Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Nina took three photographs and then stepped backward. She asked Hank to join his wife, bringing him in from the edge of the path with a motion of her hand.
“Now the four of you,” she said. “Sophie, beside Jesse. Lorraine, a little closer to Hank.”
Lorraine moved half an inch. Jesse reached behind her for Sophie’s hand and pulled Sophie against his other side, his fingers warm around her waist. Sophie smiled when Nina asked her to, then smiled properly when Jesse whispered that he had forgotten to eat lunch and might pass out during dinner.
“There’s a granola bar in my bag,” Sophie whispered. She kept her eyes on the camera.
“Of course there is.” He kissed her temple, and Nina took another picture.
They finished the family groups in twelve minutes because Sophie had written the list herself. When she called for Marianne and Kelly, her mother glanced toward Lorraine.
“Do you want Lorraine in this one?” Marianne asked. She was already making room, unable to stop being polite.
“No, Mom,” Sophie said. She put an arm around her mother’s waist. “This one is ours.”
Lorraine remained beside them until Nina asked her to move away from the fountain. Sophie put her other arm around Kelly and smiled at the camera.
Afterward Jesse stole a bread roll from a tray headed toward the kitchen.
Sophie stood beside him behind a hedge, breaking it in half while he held her bouquet and tried to brush crumbs from his pants.
For five minutes they were ridiculous and happy, passing bread back and forth and kissing between bites.
“You have flowers in your hair,” he said. He reached carefully toward the back of her head.
“They’re supposed to be there,” she said, catching his wrist. “Don’t start dismantling me until later.”
His eyes changed. He leaned close enough that she felt his breath below her ear, and his hand spread against her bare back.
“Later,” he said. He kissed the place where her neck met her shoulder, and she forgot the guests until someone called his name.
They returned to the terrace together. The quartet had given way to a small speaker playing old love songs, servers moved through the crowd with trays of drinks, and the late sun had turned the windows of the hall amber.
Sophie found Haley standing with Kelly beside a planter, both of them watching Lorraine approach a group of Jesse’s cousins.
“Don’t,” Sophie said before either woman spoke. She took a glass of water from Kelly’s hand and drank half of it.
“I haven’t done anything.” Haley’s gaze followed Lorraine’s white skirt.
“Keep doing that,” Sophie told her. She set the glass down and hugged her friend with one arm.
Haley squeezed back. “You look happy,” she said against Sophie’s hair. “You looked so happy walking down that aisle.”
“I am,” Sophie said. She looked across the terrace and found Jesse watching her, a bread crumb still clinging to his lapel. “I really am.”
Guests came in a steady stream after that.
Sophie embraced an aunt she hadn’t seen in two years, admired a baby’s new shoes, and listened to a colleague describe a wrong turn that had taken her past three farms. She began to relax into the day, letting the months of planning fall away because the chairs were filled, the food smelled good, and the man she loved was wearing her ring.
Nina approached with her camera raised. Jesse crossed to Sophie, but Lorraine reached him first, slipping her hand through his elbow.
“Just one here,” Lorraine said, gesturing toward the flowers climbing the terrace wall. “The light is lovely.”
“We already did you and Jesse,” Nina said pleasantly. She shifted to keep Sophie in view. “I’d like the newlyweds with the garden behind them.”
“Oh, I won’t take long,” Lorraine said. She straightened Jesse’s tie. “He’s always hated having his picture taken. I know how to get a smile out of him.”
Jesse looked over at Sophie. She lifted her eyebrows, waiting for him to move, and he began to disentangle his arm.
Haley came through the narrow space between a table and the planter carrying two glasses of red wine. Sophie saw her before Lorraine did. She saw Lorraine step back toward Jesse, saw Haley stop short, and saw the small turn of Haley’s wrist.
The wine hit Lorraine high on the shoulder.
It caught in the beads along her neckline, leaving red drops suspended among the little white pearls, then soaked the chiffon beneath them.
