Sam, used to this sort of thing by now, raises an eyebrow. “Is there a bomb wired to it, then? Or was it just soaked in deadly neurotoxins?”
“You,”Jake says, looking accusingly from one of Sam’s hands to the other, “are soaked in deadlyfabrictoxins, actually.” This, while dramatic, is not exactly untrue. Sam looks down and winces to see that his hands are indeed lightly coated with oil, which must have dripped down the side of one of the pans he was carrying. “Have a heart. Think of the—well, I guess there isn’t any way to make ‘think of the children’ apply to fabric, is there? Think of thesmaller fibers, Sam!” Making his eyes round, he adds, “Think of howsadeveryone will be if this wedding isruinedby a well-oiled bow tie?—”
“I really don’t think anyone would notice or care,” Sam argues, although he doesn’t resist, just smiles, as Jake grabs a kitchen towel off the nearest counter and begins wiping Sam’s hands clean. “Especially not at this wedding. I mean, remember that pool party last summer? This is basically the same guest list, and I can’t imagine there was anyone there who didn’t see today’s bride and groom?—”
“La la la,” Jake says loudly, “I’m not listening; I’m not remembering that! I saw nothing!” Fixing Sam with a stern look, he adds, “It’s our duty as Joanie’s best men to have seen nothing. And it’s your duty as my boyfriend to support me in my delusions.”
Sam grins. “That doesn’t seem right.”
“So long as they are within reason and for the overall health and sanity of all,” Jake finishes smoothly, setting the cloth down and releasing Sam’s hands. “Which, I promise you, this is. My brain is feeble and riddled with holes and will collapse under the weight of those memories; they’re too horrible. No one saw anything and nothing happened! We can all agree!”
“All right,” Sam says, amused, and puts a hand on Jake’s back. “We can all agree.” He looks Jake up and down, taking in the perfectly tailored fit of his tuxedo, which, despite complaining for weeks about having to wear a “penguin suit,” he looks much better in than Sam does. Speculatively, he says, “How much time do we have before the ceremony? I should really be letting the staff do this anyway.”
“Something I’ve said ten times already this morning.”
“I mean, Iamin the wedding, and itwouldbe stupid to mess up my clothes.” Sam affects his most innocent expression.
Jake meets it with a roll of his eyes. “Again, I think I was probably saying that in my sleep last night, but sure.”
“And so if we have an extra twenty minutes, we could?—”
“Not that I don’t appreciate the spirit of that offer,” Jake says, his grin a sudden, sharp slash across his face, “and not that I don’tverymuch intend to take you up on it later, but: We don’t have twenty minutes, Sam. We have six.”
“Six?!” Woebegone, Sam tries and, for obvious reasons, fails to look down at his own bow tie. “God, I was going to try to fix it properly before the ceremony; I’llnevermanage it in six minutes.”
“Oh, here,” Jake says. He rolls his eyes, but fondly, as he reaches up, undoes Sam’s tie in one quick movement, and begins re-tying it from scratch. “You could have just asked me, you know. I’m practically a professional bow-tiest.”
“Is that a profession?”
“Obviously should be,” Jake says. He’s standing, Sam is pleased to note, rather closer than he thinks is entirely necessary for securing the tie in place, his arms against Sam’s chest. “You’re proving there’s a market for it literally right now.”
Sam opens his mouth to say something frankly filthy about what he’sreallyin the market for just at this moment, but he’s interrupted by Deb approaching them at speed. In a purple dress and spiky heels, she somehow looks more terrifying than she does in her usual ensemble these days, which typically involves at least one frightening gardening tool hooked to her person. Jake steps back, not seeing her, and pats Sam twice on the chest as if pleased with his own work, only for his face to fall in comic shock when Deb grabs him by a sleeve and starts dragging him away, barking, “You too, Sammy!” over her shoulder.
“Do you think,” Jake says, his cane thumping ringingly against the floor in a way Sam’s almost certain is done on purpose and to make a point, “maybe the wedding planning has gone to your head, Deb? Just a bit?”
“I think I told you two to leave the catering toyour staff,” Deb says, glaring at Sam, “and to meet us up frontfifteen minutes ago,” but she does, at least, let go of Jake and slow down to a strolling pace.
“They’re notmystaff,” Jake says, too innocent, while Sam makes an apologetic face at Deb, who shakes her head, looking more amused than angry. “I’m in an entirely different business! Just because that business happens to have offices upstairs?—”
“Oh, save it,” Deb says with a laugh. “I have a dozen friends I want to introduce to you tonight; you can do the pitch for them. I’ve heard it, frankly, enough for one lifetime. Do an old woman a kindness in her twilight years?—”
“You’re sixty-one.” Sam rolls his eyes, more entertained than he wants to let on. Deb and Jake’s half-joking argumentative vibe isn’t the sort of thing he wants to encourage, even if he doesfind it funny, and think they both must be getting something out of it. “So I think ‘twilight years’ is pushing it.”
