“Well.” Stevie suddenly slaps the island, seeming to understand that this conversation is a dead end. “Sasha told me I need to go down to the lighthouse to see what we need to set up in the cottage.” She glances between me and where Ren is watching the coffee brew. “Ren, Joni, could you guys help me?”
“Yes!” I pop up from the table. Ren is already heading in the direction of the door. We just went three rounds—job, Ren getting married,megetting married—and I have no interest in finding out what the remaining rounds might entail. “Just let me change.”
Stevie trails me onto the screen porch, sitting on the edge of my bed while I root through the dresser.
“Didn’t miss feeling like one of Mom’s patients again,” I say as I grab a T-shirt out of a drawer.
“At least she cares enough to ask,” she says. When I look down at her, surprised by her tone, she adds, “Wait until you meet Leo’s parents. There’s a reason he hangs out with us more than them.”
It surprises me. I’d always pictured Leo with parents as exuberant as he is. “Are you worried about Saturday?” I ask as we head back into the house.
“Not at all. And if things get tense, may I remind you it’s a pretty steep drop from the lighthouse down to the ocean,” she says, face devoid of humor. “Everyone will just have to be on their best behavior.”
chapter thirteen
“Sasha says that if we get the tables out today, we won’t have to worry about it the rest of the week,” Stevie says as she, Ren, and I stand in front of the cobwebbed storage area at the back of the lighthouse keeper’s cottage. On Saturday, Stevie and Leo will get married on the lawn that stretches out from the lighthouse and overlooks the ocean, but the reception will be inside and it’s up to the wedding party to set it up.
After a spider-ridden, cramped hour—the storage area is little more than a damp closet—Ren and I manage to roll out all the tables into the main room, Stevie providing vague guidance along the way.
“So good to see you two together again,” she says as we lean the last of the tables against the far wall, both of us sweating.
“Stevie,” I sigh, pushing my bangs off my forehead. While I appreciate her rescuing us from the moms, she has to know that, no matter how badly she wants us to be friends again, it’s not so simple for me and Ren.
A few months into the silence, when she casually admitted that she’d asked Ren what happened, it felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath me at the prospect that they might have discussed it.This was a private matter, between me and Ren, and the idea that he might have disclosed it made me question if I ever knew him at all. But Stevie said he’d only told her to ask me, and simply nodded when she asked him if we still weren’t talking, and I was relieved that Ren had still been kind enough to keep our secret.
“What? It’s been a while,” she says now.
“Yes, weknow.”
“What else do we need to get out of storage?” Ren asks, ignoring the conversation.
Stevie shrugs. “The chairs won’t be here until Saturday morning, and we’ll get the bar and outside ready on Friday, but we should definitely get the tables up now. See how the room looks before we bring anything else in.”
Ren starts toward a table, but I narrow my eyes at my sister, suspicious. “Do wereallyneed to set this up before Friday?”
“Always good to get a task checked off the list, Joni,” she says, like she’s echoing something Sasha told her. She tucks her phone, which she used to illuminate our path through the storage space while we hauled out the tables, into the pocket of her shorts.
Ren and I unfold the legs on the only rectangular table and carry it to the head of the room before going back for the circular ones where guests not in the wedding party will sit. He nods at me as he tilts the first one, letting me know when to turn my side, and takes the more difficult, backward path toward where we set up the other table.
Stevie blows out an exaggerated breath, shaking her head. “You know what? I’m the bride. I’ll let you wrap up here.”
“Don’t you want to tell us where they all should go?” I ask after her as she walks to the door, lifting her long, brown hair off her neck like she’s the one who’s been doing manual labor.
“I trust you!” she calls before she disappears.
“Classic Stevie,” I say, turning to the next table and releasing the legs on my side, as Ren does the same opposite me.
“Did you think we’d ever be setting up for her wedding?” Ren asks as we each take a side and flip the table upright.
“I definitely never thought we’d be setting up a wedding likethisfor her.” We shuffle the table over next to the other one, arrange it until there’s adequate space between them. “I kind of always assumed that if Stevie ever did get married, it would be at, like, a haunted house.”
“At the center of a corn maze,” Ren says as we walk back across the room.
“If you can find them, you can come to the wedding,” I say.
Ren half laughs. “Saturday will be good,” he says. “Even if we didn’t picture this elegant seaside affair for her.”
I watch his face as we tilt another table to its side, his mom’s words from the kitchen echoing in my head. “Howdoesthis week make you feel about all of it?” I ask.
