“It’s impossible.”
“It’s not.”
“It has to be.”
“It’s not,” Grace insists. “They called me on my way home from the pharmacy, remember?”
There’s a long pause before Adam whispers, “Gracie. It’s the fucking curse.”
They’ve cycled through this exchange three times, angled toward each other on their living room couch. They’re in their own miserable world while Eli and I hover anxiously. Jamie and Blake are on an emergency In- N-Out run—in a moment of unfortunate irony, we all forgot about the galbi on the grill and it burned to a crisp.
Adam runs an agitated hand through his hair. “I understand that the worst part of all this is that Meadowcrest is damaged. My uncles have been managing the Blue Yonder renovation and it’s been a fucking nightmare, and that was planned, not something catastrophic.”
The three of us acknowledge his PR statement with murmurs of assent. Blue Yonder Winery has belonged to Adam’s mom’s family for fifty years; it’s a gorgeous sixty-acre estate in Rutherford that’s been undergoing an expansion, their event space in particular. They’re one of the few wineries in Napa County that can host weddings, having been grandfathered in before a law prohibited them on winery grounds, and want to capitalize on it. When Adam and Grace got engaged, the renovation was already underway. They chose Meadowcrest instead, a family friend’s ranch with an outdoor ceremony space and a beautiful, remodeled barn.
Grace squeezes Adam’s thigh. His gaze moves over her face, expression softening, until a spark of panic reignites. “Fuck. We’re supposed to get married in nine days.”
Grace is always the calm in the storm, the one who laughs off disasters and brings Adam down from the ceiling. So I’m wholly unprepared for the way she bursts into tears.
For a second, Adam looks stricken. But then he adjusts to the shift, wrapping his arms around her with a crooning “Honey.”
“Everything is screwed,” Grace says, pressing her face against his neck. “Why can’t one thing go right?”
“It’s my fault,” Adam says. “I knew we shouldn’t have gotten married in Napa if we weren’t doing it at Blue Yonder. Everyone in my family has gotten married there since its inception. I was asking for this.”
Grace pulls back, wiping at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “Okay, no. The chances of it being ready in time for our wedding were slim. No one blinked when we chose Meadowcrest.”
Adam groans. “I know, I know. I just need something to blame this on, other than a fucking feral animal chewing through wiring and sparking a fire.”
She lets out a wet laugh. “God. Only us.”
I pull my phone out of the back pocket of my jean shorts, tapping my Notes app icon. “I’ll start a to-do list.”
Adam and Grace don’t hear me, but Eli sure does. He’s across the room in seconds, hovering over my shoulder. His body heat against my back is a wall I could lean into. Instead, I take a step forward, craning my neck to look up at him. His gaze is trained on my phone screen. I angle it away.
If I weren’t so close, I wouldn’t see the tightening of his eyes as they bounce up to meet mine. But I am close. He is, so I see that tick of frustration.
“Maybe let him burn through his panic before you go full cruise director,” he says, his breath fanning over my cheek.
“Definitely too soon for a burn reference,” I volley back, tamping down a shiver. “I’m starting a list of ways to fix this, that’s all.”
“Why don’t I do that?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Five seconds ago you wanted to let him burn through his panic.”
His mouth twitches. “That was five seconds ago. I’ve moved on.”
“Awesome, then you can put together your own list on your own phone.”
“I…” Eli trails off. “I don’t have it with me.” I blink. “In California?”
He gives me a look, like I should know better. I should. I do. “On me.
It’s in my room.”
My brain inspects that from several angles. Wrong, it says, but I can’t put the picture together.
“Okay, well, feel free to go get it. I’m not going to solve world peace, much less the Mount Everest that is this issue, in the next two minutes.”
He crosses his arms, staring me down. In a friendly way, because we’re still in Adam’s sight line. “Don’t forget what we talked about in the car.”
“That was two hours ago. I didn’t forget.”
I haven’t forgotten the conversations we had five years ago. The ones we didn’t have, too.
