Chapter 27
Being near Patricia and Arthur after everything Matthew just told me is awkward, to say the least. But between commands from the photographer and interruptions from the wedding coordinator, I manage to avoid any direct eye-contact.
Still, I can’t stop thinking that if Patricia knows, that means Jules does, too.
Why didn’t she say anything? We’re going to have to have another long talk next month when she’s back from her honeymoon in St. wherever-she’s-going.
When all the photos are taken and angles sufficiently exhausted, we head out to the grassy lawn to join the rest of the guests.
If fairy tale weddings really existed, this would be one of them.
A dozen tables decorated with massive vases of glitter-lined water lotuses surround a tree-lined courtyard.
The seven-piece swing band announces Jules and Harry with an instrumental version of Abba’s I Do, I Do, I Do beneath the fairy-lit oak trees.
She looks radiant. But more than that, she looks happy.
And beside her, Harry looks like he’s just won an Oscar.
He twirls her around once before pulling her chair back for her, his eyes never leaving hers.
It’s the same way Marianne looks at Will: like they’ve finally found someone they’ll never let go of.
My heart swells at the thought of someone loving my sister the way she deserves: like she’s the most magical creature to have ever incarnated on this planet.
I take my seat next to Will and Marianne as Harry clanks his crystal champagne flute to welcome us all to the event.
I’m so high on wedding magic that I manage to get through a full hour of dinner without thinking about Caleb, but by the time Harry’s college roommate delivers his half-drunken speech on the power of second chances, I’m toast. I look down to my left wrist. There’s no hair-tie there, today, nothing to snap me out of my thought spiral.
Just Marianne’s hand. I grab ahold of it and squeeze as former frat boy starts to get teary about Harry being “the best man he’s ever known”.
“Ow!” Marianne yelps. “Are you trying to take my fingers off?”
“Sorry,” I say, letting up on my grip.
“You’re thinking about him again,” she accuses me, “aren’t you?”
“Who, the Captain?” Will asks loudly.
“Shhh!” Marianne and I both hiss at the same time.
“Sorry, right.”
“Stella,” Marianne awkwardly tilts her chair to address me like a high school guidance counselor. “If you’re going to spend so much time agonizing about him, would you at least try and give him a call?”
“He doesn’t want to hear from me, Mer.”
”How do you know if you haven’t tried? Maybe he’s sitting around thinking the same thing!”
“Because I ruined everything! What am I supposed to say? Oh hey, sorry I chose my fake brother over you and was complicit in a lie that completely destroyed your career. Wanna go for tacos?”
“This isn’t all on you Stell. He knew what he was risking."
“And,” Will adds between mouthfuls of scalloped potato, “if he was really willing to throw his career down the gutter for you, don’t you think he might deserve a phone call?”
Even if I wanted to call Caleb, I can’t.
He’s got no online presence—no one I can reach out to without rousing suspicion.
Any hope I had of seeing him again disappeared when I let him walk off the Vela Bianca.
I can’t even look at my sketches anymore: I was in such a hurry to get off the boat that I left my book behind.
“What’s done is done,” I tell them. “Caleb’s gone, Mer. And the further I can stay from destroying any more of his life, the better.”
“Ugh,” Marianne sighs. “You’re impossible. I need a drink.”
“And I’m happy to get you one, babe,” Will tells her. “In about nine weeks. But there’s cake!”
Marianne gives me one final, pleading look with her big brown Bambi eyes.
“You go,” I say. “I’ll meet you in a few.”
“William,” she growls, hooking an arm beneath the bowling ball in her stomach. “Help me up. I need to go stare longingly at a bottle of wine.”
The music starts up again and I watch Jules and Harry take to the dance floor for their first dance of the evening.
Despite the lessons they’ve been taking since they returned from the ship, Harry is dancing like a bear in lederhosen.
But it’s not Harry I’m staring at. On the other side of the dance floor, someone who looks all too familiar orders a drink at the bar.
Tall. Lean build. Curly, golden brown hair.
I think I literally feel my heart stop before tall handsome stranger turns around to show me that he is not, in fact, Caleb, but a forty-five-year-old man with a full beard.
I have got to stop doing this. When I first got back to Chicago, I thought I saw him on every street corner.
But our story, as magical as it was, is done.
I can’t let missing Caleb distract me from starting a new one.
