“We’ll squeeze in it, no problem!” High Bun says. “We’ve put more people in a car than this.”
“Remember my wedding on the Vineyard?” Neck Pillow asks. “We fit seven people in that car!”
“I’m sitting in the front,” Marla says. “I get carsick in the back.”
“I’ll drive,” the bride says.
“You’re the bride!” High Bun says. “You shouldn’t have to drive.”
It’s the bride’s big week. The bride should be rendered helpless, given drinks, fluffed and complimented at every turn, put out like a kitchen fire, appeased like an angry toddler, prodded like a doll, then driven by a well-dressed stranger to the altar of her new life.
“But I want to drive,” Lila says. “That’s why I got the convertible.”
Nobody, not even Marla, challenges the bride. If the bride wants to drive, the bride gets to drive.
But when Lila gets in the car, she can’t. “Why did you ask for a stick shift?”
“I didn’t,” High Bun says. “I asked for their fanciest, most vintage-y convertible.”
“Well, of course it’s a stick shift,” Marla says. “It’s a car from like, 1940 or something.”
“Well, I didn’t know that,” High Bun says.
“Does this mean that nobody here knows how to drive this car?” Marla asks.
Lila looks lost at the steering wheel.
“I can drive it,” Phoebe says from the back. “For the most part.”
“For the most part?” Marla says.
“I mean, I knew how to do it once upon a time,” Phoebe says. “My father taught me.”
“That sounds good enough to me.” Lila gets out of the car and looks at Juice squished in the back seat.
“Mel, would you be more comfortable sitting on my lap?” Lila asks.
“No,” Juice says. “And I told you I wanted to be called Juice.”
“Right. Sorry,” Lila says. She climbs in the back, and High Bun and Neck Pillow do a little dance to welcome her. In the driver’s seat, Phoebe puts her hand on the gear shift, her foot on the clutch. It’s been years, but it’s a kind of muscle memory from childhood that she’ll never forget, driving up the road in her father’s Saab, learning how to change gears as he said, “Easy, now, easy.”
“Onward,” Marla says, tapping the dashboard.
“Where am I going?” Phoebe asks.
“Bowen’s Wharf,” Marla says. “Waze will know.”
“I don’t have a phone with me,” Phoebe says.
The women are mystified. “Seriously?”
“I’ll pull it up,” Marla says, and hands Phoebe her phone.
As they drive, this is what they can all agree on: Newport is beautiful. The women in the back seat keep saying, Wow. Look at that mansion. And that one. And that one. And isn’t that the Vanderbilts’? Aren’t they all the Vanderbilts’?
“Who are the Vanderbilts?” Juice asks, but nobody answers, because the air is too crisp, the trees are too green. The people so rich-looking. The roads so roadlike.
“They were one of the richest families in Newport,” Phoebe finally says, following the directions and trying to ignore the messages that silently pop up on Marla’s phone from somebody named Robert.
I am thinking about your sweaty cunt, Robert writes.
Phoebe flinches. She wonders if it’s the judge. She looks over at Marla, but Marla seems to have no idea what’s happening to her phone, her gaze steady on everything outside the car—the high boxwoods, the crepe myrtles.
“That’s the Vanderbilts’,” Marla says, pointing to the Breakers.
“I can’t believe that’s where you’re having your wedding!” High Bun says.
“I know. It’s amazing. Especially because they never host private events,” Lila says.
“Why did they let you, then?” Marla asks.
“My mother is on the board of the Preservation Society,” Lila admits. “She gave a very large donation.”
“Gary did tell you that our mother will never recognize your marriage unless you do it in a church, right?” Marla asks.
“Wait, what?” Lila asks. “Are you joking?”
High Bun leans over and turns up the music. Alicia Keys. She sings loudly, and changes the words to “Now we’re in New-pooorrrrt!!! These streets will make you feel poo-ooorr!”
