AFTER, THEY GO to Flo’s and eat fried clam strips. Gary and Phoebe get big waters. They toast to the day. They sit next to an elderly couple with matching fleeces and Phoebe likes how they order the same drink but one with a twist and one extra dirty. They say it like they have become proud of the minor differences left between them.
“I have to pee,” Juice says.
“You don’t have to tell us exactly what you’re going to do in there,” Gary says.
She laughs. She leaves Gary and Phoebe alone. The moment feels ripe with possibility and yet, at the same time, doomed. Gary’s leg is resting slightly against Phoebe’s, maybe by accident, maybe not. Maybe he’s so tired, he doesn’t even feel it.
“That was genuinely fun,” Gary says.
“You sound surprised,” Phoebe says.
“I am.”
He looks at her like he’s trying to tell her something he cannot say. Just say it, she thinks. But she can’t say it now. She should have said it last night when she thought the wedding was off. Now she doesn’t know if it would be cowardly or brave. She doesn’t know if she is supposed to seize the moment or let the moment go.
“She’s a great kid,” Phoebe says.
“I’m lucky.”
“It might not be all luck. It’s possible you had some kind of hand in it.”
“I suppose I was there for a few hours of her childhood.”
“Oh my God,” Juice says, coming back from the bathroom. Her hands are still wet from washing. “There was this sign in the bathroom that said 40 PEOPLE MAX IN THIS ROOM. Like why would forty people ever be in the bathroom? Like what would you even say to all forty people in a bathroom?”
“Hello?” Gary says.
Juice laughs. “Yeah! That’s a good start. Hello, forty people.”
“Why are we all in the bathroom?” Phoebe asks, pretending to be forty people.
“Whose idea was this, you guys?” Gary asks.
They laugh, and then Phoebe becomes embarrassed by the laughter. Or afraid of it. She’s not sure. Whatever it is, it’s too good. It connects them all. It draws them close. It’s like a warm sweater that they all wear. Phoebe sits back, and she sips her water. She has never, in her life, felt totally at home around any restaurant table. Not even with her husband. She was often worried about what to say and did they have anything left to say and was there food in her teeth?
“Here you go,” the waitress says and lays down the check.
Phoebe doesn’t want to go. She wants to stay at this table with Gary’s leg slightly brushed against hers and Juice reading off the back of the menu, which is really just a short story about how many times Flo’s has been demolished by hurricanes.
“In 1938,” Juice says. “In 1954. In 1960. In 1985. In 1991—”
“So … many times.”
“Many, many times.”
Phoebe imagines that rebuilding after each devastation must be a real chore, especially for a place like Flo’s, which has knickknacks covering every inch of the walls. To rebuild each time with the same level of bursting, idiosyncratic personality—how do you do that? How do you remember where each rusty spoon was randomly nailed to the wall? How do you care where each bottle opener hangs when you put it up the fourth time? How do you act like this singular and quirky existence is entirely natural and will never be destroyed again?
“Let’s get going, huh?” Gary says.
They get up and walk out the door. This is, Phoebe realizes, the one problem with falling in love with strangers. You don’t get to keep them. She watches them spread out in their own directions as soon as they reach the parking lot.
It’s a relief when Gary looks back and says, “Where to?”
AT CVS, JUICE proclaims her love for CVS. Literally everything in the world is here, she says. Anything you want! Juice buys herself a sleep mask with zebras on it. Then they follow Phoebe to the medicine aisle, even though Phoebe keeps saying, “I’ll just meet you guys at the front in a minute.”
“What else do we have to do?” Gary asks. “But follow you around like your helpers.”
“Yeah, we’re helpers,” Juice says. “Paid by the hour. What do you need? I’ll get it.”
“Gas-X,” Phoebe says.
Juice and Gary crack up so loudly, the employee at the counter looks over.
“We had cabbage,” is all Phoebe says.
“Say no more,” Gary says.
As they walk out, Phoebe looks up and sees them on the security TV for just a second. She is startled by the frankness of their image, the reality of seeing them on this ordinary trip to CVS, recorded by history, all together.
Lila does not stop by before the Blending of the Families the way Phoebe had expected. She thought Lila might have questions about her dress or complaints about Gary’s mother, who has requested to say grace at the rehearsal dinner.
But at six, the hotel is emptied out, and Phoebe wonders if Lila is upset with her. If it’s because she left the Gas-X at Lila’s door without a bag. If she somehow knows about the joy Phoebe felt all day with Gary.
She suddenly feels guilty, but then reminds herself that it was Lila who told her to go. It was Lila who gave her the gift of today, and Phoebe is grateful. It’s a day she’ll remember for the rest of her life. It reminded her of a feeling she stopped believing she could have, a feeling she thought belonged only to other people. It makes her want to give something back to Lila, so she goes downstairs to the bar to work on her maid of honor speech.
But when she sits on the chair, opens a hotel notepad, she finds she’s not sure how to begin. Not after her conversation last night with Lila. And then her conversation with Gary. Writing a maid of honor speech now feels like writing a lecture on a discipline she doesn’t believe in.
It is becoming clear to Phoebe—they are not in love. Maybe they were in love, but now they are two people who are very confused. Very much wanting to be in love, because Lila doesn’t want to be alone. Lila is a woman who experiences a problem, and then finds a man who is compelled to fix it. A man who becomes happy only because he can make her happy. But she is not happy—so what’s the point of any of it?