“This doesn’t concern you, kid.” Deb says this breezily, even though this conversation started with an argument about the Silverman’s staff, and, as such, technicallyonlyconcerns Sam, of the three of them. Deb might still pop in occasionally with herEmeritus Proprietornametag on, but she’d realized quickly that retirement bored her, and so most of the time, these days, she’s either running her farmstand on the west side of town or off on a dig site somewhere with Talya.
And Jake, of course, doesn’t work for Silverman’s at all. It’s true enough that they turned the old apartment above the deli into an office after Jake insisted, as a condition of moving in with Sam, that they find a place that would allow Sam to develop even an iota of work-life balance. The location of his office does, certainly, mean that Jake isatSilverman’s much of the time, often drifting downstairs with his laptop or to take a lunch meeting in the dining room. And yes, if pressed, they would both have to admit that Jake does still make a number of the social posts, and regularly discusses strategy with Sam, and sometimes jumps in to help at the counter if they’re really in the weeds.
But Jake’s real job, the one he turns out to be so good at that Sam’s fairly certain it was his true calling all along, is teaching dance, and guiding young dancers looking to work in the space. He’s basically taken over for Madame Louisa at the dance studio and will be stepping up into her role officially when she retires in the fall, but the offices above Silverman’s aren’t for teaching. Up there, Jake holds career counseling sessions for older students, and seminars about boundary setting and healthy versus unhealthy standards in the professional dance world, and stage-safety clinics so comprehensive he’s started to get bookings with local theater programs and school districts. He also offers free sessions for dancers experiencing what he calls path-alteringevents—changes, whether through accident or illness or injury or mental health issues or whatever else, that affect a dancer’s ability to perform. Sam’s pretty sure that’s Jake’s favorite part of his job; certainly, it’s the part that connects the most with others and has driven a large following on professional social media channels. His numbers rival Walt’s these days, but for doing something good, not ghoulish. Sam knows Jake takes a slightly petty kind of pleasure in that, but he, himself, thinks it’s kind of beautiful.
Regardless, what started for Jake as a one-man career-consulting firm that he largely set up as a side gig is now a three-person team—four, if you count Pastrami, who moonlights there using her training as a therapy dog.One of those people is Iris, who, to everyone’s surprise, is quite good at it. If he’d had to guess, Sam would have said the whole thing was more in Daisy’s line, or at least Luce’s, since the two of them are generally better with people than Iris. But Daisy has been working in public relations for the mayor’s office since shortly after graduation and seems happy, and Luce’s art career has taken off to such a degree that she’s in New York most of the year anyway. Regardless, Jake says Iris is good at the work, handling career counseling for students who conclude that they don’t have the inclination or skill to try to make dance their profession. Apparently, her brand of blunt clarity and sarcasm really speaks to your average teenager, and she’s also a lot better than Jake is at telling people no, which Sam can tell Jake deeply appreciates.
Sam could point all this out, but it would take a while, and he doesn’t get the chance anyway. They reach their destination, an anteroom where the entire wedding party has gathered, and their little traveling group is broken apart immediately by greetings and instructions. Everyone is positioned and staged for a variety of photos and then chivvied off to their respective spots for the ceremony.
It is, Sam has to say, alovelyceremony. Joanie is radiant and ecstatic in her flowing champagne-colored dress, and Marty looks even happier than he did the day Sam told him the Pastrami Arnold was going to stay on the menu for good. (This isn’t a metric Sam would normally compare against someone’s actual wedding, but Marty did say, at the time, that it was the best day of his life.) Their vows are short and sweet and heartfelt and slightly dirty, and when Joanie says, “I promise to love you when things are easy, and even more when they’re not,” Jake reaches back and grabs Sam’s hand, squeezes hard, doesn’t let go.
That’s the first moment which almost makes Sam cry; the second is when he pauses, as Joanie and Marty walk beamingly down the aisle, and glances over the assembled guests. Luce and Joey in the front row, off again as far as Sam knows but looking like they might be on again by the end of the night. Iris and Daisy next to them, still identical but with very different styles these days. Talya beaming and dabbing her eyes; Eileen, freshly retired, and her boyfriend, who is perfectly lovely so long as you don’t ask him anything about his years running a professional clown school. Alphonse and the rest of the full-time Silverman’s staff, some of whom are working the event but all of whom Joanie insisted be in attendance to see her tie the knot. His parents and Jake’s, sitting together in the back row, having made amends with each other after a series of peace-summit dinners that were, at least on Sam’s end, a lot easier to both face and manage with Jake sitting beside him.
With a lump in his throat, he realizes that if he and Jake get married, a number of the people in this room will be in that one. It’s a nice thought, heartwarming, even if it does make Sam blink hard against the threat of tears before they can actually fall.
