Chapter 25 Beth
Beth
I think Clementine's been my lucky charm.
The overall vibe at the apartment has been surprisingly light since the night she chased me down the hall. The alphas are still a little pulled back, but it’s nothing compared to how things were after I announced the buyout offer.
On Wednesday, I sent an order of forty-six centerpieces, twelve garlands and two ceremony arches for the Bellamy-Hirsch wedding. Cecilia, the wedding planner, called me personally to tell me I nailed it.
Thursday, Luna, Harper, and I finally nailed down the bachelorette. Maren handled logistics. Luna handled the inevitable opinions of the other guests, and I handled Luna not strangling anyone over said opinions. If I'm being honest, the division of labor proved quite effective.
And right now, I'm three glasses into a reserve Cab Franc at a vineyard in wine country, the first stop on Harper's bachelorette. The sun is warm on my bare shoulders, and Luna is currently losing her mind.
"Harper's middle name?" Luna stares at the question card. "Who knows anyone's middle name?"
"People who listen," Maren says, already scribbling her answer.
We're sitting at a long barrel-topped table in the outdoor tasting pavilion, surrounded by rolling green hills and grapevines that go on forever.
Our personal sommelier, a tiny beta woman in a linen apron, keeps topping off our glasses between rounds of "How Well Do You Know the Bride?
" which Luna insisted on, organized entirely, and is now losing spectacularly.
Harper is glowing at the head of the table. Not metaphorically. She's wearing this soft cream sundress and the late-morning light is making cute, tiny freckles appear on her skin. She's clearly enjoying herself, throwing her head back, laughing, every time someone gets an answer wildly wrong.
"It's Delphine," I say, flipping my card around at the question What's Harper's middle name?.
Harper points at me. "Beth! Yes!"
"Harper Delphine Whitfield," I say. "It's on the custom stationery you made me help you pick out for your wedding reception.
"That should not count," Luna says. "That's insider information, I'm filing a formal protest."
"Denied," Maren says, and marks a point on her scoresheet.
The sommelier pours another round. Becca, one of Harper's childhood friends, reads the next card.
"What is Harper's most irrational fear?"
"Clowns," Luna says out loud, not writing anything. "She cried at her niece's fifth birthday because the entertainment showed up in a rainbow wig and a red nose."
"It doesn't count, you have to write it down," Maren says.
"I'm going to need to see a ruling on that," Luna says. "Harper?"
"You can have that one," Harper grins.
Maren and I flip our cards over. Both say "Clowns."
I am winning by three points. And I'm pretty happy about myself.
Plus, the wine is excellent. Every few minutes someone pulls me into a side conversation: Becca wants my opinion on peonies versus garden roses for Harper's reception tables, one of Harper's college friends wants to know if the glamping tents have electricity.
I take another sip of wine, lean back in my chair, and let the heat settle into my arms. The hills are green, the sky is open, and for the first time in a long time, I'm not thinking about anything other than exactly where I am.
Which is, of course, the precise moment a voice cuts through the air behind me, high and breathy.
"Oh my god, you guys come here too?"
***
My gut instinct is to keep my eyes on the vineyard. Stare at the grapevines until they rearrange into a portal to another dimension and I can crawl through it.
I don't turn around. Instead, I watch Harper's college friend glances between us, sensing the shift but not understanding it.
The sommelier, blessed woman, pauses mid-pour.
And then Jessica is rounding the end of our table.
White eyelet dress, wedge sandals adding about four unnecessary inches to her supermodel height, her hair doing that thing where it looks like she just rolled out of a Dyson Airwrap commercial.
Sunglasses are pushed up on her head and her smile wide enough to see from the parking lot.
"Harper!" She extends both arms. "I had no idea you'd be out here this weekend! This is so crazy!"
Harper, to her eternal credit, accepts the hug without going rigid. "Jessica. Hi. Wow."
"I keep saying we need to get together," Jessica says, one hand still on Harper's arm, surveying the table like she's been invited. Her gaze moves down the row and then lands on me.
"Beth. Oh my gosh. Hi." She smiles even wider.
"Hi, Jessica," I say, and my voice sounds almost normal.
"You look so good." She says. "Seriously. You should wear dresses more often."
"Thanks," I deadpan.
Behind her, a few steps back, is Grant, hands in his pockets.
He gives a nod so small it could be a muscle spasm. "Hey, Beth."
"Hey, Grant."
And that's it. That's the full conversation with the man I was supposed to marry not even a year back.
Luna's hand finds my knee under the table. She squeezes once. Hard. I'm choosing to read it as I'm here or Say the word and I'll push her into the grape-stomping pit.
