Chapter 5
5
Elsie gets most mornings to herself, but Sundays are her favorite. Derrick’s runs are longer on the weekends, and on Sundays, the store is closed. Lately, Elsie’s been thinking of getting a cat. It’s the only thing that could make spending the morning snuggled up in the living room recliner with a book any better.
Elsie doesn’t look up when Derrick returns from his run—the estranged sisters in the thriller she’s reading are having a heart-to-heart.
“Babe, have you even talked to your parents yet?” Derrick calls from the kitchen, pulling her out of the story. “They’re so excited, you should call them.”
Right. They’re excited about the wedding. And he knows that because he’s already talked to them. Long before he talked to her.
Last night, after making the decision, Elsie stayed at Ginny’s through dinner. They’d eaten enchiladas before moving to the garage, where Ginny worked on their latest commission and Elsie made fun of their taste in music, a folksy twang playing over the Bluetooth speaker. It had been a pretty typical Saturday night, if Elsie ignored the fact that she came home and told Derrick she had a migraine before he had a chance to ask what Ginny thought of the whole situation.
This morning, she stayed in bed with her eyes closed while Derrick tiptoed around getting ready for his run. His touch was gentle as he brushed her hair off her forehead and pressed a kiss there.
“Love you, babe,” he whispered, and Elsie tried not to cry.
After he left, she decided she was going to have a normal morning for as long as she could. Who knew what her Sundays would look like after today?
But the time for business as usual is officially up.
“Do you have a minute to talk?” she asks.
Derrick emerges from the kitchen grinning. “For you? Always.”
Why does he have to be so sweet? It’d be easier if he were an asshole. Easier to hurt his feelings, easier to feel good about leaving the relationship behind. Because that’s what she’s doing, that’s what’s going to happen after this conversation. This is ending the relationship. Which—does she even want that? The relationship itself is fine, right? He’s fine. Elsie’s content. Is it that big of a deal that he doesn’t light her up inside? She likes him, and he’s nice, if occasionally misguided.
It’d be easier if he meant to be selfish. If he’d planned this wedding because he wanted to get married and all that mattered was what he wanted. But he did this for her—Elsie knows that. It’s not what she wants and she’d rather he hadn’t done it, but he did do it for her.
He sits on the couch in his Under Armour, cheeks like apples—in shape and color both—and hair like a ski jump over his forehead thanks to the fuzzy winter headband he wears when he runs. Elsie looks at her hands, at the two-carat diamond on her third finger. She looks at Derrick’s face, open and affable.
She can’t do this.
She can’t.
She has to do this.
“Derrick,” she says, her hands in fists in her lap. “I love you.”
He beams. “I love you, babe.”
“You’re probably the nicest person I know. You always have good intentions. And I do love you.” She pauses, her stomach twisting. Time to rip off the Band-Aid. “But I can’t marry you.”
Derrick reacts in stages. First his brow furrows. Next, he tilts his head like maybe he didn’t hear her right. Only then, as he searches her face, does he lose his smile, his lips dropping to a flat line.
“You can’t marry me?”
Elsie shakes her head.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know what I want,” she admits.
He swallows. “But you know it’s not me.”
Elsie opens her mouth. Closes it again. She doesn’t know it’s not Derrick. Does she?
It was easy, with Ginny, to be sure. Everything’s easy with Ginny. They’re like family, but the kind Elsie chose, not the kind that ignores her ideas for the store and still makes fun of her for an embarrassing thing she did when she was six. Elsie never feels more herself than with Ginny. Never feels more sure of herself than with Ginny.
But seeing Derrick, constantly cheerful Derrick, looking sad and confused, Elsie isn’t certain anymore. Then again—that’s the issue, isn’t it? Not being certain.
“I know I can’t get married when I don’t know what I want.”
She needs time. Not that she hasn’t had that—a year-and-a-half engagement without that much pressure about planning the wedding should have been enough. But she needs to actually use it. To figure out what it is she wants.
“I thought wedding planning just overwhelmed you.”
“It did,” Elsie says. “It did, honestly. But I’m not sure I realized exactly why it overwhelmed me, until now.”
“And the why is ’cause… you don’t want to get married?”
