Chapter 30
JOEL
The bar reminded Joel of the Palms. Scuffed tile floor, windowless and poorly lit, the room airless as a bomb shelter.
There was a part of him that expected to see Jack, Roger, and other members of the track team sitting around a corner table, Jack’s legs stretched out, a danger to anyone passing, and Roger gesturing his chin at any girl who entered, as if they needed to be accounted for at the end of the night in a cumulative tally.
But there were only clusters of strangers—most of them young, with the occasional uncle or family friend who just wanted to have a little fun, and why not, it was the weekend of a wedding—and some old classmates who would remember the Palms just like Joel did, though he would rarely have sat with them.
Carmen ordered them two bottles of Miller, but when Joel took out his wallet, the bartender waved it away.
“Tab’s covered by the Pruitts,” he said.
“That seems a little dangerous,” Carmen said, and the man laughed.
“We won’t get another delivery of liquor until Wednesday, so if you clean out the whole island tonight, you might regret it.”
“The Pruitts probably have some secret vault,” Carmen said. “We’ll be fine.”
“I bet you will.”
The man winked at her, and Joel was surprised that he felt no rush of jealousy, only a shallow annoyance at being ignored.
He looked around the room again, noting that Shay had still not arrived.
There had been no note waiting for him when he’d returned to the hotel, and one of her uncles had told him that they were all at the Pruitts’ for dinner.
Carmen found them seats at a table with two couples they learned were Andrew’s childhood friends, or the men were.
They’d met their wives during college. They all lived in Boston, and the women quickly became fascinated by Carmen—an actress, how incredible, and a female bartender, how terrifying—as if she were a parakeet that had flown in through an open window.
The men were quiet at first, but after realizing Joel was conversant in baseball, they dissected the brawl that had happened on the field at Yankee Stadium in May and whether Bill Lee’s shoulder would ever be the same.
One of them joked about Pete Rose’s haircut on the Sports Illustrated cover, and their laughter momentarily silenced the women, which Joel realized when he met Carmen’s eyes and they smiled at each other, both pleased that they were doing well, alone and together.
Joel offered to grab everyone another round.
He brushed by Ken’s table, and Ken lifted his beer to Joel in a half-hearted toast. Betty was at his side, combing her fingers through her thin blond hair, which resurfaced a memory Joel had nearly forgotten: Betty slipping out of Ken’s dorm early one fall morning their senior year, her skirt wrinkled like it had spent the night balled up at the foot of someone’s bed.
When she had seen Joel, who was making his way to practice, her skin flushed pink, and though Joel told Shay nearly everything, he decided in that moment to keep this to himself.
“You’re Joel, aren’t you?” a woman’s voice asked at the bar, and when he turned to his left, he found a familiar figure. She was short, roughly his age, with sable-colored hair and a full mouth, like that of a doll. He recognized her, but could not place her.
“I am,” he said.
“I’m Katherine, Shay’s friend.”
He remembered: Katherine from grade school. Katherine, the singer, whose rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” had once made Shay cry, the only song other than “Boots of Spanish Leather” to accomplish this feat.
“Of course, Katherine,” he said. They’d met at the funeral, where they’d talked about pigeons and why they only lived in cities, some mindless chatter with Shay’s other grade school friend, Grace, as they all waited for Shay outside the church.
Katherine had told him a story of Shay’s father, how during fifth grade, when they were obsessed with Little Women, he’d slipped a bag of limes into Shay’s school bag—not pickled, but still—and when Shay had pulled it out at her desk, she’d lit up like a lantern.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Good, I’m good. And you?”
“Can’t complain. You’re in New York, aren’t you? Shay told me.”
“Yeah, I am.” He wondered what else Shay had said. “Are you in Chicago?”
“North Carolina, actually. My husband went to medical school at Duke. He couldn’t get away, residencies are horrible, so I’m here alone.”
“I’m here with my girlfriend.” He gestured to Carmen, whose arms were held aloft at the moment, like she was demonstrating the size of a trout she’d caught to the table.
“It’s good not to be alone at a wedding. Whenever Grace goes to the bathroom, I feel totally adrift.”
“Well, you’re welcome to come hang out with us, though we’re kind of adrift in this crowd too.”
“Thanks.” Katherine smiled at him. “I know we only met at the funeral, but I really liked you.”
“I liked you too.”
“You driving out to be with her that day. I know it’s all ancient history at this point, but it meant a lot to her.”
“It was nothing.” Joel looked at the six beers lined up on the bar, unsure what else to say. How much she knew. “Has she seemed all right to you, this weekend?”
“I think so? A little overwhelmed, maybe. And she doesn’t really want to talk about anything. You know how she can get.”
Joel nodded, and he picked up the beer bottles, the necks pressed between each of his knuckles like the spokes of a wheel.
Over her shoulder, he saw Grace—her black hair now feathered in a shag—emerge from the bathroom, so he felt comfortable leaving Katherine.
He’d say hello to Grace later, when he didn’t feel somehow, again, off-balance.
“Well, feel free to join us,” he told her, and she said they would.
Four years ago, after the mourners had finished their procession from the church, the sky the color of nothing, Shay had finally found Joel.
Even though her face was solemn, her dress pitch-black, when she stood for a moment framed in the church’s doorway, he could not help but think she looked like a bride.