Chapter Fourteen Olivia
“Want me to drive?” Zack said as he eyed Olivia’s bandaged foot, which she’d shoved, painfully, into a strappy sandal.
After ensuring that the Varicks were able to secure a room at the inn under the wedding rate, she’d rushed to her own room and showered and changed in record time, but they’d still missed the last chauffeured golf carts and would have to drive themselves to the yacht club.
Thankfully, the storm had abated for the moment, although the forecast showed that it’d return with a vengeance later in the evening.
“Nope.” Olivia slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key, barely waiting for Zack to settle into the passenger seat before she slammed her foot down on the accelerator.
“Whoa!” Zack yelped. He grasped at the handle as Olivia made a sharp turn onto the bumpy dirt road that served as the island’s main thoroughfare, tires squelching through the mud.
She’d been navigating these roads since she was a kid—standard practice on Sandpiper Island, where parents were delighted to let their children serve as designated golf cart drivers. “Where’s the fire?”
“I already missed the rehearsal. I can’t be late to the actual dinner.
” She could only pray that Marigold had materialized during Olivia’s absence, that the New York story had turned out to be true, regardless if Marigold was mistaken about needing her birth certificate.
But when Olivia had finally charged her phone back in the room, there hadn’t been any new messages from her sister.
Olivia pressed all the way down on the gas until the cart reached its top speed of twenty miles per hour. The rain had slowed down, and after her hot shower, the cool, damp air felt more bracing than bone-chilling.
The cart’s headlights did little to illuminate the dark road, but Olivia knew the landscape better than the back of her hand, a part of her body she tried not to look at these days since it seemed resistant to her antiaging sunscreen.
She turned into the yacht club’s drive with practiced ease, relishing the familiar spray of gravel followed by the satisfying crunch under her tires.
“Nicely done,” Zack said as she parked to the side of the entrance.
He hurried around to help her out, but she ignored his hand and limped up the front path on her own. “So… where do the yachts park?”
“A yacht is just a boat longer than thirty feet. None of the members have one of those superyachts you’re imagining. This is more of a sailboat crowd.”
“Ah yes, a mere thirty feet. How embarrassing for them. So what about the whiskey tasting your buddy mentioned last night? Didn’t he say that was on a yacht?”
Olivia snorted. “They’d never let Ed Growler join.”
“Why not? Is he Black? Jewish? Catholic?”
“What? No! They don’t have rules like that here.”
“Anymore.”
“Bill is Jewish, you know.”
“And they wouldn’t have let him in forty years ago, right?”
Olivia didn’t answer.
“Your silence speaks volumes.”
“I thought you’d decided to be nice to me?
You know, to make up for stranding me at sea for eight hours and making me miss my sister’s wedding rehearsal.
” And offering to pretend to be my boyfriend, Olivia added.
She was certain Zack had been mostly joking, but she couldn’t help but imagine how it’d feel to walk into the rehearsal dinner as part of a couple.
Whether Zack had been right about Andrew needing a little competition to catch his attention…
“Sorry, you’re right.” Zack cleared his throat and made of show of offering Olivia his arm. “May I escort you inside, my lady?”
She swatted his arm away and pushed the door open.
Warm light and the sound of happy chatter spilled out into the dark lawn, and Olivia froze on the threshold.
Everyone who’d witnessed her humiliating show last night would be there, along with all the recent arrivals who’d undoubtedly already heard all about it.
Andrew was somewhere cozying up with Emerson.
And then, of course, there was Lulu. What had the last few hours been like for her with both her children missing in action?
“It’s going to be okay,” Zack said, dropping his faux-courtly act. “Come on.” He placed a hand on Olivia’s back, and this time, she didn’t shake it off.
Thankfully, the guests had just started serving themselves from the long line of chafing dishes that Olivia knew contained the trademark French-Vietnamese fusion of a famous chef who’d come up from Boston for the evening.
Olivia smile-nodded at a few people as she made her way toward Lulu, whom she’d spotted sitting at the table they’d reserved for the family, stopping to say a proper hello to Lulu’s best friend and Olivia’s de facto godmother, Paula, and their family friend Susan, a well-known editor who’d let Olivia intern for her during high school summers, before she’d set her sights on law.
“There you are!” Lulu cried as she approached, rising to her feet to pull Olivia into a tight hug before catching sight of her bandaged foot. “What happened? Are you okay? You weren’t answering your phone.”
“I’m fine. It’s a long story, I…” She trailed off, suddenly realizing that she’d been so focused on finding Marigold, she hadn’t come up with an excuse for her own absence.
“It’s completely my fault.” Zack appeared at her side. “I begged Olivia to take me out on the boat and then, like an idiot, I ended up losing the key. It took us ages to get back, and of course, we didn’t have cell reception. I’m really sorry.”
“Oh my!” Lulu looked from Zack to Olivia.
“You poor things. And all that was during the storm? I’m just glad you’re both okay.
Zack, you’d better get something to eat before the line grows too long.
You’re probably starving.” When he was out of earshot, Lulu lowered her voice. “I assume you know all about Marigold?”
“Yeah…” Olivia said slowly, unsure how much her mother knew or suspected. “Is she…”
“Stranded in New York because of the storm. I spoke to her and she said she’ll be on the first flight tomorrow morning. She must be at her wits’ end. I feel just awful for her. For both of you! It doesn’t sound like either of you are having the weekend you imagined.”
