Chapter Thirty-Three Natalie
Natalie stared longingly at the bar that’d been set up on the yacht club lawn.
Her need for a strong vodka soda was a physical ache.
She wanted to feel the alcohol scorch her throat and scour her insides, burning away the sludgy shame that’d been thickening for the past hour.
But how could she possibly walk by so many people?
Surely they’d notice the scarlet A Natalie could feel blazing against her chest. No, forget Hawthorne.
She had nothing in common with poor, wronged Hester Prynne.
Natalie’s crime was closer to that in Poe’s most famous tale, and it was just a matter of time before her guilty heart began to bellow, I kissed Jonathan!
The maid of honor hooked up with the groom on his wedding day!
I’m the most treacherous, backstabbing bitch of all time!
Oh, fuck it, Natalie thought glumly. They were all going to find out at some point.
There was no way the wedding would happen now, and it wouldn’t take long for the guests to discover why.
If Marigold didn’t tell people about the kiss, then Olivia would, and honestly, Natalie didn’t blame them.
With a sigh, she began to trudge across the lawn toward the bar.
A uneasy tension had begun to spread through the crowd.
None of the guests had set eyes on Marigold, and no one would confirm whether she’d made it back from New York.
Bill, Lulu, Jonathan, Zack, and Olivia had all vanished, adding to the air of confusion and suspicion.
Jonathan’s parents had grown overwhelmed trying to field questions and were hiding in some remote corner of the yacht club.
Natalie was vaguely aware of people trying to talk to her—she could see their mouths moving—but she couldn’t hear anything over the shrill wail of her own thoughts.
You kissed your best friend’s fiancé. On her wedding day.
And it was a great kiss.
You’re the shittiest maid of honor in human history.
And you want to do it again.
She ordered her drink, downed it in three gulps, considered ordering another, then decided on water instead. It was going to be a long night no matter what; she needed to pace herself.
The vodka had its intended effect. A pleasant warmth spread through her body, and for one brief moment, she felt like she could breathe again. And then she remembered the look on Marigold’s face, and the stinging accusations she’d made:
You loved being super-helpful Natalie. It was, like, your whole personality.
You let your fear of failure convince you that you’re not good enough for anything, so there’s no point in trying.
How much of that was true? Had all this happened because of Natalie’s cowardice?
If she’d just told Jonathan how she felt during college, or at the reunion, or at literally any moment before he and Marigold had gotten engaged, she wouldn’t have ruined her best friend’s wedding.
But why hadn’t she ever said anything? Because she hadn’t wanted to look foolish?
Or make anyone uncomfortable? Was this what happened when you had a pathological fear of conflict?
You suppressed your own feelings, kept them in the dark until they turned putrid and toxic.
Until they couldn’t be contained any longer and the whole mess exploded, scalding anyone in the blast zone.
“Natalie?” She turned to see a pretty middle-aged woman in a plunging navy silk gown. Natalie didn’t recognize her face, but the tightness of her skin and the plumpness of her lips marked her as a New York guest rather than a Maine one.
Natalie forced a smile and prepared to tell one more lie about where Marigold was and when the wedding would start. “Yes?”
“I know this is weird, but my neighbor’s on the phone and she wants to talk to you?”
“Your neighbor?” Natalie repeated. Had word of her treachery already spread so far that strangers wanted to scream at her? She imagined trying to walk down the street in New York while people lined the sidewalks shouting, Shame! Shame!
“Jen Friedlander? You tutor her daughter, Esme? She knew I was at the same wedding as you, and she said you aren’t returning her messages.” The woman shrugged sheepishly and held up her phone. “She said you wouldn’t mind talking to her for five minutes.”
“Mrs. Friedlander called you. And asked you to find me. At the wedding,” Natalie said, struggling to properly process this information. Her brain had reached its maximum storage capacity, like Marigold’s perpetually full voicemail.
“Should I tell her you’re busy?”
“Yes!” Natalie said shrilly. “Tell her I’m the maid of honor and we’re about to…” She trailed off, then paused. “Actually, I’ll talk to her.”
“Are you sure?”
Natalie nodded, watched the woman unmute her phone, then took it from her. “This is Natalie!” she said in a voice that sound cheerfully deranged, even to her.
“Oh, good,” Mrs. Friedlander said. “I told Laura you wouldn’t mind talking for a minute. Listen, Esme had another idea for her essay, and I wanted her to talk to you first before she spent too much time on it.”
“Right, of course. God forbid Esme waste an hour of her precious time.”
“Exactly. So we decided that the whole volunteering-in-Mexico thing was overdone. These days, you need to focus on overcoming adversity. So Esme thought she’d write about the struggles of having ADHD.”
“I didn’t realize Esme had ADHD.”
“She’s being tested for it now, so she can get extra time on the SAT.” There was a long pause. “Natalie, are you there?”
