Chapter 34
thirty-four
Georgia
Party chair rentals, I type into the search bar on my phone.
A dozen local companies pop up on the screen, and I click on the first one.
With the way RSVPs have been going, I’m not sure I’ll even need more chairs than I already own.
Hell, the counter stools might suffice. Yet as preparations dwindle to the final details and only ten days sit between me and the party, my perfectionist side emerges.
I hate the idea of using a bevy of old unmatched chairs alongside the beautiful tablecloths and elegant matching dishes my aunt left to me.
I check my phone, but Cash still hasn’t responded to my text asking if I might borrow the set of remarkably undamaged chairs from the dining set at the football house.
Opening my bookmarks list to find the party company I saved weeks ago, I’m hit in the face by the last dozen or so websites I’d previously saved.
Actuary jobs I planned to apply to, all in New Jersey, all basically the same: entry-level work that’s no one’s idea of a party but promises the quiet, steady schedule I’ve always craved.
Those plans sit on hold, at least until the draft, when Cash will hopefully be selected by a football team.
Uncertainty wells up, an unwelcome visitor I’ve been too distracted to accommodate the last couple weeks, but somehow, even with my brain overflowing with party and house plans, it finds a way in today.
Cash and I haven’t discussed our futures much since that conversation weeks ago when we agreed we want to be together.
His future rests on what happens at the draft in five weeks, and if I want to follow him around, so does mine.
But something in me resists the idea of waiting until his plans lock into place to determine my own.
Even if there’s nothing beyond familiarity waiting for me in New Jersey, it would be a temporary landing place that doesn’t tie me to the whims of life as a professional athlete’s girlfriend.
As soon as this party’s over, I should apply to the jobs I saved and search out a few more.
A manila envelope plummets to the wood floor and lands with a smack as I push papers aside in search of my to-do list. Later, I’m sure I’ll regret that my signed renovation contracts are mixed up with my shopping and party-supply lists, but for now, I don’t care.
I need that to-do list before I forget—again—that I owe my real estate agent a phone call.
Finally, yellow paper peeks out from behind a folder of paint samples, and I jot down Call Susanna, sighing with relief that there’s one fewer task I need to keep in my overcrowded brain.
My attention catches on the first item on the list, written while my handwriting was still cute and coherent.
Cash: finish deck stairs.
That one’s been on the to-do list for over a week now. I’ll have to remind him when he comes over for dinner.
Once the stairs are repaired and the bathroom painted, the downstairs will be in good shape for the party.
The kitchen, now in need of a few final aesthetic touches, is as gorgeous as Cash swore it would be, a brightened-up and slightly modernized version of before without stripping away any of its classic beauty.
I have my menu planned right down to the serving dishes I’ll use, the last few RSVPs have been yeses, and the local news keeps insisting we’ll be treated to an early spring.
A promise backed up by the dozens of daffodils poking their heads out of the dirt in the bed that runs the length of the rear fence.
My phone buzzes on the counter as a text appears.
MAISY: Don’t kill me, but can we push coffee to tomorrow?
Only then do I remember we’re supposed to meet on campus in—I check the time—fifteen minutes.
GEORGIA: No problem. Everything okay?
MAISY: Yep. Just dragging this morning.
Dragging. It’s the same word she used last weekend when she canceled our coffee date, then again a few days earlier when she plopped down at the café table with a heavy sigh and dark circles under her eyes.
I know she’s been busting her butt to graduate with a perfect GPA and help her tutoring students pull up their straggling grades before the semester ends, but I want to ask if it’s more.
GEORGIA: I get it. You tell me what time works.
MAISY: Thanks, G. I’ll text you tomorrow morning.
In the end, I chicken out, liking her message and leaving it at that.
The first time we met up after her apology, Maisy’s face split into a grin when she saw the beaded bracelets on my wrist, and we ended up laughing like nothing had changed, but we’re still not back to where we were. Maybe we never will be.
The doorbell chimes, and by the time I open the door, the UPS driver is climbing into his truck while a small box sits waiting on the porch. Surprisingly, it’s addressed to me—the few packages that get delivered are usually for Aunt Julie.
Inside, I tear it open to find a little black jewelry box and a white envelope bearing my name.
Too curious to start with the card, I snap open the case, and my heart catches in my throat.
It’s the brooch my grandmother insisted on being buried in, three gold lilies clustered together in a neat row.
My brain whirls, trying to create an explanation, before I give up and tear open the envelope.
Dear Georgia,
I’ve puzzled over what to say to you ever since receiving your lovely invitation. I’m not certain these are the right words, but they’re the best I can do with my shaking hand and rather scattered thoughts, so forgive me.
My hope is the brooch I’ve sent looks familiar.
Your grandmother, your Aunt Julie, and I each had matching pieces given to us by your father before you were born.
Too much has changed since those days, which is perhaps why I’ve stubbornly held on to a piece of jewelry even after Julie convinced me I should pass it on to you.
We didn’t know if Ginny left hers to you, and Julie lost hers years ago—though perhaps one day someone will find it tucked away in that big old house—which only left me.
I’m not proud that I resisted sending it to you, but in the interest of letting old wounds finally scar over, I present it to you with a sense of completion and a little smile on my face to imagine it in your hands just as Julie—and your father—would have wanted it.
My health doesn’t allow me to plan my outings very far in advance these days, but I do hope to see you at the reunion in a few weeks. If not, be well and hold your treasures close.
With much love,
Aunt Maggie
Aunt Maggie. I know the name even if I don’t have a face to match.
Julie, Maggie, and my grandmother were sisters.
Heart settling at the knowledge I’m not, in fact, holding a piece of jewelry that should be in a burial plot, I reread the letter more carefully, pausing at the words in the interest of letting old wounds finally scar over.
I want to write the entire McKenna family off as frustratingly cryptic.
But then I suppose it’s not cryptic at all.
My parents’ deaths fractured the entire family.
Whatever traditions might have carried on among smaller factions of the family, the ones that united all of us clearly turned to memories.
And that’s exactly why I’m having this party, why I’m renting chairs for what might amount to twelve people, why I’m wringing my hands over the menu like I’m hosting the royal wedding and not a backyard barbecue.
I slip the brooch out of the box and pin it carefully to my sweatshirt, right above my heart, and return to my search for the perfect party chairs.