CHAPTER 20

Or, Just Roll with It

* * *

OKAY, IF EVERYONE COULD JUST stay calm!” Bill yelled from where he was standing on one of the kitchen chairs, in the dark.

It was still the afternoon, but the fact that it had gotten so dark out meant that I’d had to make my way downstairs using my phone flashlight, trying to reassure people I met on the way—Aunt Liz, Max, the Jennys—that I would try to find out what was going on. Linnie had come down with me, and I’d found a huge group gathered in the kitchen, most of whom were trying to figure out what was happening. There was a little more light in the kitchen, thanks to the picture windows, but it was still fairly dark, and my mother was lighting the candles, long tapers that we normally only used for fancy dinners, and placing them on the table and countertops.

“How are we supposed to cook?” one of the caterers said, her voice rising. “We have a fridge full of perishables—”

“Who cares about the food?” This was Glen, who’d come into the kitchen, along with the tent guys. “If we don’t have power, we’re going to have to do an acoustic set, and that’s not the Journey way.”

My dad frowned at him. “Who are you again?”

“He’s with the band,” I explained.

“We need to be taking pictures in ten minutes,” the photographer said, looking at her watch. “And if I don’t have power—”

“You think I don’t have the same problem?” the videographer interrupted. “Everyone cares more about the video than the pictures anyway.”

“Oh, do they, Fred?” she snapped.

“Yes, they do!”

“I was in the middle of taking a shower!” my uncle Stu sputtered. He was in his Westin robe, soap bubbles gently popping on his bald head. “And the lights go out, just like that.” He snapped his fingers, apparently to illustrate this. “I should have gone to a hotel.” I saw my mother take a deep breath, like she was physically trying to restrain herself from killing my uncle.

“What does this mean?” Linnie asked, twisting her hands together. I saw her look around for Rodney, but he wasn’t there—as soon as he’d started to come into the kitchen, his sister Elizabeth had screamed that it was beyond bad luck for the bride and groom to see each other and had marched Rodney back upstairs. Both he and Linnie had tried to point out that they’d been seeing each other all morning so far, but she was clearly not hearing this.

“It’ll be fine,” I said automatically, even though I wasn’t sure how, exactly. We needed power to put on a wedding—of this I was sure.

“This is just like when the Royals played the Mets, game one of the World Series,” J.J. said.

“It’s really not,” I said, shaking my head.

“It is!” J.J. insisted. “The game was delayed because of a power issue, but—”

“My uncle is on the way over with a generator,” Bill said, speaking loudly to talk over everyone else. “It looks like we just overloaded the power in the house, trying to plug in too many things.”

“It was the band,” one of the tent guys said. “Did you see how many amps they had?”

“Oh, sure, blame the rock stars,” Glen said, shaking his head.

“So!” Bill said, speaking up again. “The power outside will be restored as soon as he arrives with a generator. But as for the power in the house . . .” Bill hesitated, his voice trailing off.

“We need power,” the caterer said again, her voice rising. “Otherwise, this food is going to spoil and we’re not going to be able to cook anything.”

“It’s probably just the fuse box that got overloaded,” my dad said, taking his own phone out and turning on the flashlight on it. “I’m going to go down to the basement and see what I can do.” He turned to Danny, who’d been standing next to me, and raised his eyebrows. “You helped me do this before once, didn’t you, son?”

“Absolutely. Not sure I remember anything, but I’m happy to take a look.”

“I’ll help,” the General added, and my dad nodded his thanks.

“Me too,” said J.J., falling into step behind them. I had a feeling things might actually go better if J.J. weren’t there, but he left with them before I could say anything.

“Linnie?” My sister turned around, and I did as well, to see Shawn and Cameron—whichever one was which—standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Hey, you guys,” she said, crossing over to them. “Sorry about that. We should have this fixed soon.”

“That’s the thing,” the hair guy said, grimacing. “We’re only booked for ten more minutes. And if we go over that, we’re going to have to charge you our day rate again.”

Even in the kitchen that was practically dark, and lit only by flickering candles, I could see my sister’s face go pale. Which told me that these people had been really expensive. Though seeing how lovely Linnie looked, they were clearly worth every penny. “But . . . ,” Linnie said, looking over at me like she was taking in my still-wet hair and my face, which was completely bare. “You didn’t get to Charlie.”

“And we could stay,” the makeup artist said, pulling out her phone and looking at the time. “But we just would need to charge you again. That’s all.”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly, taking a step closer to them. Linnie shook her head, like she was going to argue, and I kept going before she could. “I can do my hair and makeup on my own. I promise it’ll be fine.”

“But . . .” Linnie looked at me, biting her lip. “You’re so bad at it, Charlie.”

I was feeling a little too panicky to be insulted by this. And I also didn’t want to stress my sister out any further—or have her pay some exorbitant rate just because I was incompetent at doing my own hair and makeup. “I promise it’s fine,” I said, even as a piece of me was wondering what I was saying, since I had no idea how it was going to be fine, exactly. “I’ll just . . . go upstairs and get ready, then. Okay.” Linnie was still looking at me, her expression worried, and I gave her a big smile and a thumbs-up before turning on my phone flashlight again and heading up the stairs, leaning on the banister for support. I tried to tell myself that it would be okay. That somehow I could figure out something to do with my hair, even though I couldn’t use a blow-dryer or a curling iron and I would have to basically put my makeup on in the dark. If Siobhan was here, I realized, she could have helped me. She was good with hair, but she was great with makeup, which was the main reason I’d never gotten skilled at doing it myself. But this just made me remember the fight we’d had all over again, and I increased my pace up the stairs, like I was trying to outrun these thoughts.

I crossed to my bedroom door and pulled it open, and it wasn’t until I stepped over the threshold that reality hit me once again—this room wasn’t mine. Brooke was sitting on my bed with Waffles, who was lying on his back in front of her, getting a belly scratch, his left leg twitching.

“Oh,” I said, taking a step back immediately. Brooke had been so unhappy to see me here before, I didn’t want to think what she was going to say about me showing up now. “Sorry. It’s habit. I—forgot.”

“Charlie?” she asked, squinting at me slightly. There was a little bit of light coming in through my window, and she’d lit two of the half-melted candles that were on my dresser—as a result, there was both a little bit more light in the room and it smelled like vanilla and pine trees. I could see that Brooke was now ready for the wedding—she was in a gorgeous purple one-shouldered dress, and there were black patent stilettos lined up on the floor by the foot of my bed. Her hair was pulled up in a twist and her makeup looked perfect—she was doing the smoky-eyeliner thing I’d seen in tutorial videos but that always made me look like I either had a black eye or some kind of vein disorder. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Is the power coming back?”

“Hopefully soon,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and positive about this, even though this was getting harder by the second. “I just . . . I’m sorry to do this to you again, but I have to get my makeup because the hair and makeup people are leaving and I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . .”