He grabs that hand. “And this, Sam. You’re touching me all the time. Do you run your hands over all your other friends this way? You don’t know what you want or who you are. You’re gasping for air.”
I have nothing to say. I’m embarrassed about my rogue hands. I am hurt that he thinks my life is such a fake joke. I want to be angry, because anger would help me storm off back to the safety of my own house. My kingdom for a little righteous indignation right now. I just look straight ahead at his chest.
“I’m going to bed,” he says. “And I’m leaving tomorrow. Get your shit together, Sam.”
55
My shit together. Mine? I’m in bed when the anger finally shows up. I’m the one who’s in a healthy relationship. Wyatt’s just been occasionally sleeping with a pop star. And maybe I’m not showing my full colors and chasing my dreams, but it’s not like he’s up on a stage performing either. If he thinks I’m hiding behind Jack, what does he call feeding Missy songs and letting her wreck them? Ha! Who’s really lost their voice here?
I have a text from Jack at midnight: Miss you!!!
I stare at it in the dark. Why all the exclamation points? I hold my finger over them to read it as simply: Miss you. The quiet “miss you” is so much more romantic, like he’s got his head on the pillow, texting me because he misses me. The shouting text makes me feel like he’s in a bar and just remembered he owed me a high five.
Am I now such a tight-ass, I wonder, that I am editing my fiancé’s texts? I write back: Miss you too.
* * *
I sleep until eight, presumably because I have a sleep debt, and find my mom at the dining room table, deep into her watercolors. She doesn’t look up when she says, “What happened with Wyatt?”
I pour myself a coffee and examine the row of invitations on the counter.
“We broke up again.”
“Sam.” She puts down her paintbrush.
“He laid into me about all this stuff. It started with my wedding cake, he thinks he knows which one I like best. And then it spun out of control to his accusing me of living a total lie.”
“Oh.”
“What? Do you think I’m living a lie?”
“I think you’ve constructed a really nice life that you feel safe in.”
“What’s wrong with safe?”
“Nothing at all. Safe is great. There’s just a balance between safe and free, and I think you’re a person who might like to be a little more free in your life than you are.”
“I’m too old to run around playing Capture the Flag, Mom.”
“Not necessarily. But you could speak up a little more in your relationship. Jack loves you, and I bet he’d love you even more if he saw more of you.”
I pick up an invitation that has a pale blue brushstroke across our names and the lightest orange dots at the corners. Happy, I think. I like the idea of a wedding that begins with an invitation that doesn’t mind a pop of color. They are such small touches but they put me in our wedding, or at least something that feels like me.
“They’re beautiful, Mom. They give this whole thing a burst of happy energy.”
She looks up and smiles at me. “Good. That’s what we needed.” She goes back to her work and adds, “How could Jack turn down a burst of happy energy?”
56
The waves are okay in front of our house, and Gracie and I surf until lunchtime. I’m happy to be spending the morning with Gracie doing something where we don’t have to talk. The lights are out in Wyatt’s house, so I assume he’s left. I’m ruminating on our last conversation in a way that’s probably not healthy. I can’t believe Wyatt called me a liar and a fraud, or whatever. But mostly I can’t believe he called me out on wanting to touch him all the time. I’m embarrassed thinking about it, like the disconnect between what my body wants and what my mind knows to be appropriate is evident to everyone around me.
Gracie comes with me to the Old Sloop Inn and we actually choose the yellow napkins. She tells me my whole wedding is going to look like sunshine. I think of the watercolored invitations and imagine a yellow ribbon around my waist. I breathe a little easier having made these small decisions, as if for the first time I can picture myself being part of this day and smiling a real smile into a camera.
By the time we’ve finished dinner, Wyatt should have landed in Los Angeles. He hasn’t texted me all day, which is expected. His last piece of advice was for me to get my shit together, so I can’t really imagine what his follow-up would be. He’s disappointed in how I’ve turned out, which is his problem, not mine.
* * *
I stay at the beach until Monday to help close up the house. I wake up with an anxious heart. We’re packing to leave, summer’s over, and things are off with Wyatt. I check my phone. It’s six a.m.; no text. This is a decade-old feeling that I’m walking through, and I need to shake it off. I get up and put on a bathing suit and run out through the dunes into the ocean. It’s cold but I’ve been swimming enough times over the past few days that my body is used to it. I dive under the waves and then swim toward the cove with slow, even strokes. No one’s going to be up for an hour, I can be out here as long as I like.
My mind relaxes in the water, like my body takes over and I can just enjoy the rhythm of the movement. It reminds me of being a kid, when I spent the whole day just sort of seeking out what felt good. What feels good right now is a wedding with a burst of sunshine. I’m going to wear my hair loose and feel like myself. I have a nagging feeling about what Wyatt said about Jack’s not really knowing me. If Jack doesn’t have a complete picture of who I am, that’s my own fault.
When I get to the cove I walk straight to the linden tree. It’s littered with seaweed and shells that actually look as if they washed up on a single wave. How pointless it was to have spent so much time and energy organizing my shells to look the way nature would have arranged them anyway. It was pointless and fun and satisfying, actually. Like a flash mob. I choose a particularly pretty green and blue shell from the mess, tuck it in the side of my bathing suit, and swim back home.
I ride back to the city with my parents and Gracie. We pass through town and drive onto Sunrise Highway, onto the Long Island Expressway, and through the tunnel. It’s transformative, this ride. We leave the beach behind and wake up to the excitement of the city.
They drop me off in front of my building and I squeeze Gracie extra tight. “I’ll see you tomorrow night to stuff envelopes,” I say. “Good luck tomorrow!”
Jack and I decide to go to our favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant. He’s gotten a little bit of sun at the US Open and looks handsomer than ever, but I don’t mention it.
When we’re seated with two glasses of red wine and two plates of spaghetti, he asks, “So do you think we’ll be able to pull this off in eight weeks?”
“No problem,” I say. “We just have to make a few final decisions this week, get the invitations in the mail, and then we’re all set.”
“Okay, shoot. What are the decisions?” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. I like how with Jack I feel like we are running our life like it’s a small company. We talk through options, make solid decisions, and move on.
“Linens. Gracie and I like yellow napkins on white tablecloths. My mom will have the florist come up with something that goes with that. That little pop of color makes the whole room feel like sunshine. You’ll love it.” You’ll love it is a bit much. It comes out as a command, which isn’t like me. “I mean I think you will. What do you think?” I lean forward and take his hand, which is awkward for some reason.
“I don’t know, Sam. We kind of talked about white for the whole wedding. Classic, right?”
“Yeah, but the color really feels happy.”
“It’s a wedding, isn’t it already happy?”
“Very,” I say, and squeeze his hand. I don’t know why I feel like I’m in a sales situation, like I’m trying to coax a stranger into buying a rug.
“Well, I’m not sure,” he says. “What else? You decided on the cake?”
I take a sip of my wine and lean back in my chair. The cake is a sore subject now that it’s been used to lambast my entire life. “Yes, the vanilla.”
“Okay, good.” Jack’s twirling his spaghetti around his fork, and I have the feeling he thinks this conversation is over. It’s not.
“There’s one more thing I wanted to talk about.” I reach into my bag and pull out one of our invitations. This one has a pale blue swoosh over our names, and it feels like the flow of the ocean. I hand it to him.
“Ah, I see your mom’s been busy. Were there extras?”
“About twenty.”
“Cute.” He puts it down and goes back to his spaghetti.
“I really love it,” I say.
“What?”
“The invitation with the paint across our names. My mom did them in a bunch of different colors. I actually love all of them.”