“Three months,” he says. “For three months I took a shower next to my naked future mother-in-law.”
She takes his hand and squeezes it. Gary looks surprised by her touch, but not confused. Sort of the way he looked when she stood before him in the hot tub and told him she wanted to fuck. As if he wants it, too, but cannot bring himself to admit it.
“I should go back to my room,” he says.
“Good night,” she says.
Gary leaves, and Phoebe gets in Lila’s bed. This time, she doesn’t fantasize about her husband or Mia or the girlies at Joe’s wine shop. She just thinks of Gary, how warm his hand felt, how the entire time she held it, he didn’t look away.
FRIDAY
The Blending of the Families
“You cleaned,” Lila says, standing over Phoebe the next morning. “I’ll try my best not to take that as an insult.”
Lila drops her new room key on the nightstand. Phoebe sits up. She sees Lila’s dresses, neatly hung in the corner of the room, and all at once, she remembers last night. The cleaning. The crying. The holding of Gary’s hand. Lila, jumping on her bed, shouting about how she no longer wanted to marry Gary. But this morning, Lila seems as she always does just after she barges into a room.
“You didn’t happen to stumble upon any Motrin during your cleaning spree?” Lila asks.
“Not feeling your best, I take it?”
“That’s an understatement. This might be the worst hangover I ever had in my entire life. Worse than church wine.”
Phoebe waits for Lila to say something else, to address her confessions from last night. But someone’s at the door.
“You were supposed to meet us at nine in the lobby for surfing,” Juice says, standing in the middle of the doorframe in nothing but a swimsuit and towel.
“Right,” Lila says. “Surfing.”
Lila closes her eyes like she’s already tired from it.
“We’re late,” Juice says. “Dad’s already down there, in the car.”
“Give me a few minutes to turn back into a real human being and I’ll be down,” she says.
“You’re coming, too, right, Phoebe?” Juice asks.
Phoebe feels the tug to join. But she also knows she needs to give them alone time. There are things that need to be sorted out.
“No, I don’t know how to surf,” Phoebe says.
“Nobody does!” Juice says. “They’re going to teach us. It’s a lesson.”
“I’m going to sit this one out, kiddo,” Phoebe says.
After Juice leaves, Lila won’t quite meet Phoebe’s eye. Phoebe waits, but Lila opens a bottle of Motrin.
“How does Motrin know where the headache is?” Lila asks. “I’ve never understood that.”
“I think it just reduces pain all over the body. Head included.”
Lila turns on the shower.
“You’re taking a shower before surfing?” Phoebe asks.
“Oh no, there will be absolutely no surfing today.”
“You just told Juice you’d surf?”
“I cannot surf, never will, won’t put myself through the circus act of trying.”
“Why did you plan a surfing morning as part of your wedding then?”
“Because it was the one thing Juice asked for,” she says. “And I guess I thought by the time my wedding week arrived, I’d be the kind of person who wanted to go surfing.”
Lila’s makeup from last night is heavy below her eyes.
“I truly wish I was a person who liked to surf, but unfortunately, I have woken up to remember that I am just not that person.”
Lila will never want to surf, for the same reasons she never wanted to play sports and she is ready to admit that. She wraps her hair in a towel, then mentions her uncle flying in from Santa Fe today and a facial at noon. But she says it with no enthusiasm. She sounds officially tired of her own wedding.
“I have no idea why I planned all these activities,” Lila says. “Can you go surfing in my place? It’s a three-person lesson.”
But Phoebe is not ready to give up yet. “What am I supposed to tell them when you’re not there?”
“Tell them that my stomach is upset, which is not a lie, by the way, and that I’ll see them later at the Blending of the Families.”
She says it like it’s a cultural event, then turns on the TV.