“I feel like I’m still a kid,” Elsie admits. “Maybe it’s that I work for my parents or maybe it’s that I’ve basically never been an adult by myself. I’ve never lived alone. I have to figure out who I am before I commit myself to something like marriage. ”
Derrick looks like he did whenever he had to study for a trig exam in college: completely lost. He stays quiet for a minute. Elsie resists the urge to fill the silence with patronizing excuses about how it’s not you, it’s me.
“How am I supposed to tell everybody?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Elsie says, though she’d rather pluck out her eyelashes. “If you give me a guest list, I can let everyone know. I don’t want you to have to do that.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Another beat. Elsie swallows anything she might say and tries to let him process however he needs to. He runs a hand over his face. “And you should go on the honeymoon.”
“What?”
“It’s nonrefundable, and your parents are already planning for you to be away from the store,” Derrick says. “You deserve a vacation, bab—Elsie. Even if the store wasn’t the real reason you didn’t want to plan the wedding, you work too hard.”
Who gets dumped, basically at the altar, and then tells his ex-fiancée she works too hard and should still go on the honeymoon? He’s obviously hurt. She hurt him. And yet he’s telling her to go on the honeymoon.
What is she doing? She could marry Derrick. It’d be fine.
“You could take Ginny,” he says, “if they can get the time off work.”
Every time he uses they for Ginny feels like a win, but still—that’s ridiculous.
“Derrick, c’mon.” She could tell him she was kidding. “You planned it.” She could say they should go together. “You did so much. You take it.” He did so much, and she’s being horrible.
He shakes his head. “I think it will just make me sad.”
Elsie wants to puke. “I’m so sorry.”
She wills herself not to cry. It doesn’t seem fair to be the dumper and cry.
“Yeah,” Derrick says blankly. “So if you don’t want to marry me…” He takes a breath. “We’re breaking up, right? Like, that’s what’s happening right now?”
It has to be what’s happening. She can’t call off the wedding but let herself stay in this relationship. It’d be easy to, but she can’t.
Still, she doesn’t commit one way or the other. “If that’s what you want.”
“I mean, I want to get married,” Derrick says. He rubs at his eyes. “So if you don’t, then we should break up. I want, like, kids and stuff. I want to be with someone who wants that stuff.”
Elsie is twenty-three years old. Last month, when she picked her nephew up from school, one of his friends had asked, “Who’s that lady?” She wasn’t sure who the kid was talking about at first. She’s not old enough to be that lady, is she? She’s the cool aunt, not anyone’s mom.
Derrick sighs. “I think I’m gonna go for a run. Or maybe to Chad’s.”
“Of course,” Elsie says, like he didn’t just come in from a run. “Whatever you want.”
“I’ll, uh, send you the guest list.”
An hour later, Elsie sits at the kitchen table alone, scrolling through the—thankfully small—guest list Derrick sent her.
Who to call first?
In an ideal world, she’d only have to talk to Brandon. In an ideal world, her own brain clarifies, she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. Her fiancé wouldn’t have planned the wedding without her, or if he did, it would’ve made her happy.
But Elsie’s clearly not in an ideal world.
And even though her middle brother wouldn’t ask questions she doesn’t know the answers to, he also isn’t necessarily the most reliable choice to start the family phone tree. If she tells him first, there’s no guarantee anyone else in the family would ever find out.
It’s tempting to call Danielle. She’d handle everything, she always does. She’d probably offer to call the guests on Elsie’s behalf, and then show up with vegetarian lasagna that she somehow made at the same time.
But Elsie knows better. There was never really a choice, because she doesn’t even want to imagine the guilt trip she’d get if her mom weren’t her first call.
“Darling!” Her mother picks up the phone with something between a shriek and a bellow.
“Hi, Mom,” Elsie says sullenly.
“Isn’t it wonderful ? I could hardly keep it a secret when your father told me. We had to adjust the schedule to cover the register, of course, but goodness, when Derrick shared pictures of that resort he’s taking you to? How could we say no?”
For the first time, Elsie wonders how long ago Derrick started planning this. Surely he didn’t make the plans last week—the price of plane tickets would’ve been astronomical. Did he ask her parents for forgiveness or permission? How long have they known?
That’s not a spiral she wants to deal with currently, especially not while her mom is still babbling about how exciting this is.