I swear Eli sees that thought written on my face. I expect him to drop the subject and put distance between us like I’m trying to do. Go get his phone so he can disappear into it. It’s a routine we completed many times when we were together and things got tense—both of us would walk away.
He steps closer instead. “They’re going to need help.” “I know.”
“Adam’s going to need us.”
That us hits me straight in the heart. I want to push at the word with both hands, right out of this house. Out of my life. “I know.”
“Then let me—” “George, you okay?”
Adam’s voice cuts through the tension growing between me and Eli. I whip around, a questioning smile ready to go. “Yes?”
“Your face just looked—” “Careful.”
“Troubled.”
“That’s her making-a-list face,” Eli interjects.
I can’t help rolling my eyes. “I don’t have a making-a-list face.”
“You do,” he says with a small affectionate smile, like this is real. “It’s one of your many faces.”
“What, are you counting my faces?” “Got a whole list of them.”
“Very meta,” Adam jokes.
“Please, I did not give you permission to encroach on my dedicated list space,” I say.
It’s a veiled warning but he just grins, the easy one. I miss when that smile was real and just for me.
“We were about to start brainstorming.” He says this to Adam, but his attention stays trained on me.
I don’t miss his carefully placed we, but it’s not like I can call him on it, so instead I turn and give Adam a mock salute. “Put us in, Coach.”
“Actually, you may not need the list,” Adam says.
Huh? A list is always needed. “Why? Are you postponing?”
“No,” Adam says, exchanging a look with Grace. “There are, uh, a lot of reasons we can’t, but the biggest one is that I’m not throwing away thousands of dollars without a fight.”
“What Adam’s saying is he might have a solution,” Grace says.
“Perfect.” I perk up, even though a tiny piece of me wishes I thought of whatever Adam dreamed up. My gaze darts to Eli, my unremorseful list- blocker.
“Could be a long shot, but it’s the best one we have.” Adam blows out a breath. “I’m going to see if we can have the wedding at Blue Yonder after all.”
 |
If the house I grew up in was my first home and Adam’s parents’ was my second, Blue Yonder was my third. I spent every summer in high school there, working odd jobs with Adam, and Eli, too, when he joined us from junior year on. We continued the tradition into college, though that ended
the summer before our senior year when Eli got an internship with a bank in New York, a necessary step on his path to becoming an analyst once he graduated.
“It’s fine, I don’t want to hang around you two while you’re all in love and horny for each other anyway,” Adam had said, but it was a half-truth. Those summers meant so much to the three of us. They meant everything to Eli and me. Especially our last one.
It was moonlit swims and lingering touches and a different kind of tension growing between us. A stomach-swooping knowledge that our friendship was changing its shape, and that Eli would be at Cal Poly with me come fall. Logically I knew he’d chosen it because he’d gotten the best financial aid package there. But in a way it felt like he was choosing me, too, and it made belonging sing through my blood. Possibility and fear and wanting stretched out in front of us that whole summer, as vast as the sky above us, and as untouchable with Adam around.
Eli and I never went back there together. Without new memories to layer over it, that last summer is preserved in amber. It’s the only thing I think about when I’m there. How wrapped up my heart was in Eli. How much I wanted it, the us we already were but set on fire. How terrified I was to step into it because I didn’t want to lose him as my best friend. I had so few of those.
It’s why I was so relieved when Adam and Grace decided to book Meadowcrest. And it’s why my heart drops out of my body as I gasp, “That would be great!”
Things happen in a blur. Jamie and Blake return with the food. My stomach turns at the thought of it, and also at the thought of having to stand next to Eli while Adam gets married in front of the massive oak tree Eli and I would take breaks under, my head propped on the hard pillow of his thigh. At the thought of dancing on the sprawling lawn overlooking the vineyard during the reception, where I watched Eli play tag with Adam’s little cousins, grinning beautifully at me when he collapsed as they “caught” him. Eli disappears into his room for a stretch of time and then comes back, but his hands are still empty. Neither one of us is making that list. Maybe
that’s why everything feels like quicksand.
