Chapter 12 Benji
The florist sends me an email at seven in the morning that says, “Hey Benji, quick question, do you want the wildflowers wild or arranged?”
I stare at the email for a full thirty seconds while standing in the bathroom in my underwear with a toothbrush in my mouth. Wild or arranged. She is asking me if I want the wildflowers to be wild.
I type back, “Hi Kacie, yes, wild. That’s why they’re called wildflowers.
Loose and natural in the clay pots, like they were just picked from a field.
No arranging. Just toss them in beautifully.
Thank you!” and I add a smiley face because the smiley face is doing the work of preventing me from typing what I actually want to say, which involves the word “fuck” in at least three different ways.
In Miami, my vendors know me well. They know my taste and my standards, how I want things done. I can send a text that says “wildflowers, clay pots, loose” and they deliver exactly what I mean because we’ve been working together for years and we speak the same language.
Here, every conversation requires a tutorial.
The caterer needed me to explain what a charcuterie display is.
The DJ asked if he should bring his own speakers.
And the chair rental company sent ivory chairs that are not ivory, they are cream, and when I called to explain the difference the woman on the phone said, “Honey, they look white to me,” and hung up after wishing me a blessed day.
I get dressed and drive to the beach house. The house is empty because Callie and her family are at a hotel nearby until the wedding. I have the space to myself which means I can stand in the great room and curse freely without anyone’s mother throwing a hissy fit.
I stand in the empty room, looking at the ceremony layout I mapped yesterday.
The arch placement is wrong. Not drastically wrong, but six inches too far left.
The officiant will be standing with the water slightly off-center behind him and the photographs will look asymmetrical.
Callie’s mother will notice because she misses nothing.
I move the tape mark and re-measure. I walk to the spot where the bride will stand and I look at the Gulf through the frame where the arch will be. I’m adjusting the angle when a thought hits me hard enough to stop my hands.
Mickey might never stand on sand again. Mickey, who drove a beach road every day in his cruiser, who grew up fifteen minutes from this beach, might never feel the water wash over his feet.
Fuck that.
If Mickey can’t walk on the beach, I’ll get him on the beach somehow.
I’ve seen those big beach wheelchairs with fat rubber tires that roll right over sand.
I’ll find one. I’ll buy one if I have to and I’ll roll out the red-carpet path to make it happen.
I’ll make sure Mickey Weaver gets to see the sunset from the beach again with his toes in the sand if I have to rebuild the entire coastline to make it happen.
Realizing I’m two minutes away from falling down an internet search hole for beach wheelchairs, I force myself to stop spiraling and focus on the wedding.
I finish the measurements and photograph every angle for the lighting plan.
I call the rental company about the chairs.
At noon, I sit on the terrace steps and eat half a protein bar and drink a bottle of water. Dante would be proud.
Callie arrives unannounced wearing a white sundress and carrying a green juice from the local juice bar.
She looks like she hasn’t slept. Brides never sleep the week before.
They run on adrenaline and the terror that something will go wrong, which it will, because something always goes wrong.
My job is to make sure the something is small enough that nobody notices.
“Benji, I need to talk to you about the floor plan for the reception,” she says.
“What about the floor plan?”
“Connor’s mother thinks the seating chart is an insult.”
I set my iPad down. “The floor plan is finalized. We spent three hours on the drawing. You wanted the U-shape so everyone has a view of the water.”
“I know. But she realized that her sisters are at Table Six. Table Six is behind the pillar, Benji. She’s texting Connor that she feels like her family is being banished to the kitchen.”
“Is she using the word ‘banished’?”
“Yes. She’s texting Connor about it and Connor texted me at midnight and I haven’t slept.”
“What did Connor say?”
“He said, ‘Mom says her sisters are in the cheap seats.’ With a period at the end. Not even a question mark. A period.”
I take a breath. I’ve met Connor’s mother, Deborah, once. And that was enough.
“Callie. Look at me. The aunts are at Table Six because Table Six is the closest to the bar and the dance floor. They are literally the VIPs of the party phase. Deborah is going to see them with a drink in their hands and a front-row seat to the DJ and she is going to forget she ever complained. Do you know how I know this?”
