“I see no risk.”
I don’t say anything. I keep my head on his chest and concentrate on the way his skin touches mine down the whole length of my body. This is too much to lose.
Wyatt tilts my chin so that we’re eye to eye. “I’m done writing songs about how much I loved you when we were kids. Missy can have those songs. My new album is about how I feel now. And when I’m done, I’m going to write another one about how a year’s gone by and I’m even more in love with you.” He’s looking at me with such certainty and confidence that I can almost hear these songs. “After that I’ll probably write songs about being married to a crazy art teacher. I love you, Sam. I’ve loved you my whole life. There’s no risk.”
“Oh.” I’m in the most improbable situation, grown up and naked in this treehouse with Wyatt, who loves me. He’s wrong, of course; there’s a ton of risk in loving someone like this. But I know it’s worth it, and for the first time in years, everything makes sense. “I love you too.”
He kisses me for a long time. Just slowly, like it’s not going anywhere. Like he’s not going anywhere. “I should have done this years ago,” he says.
“I think you did.”
“No, I mean come here to see you. I think I needed to get backed into a corner.”
“Who backed you into a corner?”
Wyatt looks away like he’s embarrassed. And I can’t imagine why, because we’re both completely naked on a lot of levels. “I brought the music festival here because Michael told me you were getting married.”
I am shocked and not shocked.
“I rented the house from my mom. I paid for the renovation at the Owl Barn. I just wanted to see you again, and make sure you were happy and with someone good. I thought I’d get closure.”
And I like this. I like knowing that it wasn’t some act of fate or the draw of a washed-up tennis player that brought Wyatt back here to me. He chose me and got on a plane. “I am happy, and I am with someone good,” I say.
He pulls me close. “Great. This is actually just the closure I needed.”
62
The weekend of my wedding that is not to be, my parents and Gracie come out to Long Island. My dad wants to check to see if the boiler is leaking the way it does almost every October. Or at least that’s his cover; I think they want to spy on us. Granny and Gramps show up too, because they already wrote “Long Island” on their calendar in ink. Also, the spying.
“Hey-ho!” my dad booms on Friday evening when he comes through the door. “Are there squatters in my house?”
Wyatt’s pulling glasses out of the dishwasher and, for a split second, looks like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He seems to remember himself and walks over to hug my dad. It’s an actual hug, not a quickie, and when my dad pulls away he is a little misty.
“I’m just so happy,” he says, putting his duffel bag on the table.
“Tell me about it,” says Wyatt.
My mom comes in with a plastic bag full of used MetroCards. I give her a hug and ask what they’re for. “I’m not sure,” she says. “God, you look beautiful.” She touches my face the way she likes to, with both hands so she can take it in with multiple senses.
“Thanks. I’m just— It’s so—” I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.
“Oh, I know, sweetie,” she says.
Gracie lugs a suitcase through the front door and is not the person I remember. It’s only been two months but she’s maybe grown an inch, and her hair is in a loose single braid. Soon it will be completely down and she’ll be using it to gesture. Maybe even toss. She’s rounding that corner, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m sorry for what she’s leaving behind, that completely unselfconscious free-form reality of childhood. I have a strong urge to protect her, to shuttle her through these years quickly so she can be thirty. Or, better, forty. But that’s not how caterpillars get there. It’s not how any of us do.
“My friends are like freaking out about ‘Summer Still,’?” she tells Wyatt. “I mean it’s so perfect for right now, like when it’s getting colder?” She’s picked up “like” and the up-talk at the end of a sentence. I want to know who’s responsible for this.
“Thanks,” says Wyatt. “Sam and I are hoping to have a whole album ready by the end of the winter.” He puts his arm around me, and I notice they’ve all paused to observe this.
“Sam’s helping?” my dad asks.
“Well, she helps by leaving for a lot of the day so I can work.”
I give him a smile and nudge. “That’s not true. He works all the time. I think he sleeps while I’m at the library.”
“This is so weird,” says Gracie. “I guess I’m the only one in the family that never saw you two madly in love.”
“Gracie,” my mom says. Though I don’t know what she’s admonishing her for. Apparently, neither does she, because she smiles. “Granny and Gramps will be here in a bit. We’ve got stuff to grill, if it’s not too cold out there. Travis and Hugh are right behind us.”
* * *
“Tonight was supposed to be your rehearsal dinner,” Travis says because he’s such a troublemaker. “Where was that going to be again?”
“That washed-up tennis player’s park,” I say.
“Weather would have been nice for it,” says Granny, and my mom nods. Wyatt gives my shoulder a squeeze, as if I need to be reminded of how great it is that we are not currently at my rehearsal dinner.
“Well, let’s consider this a rehearsal dinner,” my dad says. “Because I’m still paying for dinner for fifty at the Old Sloop Inn tomorrow night. Never got our deposit back, so I just held the reservation to piss them off.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I say.
“It’s no big deal,” he says, and smiles at my mom.
“Just tell them,” my mom says.
My dad puts his hands on the table and considers us for a few seconds before he speaks. “There’s a lot of interest in my new series. I have a show at the Nufriti-Greene Gallery in December. It’s called Lifeline.”
“Oh, Dad!” Travis and I are on our feet to hug him. “This must feel so good.”
“It’s about damn time,” says Gramps to his glass.
“It feels like if you were starving to death and found out you could create a cheeseburger with your own hands,” my dad says, his eyes a little misty.
“What’s the new series? Can we see it?” I ask.
“It’s very simple actually. It came to me the night you left Jack and Gracie grabbed your hand at the table. There are no straight lines, just connections, hinges, where we reach for each other and pull each other up. People will say it looks like a bunch of gulls flying, but it’s really people holding hands.”
“Honestly,” Gramps says, and we laugh.
Wyatt raises his glass. “To Lifeline.” We drink to that.
My dad’s quiet for a second. “But, seriously, if any of you people want to get married tomorrow, speak now.”
I know he’s kidding, but I look at Wyatt and think, Yes, I want to marry him tomorrow. But not there and not in such a rush. The dress I wanted to buy when I was marrying Jack is the dress I always imagined marrying Wyatt in. I’m going to see that through.
Hugh pipes up: “Me.” He puts his wineglass down on the table and considers us all before he speaks again. “I want to get married tomorrow.” He turns to Travis. “Would you do that?”
“Wait, are you trying to say ‘Will you marry me’?”
Hugh takes his hand. “Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’ve been so anxious about a big event and all that noise. Can we just gather fifty people last-minute and get it done without all the pressure? Because of course I want to marry you.”
My mother is crying and my dad is smiling. Gracie has her hand over her mouth, presumably to keep from blurting something out and ruining the moment.
“Yes,” Travis says. “Let’s get married tomorrow.”
We all cheer, and my dad puts his hands up to stop us. “Free wedding tomorrow—going once. Going twice,” he says with a smile to Wyatt.
“No thanks, we’re good,” he says, taking my hand. “I’ve always planned to marry Sam on the beach.”
Acknowledgments
Just to save my high school friends some time: this is a work of fiction. All characters depicted in this novel are made up. If I dated a guy with a guitar, you would have known about it.