Long uneven streams ran down the layered skirt; the sheer outer panels clung to the wet lining, suddenly pink where they had floated white a moment before.
The second glass stayed upright in Haley’s other hand.
“Oh my God,” Haley said. She set the unspilled glass on the table and grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins. “Lorraine, I’m so sorry.”
Lorraine looked down without moving. The terrace went quiet in patches as people turned, and Sophie heard one sharp intake of breath behind her.
For a second she couldn’t look away from the red stain. It spread through the chiffon as Lorraine pressed the napkins against it, and Sophie felt her own mouth begin to lift. She looked down at her bouquet before Jesse could see.
Haley caught her eye. Then the empty glass knocked against the table, and Sophie heard Beth calling for someone to get a towel.
“Don’t touch me,” Lorraine said. She snatched the napkins from Haley and stared at the wet paper in her hand.
Jesse stepped forward. “Mom, come inside,” he said. “We can get something on it.”
“She poured it on me,” Lorraine said. Her voice was quiet enough that people leaned closer to hear. “I felt her do it.”
Haley held up the empty glass. “You stepped backward. I was trying not to hit the table.”
“You were trying very hard.” Lorraine held the dripping napkins toward Sophie, who couldn’t work out whether she was meant to take them.
The coordinator, Beth, arrived with a clean towel. She took one look at the stain and guided Lorraine toward a chair beneath the awning, speaking in the low, steady voice Sophie used at museum events when a donor broke something valuable.
“We have a stain kit inside,” Beth said. “Let me get you out of the sun and see what we can do.”
“It’s ruined.” Lorraine’s eyes filled. “Everyone is staring.”
Marianne came beside her. “I have a dark wrap in the car,” she said. “It’s large. We could cover the worst of it while they work on the skirt.”
Lorraine looked at Marianne’s navy sleeves. “You thought of everything, didn’t you?” she said, and Marianne went still.
Hank appeared at the edge of the group, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I can run home,” Hank said. “Get another dress. Twenty minutes each way if the road’s clear.”
“I am not sitting here in a towel,” Lorraine said. She stood, leaving a damp mark on the chair. “Take me home.”
Jesse reached for her elbow. “Mom, dinner doesn’t start for forty minutes. Dad can be back before the speeches.”
Lorraine pulled away just enough for him to notice. “I won’t stay where I’m wanted this little,” she said. Her gaze passed over Sophie again. “I have some pride left.”
Sophie heard Kelly move behind her. She put a hand back without turning and caught her sister’s fingers, holding them hard.
Beth offered a private room. Marianne offered the wrap again, and Hank said he could bring Lorraine’s navy dress. Lorraine shook her head at every suggestion, crying harder whenever someone offered a way to remain.
Jesse walked with her to the entrance. Sophie watched him bend to hear something Lorraine said, watched his face tighten, and watched Lorraine press her cheek against his before Hank led her away. Several relatives followed them as far as the steps.
Haley stood beside the table, still holding the empty glass. Sophie took it from her and set it down.
“Did you?” Sophie asked quietly.
Haley looked at her. “She stepped in front of me,” she said. “I could have tried harder.”
Sophie looked toward the entrance. “You should have tried harder,” she said, but the words came out without conviction.
Jesse returned before Haley could answer. He stopped in front of them, hands at his sides, his face flushed above the white collar.
“What the hell was that?” he asked Haley. He kept his voice low, which made Sophie more aware of the guests nearby.
“I apologized,” Haley said. “I didn’t see her step back.”
“Don’t do that,” Jesse said. “Don’t stand here and lie to me.”
Sophie moved between them by half a step. “She’s gone,” she said. “Can we please finish our wedding?”
Jesse drew back. “That’s it? She’s gone, so it’s fine?”
“Your father offered to get another dress,” Sophie said. “My mother offered her a wrap. She chose to leave.”
“Because your friend dumped wine all over her,” Jesse said. He glanced toward the door again. “That was a step too far, Sophie. She missed nothing by wearing the wrong color. Now she’s missing the rest of my wedding.”