“I know Derrick said you wanted a small wedding, but I was thinking of inviting the Greenblatts. They’ve known you since you were a baby and—”
“You can’t invite anyone,” Elsie cuts in, because she’s not going to have a chance to speak if she doesn’t.
“I’ll call the caterer,” her mom says, like that’s the issue. “Two more guests shouldn’t be a problem. Finger foods are easy to scale, if an extra two people even counts as scaling.”
Apparently, they were supposed to have finger foods at the reception. Who knew? Not Elsie. Her mom is still talking, carrying on a one-sided debate about the merits of not serving a sit-down meal.
“You can’t invite anyone because we’re not getting married.”
For the first time, the line is silent.
“What?”
“We’re not getting married.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” her mom says. “He wouldn’t have changed his mind after he planned everything.”
Elsie should’ve just called Danielle. She should’ve planned this conversation better.
“It wasn’t him,” she says. “I’m the one not ready to get married.”
Her mom scoffs. “What do you mean you’re not ready? You’ve been engaged for almost two years. You know, your father and I were only engaged for six months.”
They were also high school sweethearts. As far as Elsie knows, they’ve never kissed another person in their lives.
“I don’t feel like a real adult yet,” Elsie admits.
“I had already had Alec by the time I was your age.”
“Well, I’m certainly not ready for a kid, Mom.” She tries not to snap. This is about her, not her parents. “I know you and Dad have a great love story. But it’s not mine. And I’m not ready for this.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then her mom says, “Of course,” like she realizes she should be supporting her kid instead of pressuring her to get married. “That’s okay, darling. How can I help? What do you need right now?”
Elsie takes what feels like her first breath since the conversation began.
“I’m letting guests know,” she says. “Could you tell the family?”
Thankfully her mom simply agrees rather than asking what to say. Elsie’s having a hard enough time figuring that out herself.
“And the apartment,” her mom says. “Do you need to come home?”
Home. To her parents’ house. Across the street from Ginny’s parents. Elsie’s childhood bedroom still has two twin beds pushed against opposite walls, though the tape that divided her side from her sister’s is long gone.
“I’ll let you know,” Elsie says. It’s too much to think about right now, when she’s only at the top of the guest list.
“You know you can always come home,” her mom says. There’s another beat of silence before she adds, “And Elsbeth, I want to make sure: it’s not just cold feet? Of course I understand the rest of your life feels like forever, and forever can seem scary, even when it’s with a good man.”
It quite literally is forever. That’s what marriage is supposed to be.
“But if you love each other, you can get through anything.”
There it is.
Does she love Derrick? He’s gorgeous and sweet. She loves his smile. She loves that he’ll snuggle with her on the couch even if she’s watching Real Housewives . She loves their inside jokes, the way they decide what to have for dinner. He gives her five options, she narrows it to three, and he makes the final choice. She loves that he never begrudges her time with Ginny—some of her best friends from college completely disappeared when they got boyfriends, but even though Elsie goes to lunch with Ginny every day, Derrick never complains if she wants to hang out with them after work, too.
But does she love him ? Is she in love with him?
If she can’t answer that, how could she possibly marry him?
“Thank you for telling the family,” Elsie says instead of talking to her mom about this. “I have to get to calling everyone.”
“If you’re certain, darling,” her mom says, like she thinks Elsie is making the wrong choice. “I love you.”
“Love you.”
Elsie hangs up.
It’s the opposite of what her mom said, though. She doesn’t have to be certain to not marry Derrick, she has to be certain to do it.
Life has never made Elsie ask herself big questions like this before. Sure, no one can know the future, but hers has never felt particularly unclear. She was always going to work at the store. Even when she was a kid, when she and Ginny used to daydream about the future, it was never some grand adventure. It felt like it, at the time, but the big dreams weren’t about travel or fame or love; they were about which neighborhood of Minneapolis they’d live in, houses side by side. Ginny hadn’t known what their job would be— something where I don’t have to sit at a desk all day —but Elsie always knew she’d work at the store.
