Chapter 16 In Search of a Good Timea Minister
In Search of a Good Time or a Minister
Sunday, Now
Before my sister can Runaway Bride , I pull her in tight. “We can leave right now.”
“No.” She presses her damp cheek against my ear. “I don’t want to do it somewhere else. I wanted to do it here, but we can’t with Jonah’s swamp feet.”
“Yeah, but—” It occurs to me that I have no idea what my sister is talking about. “Swamp feet?”
“Jonah has trench foot,” she whines.
“You get it from not changing wet socks,” Harlow explains.
“You’re changing your wet socks, right? It was so gross.” Laurel pulls her head back to look down at my water-resistant sandals and nods approvingly. “The boys are taking him to town for a doctor.”
“Okay…”
“He’s the only one who could officiate,” Harlow explains.
“So no wedding today ,” I say with renewed understanding. Then I seize the opportunity. “This might be a sign from the universe. Let’s head home. Take a beat. Plan a fall wedding in the Cities. Or a New Year’s wedding, maybe? That could be fun. You could singlehandedly make New Year’s fun again.”
She tilts her head, as if weighing the option, then shakes it. “No, no. I’m getting married here . Now. While there’s still energy and magic around it. If we have to plan it, I’ll never want to do it.”
Then you shouldn’t do it! I scream inside my skull. God, I want to shake her, but this isn’t my first rodeo with Laurel. Telling her not to do something will only make it more enticing to her.
“Let’s meet up with the boys in town,” Harlow suggests. “There has to be someone else who’s ordained.”
Laurel perks up. “Like a captain of a ship?”
“More like a minister or a judge, but sure. No bad ideas in a brainstorm,” Harlow says encouragingly. “We’ll find someone who can marry you guys tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if I’m up for it, guys.” Laurel releases a dramatic sigh. “It’s only two p.m. and this is already, like, the worst day. I was supposed to be getting married.”
“Let’s just chill here then,” I suggest, my voice inordinately bright.
Harlow smiles mischievously. “Laurel, you’re thinking about this all wrong. If you get married tomorrow, that means this —right now—is your bachelorette party.”
“Ooh, I love hearing that !” Laurel titters, the conversation picking up speed in a direction I’m not sure I want it to go.
“I can’t believe I nearly got married without having a bachelorette party.
Charley…” She faces me. “You’re the self-appointed maid of honor.
This is your job, isn’t it? Nay, your duty? ”
My eyes dart between my sister and Harlow, calculating whether I could successfully snatch Laurel and run. Then I remember I’m trapped in the woods without a car and am a whole-ass canoe ride away from civilization.
Laurel may be playing it cool right now, but I know her better than I know myself.
Between her unresolved commitment phobia and rigid adherence to “vibes,” she is one small setback away from calling off the ceremony herself.
Something else will go wrong—I’m sure of it—and that means there’s hope for her yet.
“Fine,” I relent, because my best shot at stopping this runaway train anyway is by stalling it. “Let’s go to a dive bar and see if we happen upon someone who marries people.”
—
“Shot! Shot! Shot!” Laurel and Harlow slap their hands on the bar top as I down a Diet Coke shot at three-thirty in the afternoon.
Initially, Laurel booed when I told her that even after cleaning up the campsite, canoeing for an hour, and walking from Wet Ted’s to this genuinely divey dive bar, the sun was still way too high in the sky for me to start getting tanked on rail vodka when I’ve barely recovered from my Ruth’s Chris mojito trauma.
But the more I lean into the “bachelorette” of it all, the less interested she is in identifying someone who can legally preside over a wedding ceremony.
That, and I’ve let myself forget. That’s how it goes with Laurel.
I enjoy myself, lower my defenses, and forget that we’re merely biding time before the storm.
So while I should be bracing myself for impact, I’m double-fisting soda shots with a pint glass of water (I’m still me, so I require at least two liquids at all times).
Laurel taps her Coors Light on the bar top, clinks it against Harlow’s can, and takes a long chug. After swallowing a tiny burp, she opens the floor for the tough questions: “Did anyone else notice that Wet Ted is, like, super hot?”
“Yes,” Harlow and I respond in unison.
“I’ve put a lot of thought into this…” Harlow wraps one of her braids around her finger, and I find myself grinning in anticipation of whatever she’s about to say next.
Harlow is fun, and, against all odds, so is this obscenely musty bar that made my hands feel sticky on sight.
