I nodded, then walked over to the nearest table, set with thick linens and gold-rimmed china, a huge collection of white lilies at its center. As I bent over the three pillar candles arranged just so around the place settings, I breathed in their fragrant smell, hoping it might improve my mood. It couldn’t hurt.
So the week hadn’t been great. At least it was busy, with the details for this weekend’s Elinor Lin rehearsal dinner and wedding distracting me from Ambrose’s cheerful mood and Jilly’s own epic night, which I’d heard all about in the days since. Michael Salem (he was indeed always referred to by this double moniker) had just graduated from the Fountain School, skateboarded in competitions, had four siblings, too, just like her! She’d showed me a picture, of him leaning out of the GRAVY Truck, smiling, a dour-looking Crawford reflected in his big, white-framed sunglasses. He was cute, and, yes, not her type at all. You just never knew, I guess.
I moved on to the next table, lighting the candles there. Behind me, distantly, I could hear my mom talking with Elinor Lin’s mother, who had proven to be the biggest wrinkle in the fabric of this weekend’s events. Mothers of the bride were always a factor: they had Emotions and Opinions and were often enlisted to convey certain messages or directives the bride was too timid to deliver herself. Elinor Lin didn’t need anyone to speak for her, though: she was smart, assertive, and knew exactly what she wanted. I’d thought she was tough until I met Mrs. Lin, who was all of these things but louder, bossier, and ready to spar at any second about whatever didn’t suit her. In another world, she and my mom might have been friends, purely out of their similarities. In this one, though, they were anything but.
“People will need direction as they come in,” Mrs. Lin was saying as she dabbed her face with a Kleenex, of which she kept an impressive supply in the bodice of whatever she was wearing. The first time I’d noticed her yanking out a tissue from this area, it had startled me, but now it was all I could do not to reach over and do the same when the pollen count got high. You got to know people in weird ways at weddings. “And it’s rude to not have someone there to greet them.”
“Elinor felt,” my mom replied, using the two word prefix she always utilized with Mrs. Lin in these conversations, “that having the table assignments in the gazebo as guests entered would be enough.”
“Well, I don’t. So put someone there.”
With that, she walked away. I risked a glance at my mom, who was watching her go, face calm but eyes narrowed. There really was no counterargument to a person telling you that you are wrong and then what to do, even if you were Natalie Barrett, and I felt a rush of protectiveness toward her. When she glanced at me, though, I quickly went back to the candles.
Just as I lit the wick of a round candle in a glass votive, someone leaned over me and blew it out. Annoyed, I glanced up. Ambrose.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I just can’t light a candle without making a wish and blowing it out. It’s some kind of birthday neurosis.”
I looked at the plastic lighter in his hand. “Then you definitely should not be doing this particular job.”
“It’s okay,” he assured me. “I’m just lighting them, wishing and blowing, then lighting them again.”
Granted, it had been a long day. Just about anything had the potential to cross the line of Just Too Damn Much. But there was something about this that shot me over it. “Are you serious?” I demanded.
“What?”
“That is the stupidest, most waste-of-time thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Ouch.” He raised his eyebrows. “Are you mad at me about something?”
“It’s not professional! Making wishes, lighting candles twice. You’re here representing our company. You need to act like it.”
I watched him as he took an exaggeratedly slow look around the backyard of the historic mansion that was our venue. Besides us, there was only the string quartet, tuning up, and a couple of caterers. “Okay. I’ll stop. Sorry.”
With that, he went on to another table, and I went back to my own work. I found myself pausing, though, with the next candle I lit, thinking of what he’d said. But I didn’t make a wish. What was the point?
By six fifty-five, when all the candles were done and the first guests were pulling up at the valet stand, my mom came over to me. “I’m going to need you to stand by the gazebo and direct the guests to their tables.”
Her face was sour as she said this, clearly not happy. That made two of us. “Sure,” I told her. “But I don’t think we need it. People can figure it out for themselves.”
She gave me a smile, squeezing my arm, and walked away. Over in the gazebo, I double-checked that all the tea lights were lit, the seat assignments lined up neatly on the table in front of them. When an older couple came through, I smiled, ready to guide them, but they just took their cards and walked on, not even looking at me. One point to Natalie Barrett.
As another group of guests approached, I looked across the tables to the small pond on the backyard’s edge, where Ambrose was standing with William, talking about something. His face was animated as he gestured, smiling frequently, as William nodded politely, seeming kind of charmed. I thought of Jilly earlier, and all day really, the unique quality to a person’s voice when you know they are just as happy to hear themselves say something as they are to tell it to you. Of course I couldn’t say Ambrose was definitely talking about Lauren: it could have been Ira, or anything. And yet.
“Louna?”
I turned to see Ben Reed standing by the place card table, wearing a shirt and tie and smiling at me. He’d sat beside me for an entire semester of the most boring World Civ class ever, during which we’d taken turns keeping each other awake and always partnered for projects. He was a nice guy, funny and sweet, with a longtime girlfriend, Amy Tellman, who he’d dated since middle school. “Hey,” I said, then gave him a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Tennis,” he explained. Ben had played for the varsity team; until that moment, I’d never seen him without a racket poking out of his backpack. “Albert Lin and I grew up doing the camps and tournaments together. Our moms are tight. What about you? How do you know Elinor and Mark?”
“My mom’s the wedding planner. I’m working,” I explained, then turned to the table, scanning the cards until I found his name. I picked it up, holding it out to him. “And you are at table six.”
“Thank you,” he said, taking it from me. He glanced out into the yard. “Looks fancy. Now I wish I’d brought a date.”
“How is Amy?”
He winced, hearing this, basically answering the question. “I wouldn’t know. We broke up a couple of weeks ago.”
“What?” I said, shocked. He winced again. Whoops. “I’m . . . God, I’m sorry. You guys were so . . . wow. I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “Thanks. It was her decision. Last summer before college, wanting to make a fresh start at UC Berkeley, blah blah. I should have seen it coming.”
“Well, I didn’t.”