That’s what everyone in her family does. It’s what her dad did when he was a kid. Hoffman Hardware opened in 1954. A mom-and-pop shop. Elsie’s dad started working there in the 1980s, took it over from her grandpa before Elsie was born. He’s never had another job. None of his children have, either; they’ve been working there since before it was legal. The kids joke it’s why their parents had five of them: free child labor. The older ones each got their own specialty. Alec learned everything, since he’s the one who will take over when their parents retire. Danielle shadowed their mom to learn the financial side of things. Brandon knows every tool in the store. By the time they got to Elsie and Claire, they’d run out of specialties. Elsie, tall and skinny with long blonde hair, got put on the cash register.
She’s still there, even after a degree in business that feels worthless. Or—it isn’t worthless itself, but given how her family is always too busy to listen to her ideas, she can’t put anything she’s learned to use.
Know what’s really fun? Going down a list of your closest friends to tell them your wedding later this week is canceled.
Even better, most of them haven’t even gotten the invitations yet, so Elsie is starting from scratch. Everyone has questions, and her answers vary from hedges to outright lies: we’re just not ready and it was a mutual decision. Once she even goes with the invitations went out by mistake.
Derrick texts that he’s gonna stay at Chad’s for a few days. He didn’t leave with any clothes, but he and Chad have cookie-cutter versions of each other’s bodies, so he can probably borrow some. Or come get them when Elsie is at work. Or something. It’s not Elsie’s business anymore.
Elsie’s exhausted by the time she gets through the guest list, no matter how short it was. She retreats to the living room recliner, curls into a ball, and texts Ginny.
Everyone now knows the wedding is off, even though most of them didn’t know it was on to begin with, so that was an extra treat for me
You’re so powerful
Elsie rolls her eyes, but the comment nestles warm in her chest.
Ginny doesn’t ask how the conversation went, how Derrick took the news. Elsie tells them anyway, of course, but it’s nice not to be asked. Not to be pressured.
Why is Derrick texting me?
Ummmm, what?
He’s asking my full legal name and birthday?????
Elsie doesn’t even bother to sit up so her front-facing camera won’t make her look like a gremlin before video calling Ginny.
Just seeing their face, that comforting expression and their round pink cheeks, makes Elsie’s teeth unclench. She even smiles.
“Okay, so actually, this is the only good thing that’s come out of all this,” she says.
Ginny raises their eyebrows. “Except the whole you-not-being-trapped-in-a-marriage-you-don’t-want-to-be-in thing?”
“Yeah, except that.” Elsie waves her hand like it’s nothing, and Ginny gives her a look that makes her smile want to grow even bigger. She doesn’t let it. “The honeymoon is nonrefundable, and Derrick wants me to go.”
“What?”
“I told him he should, but he said it would just make him sad.”
Ginny grimaces. “Oh, that’s really…”
“I know. I’m not thinking about it.”
If Elsie thinks too hard about how much she’s hurt Derrick, she’s afraid she’ll change her mind about getting married. But like Ginny said, that’s not enough of a reason to marry someone. She focuses on Ginny on her screen, in their living room with a Twins hat on backward.
“So the good thing, though,” she says, “is he told me I should take you.”
“What?” Ginny says again.
“We would leave literally a week from tomorrow, so I know Karl might not give you the time off, but please please please.”
“You want me to come to Santa Lupita with you?”
“I mean, duh, who else would I want to come?” When Ginny doesn’t immediately say yes, Elsie continues. “C’mon, you said you might marry him for it! I’m gonna send you pics of the resort until you say yes.”
“Oh my god, I’m not saying no.” Ginny rolls their eyes, but in that way where they’re actually charmed. Elsie lets her grin grow this time. “I’ll ask for the time off tomorrow.”
And like that, Elsie’s mood plummets. Tomorrow. Ugh. She has to work, with her entire family hovering.
“We’re going to lunch tomorrow, right?” she asks suddenly.
They get lunch together every day as a matter of course, but Ginny could have a doctor’s appointment or something. If they do, Elsie might have to beg them to cancel. Tomorrow Elsie needs lunch with Ginny. Not as a routine but as a necessity. She always needs Ginny, but especially tomorrow. Especially after she just blew up her life. The future feels scary and uncertain for the first time, but she can do anything with Ginny beside her.
She doesn’t have to beg, though, because on her screen, Ginny nods. “I’ll take you anywhere you want, Els Bells.”