Haley went rigid beside Sophie. Jesse kept his eyes on his wife, waiting for her to answer for both of them.
“Our wedding.” Sophie kept her voice level with effort.
“You know what I mean,” he said. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Dinner. The speeches. The dance she picked a song for. All of it.”
“I didn’t pour the wine. Stop looking at me like I did.”
He held her gaze a moment longer. Then Beth came to tell them the guests were being seated, and Jesse stepped aside to let Sophie pass.
Dinner was good. Sophie hated that she would remember that detail, but the chicken was tender, the potatoes were hot, and the server refilled her water before she asked.
Kelly’s speech made her cry, and Jesse laughed when his best man described the first time Jesse had tried to impress Sophie by pretending he knew something about sculpture.
Under the table, Jesse found her hand. She let him hold it, and after a while she squeezed back.
Their first dance began awkwardly because Sophie caught a heel in her dress.
Jesse steadied her, whispered an apology for snapping, and pulled her close enough that she could rest her forehead against his jaw.
She held on through the shortened song, letting him move her around the floor without trying to correct his steps.
Then the emcee announced the mother-son dance. Sophie had forgotten to tell him, and apparently everyone else had too. The first notes played while Jesse stood at the edge of the floor looking toward the empty chair beside Hank’s equally empty place.
He crossed to the emcee and said something into his ear. The music stopped, the man apologized into the microphone, and a room full of people pretended they hadn’t noticed.
Jesse didn’t look at Sophie when he returned. Sophie reached for him, then lowered her hand when he turned to answer a cousin. Kelly came and pulled her onto the dance floor.
The song had been five minutes and forty-two seconds.
Sophie remembered arguing about those minutes at the kitchen table, and stood at the edge of the dance floor while a little girl in a yellow dress spun until she fell over laughing.
Jesse was still speaking to his cousin. His hand rested on the empty chair, and Sophie couldn’t remember whether he’d looked for her once since the music stopped.
When Nina asked for a final photograph before she left, Sophie went to fetch him herself. He came willingly, put an arm around her, and smiled on request. On the small screen afterward they looked like people who had had a wonderful wedding.
At midnight, in the hotel suite, Sophie could no longer reach the buttons down her back. Jesse stood behind her, undoing them one by one, the room quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner. When the dress loosened, she held it against her chest and watched him in the mirror.
“I am sorry about what she wore,” he said. He worked another button free. “I should have said more.”
Sophie waited for him to kiss the newly exposed skin. His fingers stopped at the small of her back, and she watched his face in the mirror.
“But Haley made sure nobody will remember that without remembering the wine,” he said. “You understand that, right?”
She turned, clutching the dress. “Do you think I hired her? Put it on her maid-of-honor checklist?”
“I think you were glad,” he said. He picked up the shoe she’d taken off and set it beneath the chair, taking his time about putting it straight.
“She wouldn’t even take Mom’s wrap,” Sophie said. She tried to lift the dress high enough to step out, but the lining caught beneath her heel. “And now I’m meant to be sorry she’s gone.”
Jesse freed the lining before she tore it. Then he picked up his jacket from the chair and folded it with one sleeve hanging loose.
“I know she shouldn’t have worn it,” he said. He laid the jacket down and turned back. “I also know my dad missed the reception because he had to drive her home. Nobody seems to care about that either.”
Sophie sat on the edge of the bed. The dress pooled around her, beautiful and heavy, and suddenly she wanted out of it so badly that her hands began to shake.
Jesse knelt to unfasten her remaining shoe. She let him, watching his dark head bend over her ankle, and when he rested his forehead against her knee she put a hand in his hair.
“I don’t want to fight tonight,” he said against her knee.
“Neither do I,” Sophie said. She stroked his hair once, then took her hand away so she could hold up the dress while she stood.
He helped her hang it in the closet. Later they lay beside each other in the enormous bed, his hand resting on her hip above the sheet, both awake long after the hotel corridor went quiet.