As I cycle through the past five years, searching for an answer for Stevie, I realize that thereweretimes I wasn’t so focused on work,when I let it slip away and my mind cleared again for a minute, and there was almost room to think about a different kind of life, if I’d let myself.
The weddings with Ren.
I twist myself straighter in my seat, the confession dying on my lips.
But I still feel guilty when I shake my head and tell her that yes, of course I’m happy.
“Okay,” she says. It’s obvious she doesn’t totally believe me, and I almost open my mouth to offer up something—what, I don’t know, maybe an anecdote about the woman in my building who I am convinced is a lost Olsen triplet—but a cold wash of water goes sailing over my head at that moment, soaking down my back.
I dig my paddle into the water and flip around to see Sasha, eyes wide as she tries to suppress a laugh. “Shit,” she says. “I didn’t mean—”
The splash from my paddle drenches her hair before she can finish her sentence.
“Oh my god,” she says, spluttering. “That’s war.”
“Stop!” Stevie shouts as Sasha’s next splash hits her. “I’m not prepared for this! My hat!”
“Outdoorswoman,” I say, swiveling to face Stevie, bangs dripping water down my face. “You’ve—”
I truly should have known better, but Stevie’s look of delight as she gets me square in the chest is the image that will always define this morning for me.
* * *
We paddle back to the lake—Hemsworth looking very relieved that we didn’t clumsily abscond with his kayaks—and drive back to the house. It’s nearing two, and Stevie is singing along to the radio tunelessly in the backseat,hands behind her head as the wind whips strands of her braids loose.
“Okay,” Sasha says as we turn off the highway. “Showers, then meet up in Stevie’s room to get ready?”
“Do we have stuff for spritzes?” Stevie says, poking her head through the seats.
“Obviously,” I say. “It’syourwedding.”
We arrive at the house, and Sasha stops her car in front of the garage. “Stevie, I didn’t know Leo was so competitive,” she says as we hop out.
I follow her gaze to the beach, where the bachelor party is playing touch football, not a shirt among them. Leo is weaving an impressive line through what I assume is the opposite team, the drummer reaching out and tagging his side.
“Yeah, he fits right in with you Websters,” Stevie says, leaning against the hood of the car, shading a hand over her eyes.
“Well, I’m going to shower.” Sasha moves toward the house. “I’ll meet you upstairs!”
I wave a hand at her before leaning next to Stevie and turning my attention back to the beach. Ren catches the football that Thad hikes to him, runs backward until he brings his arm up, throws it to Leo, cheering when Leo twists and leaps into the air to catch it.
Are you happy now?Stevie had asked me. The broad answer is no. In life, I’m not happy, and it’s been that way for a long time, even before the worst happened at my job. But if I were to answer her about right now, I might tell her that yes, everything else aside, here at the house, I’m as close to happy as I’ve been in a long time.
chapter eighteen
Three hours later, I’m sitting on the floor in Stevie’s room, a pot of pink-and-purple glitter gel open next to me.
“Just, hold still for two more seconds,” I tell her as I pat it onto her cheekbones over an already impressive streak of multicolored shimmer. Between each round of application, Stevie has squinted in the mirror and turned back to me, asking for more, but now, she’s squirming, impatient. I dip my finger into the pot and hold on to her chin to try to keep her still, press it onto her other cheek. “There. I think you’re done.”
She leans around me to look in the mirror, breaking into a smile when the light catches her skin in a beam that could, frankly, signal a boat at sea. “Your turn!” she says, grabbing the pot of glitter I just set down.
Sasha is lounging on the bed in her pink dress, watching us as she sips her water.Someone has to wrangle all of you tonight, she’d told me when she declined a spritz earlier. “That’s going to be a bitch to get off when you’re drunk later.”
“I’m putting it on you too,” Stevie says as she swipes a glob of gold glitter over my cheekbone.
Once Stevie is done with me, she coaxes Sasha down to the floor.Sasha puts on a face of irritation as Stevie picks out a glitter that matches her dress, but even she can’t resist smiling at my sister as she pats it on.
“Knock knock!” Our mom’s head appears through the half-open door. She pushes into the room with a tote bag straining at the seams. “Here,” she says, setting it on the bed. “A care package.”
