The Rehearsal-Party
Lauren’s talking to my brother, which is cringeworthy but not yet dangerous. Andrew fiddles with his shirt collar, drink empty. He looks surprised and shakes his head. I wouldn’t put it past Lauren to go digging for my childhood trauma. I remind myself to keep keeping an eye.
Celia brings a round of shots to a table of our friends.
Someone has found a way to broadcast the baseball game, and my cousins jostle each other to listen to the end of the eighth inning.
Whispers wing through the room, the shared disbelief that tomorrow they might actually get to meet the Jason Dean.
Of course he’ll be here—strategically seated as far from Maggie as possible and ushered out of any room that she walks into, per her contract.
Who knows how up he’ll be for autographs, but my Uncle John will damn well try.
There’s a line for the VIP bathrooms, and I’m not precious about going into the main part of the restaurant to use the general ones.
My lipstick’s faded where Gabe kissed me, a happy blush across my lower lip.
I don’t reapply. Instead, I turn my head one way, then the other.
Tomorrow I’ll have a professional painting on my makeup. Tonight, I still look like me.
The weather’s perfect, so I skip snaking past tables to return to the party room and instead go out around the back.
I float through the parking lot. I make it to the patio, the Tuscan garden where we had spritzes and little skewers of mozzarella before moving inside for our sit-down dinner.
One of my heels gets caught between the stones, and I sit on a weathered bench to wipe off the dirt. Then I hear Gabe’s voice.
“I know I should have just come clean with her.” He sounds upset, tone low and urgent. “But seriously, you can’t tell anyone.”
I freeze. Her. Anyone. Me. If I crane my neck, I see Gabe’s back in his rehearsal-dinner suit coat, his hair freshly cut for tomorrow.
Who is he talking to? I do and do not want to know.
A woman’s voice murmurs back to him, her body hidden behind what I’d once thought to be a charming display of rosemary and cypress but am now ready to go at with a hacksaw.
My stomach drops. My stupid garden bench is sinking, a high heel in mud.
A memory comes unbidden: Maggie McKee, cocking her head at me, half smiling, gloss sticky on her lips. How well do you really know him, Cassidy?
“It’d be a disaster,” Gabe says now.
A disaster? I’m too stunned to cry, too frozen even to breathe. The woman quietly tries to assuage him, but I can hear Gabe’s irritation in the way that his shoe taps against the stone.
I can’t believe this is actually happening. This is everything I’ve dreaded. After everything we’ve been through, Gabe is lying to me.
I have to stand up and confront them—my almost-husband and whoever he’s confided in. This man to whom I’m supposed to publicly declare my eternal devotion. This man I still can’t fully trust.
“It’s not going to—” Gabe starts, but he’s cut off by the sound of Celia stomping through the garden from the street-side entrance.
He stiffens and says, “Never mind.” I watch him disappear in the direction of the party room, his mysterious conversation partner a rustle of shrubbery moving toward the opposite side of the parking lot. I’m going to be sick.
“There you are!” Celia shimmies around a bush. “Cold feet already?” She’s the level of drunk at which I can’t tell if she’s joking or genuinely asking me. I am very cold, despite the mildness of the weather. When I try to respond, all I can do is swallow.
“Oh, Cassy Cass.” Celia sits down next to me, lets me lean on her shoulder. “It’s totally normal, you goof. I’d be surprised if you weren’t worried about all those cameras tomorrow.” One of her rings gets caught stroking my hair.
But I’m not worried about filming tomorrow, not anymore.
I’m worried about marrying Gabe.
What will I say when the officiant asks tomorrow if anyone knows of a reason why we two should not be wed? What will Gabe say? I’d thought our secrets were shared secrets, that anything unsaid between us was only for our mutual protection. I’d thought we had moved on. I had believed him.
Or have I been ignoring the obvious all along? Have I just buried my suspicions about Gabe, deciding it’s easier to live on the surface of our life together? It’s easier to believe that Maggie McKee was the one who lied.
What to do? My instincts kick in, the possibilities splaying out in front of me like fast pitches in production meetings: Go find Gabe now and confront him.
(Dramatic! Cringeworthy! Toss-your-drink-in-someone’s-face TV!) Call off the whole thing.
(Boring, and financially disastrous.) Keep a cool head, slow down, wait until tomorrow.
(This is what Lauren would tell me to do.
This is what I always do. Slow down. Watch carefully. Let someone else make the move.)
I should have known today was too good to be true. I should have known this was coming.
We sit for a while, Celia contentedly loaded and me silently running through worst-case scenarios.
I’ve always been a worrier, but when things started going downhill on Honeymoon Stage—that first descent, before I realized how low we’d all actually go—I saw disaster everywhere.
Not just the accident itself—the swelling, the stumble, the scratch of fingernails on skin—but my complicity.
I could have paid closer attention, could have done something.
Because I didn’t, I’m now forever trying to stitch up gashes before they leave scars.