Meanwhile, Adam paces from the kitchen to the living room and back again, phone pressed to his ear.
When he returns, we’re all gathered, holding our breath.
I’m a villain for the please, no that goes through my head. Adam and Grace deserve a break. I just wish it wasn’t a break that included Blue Yonder.
“My uncles think we can make it happen. The indoor reception space won’t be ready, but the lawn’s fine,” Adam says, flopping down onto the couch next to Grace. “We need someone up there, though, and Grace and I can’t go until next week because—”
He stops, glancing at Grace with wide, apologetic eyes.
“It’s okay,” she says. “They should know, given everything that’s happened.”
Adam turns to us, lit up, and blurts, “Okay, thank god, I hate secrets.
Grace is pregnant.”
There’s a beat where we’re all frozen, but then the room explodes with sound. My tear ducts figure it out before my brain does—I’m crying seconds before I say “Oh my god.” A hand goes to my back as I stand. I assume it’s Jamie or Blake, but no, wait, they’re already hugging Adam and Grace.
It’s Eli beside me. For a beat I think he’s getting me out of the way, but his hand doesn’t leave that tingling space between my shoulder blades.
He’s pushing me toward Adam, into his arms.
My best friend pulls me into the tightest hug, nearly shaking, and I hold on, too. I close my eyes, willing the fist in my throat to loosen. It’s amazing and surreal; their lives are going to change again.
And I might be in Seattle.
My heart takes off as I let Eli slide into my place and take in the scene before me. It’s been so long since we’ve all been together like this and I wonder if, after the wedding, we’ll be like this again.
My emotions are never simple, but tonight they’re especially knotted: happiness and fear and guilt for being afraid of what might change. A sense
that this is a goodbye to an era that shaped me. The fear, again, that maybe it’s a bigger goodbye, too.
Grace is answering questions being thrown at her as we sit—she’s only seven weeks; they found out two weeks ago; no one but their parents and Grace’s brother and best friend know. It’s the biggest reason they don’t want to postpone.
She looks at Adam, threading her fingers with his. “I also don’t want to wait until after the baby comes. I’m ready to be your wife right now.”
“I’m ready to be your husband,” he says, his entire heart in his eyes. “Oh my god, the serotonin,” Jamie cries, winding her arms around
Blake’s neck.
Eli wipes at his eyes and leans forward in the cream linen lounge chair across from mine. I watch him exchange a proud look with Adam, his expression flooded with an emotion that looks like relief.
“What do you need?” I ask Grace. “Can we do anything?”
“Right now I’m trying to get through the day without puking. Zofran is going to be my best friend.” She points at the CVS bag on the coffee table. “And, in the worst timing in history, I have an OB appointment on Thursday for our pregnancy confirmation. We can’t get up to Blue Yonder before Friday morning.”
“There’s so much to do,” Adam says. “Meadowcrest was all-inclusive for food, including cake, so we need a fix for that. And the fucking DJ. We can do the research, but it’d be life-saving to have someone there to vet local vendors and help with winery-related stuff.” His gaze goes to Eli, who straightens, before landing on me. “I know it’s a lot to ask to get someone there right away, but…”
Jamie’s working until Wednesday and Blake has a deposition on Thursday, which means she won’t be able to get up to Napa until Friday. They’re out.
Even if they were available, though, it’s obvious who should do this.
Adam’s got his pleading eyes activated on me.
Sorry, Eli, I think with a twinge of guilt. I make a mental note to tell Adam to give him something to do here. Maybe he can help research
bakeries on the phone he’s so suddenly allergic to.
I open my mouth, just to make it official, but another voice overlaps with mine.
It’s been years since we’ve said what we wanted out loud and had it be the same thing.
Now, as Eli’s eyes lock with mine, we say together, “I’ll do it.”
