“Pauline will help you,” Phoebe says, and Pauline nods.
“That’s not Pauline’s job, though,” Lila says.
“It can be,” Pauline says. “Just for today.”
“And then what?” Lila asks.
“Then you’re free,” Phoebe says.
“Then I’m alone.”
“Then you can go wherever you want,” Phoebe says. “Where is that?”
“Somewhere I’ve never been,” Lila says.
But this is tricky for the bride, who has been almost everywhere.
“Except for like, Canada,” Lila says. “And Russia.”
“So you’ll go to Canada,” Phoebe says.
“I can use your credit card to book you a flight and into one of our Canadian hotels right now,” Pauline says. “We have one in Montreal. It’s basically a stone castle.”
The bride nods. Takes off her veil. She holds it in her hands.
“What a waste,” Lila says.
It is. A waste. A huge waste of money, which is exactly what Phoebe wrote in her maid of honor speech, which Phoebe realizes is probably what Lila needs to hear right now.
“Every wedding, even a successful wedding, is a waste,” Phoebe says. “Every wedding is an egregious amount of money that could have, yes, been spent on much more practical things, like say, a house, a down payment, a school in a small, dying mill town. A wedding is always a fleeting spectacle that is one hundred percent going to become packed down into a teeny tiny garbage square that’ll wind up in your father’s landfill someday.”
“None of this is very comforting so far,” Lila says.
So Phoebe jumps to the final line.
“But it’s also true that this wedding will never be a waste,” Phoebe says. “Because I came here to die. And now look at me.”
This is when they both start to cry.
No, Phoebe will never be a mother. Phoebe will never know what it’s like to create life inside of her. But there are other ways to create. Other ways to love. Other reasons to live.
“Lila, every day this week, you gave me a reason to get up in the morning, to put on a beautiful dress and be part of something, and for that I will always be grateful.”
Phoebe takes the Mercedes alone to the Breakers. The ride is so beautiful, and stocked with so much champagne, that even without the bride, it still feels like an event. Phoebe studies the mansions along the way and wonders how many of the people living in them are happy. She wonders what they wish for when they wish for different lives. She wonders if this is why she has always been interested in nineteenth-century novels about rich people—it’s a giant human experiment. It asks the question: What does a person still need once a person has everything? What does a bride still desperately lack as she stands in the lobby just before her big, beautiful wedding?
It’s Phoebe who walks down the aisle to tell Gary. Phoebe makes sure to look at him the entire time. It’s tempting to look at the ocean behind him, but she doesn’t want to be a coward. She doesn’t want to hide from his eyes or leave him alone in this moment. He searches her face for some kind of information, even though he must already know. Why else would Phoebe be the one walking down the aisle?
“Lila is not coming,” she whispers when she is at his side.
And of course, of course. He nods his head with the stoicism of a soldier who has just been shot. It seems the man will go down without a single expression. He nods, looks at his shoes, nods again and again, like now he’s just watching the blood drip to the floor.
Phoebe turns around. Surely the wedding people know now, too. But someone has to say it aloud and make it official.
“Lila and Gary will not be getting married today,” Phoebe says. It is good practice, speaking with finality. Being direct. Saying the hard truths in front of the wedding people. Phoebe wants to get better at that. Phoebe will get better at that. Phoebe knows this is the only way she wants to live. She must say the terrible thing, even when it’s hard. She must think the terrible thing, even when it’s scary. “She thanks you all for your support and love, the time and money it took for you to get here.”
The crowd murmurs. Phoebe wonders how much they all spent. She wonders how many times Uncle Jim and Aunt Gina will say, “Five grand! Five grand just to watch someone not get married!” all the way to the airport.
“Jesus Christ,” Patricia says. “What a production. Where is she?”
“At the hotel,” Phoebe says. She imagines Lila in the bridal suite, slowly undressing until she is no longer a bride. “But then she’s going to Canada.”
“Canada?” Suz asks.
“What’s in Canada?” Nat asks.
By the time Phoebe answers all the wedding people’s questions, the same questions they would have had about Phoebe if she killed herself (But did she say why? Did she leave a note? What was she thinking?), Gary is gone. Gary has left the Breakers. He must have slipped out the other door. He must be feeling something terrible, but what? Phoebe wants to follow him through the door, comfort him, be with him forever, but it doesn’t feel like her place to chase after him. It’s too soon.
And there is Matt, standing in the aisle waiting for her. They wait until all the wedding people file out of the Great Hall, just as they waited on their own wedding day. Then Matt and Phoebe get into the ordinary car like husband and wife.
“SO, WHAT HAPPENED to the bride?” Matt asks in the Mercedes.
“I’m not going back with you,” Phoebe says.
She has to say it right away or she’ll never say it.
“To the hotel?”
“To St. Louis,” she says. “I’m not returning. I’m just not.”
