“Gray is not sexy.”
“It’s like just a touch of gray,” Phoebe says. “Just enough to make him seem wizened.”
“That sounds way too close to wizard.”
“They’re actually not etymologically related.”
“Sometimes he does look like a wizard, though.”
“He does not look like a wizard,” Phoebe says. “He looks like a man with a beard.”
“Every man with a beard looks a little like a wizard.”
“Trust me, Gary seriously has the most ideal hair situation for a man his age.”
“That’s what I used to think,” Lila says. “But then he grew his beard and it came out all gray. I think if he just shaves the beard, it might be better.”
“I’m not sure it’s ever that simple.”
“That sounds cryptic.”
“Not cryptic.”
“Yes cryptic. Are you mad at me or something?”
“No, I’m not mad at you,” Phoebe says, but then remembers she is trying to be honest. “I’m annoyed.”
“With me? Why?”
“Because I was trying to take a bath!” Phoebe says. “And you just waltz in without even knocking, then sit down and bitch about your sister-in-law and your fiancé’s sexy gray beard and your million-dollar wedding to a naked and suicidal and divorced woman in a tub, and you think that’s really how I want to spend my bath? You think that’s fair to do to me?”
Lila looks hurt or confused or both. But Phoebe doesn’t care.
“And you do, I think!” Phoebe says. “You really think you can just walk around, spewing your inner monologue onto everything, but you can’t. You have to respect people. You have to knock on their doors before walking into their bedroom. Nobody cares that you’re the fucking bride. It doesn’t give you a license to just watch people bathe. You’re not God. You’re just another fucking woman, put here on earth like the rest of us.”
“But I did knock on your door,” Lila says. “You didn’t answer.”
“If a person doesn’t answer, that means you don’t come in.”
“Well, excuse me, but I was worried you might be dead!”
“Oh,” Phoebe says.
It honestly didn’t occur to Phoebe that Lila might still be worried about her, since Lila never seems particularly worried about anything but her wedding. Yet Phoebe is softened by the thought. Lila was worried she might be dead. Of course. That’s what happens when you tell people you’re suicidal. They worry about you. They worry about you so much, it makes them angry, too.
“You really want to talk about fair?” Lila asks. “You think it’s okay to tell someone that you want to die, then kick them out of the room, and then act like it’s not going to affect them in any way whatsoever? I’m not a monster, Phoebe. I would care if a woman died at my wedding. I have feelings. But everybody thinks that just because I’m like really fucking blond or something, I don’t have feelings, but you know what? My hair is not even blond!”
“It’s not?” Phoebe asks. “It’s impressively natural seeming.”
“Well, it’s brown, just like my father’s! And my grandfather’s! We’re Italian!”
“You are?”
“Like, a quarter! My dad’s dad was Italian,” she says. “My name is actually Lila Rossi-Winthrop, a hyphen that my parents fought over their entire lives. My father was so proud to be Italian, never really forgave my mother for not taking his name, even though he’s a total hypocrite. Because when I grew out my dark hair in college, do you know what my father said? He said, I liked you better as a blonde. And so now I am here, with super blond hair, because not even my own father likes my real hair. Which is really just his hair. The man gave it to me, then acts like it’s my fault for growing it!”
Lila stands up.
“Everybody in my life is always telling me I can be anyone I want, but then whenever I do one thing they don’t like, they act like I’ve ruined myself,” Lila says. “And so I come up here, because you’re the only person at this wedding who doesn’t seem to give a shit what I do.”
None of what Lila says is a surprise to Phoebe, yet it’s a surprise to hear Lila say it. Phoebe looks at Lila, a bride still in her white silk reception dress. It has cherries on the trim. It makes her look a few years younger than she is. It must have taken her hours to get ready for the reception, carefully considering each decision, and yet, she is not even at the reception. It makes Phoebe feel suddenly tender toward Lila, like Lila is the old Phoebe now. Lila is the one hiding in the library or in the dark of her room because she feels most comfortable there.
“That’s really why you’re here?” Phoebe asks.
“Yes,” she says. “And also because my maid of honor, Vivian, just called to say she’s not coming. I was upset.”
They laugh.
“Shit,” Phoebe says.
“Her son has Covid.”
“Double shit.”
“But does she need to really be there if he has Covid? Like, can’t Max take care of the kid for once?” Lila wonders. “Max is seriously the worst, by the way. I mean, he’s the best in the worst kind of way.”
“You lost me.”
“He researches endangered jaguars or something. They like, fell in love on some research trip trying to save the last living jaguar in South America. But now that they have a kid, she is always at home, while he’s traveling the world counting up all the jaguars, I guess. Needless to say it’s very … annoying. For Viv, I mean. Viv is always stuck taking care of the kid.”
