9. Friday
FRIDAY
“Can you pick up some New Yorkers this afternoon?” Paul asked Sarah. She was at her mother’s house, having arrived in Newfoundland only the day before to visit with her mother before attending Paul’s second wedding.
“So many demands,” Sarah teased. “First you want me to be your photographer, then your chauffeur?”
“I’m desperate here. Abby’s got two friends flying in from New York who didn’t rent a car because they don’t have a driver’s license.”
“How is that possible? Are they fifteen?”
“They take the subway, babe,” Paul drawled. “It’s so much faster.”
“Okay, okay.” Sarah sighed. “How will I recognize them?”
“Trust me, you’ll recognize them,” Paul replied.
And surprisingly, she did.
As she stood in the small airport in St. John’s, a man and woman walked towards her among the scattered people disembarking from the Montreal flight.
The woman was tall and gorgeous, with brown skin and wearing a bright orange angora sweater, long skirt, and slinky suede brown boots.
The man was compact, handsome, and dark-haired, wheeling a pristine white carry-on and holding a suit bag.
“No, it won’t calm me down,” the man was saying. “My life will be flashing before my eyes for the whole weekend. I literally almost died.”
“You said the exact same thing about our SoulCycle class.”
“It’s these tiny planes,” the man continued. “Now I know how Amelia Earhart felt.”
“We were on a 727, not a Cessna,” the woman said.
“I can’t be expected to know what either of those terms means.”
“Excuse me,” Sarah said at last. “Are you here for Paul and Abby’s wedding?”
They stopped and looked her over. “Are you the famous Cousin Sarah?” said the woman.
Sarah nodded. “Are you Jasmine and Lucas?”
“Were we that recognizable?” the man named Lucas asked.
“You gave off strong New York City vibes,” Sarah said.
“It’s because you look helpless,” Jasmine said to the man. “And I look amazing.” She smiled at Sarah. “I thought Cousin Sarah would be fifty years old and wearing a checkered apron.”
“That’s my wedding day outfit,” Sarah replied, and Jasmine laughed.
“God, this place is so cute.” Lucas glanced around. “Can I say that? Is that offensive? Just smack me if I say something offensive.”
“It’s fine. I grew up here, but I’ve been living in Toronto and Montreal for the last twenty years. You can think this is cute.”
They headed together towards luggage claim.
“So what are the men like,” Jasmine asked, “if you grew up here? We were debating on the plane. Are they like, hot farmers, or hot lumberjacks, or hot fishermen?”
“Yeah, what’s the vibe?” Lucas asked.
“So you two aren’t…” Sarah waved between them.
“Oh God, no,” Jasmine said. “He’s like my—gay life partner? I would have brought an actual date but my boyfriend decided he needed to move back to Puerto Rico.”
“I can be your gay life partner, but you’re not mine,” Lucas replied to Jasmine. “My gay life partner is Matt Bomer.”
“Someone has to know you exist to be your life partner,” Jasmine said.
“Lies,” said Lucas. “I know what’s in my heart.”
“Since my divorce,” Sarah said, “I think I am my own life partner.”
“I love that for you,” Jasmine replied, waving a manicured hand up and down at Sarah. “I don’t even know you and I love that for you.”
Sarah smiled. “I guess the answer is that Newfoundland men are hot fisherman and hot miners. Offshore drilling is big up here.”
Lucas smiled. “I’m going to translate that into everyone looking like Ben Affleck’s character in Armageddon.”
“Be my guest.”
They watched as the luggage started to arrive. “So you’re completely over romance?” Lucas asked Sarah. “See, I aspire to that level of serenity.”
“It’s not that I don’t approve of it for other people,” Sarah said. “I’m happy for Paul.”
“Didn’t Abby say you’re shooting the wedding?” Jasmine asked.
“I offered. I don’t usually shoot weddings but I’m making an exception for Paul,” Sarah conceded.
Jasmine looked thoughtful. “You know I’ve barely met Paul. Is he like Gilbert Blythe?”
Sarah almost snorted. “Way more sarcastic than Gilbert Blythe. And I haven’t met Abby yet because she was visiting her niece last time I came through,” Sarah admitted. “But I am really glad Paul’s ex Trish is out of the picture.”
“Yeah, what happened with his ex-wife?” Lucas asked. “Tell us the gossip.”
Sarah thought about how to sum up Trish and that whole saga.
“They were together for a long time,” she said.
“Trish came up here, married him, and then a couple of years later, cheated on him and ran off with this documentary guy who worked for the CBC. But to be fair, Trish had to deal with Paul’s mom, who can be pretty toxic. ”
“Abby said they’re not inviting Paul’s mother to the wedding,” Jasmine said.
“Thank God,” Sarah said fervently. “That woman ruined every holiday for my first eighteen years.”
“There!” Lucas called, pointed to a fancy suitcase. “That’s yours, Jasmine. And my zebra bag.”
Sarah helped them collect their luggage.
She was struck by how much it already felt like she was friends with them.
She wondered if it had to do with them being chatty New Yorkers or just that they all lived in cities, were single, and were around the same age.
She had refrained from asking Paul how old his new fiancée was, but she felt relieved that it seemed likely—based on these two—that Abby must be in her late thirties or older.
After what had happened in her own marriage, Sarah had privately hoped that Paul wasn’t marrying someone much younger. That would have been a little too depressing.
Sarah walked out to her mother’s borrowed car with Jasmine and Lucas, pondering Jasmine’s question. What were the men like in Newfoundland?
It didn’t matter, she told herself. She had decided that she was going to be single for the rest of her life.
“Oh my God,” Jasmine said, stopping Sarah with an iron grip on her elbow. “Who is that?”
The hotel that was hosting the wedding was a white-clapboard structure with rolling lawns that tumbled towards the sea.
When they walked inside the main lobby, several guests were already chatting in armchairs or looking at the view, so Sarah followed Jasmine’s gaze and then froze at the sight of a handsome, dark-haired man standing a few feet away.
He was talking in Quebecois French to a much larger, blond man she didn’t know who stood well over six feet tall. The dark-haired man was Ren.
It had been over eight years since she’d seen him, but he still had his lovely, curly hair, though it was now touched with grey. He still had those alarmingly pretty green eyes, slightly crinkled at the edges. He was still beautiful.
Sarah couldn’t move for a moment.
“Are we talking about the one who looks like a lost Hemsworth brother or the one who looks like Alain Delon?” Lucas asked.
“I can have both. Why not both?” Jasmine said.
Right then, Ren turned his eyes toward Sarah. His gaze locked with hers and for a moment he looked as frozen as she felt. He didn’t smile, just stared for so long that he lost track of his conversation, and she watched him blink and then ask the blond man to repeat what he’d been saying.
She should have known Ren would be here.
She should have asked Paul about it, but for some reason it had never crossed her mind that he would come.
In her head, Ren was forever in Las Vegas, raising a child, sleeping with redheads.
She hadn’t known that he and Paul even kept in touch. She hadn’t asked.
“Looks like the hot guy only speaks French,” Lucas said with a sad sigh to Jasmine. “Just my luck.”
“That’s Ren,” Sarah finally said. “He speaks English.” She took a step forward, just as a dark-haired woman stepped into her path to greet them.
“You made it to the ends of the earth!” cried the woman, looking between Lucas and Jasmine. This must be Abby, Paul’s bride. She turned to Sarah with a grin. “Are you Sarah? Thank you so much for rescuing these two. I had to run around all day finding tiny items with white flowers on them.”
“Happy to help,” Sarah said.
“I’m Abby. Did I say that? If not, blame it on bride brain. I don’t think I’ve formed a coherent sentence in the last forty-eight hours.”
“Babe, you look so radiant that I hate you a little,” Jasmine told Abby.
“It’s the sea air. I look exactly the same, but the air is making you drunk and confused.”
“Is that what Newfoundlanders get to blame things on?” Sarah asked. “That would explain my entire high school experience.”
Abby laughed, and Sarah saw how radically different Paul’s new bride was from Patricia.
This woman seemed warm and funny but utterly grounded, the kind of person who would never put pristine white sofas in an apartment where she planned to serve bright orange cocktails.
She was definitely closer to forty than thirty, which also felt like a small relief.
“And you’re okay taking pictures of the wedding?” Abby asked Sarah. “Because Paul said you offered to do that as your gift. But we have two guests willing to take photos, so if you want to relax, please tell me and I’ll shift it to our other volunteer.”
“I offered to help out as well,” came a male voice. It was Ren, standing at her elbow, smiling at her.
Sarah turned to him. “Take photos?” Her brain seemed to be working slower than usual.
Abby looked between them. “Is that okay? Since you’re both professional photographers, Paul thought you could both give us that as your wedding gift, but seriously, if one of you wants to bow out…”
“A professional photographer?” Sarah asked.
Ren nodded. “That’s what I do now, yeah.”
“Oh.” She stared at him, confused. She vaguely remembered him having a few photos in a gallery, but that had been years ago.
“I’m going to let you guys get settled, put your bags down,” Abby said. “And then a few of us have to do the ceremony rehearsal out back, and dinner is a five-minute walk from here. All the information is in the welcome bags in your rooms.”