That had been another wrinkle. Ambrose’s list for the friends who’d gone grocery shopping had requested pizzas on the front, with frozen egg rolls and meatballs and other finger food continued on the back. When they didn’t turn it over and then did their own strange math about how many they’d need, we ended up with forty frozen pies and nothing else. Luckily, Jilly and Michael Salem hadn’t left her house yet, and between their two trucks were able to produce enough grilled cheese and ham and chicken biscuits on the fly to nicely round out the menu. It had taken only a quick canvas of the early arriving guests to find a couple of people happy to preheat the oven and arrange things on cookie sheets, all of which were now warming up as Maya and Roger said their vows. Then all we had to do was plop them on trays and we’d be good.
Now I watched as the bride and groom took each other’s hands, their very short ceremony already speeding toward its pinnacle and conclusion. When they began their vows, I looked up at the twinkling lights in the trees as a breeze blew across the yard and all of us assembled. Then I looked up at Ambrose again, his face in profile, watching as Maya slid a ring on Roger’s finger. What had he meant, that it was good to know I wanted him to be happy? I wanted to think about it, and yet didn’t, at the same time.
Moments later, the bride and groom came back down the aisle, Roger flushed and actually smiling, Maya waving her bouquet over her head. As everyone cheered, throwing the flower petals we’d collected from pruning Bee’s older roses, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out: Ben.
OFF AT 8. DINNER?
I glanced up at Ambrose, who was talking to Andrew, shaking his hand. Leo was starting the playlist that was his gift to the bride and groom. I’d looked at it earlier when he’d been taking a smoke break. It was mostly slow, folky music mixed with the occasional rap song, not exactly ideal for dancing. Not that I was going to say anything. At that point, I’d planned to be long gone by the time the party really got going, yet somehow I was still here. And now, I realized, I wanted to stay.
KIND OF GOT CAUGHT UP, I wrote back. TOMORROW? Then I slid it back in my pocket, not waiting for a response.
A half hour later, three of the six tablecloths were ripped, we were out of grilled cheese squares, and Leo had been overthrown as DJ by a group of people demanding danceable music. Michael Salem had started up the GRAVY Truck to produce some more biscuits, while Jilly and I took our turn at the wish wall, which had been set up just by the backyard gate. As I straightened the box of cards and replaced the pens in their holder, I wondered if I’d ever attend any wedding without lapsing into organizer mode. Probably not.
“So what’s the idea here again?” Jilly asked.
“You write a wish for the bride and groom,” I told her.
“What if you don’t know them at all?”
“Then you write what you would want someone to wish for you at your wedding,” I said. “Peace, friendship, never fighting over who washes the dishes. That kind of thing.”
“I love washing dishes, though,” she said, considering her card. “Maybe I’ll just wish for lots of good food. That’s what my parents say is key to their marriage.”
“You can go a long way on grilled cheese sandwiches, I guess.”
“Or they can.” She bent over the table and began to write. “What are you going to say?”
I wasn’t actually sure, at that moment. As I thought, I glanced around the yard again, taking in the crowd of people dancing by that big tree, the white tables lined with candles, one guest’s baby toddling over to Ira, who had a white, bejeweled bandana tied around his neck for the occasion. I didn’t realize I’d been actually looking for something—or someone—specific until I spotted Ambrose, standing at the back of the GRAVY Truck talking to Michael Salem. He was in the middle of saying something, using his hands to make a point, and I watched him for a minute, surprising myself again with how much I wanted him to see me, as well. When he did, and broke into a grin, I felt my face flush.
“I don’t think you can wish that for the bride and groom,” Jilly said. “Maybe for you, though.”
I looked at her. “What are you talking about?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Louna. You and Ambrose have so much chemistry you’re basically flammable.”
“Jilly,” I said, my voice low, “he could not be more on the rebound.”
“Which means you won the bet, and so can pick yourself for him to go out with next,” she replied, folding her card and sticking it on the wall. “It’s perfect. You can act like you can’t stand him all you want. But that blush doesn’t lie.”
“It’s not like that,” I said, although if asked, I wasn’t sure I could say what it was like, actually. I opened my card. “And I never planned to pick me.”
“Plans change,” she said. “You know that better than anyone.”
She was right. But so was I. Even driving back with the tables earlier, I’d had no idea I might be where I was now, on the edge of something with the last person I’d ever expect. You would think I’d have learned that the world is full of surprises, though, and maybe not just the kind that break your heart.
I put my pen to the paper and began to write. I’d made so many wishes for so many couples quietly in my head as they drove away, but writing the words out made it seem more real, possible. For them, and maybe for me.
FOR YOU, I WISH FOR SECOND CHANCES.
I folded it shut, then put it on the wall before I could change my mind, right above Jilly’s. As Michael Salem called out to her and she started his way, I crossed the backyard, moving toward the music. When I looked back at the wish wall from a distance, it was a sea of squares: I couldn’t even find mine among them. So many things we ask for, hope for, prayers put out into a world so wide: there was no way they could all be answered. But you had to keep asking. If you didn’t, nothing even had a chance of coming true.
On the dance floor, Roger and Maya were in the center, holding hands, him even sweatier, her flower crown lopsided. Andrew, his white shirt also damp, bopped beside them, along with Maya’s mom and some other friends, all in a circle. Behind them, Bee was twirling in the arms of the contractor neighbor, while Lauren boogied with Kevin Yu, Bee’s med student groom-to-be. Yet again, I found myself on the outside of all this, a line only I could see dividing us. This time, though, there was no rule: I could cross over it. Isn’t that the way everything begins? A night, a love, a once and for all.
When I saw Ambrose coming toward me from the other side of the floor, the moment seemed even more fated, like my wish had come true. All this time I’d been waiting for my second chance. Maybe he’d been here all along.
“Hey,” I said to him, holding out my hand. “Dancing is healing. Want to heal?”
“Yeah. Sure. Of course,” he said quickly, but didn’t move. “It’s about time, right?”
I cocked my head to the side. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, equally fast, too fast. He flashed me a smile, compensating, then dropped it when he saw my own serious expression. Behind me, I could hear someone whooping: a girl in a black dress twirled past, her hem brushing my leg. “I was just . . . at the truck, talking with Jilly.”
“Oh,” I said, confused. “Okay.”
He looked over at Bee, doing a shimmy as Kevin clapped his hands. “I told her . . . how I feel about you. How I’ve felt.”
This was big, I knew. Huge. But it didn’t match—what he was saying and how he was saying it. Like a rhythm slightly off, the beat you somehow can’t clap to. “And?”