Page 45 of Cabin Fever

She says his name loud enough half the salon turns our direction.

I laugh and turn our chairs the opposite direction. “Okay, if I tell you, will you drop this and just focus on your own stuff?”

Dahlia nods like a bobblehead.

“I . . .” I draw the word out, “told him.”

Dahlia blinks. “Told him? Finn?”

“Yes, Finn,” I whisper. “This morning. I told him everything.”

Dahlia’s face goes slack. “And by everything, you mean . . .”

“That I love him. And that I can’t sleep with him on this ship because it’s too confusing.”

She grabs my wrist with both hands. “What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

Her whole body deflates. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“I just told him and left.” I shrug.

Dahlia stares at me for a long moment. “Well, at least he didn’t comment on your nipples.”

A snort bursts out of me. “Might’ve been welcome.”

She laughs, then apologizes for making light of my very serious situation, then starts laughing again. “I can’t believe you told him. I can’t believe you told him.”

I pat her knee. “Well, maybe you inspired me.”

She leans back and throws one leg over the other with her best ‘Who, me?’ charade. Then, as she’s being beckoned by another stylist, she leans in. “Listen, Harp. You’ve spent most of our lives taking care of me, but today I just want you to be my sister at my wedding. Not my planner. Not my emotional support. Just my sister. Deal?”

“Deal,” I manage, tears stinging my eyes.

“Good.” She releases me, turns back to the mirror, and points at Yolanda. “I’m ready. Do my eyes. We have a beach to catch!”

Chapter Sixteen

We walk down the gang planks to Grand Cayman like royalty. The transports are three open-sided buses the color of key lime pie, and the drivers all look like they’re named Winston.

I ride in the lead bus with the bridal party, Dahlia's garment bag laid across my lap, Finn’s, and Marisol’s, my dress sticking to the backs of my knees. Grand Cayman flashes past in swathes of color. White houses with red roofs, tourmaline water that peeks out between buildings, and people dressed in clothes so patterned and bright, I want to dance.

The air through the bus is humid and floral. I wish I could bottle it and take it home with me. Dahlia sits next to me with her face turned all the way into the wind, eyes closed, veil packed safely in tissue somewhere behind us, and lets the wind toss her perfect curls. It honestly looks better that way.

The beach is a twenty-minute ride up the coast, and I hear the ceremony site before I see it. There’s a guitarist and a steel pan player warming up, the notes carrying over the grass, and then the bus swings through a gap in the sea grapes, the whole bridal party hushes at once.

Because it's perfect.

The setup crew has been out since noon, and the little crescent of beach has been turned into a church with no walls. Eighty white folding chairs in soft rows on the sand, an aisle between them lined with hurricane lanterns. At the waterline, there’s a bamboo arch wound with flowers and chiffon that dances in the wind, and the flowers. Blush and cream, wound with greenery, drape over both sides of the arch and down the aisle chairs in whimsical clusters, and in the late afternoon Caribbean light, they are the exact color of the inside of a conch shell.

The sky is clear with a few white, puffy clouds, and the breeze is soft. It couldn’t be more perfect.

Dahlia steps off the bus first and is barefoot the second her sandals hit sand. Then the pre-ceremony machine takes over. There’s a tent behind the dunes for final touches. Pinning, powdering, and lipstick.

It's from the mouth of that tent, with pins in my teeth and Dahlia's train over my arm, that I see Theo standing off by the dune grass in his navy suit, running through something on a notecard with his lips moving. My mother crosses the sand to him in her floral, and I can't hear a word, but Theo looks up. Mom says something to him, and the card drops to his side. And then Theo hugs her.

It startles them both, and when they finally step apart, Mom pats his chest once like she's sealing an envelope, then walks away.