The wedding is happening. And what did Phoebe expect? Gary is not the type to call off a wedding, and neither is Lila. Lila has spent a million dollars on this. The champagne flutes were shipped here from France six months ago. Brides who plan weddings this expensive actually go through with them. People do what’s expected. People get in their grooves and never crawl their way out. They make their decisions about plate patterns, then eat off them for the rest of their lives. She can’t think of one real person she knows who ever called off their wedding the day of. And so that is it: Lila will marry Gary.
Yet Phoebe is in disbelief as they head for the door. She feels she is headed toward the wrong event, the wrong world.
“You look different,” Lila says.
“Side bang,” Phoebe says.
“No. It’s something else.”
Phoebe doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to explain the small and large ways this week has changed her.
“It’s the side bang, I’m telling you,” Phoebe says.
Lila stops just before the door. Looks at the one hundred and fifty-nine spoons. She picks one up. She eats it. She nods, like she’s had an experience.
“Anything in my teeth?” she asks, smiling at Phoebe.
“No,” Phoebe says. “Perfect.”
BACK IN HER room, Phoebe looks at her green dress. Six days ago, she was ready to die in it. In some versions of this story, she would already be buried in it. But in this version, Lila had it laundered by the hotel staff. It shimmers on its hanger. It’s green—just like the bridesmaids dresses. And it is remarkable to put it on for a different reason. Remarkable to have a beautiful side bang. Remarkable to see her husband here. There he is, in the shower. He is showering so they can go to a wedding together. It is all so familiar, the sounds of him humming “Yellow Submarine” without realizing it. His legs, which are still strong and muscular. She imagines they’ll be the last thing to go on her husband; when he’s older and losing parts of himself, his legs will be like the marble columns of Greece. So thick and strong, they’ll last centuries.
But will she be there to see it? She doesn’t know. Will she be there to hold his hand as he dies? They always imagined him dying first, something to do with him being a man, but also both his grandparents dying of lung cancer. They always imagined themselves as people who would never retire but would spend long summers on decadent cruises, going down the Nile while writing their books. Their children would be happy at college. And they have thought about this so many times, it’s like it has already happened. She can see them, reading in the mornings, taking walks at four in the afternoon just before the sun sets in winter. Asking each other periodically, Do you think the kids are happy?
But she doesn’t really want this now, after everything that’s happened between them. She has spent too much time killing him off in her head. Killing herself off in her head. And now they are back, but they are different, because nobody comes back from the dead the same. You emerge always with a little bit of the underworld on you, the lesion, the scar, having seen unspeakable things.
“It occurs to me that I don’t have anything nice enough to wear to a wedding,” Matt says. “Should I stop to buy something?”
“I don’t think there’s time for that,” she says. She wants to suggest he not come. But that seems cruel. He has come all this way. “Just sit in the back.”
“These towels are amazing,” he says, and rubs his face down.
She looks at herself in the mirror one last time, and it makes her want to cry. She feels such a relief—like when she returned home after a brutal day at work and turned on the lights—to be home again, to see the place she knows light up.
Her husband comes to put his hands around her. He kisses the back of her neck.
“You look beautiful,” he says.
He seems to mean it. He has been trying to express himself more. He has started going to therapy. He has learned he was never really good at saying what he thought. He is learning now how to do this more. Learning how to actually talk. She turns around and looks at his belt. There it is, halfway through its life, smooth in parts, wrinkled in others. She feels the leather, expecting it to feel different, but it doesn’t.
“Let’s go,” Phoebe says.
Downstairs in the lobby, Matt kisses her goodbye and takes the shuttle with the other people to the Breakers like he’s been part of the wedding this whole time.
PHOEBE WAITS WITH the bride in the lobby for the new vintage car.
“The car is ready,” a man in burgundy says.
As Lila walks out, Phoebe holds her train, all the way out the entryway, past the giant candles. But when they see the new car, Lila stops.
“I’m sorry, what is that?” Lila asks.
“Your car,” the man says.
“I’m not getting in that car,” Lila says.
The new car is an ordinary black town car. Like the kind Phoebe took from the airport.
“What’s wrong with it?” Phoebe asks.
“It’s like an Uber Black,” Lila says. “Did Gary not ask for a vintage car?”
And suddenly it feels like they will never get to this wedding, like they’re trying to get to Bowen’s Wharf in traffic all over again.
“I asked for it,” Phoebe says.
“Is there a problem?” Pauline asks, coming out the door.
“This is an Uber Black.”
“I assure you this is not an Uber Black,” Pauline says. “It’s a 2022 brand-new Mercedes with a state-of-the-art sound system.”
“But it’s not vintage.”
“I’m so sorry,” Pauline says. “We had no more vintage cars available with such late notice.”
They wait to see how Lila will react. For a second, she doesn’t. But then without a word, Lila turns around. Walks back up the stairs, while Phoebe and Pauline follow, trying to protect the train.
“Lila,” Phoebe says. “What are you doing?”
