Chapter 3 Now
Now
When I get back to my apartment that night, the first thing I do is march straight to my balcony and collapse onto the gently used West Elm love seat (my proudest Facebook Marketplace acquisition) that takes up most of it. The second thing I do is message Maren.
I tell her all about the Sebastian and Claire sighting. How he looked (hot as ever, but more grown up and with nicer clothes). How she looked (effortlessly chic, also hot). The nearly botched marriage license application. His plea for my help and my selfless agreement.
I physically cringe as I relive what happened next.
Shelly arranged us in a line, Sebastian in the middle, then raced through the obligatory questions with one eye on the clock and, I can only imagine, happy hour on her mind.
Did Sebastian attest that the details listed on the application were correct?
Did Claire? They did. Did I confirm that I knew at least one person in the couple for at least six months, and that, to the best of my knowledge, their plans for marriage were accurate and genuine?
Yes, yes and—a slightly shakier—yes. Shelly handed us a pen and the paperwork to pass around.
Sebastian signed first, then Claire. I scribbled my name on the only remaining blank line, barely looking down. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
We handed the papers over to Shelly, who disappeared into the back office to process them.
Claire threw her delicate arms around my neck and called me a godsend.
Sebastian thanked me and made a joke about how I’d gotten him out of the doghouse.
I felt a little sick, but I dutifully kept the small talk up until Shelly returned with not two but three legal envelopes with photocopies for each of us—a physical reminder of this truly wacky afternoon just in case I thought I had half a chance of forgetting about it.
I waved goodbye to the happy couple and wished them luck with the wedding, and Sebastian actually told me to have a great summer, like he was signing my yearbook.
I almost forgot to grab the folder I’d actually come there for from Linda on my way out.
I end the message with a melting face emoji and a broken heart emoji and hit send, then toss my phone onto my little outdoor coffee table and press a Home Goods throw pillow over my face.
As much as I want to grab my iPad and inhale some trashy reality TV to remind myself how much more dramatic my life could be, I know that what I should really do is finally take a look at what Linda found for me.
I need to figure out if I have an actual non-wedding story to write when I get to work tomorrow.
I’m finding it harder and harder to convincingly write about love lately and tomorrow I suspect it will be borderline impossible.
I pull the envelope out of my bag and slide the papers out. I catch the words MARRIAGE / CIVIL UNION APPLICATION printed across the top—jump scare—and quickly turn that stack face-down in my lap, then grab the correct envelope.
I know from the few dining stories I’ve written so far that obtaining a liquor license in New Jersey is more difficult than you might think.
A Prohibition-era law still in effect allows each municipality only a finite number of licenses at any given time, which means that if you want to open a new place that serves alcohol, you have to purchase an existing license from another business.
So at first I assume that the reason Bubba’s restaurant is listed on the license is because a transfer like this is happening.
Sebastian had said his mom is retiring after this season.
Maybe she plans to close the restaurant altogether and has no use for the license anymore.
But upon closer inspection, I notice that the address where Diamond Group will be operating the new license is Bubba’s as well: 11 Ocean Avenue, Brantley Beach.
Diamond Group isn’t just buying a liquor license from Bubba’s. It’s buying the whole restaurant.
My phone buzzes, and the screen lights up with a WhatsApp message: OH. MY. GOD.
I laugh. I should know that, when it comes to my best friend, sleep is no match for this kind of gossip. I pick up my phone and the screen changes to a picture of Maren and me in our awkward middle school glory. I swipe to accept her FaceTime.
“OH. MY. GOD.” The top half of Maren’s face fills my screen. It looks like she’s in a dark room, holding her phone only an inch from her face. Her glacial-blue eyes are wide, her white-blond curls wild from sleep.
“You said that already.”
“This is beyond cringe.” I raise a brow, glaring at her. “Sorry! I know I probably shouldn’t say that—but honestly, like, what are the odds?”
“Trust me, I know.”
“You know, there is a bright side here.”
“Do tell.”
She smirks. “Sebastian Nikolaou finally got to see how hot you turned out.”
“I’m sure he’s kicking himself.”
Maren nods earnestly. “I mean, he definitely should be.”
I roll my eyes. This is silly. Sebastian Nikolaou is happily engaged. And even if he weren’t, he’d made it crystal clear fourteen years ago that there was zero chance he’d ever want anything to happen between us again. And after how he handled everything, I felt the exact same way.
“The good news is I don’t think I’ll run into them again. His mom is retiring and I wondered for, like, a second if Sebastian might be taking over the restaurant, but it looks like she’s selling it. And Claire doesn’t seem to want to be here a second longer than she needs to for the wedding.”
“Bubba’s is closing? Jeez. Talk about the end of an era. My parents will be so bummed when I tell them that.”
“Yeah. Mine, too.” I’ve lost count of the invitations to join my parents for dinner at Bubba’s I’ve declined over the years.
Maren yawns. “Go back to sleep,” I say, shuffling the papers into their respective envelopes and tucking them back into my bag. “I’m glad I could entertain you for a little.”
“Fiiiine. Hey! Two days.”
I smile. Maren flies in for her annual summer visit this Friday. I’ll have my best friend back for two whole months. “Two days. I can’t wait.”
We say our goodbyes and I love you’s and hang up.
I feel the familiar pang in my chest that always arrives after talking to Maren.
She’d studied abroad in London and accepted a job as the assistant to a luxury fashion buyer there after college.
Now she has her old boss’s job and has become a full-on Londoner—complete with a slight accent she insists she must have picked up from living there so long.
We both put in the effort required to keep a long-distance friendship going: daily messages and Instagram DMs (mostly memes that remind us of each other), weekly FaceTimes.
But Friday can’t come fast enough. I miss my best friend, and it won’t really feel like summer until she’s here.
I linger on the balcony for a few more minutes, pushing thoughts of Sebastian to the periphery so I can try to enjoy the cool evening breeze as I look out at the shoreline in the distance.
I like to start and end my days here, a coffee in hand in the morning and a glass of wine or a mug of tea before bed.
It’s by far my favorite thing about my apartment, a one-bedroom I started renting a few years ago.
I’d stayed with my parents for the first couple years after I was laid off, while I got my footing at Shore Life.
I may not be living the city life I’d once dreamed of, but I’m proud of myself for earning enough to afford a place on my own.
And I have to admit that I like living close enough to go home for Sunday dinners with my parents or meet my mom for a walk along the beach before work.
I head inside to make dinner. I’ll see Maren on Friday, then my parents on Saturday. And for now, I have the cast of Below Deck to keep me company.