“It’s not just Wet Ted’s looks. It’s the competence . ”
“Yes,” Laurel practically growls into her beer bottle. “I just know he could protect me in a postapocalyptic situation. That man could Mad Max me through a desert wasteland on his shoulders.”
“No, it’s more tender than that,” I cut in, waving down the bartender, who’s sporting a threadbare Vikings tee. “He’s like Pedro Pascal in that zombie show with the little girl.”
“That’s what it is!” Laurel slaps the bar top. “You can just tell he’d care for you in this totally platonic way, which only makes him hotter.”
I take my tiny refill from the bartender. “I’m sure Petey will appreciate you keeping it platonic when the zombies come.”
“Oh, Wet Ted is firmly Plan B in a zombie apocalypse. I’m going with Petey all the way. Half the reason you get married is to have a built-in partner when society breaks down.”
It’s a nice thought. I used to think the same before Rich bolted. How would we have fared with a catastrophic event? Would he have zipped his Tesla out of town and left me to face the undead all alone?
Then my mind drifts to a dangerous thought: What would Ethan do?
“I need a platonic Wet Ted,” I say, pushing out the image of Ethan and me as partners before it can have a chance to settle into the recesses of my brain. I don’t need to corrupt something fun and low stakes by turning it into my disaster evacuation strategy.
“It would not be platonic with me and Theodore,” Harlow muses, licking her lips as though she’s prepared to eat that sexy woodsman alive. “I’d have all his apocalypse babies. It wouldn’t be right to establish a new society that didn’t have access to that man’s bone structure.”
I nearly spit out my Coke. “Should we call Ted and see when he gets off work?”
“Way ahead of you, Char.” Laurel’s already scrolling her contacts. She hops off her stool and heads in the direction of the exit with her phone to her ear.
“Oh, that reminds me…” Harlow sets her beer on the bar and grabs a mini tablet from her bag. “Gotta steal some Wi-Fi while I can.”
“Ooh. Good call.” I pull out my phone but stop myself before opening my work email. Boundaries are normal. Healthy, even. Surely nothing catastrophic will happen if I don’t open my work email again today.
Instead, I distract myself by leaning over for a closer look at Harlow’s tablet. I glimpse the footage she’s uploading: sweeping overhead views of lush forests and lakes sparkling in the dawn light.
“Is this all from that little drone?” I ask, recalling the tiny black thing I spotted at camp.
“My baby is small but mighty. These scenic videos are my first love, but my ‘day in the life’ vlogs on being an adventure photographer get more ad revenue than my actual photography. Which used to bum me out, but, hey, the goal is the lifestyle, and Athletic Greens pays.”
“Adventure photography? I had no idea that was a thing. I’m so curious about how people find their niche in creative fields. My dad was a filmmaker.”
“Well, I don’t know how most people do it, but about two years ago I quit my corporate marketing job and moved into a pop-up camper I hitched to my SUV.
And my dad is a forensic accountant, so at the time, he wasn’t exactly thrilled…
” Her laugh indicates that maybe she and her dad have gotten past this wrinkle in their relationship.
“But I had to do it, you know. I never had time or energy for my art. It was soul crushing. But back then, I did have a lot more money. The money was nice.”
“Money’s like that sometimes,” I agree, lifting my mini-Coke in salute.
She types on her screen for another minute. When she slips it back into her bag, her work seems to disappear, as though her income stream and sense of self are genuinely separate, and it is possibly the most unrelatable thing about this woman who already seems like a Free People ad come to life.
Harlow notices me noticing her and asks, “So you and Ethan…?” She trails off.
In a humiliating twist, my body responds to the mere mention of Ethan. “Me and Ethan? We’re not…We’ve only…” My head jerks in about six directions without permission. “We’ve been friends for years. Same as Petey and Laurel, but without the, uh, romantic undertones.”
Or so I thought .
She pushes out her bottom lip. “With his Heath Ledger dimples and bedroom eyes? Those don’t factor in at all for you?”
“I’m going through a divorce. Or just finished going through it, I guess. It’s probably not smart to jump into anything.”
She nods, unconvinced. “That makes sense.”
I sip on my fresh shot glass of Coke. Memories of Ethan’s lips against mine and my hands in his hair burst in my brain like fireworks.
It’s at the moment when I’m imagining Ethan emerge from a lake—full Colin Firth—that Laurel bounces back to our bar stools. “Good news, bad news. So Wet Ted’s waiting for a camper with a nine p.m. reservation…”
I shake my head. “That won’t work. We need to be back at the campsite or we’ll be hiking in the dark.”