Save the Date

I winced and caught Danny’s eye, and he shook his head and smiled at me. The cocktail hour had ended, and now people were milling about, finding their table numbers and starting to wander over to them. There was a board set up at the back of the tent—complete with pictures of Linnie and Rodney when they were little—that told you where your table was. These coordinated with the place cards the General had done, which were set up on the tables, the handwriting maybe a little less ornate than one might expect, but perfectly legible.

I had positioned myself by the entrance to the tent, hoping to run into Jesse. He’d ducked out right as the cocktail hour had started, and I’d found my attention wandering from my conversations as I looked around, waiting for him to come back. Because aside from him smiling at me as I walked up the aisle, I hadn’t had a chance to see him yet. I smoothed my hair down as I sipped my Diet Coke with cherries and tried not to look too obviously toward the door.

All throughout the cocktail hour, during the conversations with my relatives, and Rodney’s relatives, and friends of Linnie’s I hadn’t seen in years, I’d been thinking about what things would be like when Jesse came back. I could get not wanting things to be obvious too soon, but it was a wedding. We could dance together without anyone getting suspicious, and maybe I could even switch our place cards around so that we were sitting closer together, and then after the wedding . . .

I took a long sip of my drink just as Jesse came in through the door and headed straight over to his table. “Hi,” I said, doing an awkward step-run to put myself in his path. “Hi,” I said, then realized a second too late I’d already said that. “It’s good to see you—I hadn’t seen you here tonight yet.”

“Yeah.” Jesse smiled at me, then leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You look great,” he said, even though he wasn’t looking at me, but across the tent, to where Mike was sitting.

“Thanks.” I smoothed my curls down, thanking my stars for Brooke. “You do too.” He really did—he was wearing a slim-cut black suit with a skinny tie, and his hair was neatly combed.

“Well, I have to do my best as Mike’s plus-one,” he said. He looked back over at me, then leaned a little closer, the proximity causing my heart to race. “Can I see you later?”

“Yes,” I said, not letting myself break eye contact with him.

He gave me a smile and a tiny wink. “Great,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze as he started to turn and walk away.

“Or we could also hang out now,” I said, and Jesse turned back. “You know . . . at the wedding?”

“Right,” Jesse said quickly, giving me another smile as he started to edge away, toward the tables. “We’ll totally do that. Save me a dance, okay?”

“Hope you like Journey!” I called after him, then immediately regretted it. But he glanced over his shoulder and gave me a slow smile, and I felt my regret start to ebb away. I would see Jesse tonight. And if Journey had any slow songs, maybe we could dance to one, both of us twirling together in a circle, my hand in his . . .

I watched Jesse pull up a seat at Mike’s table, slap him on the back, and sit next to him. Maybe he actually was taking his plus-one duties seriously, not to mention his best friend duties. Not wanting either of them to catch me staring, I headed back to the bar for a refill.

“We’re going to get started in just a few minutes,” Glen said, then raised an eyebrow as he leaned closer to the mic. “And play some music to serenade you during your dinner. I hope you’re all ready . . . to take a journey.” He’d clearly expected a much bigger reaction to that, and all he got was couple of half-hearted whoos from the back of the room. But if this bothered Glen, he didn’t show it, as he dramatically played a chord on his guitar and smiled at the room in general.

“Hey.” I looked over and saw Bill had come to stand next to me. “So that was interesting.” He nodded toward where Olly was talking to Elizabeth.

“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head. “We didn’t know we needed to search the guests for speakers.”

“Well,” Bill said, his voice serious, “this is how you learn things.”

I smiled at that. “Exactly.” I’d been keeping my eye on Olly in the first few minutes of the cocktail hour, but it seemed like he was keeping his word and behaving—nevertheless, Mike had taken away his speaker and told him he would get it back at the end of the wedding.

“Get you anything?” This was coming from behind us—it was the bartender. I ordered my Diet Coke with cherries, and he rolled his eyes but made me my drink, then turned away to take my aunt Kimberley’s order.

“So,” Bill said, looking around at the assembled guests, who were either standing around in groups talking or starting to drift over to their tables. “It seems like everything is . . . working out.” He practically whispered the last two words, and I smiled, knowing exactly how he felt.

“It does, doesn’t it?” I crossed my fingers even as I said it. “I mean, despite the whole ex-boyfriend-trying-to-break-up-the-wedding thing.”

“Aside from that.”

“I know,” I said, looking over at him as I smiled. “It seems like people are having a good time.”

“And they haven’t even heard the Journey cover band yet.”

“Charlotte.” I looked over to see Aunt Liz striding up to me, her jaw set and eyes narrowed.

“Um—hi.” She was clearly unhappy with me, but at this moment, I couldn’t think why. “Are you . . . having a nice time at the reception?”

“I was,” she said, taking a deep breath and then letting it out, like she was on the verge of screaming at me. “But then I saw where I’d been sat for dinner.”

“We changed that.” I turned to Bill, who immediately nodded.

“You’re Elizabeth?” he asked with a smile. “Don’t worry. I moved you. You’re nowhere near Jimmy.”

“I’m right next to Jimmy!” she spat, pointing across the room, then shook her head and stalked away. I looked where she had pointed and saw the man who must be Uncle Jimmy. He looked like he was a little younger than Aunt Liz and looked very dapper in a sport coat, but this was marred slightly by the fact that he was glowering at Liz, his arms folded across his chest.

I turned to Bill, baffled. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I moved Elizabeth—I know I did.”

“Elizabeth? Or Liz?”

“I—” Bill stopped talking and looked at me, brow furrowing. “Aren’t they the same thing?”

I shook my head. “Elizabeth’s Rodney’s sister—she’s in the bridal party. She was named for Liz. . . .”

“Oh,” Bill said, and I could see his eyes widening as this sank in. “Oh god.”

The seating list that had been assembled from Brooke’s picture—the one Rodney’s dad had been using to do the place cards—was back in the house. It quickly became clear that we weren’t going to be able to get anything done on the board where people were currently picking up their seat assignments. But it also didn’t look like anyone would notice if I stepped out for a moment—we were doing dinner first, then the speeches, and if I had to miss the appetizers, it didn’t seem to be that big of a sacrifice if we could prevent two people from killing each other. I tried to catch Jesse’s eye again, so that he could see that I was leaving and wouldn’t wonder where I’d gotten to. But I noticed now that he was talking to Rodney’s cousin Kyra, who was a little older than me, smiling easily as he leaned closer to hear what she was saying.

Bill held open the back door of the tent for me, and I stepped outside and winced. Things had gotten worse since we’d done our procession from the house. It was almost totally dark out now, and very cold, and the wind had picked up. But more than that, there was the feeling in the air that a storm was brewing, that sense that it’s going to rain, sooner rather than later. I held my skirt down against the wind as we hurried across the lawn to the house.