Olivia felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe Marigold had been telling the truth about going home to get her birth certificate.
She might’ve misunderstood Bruce’s instructions about the paperwork and panicked.
Or, hell, maybe Bruce had given her bad information.
It wouldn’t shock Olivia to learn that his knowledge of Maine marriage law had some gaps in it.
Her Gilligan’s Island–esque outing might’ve been delusional as well as fruitless.
“Honestly. You know Marigold gets overwhelmed by too much attention. She was probably glad to have a little break before the big day. And I’m fine.” She wiggled her foot. “It looks worse than it actually is.”
Lulu seemed to perk up. “Why don’t you go get some food yourself? Before the Paulsons fill the Tupperware you know they’re hiding in their bags?”
Olivia made her way across the room, hoping that a few more people would join the line and serve as a buffer between her and Andrew, but she had no such luck. “Here, you go ahead of me,” Zack said.
“Please, no, I’m fine.”
At the sound of her voice, Andrew spun around. “There you are!” he said brightly. “I haven’t seen you all day. How’d your toast go last night?”
“It was…”
“It was brilliant,” Zack cut in. “Everyone laughed, cried, experienced the full spectrum of human emotion.”
“That’s great.” Andrew extended his hand. “I don’t think we officially met yesterday. I’m Andrew.”
“Zack.”
“So where’s Emerson?” Olivia asked in what she hoped was a light, friendly tone.
“She has friends who live on the island, so she’s having drinks with them first. She’ll probably meet me here later.” Andrew turned back to Zack. “You look really familiar—were you at HBS?”
“HBS?” Zack repeated with what Olivia knew was feigned confusion.
“Harvard Business School,” Andrew clarified.
“Nope. But I’m Jonathan’s best man, so I guess that makes me a very, very local celebrity.”
“No, it’s not that… What’s your last name?”
“Greenberg.”
“Wait, are you Zack Greenberg the writer?”
“That’s me.”
“No way! I just preordered your book. I was a big fan of your Substack.”
Olivia could feel her brain struggling to make sense of this. “You read his blog? The one where he argued for massive wealth redistribution and claimed that billionaires belonged in jail?”
“That’s a bit of an oversimplification,” Zack said.
“You work at a hedge fund,” Olivia continued, stating the obvious.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate opposing points of view, especially well-written, well-reasoned ones,” Andrew said pleasantly.
“Well, how about that.” Zack grinned at Olivia. “Your friend is a fan.”
Something flickered in Andrew’s eyes, and his smile seemed to fade just the slightest bit. “I didn’t realize… Are you two…” He made an awkward gesture with his hands.
“Together?” Zack supplied.
“Yeah,” Andrew said sheepishly. “Sorry. I know there’s no real polite way to ask that question.”
“I’ll let the lady answer. She’s the one who’s weird about labels.” Zack turned to Olivia and winked.
Olivia forced a laugh to stall for time.
Zack’s plan had sounded outlandish when he’d proposed it earlier today, but now it seemed, well, less outlandish.
Maybe she was just imagining it, but Andrew did seem a little ruffled.
Perhaps Zack’s reductive explanation of the male psyche had been spot-on.
“Well…” She looped her arm through Zack’s.
“We were hoping to keep it under wraps this weekend, since it’s so new.
But I guess that was silly. You can’t hide—”
“A love like ours,” Zack said, moving his arm to her waist.
“I was going to say, you can’t hide anything with your friends and family around, but yeah, sure.”
“Cool,” Andrew said. “Yeah, cool. That’s awesome.” He placed his empty plate back on the stack at the end of the table. “I just realized, I should check and see if Emerson needs a ride. Will you excuse me?”
“Wowwww,” Zack said quietly as Andrew strode off. “I didn’t expect it to work that quickly. My man is pissed!”
“Oh, come on.” Olivia rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress the tingle of excitement coursing through her body. “Okay, you can let me go now.”
“You sure? He could come back at any minute.” Zack tightened his hold. “He’s probably just running to the bathroom. Mr. HBS probably has IBS.”
Olivia looked away so Zack wouldn’t see her laugh; she didn’t want to give him that satisfaction. Across the room, she spotted Lulu watching them with a curious smile.
“Okay,” Olivia said, turning back to Zack.
“You’re on. Let’s try out your ridiculous pretend dating plan.
But just for the weekend. Then we’ll ‘break up.’ Okay?
” That would give Andrew enough time to realize he’d made a terrible mistake.
And possibly convince Lulu that she didn’t have to worry about both her daughters this weekend.
Zack nodded. “You got it, babe.”
“And definitely never call me babe.”
“Honey?”
“No.”
“Sweet cheeks? Babycakes? What’s that French phrase? Ma petite choue?”
“Little cabbage. So romantic.”
“Ma petite choue speaks le French! Oooh la la!”
Olivia groaned and pushed him away. “This is never going to work. No one will believe I’m dating such a cheeseball.
” But then she stole a quick glance back at Lulu, who whispered something to a smiling Bill, then stepped back, beaming.
It was the happiest Olivia had seen her mother look in a long time.
I guess it’s worth a shot. She took Zack’s hand and thought, As the French say, courage.