Back when we were still sharing work stories. When I had someone who had my back. A sounding board, a sympathetic ear. Brad hadn’t always been perfect, but marriage . . . I had loved being married.
Based on Melissa’s and Brad’s Instagram accounts, they loved being engaged. So many pictures, so many hashtags. When I saw a photo of the three of them that Brad posted, and saw that he’d added #girldad, I cried. I did. Tears of rage and latent grief. He had been a girl dad. He had held our baby daughter and sobbed with me, and he’d been so incredibly kind in the months afterward. Now, this stranger’s niece was apparently his daughter.
Soon, I told myself, I’d be past this. Soon, I’d be one of those women who’d say I’ve never been happier and mean it. Soon, thinking about my ex-husband, my son, the shattering of my family wouldn’t be the only thing on my mind. Soon, I would fully embrace this independence and be completely solid in my new life.
It seemed impossible, but I wanted to believe it.
* * *
With Hannah as my spy, I had already learned a great deal about Bralissa’s wedding. It would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million. Two million dollars. For one day. Well, two days. There was a welcome party the night before, held at the Red Inn in Provincetown. The entire restaurant, closed for my ex-husband and his child bride. Hannah was coming over tonight to share more details. Information was power, after all.
But the two mil floored me. My finances, on the other hand . . . well, let’s just say that I was never going to get out of debt, or I’d be a toothless, senile, humpbacked crone when I did. Or I’d have to work until I was eighty-three. Or win the lottery. Or marry someone rich. Or get nonfatally hit by a car, sue the driver and win. That one seemed like the most realistic option at this point.
I made a decent living, sure I did. But they don’t call it Taxachusetts for nothing. It was the property taxes that killed me, since the house’s location and fifteen years of renovation had boosted its worth to, ironically, $2 million. Son in college with my legal share being half: $15K. Annual mortgage and home equity line of credit: $30,000.
That left me with $10,000 a year for car, groceries, utilities, phone, internet, clothes, copays on Dylan’s and my insurance, clothes and supplies for Dylan, Dylan’s plane tickets home, etc. Brad didn’t pay child support, because our son was eighteen. Maybe someday Brad would pay for some of Dylan’s things, but right now, Dylan wasn’t asking him, and neither was I. Add onto that vet bills (I did get pet insurance on Zeus, thank God, but they only covered emergency stuff).
So, you know . . . I was going to have to squeeze every dollar till it bled.
I got home, loved up Zeus by staring into his big eyes and kissing his heart-splotched nose and head, stroking his silky ears and running up and down the dirt driveway with him seven or eight times. Then I fed him, took a shower and cooked some snacks for Hannah and me. For the first time ever, my sister was deigning to visit me.
At seven thirty sharp, she knocked, dressed to kill as always, a stylish blue leather computer bag in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other.
“Hi,” she said, giving me a quick once-over (pajama bottoms and a University of Montana Grizzlies T-shirt). “Oh, my God, you got a dog!”
“Hannah, this is Zeus. Zeus, my sister.” He was already nosing her crotch. I watched, amused, as she tried to dodge his efforts. “Okay, Zeus, that’s enough. Go lie down, boy.”
He obeyed, flopping in front of the fireplace on his giant doggy bed.
“I’ll just open that, then,” I said, taking the wine from her.
“It’s weird to be here without . . . Shit. Sorry.”
“Without my husband? Child? Without a crowd?”
“Yep. All of those.” She glanced at her fingernails, started to bite one, then stopped.
“Only the two of us,” I said. “Seems like old times.”
She didn’t answer, just looked around the living room like she’d never been there. I went downstairs to the kitchen, uncorked the bottle—it was a nice sauvignon blanc—and put two glasses on a tray with a wine cooler and some sliced bolo do caco, a simple but delicious Portuguese bread made with flour, sweet potatoes, yeast and salt, still warm from the oven. I spread it with garlic butter and scallions, added it to the tray and carried it back upstairs.
“Wow,” Hannah said. “You cook like Avó.”
“Thank you,” I said. I poured us the wine and put a sliced bolo on a plate and handed it to her. Hannah had never been too interested in learning from our grandmother. Then again, she could afford to eat out whenever she wanted. She’d given Dylan a lovely big check for graduation. That was nice, anyway.
We sat there a minute, her in the easy chair, me on the couch, the coffee table and tray of food and wine and thirty years of unspoken feelings separating us.
What would we have been like as sisters if she hadn’t left? The eight-year-old me still missed her. The forty-one-year-old still resented her.
“So. Tell me everything,” I said, taking a bite of the bread. Heaven.
She opened her laptop obediently and showed me her notes.
The hypocritical Reverend White would do the ceremony, thanks to the restored bell tower. I’d forgive him (someday). The special reception drink would be named the Stella Maris. Enjoy our signature cocktail! Nolet’s Reserve modern gin with makrut lime leaves, organic lemon slices and English hothouse cucumber! This was in addition to a top-shelf full bar.
An arch on the beach made from Cape Cod driftwood just for them, entangled with roses and springtime wildflowers that would have to be shipped from New Zealand, given the fact that it was autumn here. The tent would be hung with enormous floral designs and special lighting. They’d hired the same photographer who had shot the Jonas-Chopra wedding.
“Seriously?” I said.
Hannah had the grace to roll her eyes.
There would be a raw bar, of course . . . it was Cape Cod, and every wedding had one. But theirs would have not just our famous Wellfleet oysters and clams, but also Maine lobster, wild Gulf shrimp, Alaskan king crab and otoro Atlantic bluefin tuna, whatever the hell that was. Ten types of passed hors d’oeuvres, all organic, including sushi made at the sushi station.
There’d be lobster bisque, a salad, five kinds of bread, biscuits and crackers, including gluten-free. Palate cleansers? Of course. Mint sorbet for the first course, apple and calvados sorbet for the second.
“What’s calvados?” I asked.
“A type of brandy,” Hannah said, taking another slice of bolo.
For dinner, Bralissa’s wedding guests would be treated to a crab-stuffed filet mignon and lobster tail, or herbed sea bass curry with lemon rice and grape salad, or penne rigate with shaved brussels sprouts and Gorgonzola cheese, or summer squash with green zebra tomato lasagna with basil-pistachio pesto. Dessert would be a $10,000 five-tier cake shipped in from New York City, plus a Viennese table containing cream puffs, crème br?lées, miniature cheesecakes, tarte tatins, macarons in pale blue, and napoleons. A gourmet coffee bar staffed by the nice folks at Beanstock, serving espresso, cappuccino, and a custom blend made just for their wedding. Four kinds of red wines, six kinds of white, none of which sold for less than $600 a bottle, and, for the champagne toast, Dom Perignon Rosé from 1975, rolling in at $2,300 a bottle. A scotch and vodka tasting. A cigar sommelier.
“What is a cigar sommelier?” I asked.
“Exactly what it sounds like. Some guy pushing cigars that cost a hundred bucks a pop.”
Later in the evening, a slew of gourmet sandwiches would be served in case the guests got peckish. A final champagne toast, then off went the happy couple in a bleepin’ Bentley.
I put her laptop down on the coffee table. “Wow.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I would never have taken them on if you hadn’t asked.”
“You’ve done well for yourself,” I said. It was supposed to be a compliment, but it didn’t come out that way. “I mean, you know. You’re a very good wedding planner.”
“Thanks.”