I stand up and head towards the dessert table when I feel a hand on my arm. I whorl around, expecting another old family friend who ‘hasn’t seen me since I was about yay high!’. But it’s not one of Dad’s college pals.
It’s Patricia.
“Stella,” she trills. To my surprise, Patricia has deviated from her usual black to a dark shade of navy that’s probably torturous for her. Standing beside her is much taller woman with a long, silver braid who looks vaguely familiar.
“Hi, Patricia. It’s good to—”
“This is Samantha Wyle,” she says, interrupting me. “A friend of mine from Princeton. She’s based in Seattle as well and owns—“
“The Wyle Gallery,” I finish for her, recognizing the name instantly.
“So you’re familiar?” Samantha extends her hand. “I’m glad to hear we’re still relevant to the iPhone generation. My grandson seems to believe we’re lost without a TikTok.”
I stare down at Samantha’s many turquoise rings. It this some kind of trap? Samantha doesn’t look like a hit man, but you never can tell…
“Patricia tells me you’ve just returned to Seattle,” she says when I remain mute. “How are you finding it so far?”
“It’s coming along,” I tell her. “I’m staying in a friend’s den until I can find something more permanent, but if you ask me, a Seattle basement beats a Chicago studio any day.”
Patricia and Samantha both give me a look that says they would certainly never consider either. Right. Rich people.
“Well I won’t keep you long, but I just wanted to introduce myself. Patricia sent me some of your work.”
My brain momentarily short circuits, and I have to repeat it back to myself to make sure I’ve heard her right. But she continues,“It’s quite promising. If you’re interested in applying, we offer a fall fellowship for emerging artists that you might be quite well suited for.”
I try not to look visibly stunned. What reason could Patricia possibly have for wanting to help me? And more importantly, how would she have any of my work? Unless…
My sketchbook. I left in such a hurry I must have left it on the boat.
My stomach flies into my throat. For a second, I think maybe I should be angry.
She went through my book without permission?
But the sting of the massive privacy violation is completely squelched by the fact that Samantha Wyle, owner and curator of one of Seattle’s most respected art institutions, is currently handing me her card.
Just please, God, let Patricia have omitted the drawing of Caleb as a merman.
“I would be honored,” I tell her sincerely, attempting to temper the outright excitement in my voice. “To apply, I mean.”
“Good,” she says curtly, but there’s a pleasantness about her that makes me wonder how she and Patricia are friends. “Take my card. Feel free to give me a ring when you get settled.”
“I will. Thank you.”
I take the card from her and try to slip it into my pocket before remembering I don’t have one. Instead, I wait until they turn around and stick it into my bra. But it doesn’t go unseen. As Patricia steers Samantha back towards her table, she turns around at me and raises her eyebrows.
Is this whole family having some kind of collective stroke? Or did Matthew’s admission inspire them to drop their weapons, at least for tonight?
I head straight for the dessert table, hoping to find Marianne to quell my confusion. Or cake. Whichever comes first.
“I think someone spiked Patricia’s drink,” I tell her when I reach her. “She’s actually being nice to me.”
“Maybe she’s just doped up on love,” Marianne sweeps her arm towards the busy dance floor. “Weddings have a strange way of making people into their best selves.”
Marianne has a point. There’s not a Warren here who doesn’t look genuinely thrilled.
Arthur is actually lucid past seven p.m. Harry has moved on from his comically off-tempo swing routine to some bizarre rendition of the sprinkler.
Even Matthew and Steven are dancing, although I notice they’re careful to leave room for the Holy Spirit between their cummerbunds.
I watch as Jules departs from the dance floor, giving Harry a big kiss before trotting towards our table. The trotting is more aspirational than legitimate: in that massive dress, she’s got the agility of a giant tortoise.
She plops down in the seat next to us, fanning her face with a gold-leafed menu card.
“Break time for the dancing queen?” I ask, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“Harry is unstoppable. He never runs out of energy! I had to recruit his Great Aunt Martha to give myself a break!”
“It makes me so happy to see you happy, Jules,” I say as Will passes me a plate of cake that looks like it was cut from the walls of Versailles.
What would happen if I stopped worrying, for once, and actually enjoyed myself too?
This patched-together gang isn’t perfect, but it’s progress.
Matthew isn’t hiding anymore. Patricia is treating me more like an actual human and less like gum on her Leboutin.
And I’ve finally let go of finishing my PhD: the dream I never really wanted.