple.
The bell over the door dings as we walk into Ginnie’s Bakery. Ginnie’s husband, Raoul, looks up from the cash register and puts his hand over his heart when he sees us. “I knew it!” he booms, stepping out from behind the counter. He hugs me and shakes Wyatt’s hand. I know what’s coming, and I know Wyatt knows too. He puts his arm around me to make sure it’s coming. I think he thinks it’s funny. I just can’t.
“Hello,” I say. “I see you remember Wyatt. He’s here to help with the tasting. I’m marrying someone else.”
Raoul’s face falls. “Oh.”
“Imagine how I feel,” says Wyatt, and I give him a shove.
Raoul quickly corrects himself. “I’m sorry, I just thought . . . You two walking in here the same way as when you were kids, the leaning. Ginnie always remarked about how you two walked together, sort of leaning into one another. We were like that too.”
I am, I realize, sort of leaning toward Wyatt. I look at the space between our shoulders as we stand side by side and it’s not normal. Wyatt is watching me notice this and gives me a shove back. “So let’s talk cake,” he says to Raoul.
“The cake. Yes, come sit down.” We sit at a corner table where two slices of cake are waiting for us. Raoul introduces the first one. “This is a vanilla cake with a buttercream frosting with hints of lemon. Just hints.”
We each take a bite. “It’s delicious,” I say.
“I’m not so sure,” says Wyatt. “I taste no hints at all. What else have you got?”
“This is an outlandishly lemony cake with a lemon buttercream frosting. It’s a bridal favorite.”
We each take a bite and Wyatt nods. “It’s outlandish all right.”
I knock my knee into his. “Are there any more choices?”
“There’s another one I like.” Raoul goes back to the kitchen.
Wyatt’s laughing as he reaches over to wipe frosting off my mouth with his napkin. He hasn’t gotten it all, so he brushes the last bits of sugar with his fingers. I feel his fingers on my lips everywhere in my body. “You’re a mess,” he says.
Raoul brings us chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, layered with chocolate chip buttercream frosting. I must have made a sound when I tasted it.
“She likes this one,” says Wyatt.
“You don’t know that,” I say.
“I know your sounds, Sam. She’ll take this one.”
“You can’t have a chocolate cake for a wedding, right?” I ask Raoul, taking a third bite.
“You can do whatever you want, but no, traditionally it’s white cake. The fun thing about this one is the white frosting looks traditional, and no one knows it’s chocolate until it’s cut.”
“Let’s go back to the first two,” I say.
“Sam, if you want a chocolate cake, get one. People love chocolate cake, it’s something no one can argue with.”
“Jack won’t like it,” I say, and mop up the last chocolate crumbs with my finger.
“You should have what you want.” He’s not joking around anymore.
“I’ll take the first one,” I say.
* * *
We walk back up Main Street toward the Old Sloop Inn, where we are supposed to be looking at linens for the tables. I haven’t slept and now I’ve eaten too much. “I’m tired,” I say. “Let’s skip the linens and take naps.”
“You’re probably just going to pick white anyway,” Wyatt says.
53
I nap hard. It’s that narcotic kind of nap where you wake up sweaty and you don’t know what time of day it is. My room is a forest now, and I lie flat on my back to take it in. I check my phone, and Jack’s sent a photo from the US Open. I reply: Looks fun! I just had a long nap.
Jack: How was the cake?
Me: Delicious
Jack: What flavor did you choose?
Me: Vanilla
Jack: What about the linens?
Me: I haven’t decided, I sort of liked the yellow Jack: What were the other choices?
Me: All the colors, I’m going back tomorrow Jack: Really, yellow?
Me: Probably white
* * *
I find my dad on the back porch, drawing straight lines in his sketchbook. I take the lounge chair next to his and sort of wish it was time for cocktails.
“There’s no life in a straight line,” he says.
“Are you Confucius now?”
“Sounds like. My agent, who is very close to giving up on me, keeps telling me straight lines are selling. Horizontal gradations of color.” He holds up his sketchbook to show me. “Does nothing for me.” He turns to a new page and draws a straight line across the middle.
“Do you know much about wedding linens?” I ask him.
He doesn’t look up. “Not one thing.”
“I kind of skipped going to the Old Sloop Inn today and lied to Jack about it. I can just go back tomorrow, right? They don’t run out of them or anything?”
“It’s a weird thing to lie about,” he says. “Especially for a person who’s so straight about everything.” I’m looking at the water, but I can feel him looking right at me. He’s been watching me ever since he drove Wyatt and me home that night. Like he’s waiting to see what happens next.
His comment hangs in the air, inviting all the ugliness in. Well you’d sure know about lying, Dad. We’re quiet for a minute.
“Cheating’s just lying, but with your body,” he says. I turn to him, and he’s put down his sketch pad. I guess we’re really going to do this.
“I’m not cheating. I lied about looking at linens.”
“I think you lie to yourself a lot.”
“Not true.” I cross my arms over my chest to protect myself from this accusation.
“When I was having that thing with Marion, I was lying to your mom, but mostly just to support the lie I was telling myself.” He meets my eye, as if to ask permission to continue. “People’s interest, as you know, in my work was waning. All I was creating were flat versions of something that once worked. And one night Marion showed up here in this rainbow-striped dress and twirled in a way that sparked my imagination. For a second I stopped feeling old and washed up, like maybe I wasn’t disappearing. It wasn’t really about my work.”
We’re quiet. “Was it worth it?” I ask.
“Absolutely not. I was using Marion as a bridge to someplace else, someplace where I would feel like a different man. I was terrified that I wasn’t good enough, but Marion wasn’t going to fix me. I didn’t become a new man, I just hurt everyone I loved.”