“I’m just saying I wish Sarah was down here at the party instead of shut up upstairs like a woman in purdah,” he says.
“I’ll go,” Huck says. “I’ll sneak up a glass of champagne and we’ll while away the hour.”
Huck is so present that he doesn’t even seem to walk away; rather, the rest of the space around him seems to move past him, like the background in a cartoon. He is gone, into the kitchen, where they can hear him barking at one of the polo-wearing waitstaff to find some champagne, cold.
“So, you ready?” Lauren feels a strange urge to punch Dan on the shoulder. She’s never sure how to relate to him, so finds herself acting like one of the guys in his presence.
“I’m more than ready, to tell you the truth,” Dan says, glancing at his wristwatch. “I’d like to get this show on the road.”
“All in due time,” Dan’s father says, one of those perfectly meaningless things fathers specialize in saying.
“Someone’s ready for the honeymoon,” she says, and immediately regrets it. The words sound unmistakably sexual coming out of her mouth, the implication disgusting. A misstep: She’s usually good with parents, adept at keeping the conversation moving and G-rated.
“You and Sarah have been friends forever, I hear,” Dan’s mother says.
An out. She’s so grateful. “We’ve known each other for . . .” She does some math. “Gosh, since we were eleven. Two-thirds of our lives. Crazy, right?”
“So wonderful, really.” She squeezes Lauren’s arm again. “It’s wonderful to have an old friend.”
“I’m actually her something old,” Lauren says. “I’m working on new, borrowed, and blue.”
“Guys, excuse us for a second, would you?” Dan places his hand gingerly on Lauren’s back, but only barely touching her. She must look immaculate. She lets him push her back into the house, floats away at his touch, happy, for the moment, to cede control to him. She doesn’t know what to do with herself anyway.
“You want a drink?” His tone is less formal, but still not quite intimate. Dan’s always respected the distance between them.
“Maybe I do want a drink,” she says.
Dan nods at a girl who’s standing at the kitchen island, measuring out piles of paper cocktail napkins.
“Where do you think we could get a whiskey?”
The girl smiles a smile that says she’s helped many a nervous groom. “I’ve got some ice right here,” she says. She stops what she’s doing, fills tumblers with ice in one fluid motion. “There’s whiskey upstairs or”—voice dropping to conspiratorial whisper—“there’s the good stuff, from their regular bar. You want the good stuff, right?”
“We want the good stuff,” Lauren says.
She points down the hallway. “It’s in the apartment. Do you want me to go grab it?”
“We’ll get it,” Lauren says. “You’re busy.” She takes the tumblers from the girl. “Thanks.”
Lauren’s never actually seen the apartment, and in her imagination, the place was amazing, impressive. A teenage daydream: that Sarah, at sixteen, could have relocated down there, come and gone as she pleased, though in fact, she enjoyed plenty of liberty, not to mention more square footage. The place is disappointing—sealed up, a relic of another time, like those underground bunkers where families once imagined they’d while away the hours, post-apocalypse. The bottles that usually crowd on the kitchen counter have been transplanted to a table here. Lauren chooses the Oban, a splash in each glass then, upon reflection, another splash. She’s not the one who’s pregnant.
“Cheers,” she says. She lifts the glass in salute.
“Thanks.” Dan touches his glass to hers, sniffs the whiskey, takes a tentative sip. “I needed that.”
She sits on the one corner of the bed not covered by plant stands, coffee-table books, magazines, vases, and other accessories temporarily moved from the upstairs rooms. The mattress groans, but nothing falls over. She’s not sure she’s ever been alone with Dan before.
“How’s she doing up there, really?”
“Great,” Lauren says. “She looks amazing, we’re all good to go.”
“She always does. Is everyone driving her crazy?” Dan smiles. “Sarah doesn’t like to be fussed over, you know.”
“I think she’s taking it in stride,” Lauren says. It’s sweet, how the first thing he says, in response to being told of Sarah’s beauty, is a reflexive “of course.” “But, you know, I think she wants it to be over.”
“We’re pregnant, I know she told you.”
“Another thing to say congratulations for,” she says.
“Thanks. I’m excited.”
“You should be.”
“The next chapter, or something.” Dan pauses. “I’m glad Sarah has you, had you to talk to, about the baby. You were the first person to know.”
“As well I should have been,” Lauren says.
“She’s lucky, to have you, to know you.” Dan looks embarrassed. He takes a long sip of his drink. “I’m nervous. Is that stupid?”