“Let me just get this straight,” Natalie said tightly. “You’re paying some quack doctor to diagnose her with a condition she probably doesn’t have, to cheat on the SATs, and then you want her to write about overcoming adversity.”
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Friedlander snipped. “The doctor thinks she does have ADHD. It’s hard to diagnose in girls.”
“No,” Natalie said.
“It’s a very common phenomenon. You should do your own research.”
“I mean, no, I won’t do it.”
“You think it’s a bad idea? Fine, that’s fine. You come up with something else, then. Whatever. Esme won’t mind.”
“No, I’m done. Find someone else.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re the most entitled person I’ve ever met, which is really saying something given my line of work, and your vapid daughter doesn’t deserve to go to college, let alone one of the places you’re probably bribing at the moment.”
“What the hell?” Mrs. Friedlander spat. “Do you know who you’re talking to? I’ll make sure you never tutor in this town again!”
“And I’ll contact the admissions offices at all Esme’s top choices to explain that I wrote all her essays for her. I’m so glad you called, Mrs. Friedlander. It was great catching up. Take care, now.”
Natalie handed the phone back to the stunned guest. A few other people were also staring, but, buoyed by the high of telling the truth for the first time in her life, she found that she didn’t care.
That is, until she spotted Tess darting through the crowd, muttering manically into her headset.
She’d already called six times to ask for an ETA on Marigold, and each time Natalie had said, “She’s on her way!
” but she wasn’t sure she could keep up the ruse much longer.
When Tess’s back was turned, Natalie slipped into the yacht club and headed to the wood-paneled office that’d been designated as Marigold’s dressing room for that day—the one place Natalie was certain she wouldn’t run into either Jonathan or Marigold.
But just as Natalie began to pace around the room to decide on her next move, the door opened and Marigold stepped in.
Her hair was slightly disheveled, yet other than that, there was no sign that she’d gone from an international flight to vaulting over fences and dashing into the woods.
She wasn’t wearing her wedding dress, nor were her hair and makeup done.
But that didn’t mean anything. It’d take her five minutes to transform from a weary international traveler into a radiant bride—if that’s what she still wanted—as long as no one looked too closely at the exhaustion in her eyes.
Natalie felt a surge of tender affection for her friend.
Marigold hadn’t done anything to deserve this, let alone on her wedding day: walking in on her fiancé kissing her best friend, learning that her mom was dying.
“Hey, I was looking for you.” Marigold’s voice was tired but calm.
“I’m really sorry,” Natalie said. She meant it—she felt more guilt and shame than she’d ever experienced in her life.
Yet at the same time, she would’ve been hard-pressed to explain exactly what she was apologizing for.
Was it for kissing Jonathan? Or for the betrayal that had started years earlier?
The moment Natalie had first started betraying herself, sabotaging her own chance of happiness along with everyone else’s.
“I’m sorry too.”
“What do you have to apologize for?”
“For all the nasty things I said back at the inn.”
Natalie turned away, suddenly unable to meet Marigold’s eyes. “I deserved them.”
“No, you didn’t. Jonathan and I were never right for each other. Deep down, we both knew it.” A smile crept into Marigold’s voice, giving Natalie the courage to look back up. “But you and I were made for each other. Our bond is stronger.”
Natalie opened her mouth to laugh and was surprised when a sob escaped instead. Marigold closed the space between them and pulled her into a hug. “Are you really forgiving me?” Natalie asked after regaining enough composure to speak.
“Yeah. Do you forgive me? I mean, the way I’ve always taken you for granted.
Maybe even taken advantage of you. You’re right—I did always assume you’d be there to clean up my messes, and I didn’t really stop to wonder what messes of your own you might be hiding.
It was just easier for me to believe you had everything under control all the time. ”
Natalie shook her head. “I wanted you to see me that way. I wanted everyone to see me that way. What you said was right: it was easier to blame you than accept that I’ve been holding myself back, making excuses instead of going after what I want.”
“You’re not the only one.” Marigold sank into an armchair and waited for Natalie to sit on the plaid couch next to it. “I spent the last four years convincing myself that he and I were right for each other. I was so desperate to be the type of person he’d fall in love with.”
“So, what?” Natalie asked. “Marrying Jonathan was some kind of rebrand?”
Marigold leaned back against the chair. “Yeah, I guess. But it wasn’t just about the optics. I really believed he’d make me a better person. That he’d turn me into someone who deserved a kind, responsible man who cured kids with cancer.”
“But you love him,” Natalie said quietly.
“I do… but I also love the idea of someone like him loving me. It’s different with you.”
“Is it?” She thought for a moment. “I fell in love with him when he was just a goofy college kid with a terrible haircut who made me laugh.”
“And that’s why you belong together.”
Natalie turned to Marigold, startled. “Oh, come on.”
“No, I mean it,” she said firmly. “You and I have both wasted enough time worrying about what other people think. We both deserve to be happy. And I’m going to make sure it’s not too late, for either of us.”