"So what are we celebrating?" Jessica pulls over a chair from the neighboring table.
"Harper's bachelorette," Maren says, not looking up from her scoresheet.
"Shut up!" Jessica grabs Harper's arm. "Here. Today. What a coincidence!"
Harper makes a noise that I think is supposed to communicate joy but mostly sounds like a small animal being stepped on.
"We should do a double date when you're back in Lakeview," Jessica says. "The four of us. Ben's so fun."
To anyone who doesn't know her, Harper's face probably looks polite. To me it says: Over my dead and reanimated body. "We're pretty booked up with wedding stuff, but I'll check."
"So are you two staying at the vineyard resort?" I hear myself ask.
"Yeah for the weekend. We just got here last night," Jessica says. "Grant surprised me." She looks back at him, a hand on his chest. "He's been so romantic lately."
"That's great," I say. "Good for you."
Luna's grip on my knee tightens. At this rate, she's going to leave a bruise.
"We should totally do a tasting together," Jessica says, scanning our scoresheet and question cards. "Oh, is this a game? Can we join?"
***
"There's a bidet," Becca yells from inside one of the bathroom cabin.
"I like this place," Luna says, tossing her bag onto her bed.
We're at the glamping site for the afternoon and overnight. Our program includes a guided mud bath, aromatherapy, a private chef dinner, and a s'mores night around a campfire.
I'm sharing a tent with Luna, which means I get about forty-five seconds of quiet before she says, "You good?"
"I'm great," I say, picking up the robe and slippers that are waiting on my pillow.
"Okay then."
"I'm great," I say again, like repetition is evidence.
Luna unzips her toiletry bag and doesn't push it.
I put on the robe and the slippers and follow Luna out to the mud bath pavilion, which is an open-air tent with a wooden deck and ten individual copper basins filled with warm therapeutic mud, surrounded by ferns and those little electric candles that flicker but never drip.
A woman in all white, whose name tag says Sage, greets us with a tray of cucumber water.
"Welcome to your restorative earth ritual," she says.
"Thank you," I say, taking a cucumber water.
Everyone climbs into their basins. The mud is warm and silky and honestly kind of incredible. Harper makes a sound that I can only describe as deeply spiritual.
"This is disgusting," she says happily.
Sage moves down the row, handing each of us a small amber bottle.
"This is our high-potency mineral and essential oil concentrate," Sage says. "Peppermint and—"
And that's the last thing I hear, because the warmth of the mud has already sent me into a meditative state. Suddenly I'm back at the vineyard, watching Jessica's hand find Grant's chest, the heel of her palm resting against his sternum.
Sage is still talking. Her mouth is moving. Something about thermal properties, activation, something something.
I'm nodding. I think I'm nodding.
But I'm on Pine Grove Lane, nineteen months ago, in Grant's Tacoma with the windows down, a Bob Seger song on the radio.
He'd slowed in front of a blue-grey craftsman overlooking the lake.
That one, he'd said. That one, I'd said. At the exact same time. And for about a year, “That one” meant our future. The kitchen he was going to renovate himself. The dinner parties we were going to throw. The rooms where we’d argue about paint colors... where we’d eventually have to decide which kid got which one.
For a second, I let myself grieve. Not for Grant, but for the version of myself who stood in front of that house and believed every word.
It's ironic I saw him at the vineyard today, really.
Because that's the kind of place he and I had always said we'd visit.
We should do a wine weekend, he'd say, scrolling through some Yelp list on the couch.
But the weekends came and went. He'd claim the work week had hollowed him out and he was too tired to do anything.
Most week days, he'd text me stuck at the office, don't wait up. The office where Jessica also worked...
"—and whenever you're ready, go ahead and add the oil to your basin," Sage says.
I look down at the little amber bottle resting on the edge of my basin. I pick it up, unscrew the cap and pour.
A cool, minty breeze lifts off the surface of the warm mud, hitting my nose. I close my eyes.
Hmmm, this is so nice.
Then the breeze sharpens. Thickens. Turns into something that feels less like spa relaxation and more like someone is shoving a whole peppermint bush up my sinuses.
Then, the mud begins to fizz.
"Oh," I say.
Thick, eye-watering vapor rises out of my basin in a rolling cloud, swallowing the ferns, the candles, the cucumber water station. And it keeps going. It has ambition.
Becca and I start coughing first. Then Harper's college friend. Then everyone.
"What the fuck," Harper says, already climbing out of her basin, mud sluicing off her in sheets.