“How?”
“Because every mother of every groom I’ve ever worked with has tried to move a relative the week before. And every single one of them ended up loving everything. It’s the most reliable statistic in the wedding industry.”
She sniffles and laughs a tired laugh.
“Now drink your juice and stop reading Connor’s texts after ten PM. Nothing good comes from a text with a period at the end after ten PM. That’s a life rule.”
“Okay,” she says.
We walk the terrace together. I measure the arch placement for the third time because the mothers are not going to get within six inches of this layout and find something wrong. Not on my watch.
At three o’clock, I close up the beach house and get in my car. The rational part of my brain explains calmly that I don’t need to drive to Tallahassee again today. The other part of my brain puts on its seatbelt and starts the engine.
I stop at a Thai place near the hospital because Mickey mentioned last night that he missed real takeout food and I’m someone who listens. I knock on his room door and push it open as soon as I hear his “get in here.” When I walk in, his face lights up.
“I wish to make a formal complaint with the Sheriff’s Department,” I tell him, setting the bag on the tray table. “About the cops hiding in the median bushes on I-10. That should be illegal.”
He shoots me a worried look. “Why? Did you get caught speeding? How fast were you driving, Benji?”
“Would you get me out of a ticket if I did?”
“I’d try but Bay County doesn’t cover the whole drive. Not even half of it.”
“No, I didn’t and it’s only because now I know every little spot where those assholes hide.” As soon as I say that, I slap a hand over my mouth. “Oh, damn. Sorry! I don’t mean you, of course, because you’d never do anything like that, would you?”
He grins at me. “Never in a million years.”
“Liar,” I say. “Ready to eat? We’re having Thai food tonight. Pad Thai, green curry, spring rolls. If the nurses give you trouble about outside food, tell them your personal chef is very demanding and not above making a scene. Because I’m not. Try me. I can make a scene like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I believe it. I bet you could be a holy terror when you get mad.”
“Oh, Mickey. You have no idea.”
He opens the bag and the smell of basil, coconut and lime fills the room, pushing the antiseptic hospital smell out. The room smells like a restaurant now instead of a hospital, and his whole face changes in a way that makes my throat tight.
“This is the best part of my day every day,” he says. “Thank you. You’re saving me from ‘Death by Meatloaf.’”
After setting up his food, we settle down to eat. The pad Thai is good, not Miami good but decent, and the green curry has actual heat which surprises me because I assumed the Panhandle’s spice tolerance was calibrated to mayonnaise.
We’re almost finished when I set down my fork and hold out my hand.
“Give me your phone,” I say.
He looks up from the pad Thai. “What?”
“Your phone. Hand it over.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“Because I’ve been driving here to bring you food and I don’t have your phone number.
Can you believe that? I’ve been here every day like your new BFF and I don’t have your number.
That’s insane. What if I want to text you something stupid at two in the morning?
What if I need to ask what you want for dinner tomorrow?
What if I break down on the side of the road and the nearest cop is hiding in the bushes in the median?
What if I want to send you a picture of the ugliest chairs in the state of Florida that are ruining my life?
I need your phone number because you are the only friend I have in this part of the state and damn it, Mickey, I might need to call a friend. Hand over your fucking phone.”
He stares at me. He’s trying not to smile and losing the battle. He reaches for his phone and hands it to me.
I type my number in and call myself so I have his.
When I hand it back, our fingers brush during the exchange and I feel it run up my whole arm.
Quick and warm, just the shock of his skin against mine, and I take a breath and keep talking.
If I stop talking, I’ll have to think about the fact that touching his fingers just did that to me.
“There,” I say. “Now you’re going to get texts from me at inappropriate hours about inappropriate things. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Be forewarned.”
“I didn’t give you the phone voluntarily,” he says. “You demanded it. With profanity.”
“You’ll learn that I’m a demanding person. And a profane one. You should know this about me. Add it to the list.”
He shakes his head but he’s smiling bigger now.