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Rylan smiles at her, but it’s not his genuine smile. “Why am I here?”
“Oh yes, I was told you like to get right down to business,” Jean says.
Rylan’s eyes find mine over her shoulder.
Jean pulls out a round thing that, if I remember correctly, holds slides.
“I want a slideshow for my granddaughter and her groom that can be shown at the reception,” Alice says. “We already did a lot of the work and wanted to see what you thought. Pete at the center used to own a whole photography company and made all the slides for us.”
“PowerPoint slides?” Rylan asks.
Jean and Alice look at one another in confusion. Jean picks up a slide. “No, like slides.”
I purse my lips to keep from laughing because I’m not sure these machines have been used for decades.
“What? We thought we were helping.” Jean looks at Alice. “What did the instructions say?”
And there it is. Someone else is pulling the strings to make sure Rylan is here with me right now in a cabin my great-grandma and grandpa used to get freaky in. I wouldn’t doubt that Great-Grandma and Ethel planned this years ago, thinking they knew us better than we know ourselves. Suddenly, my great-grandma’s words about “wrong time and right person” make more sense.
Rylan’s and my eyes catch across the room. I’ll always love Rylan, but at some point, you have to throw in the towel, and I did that three years ago when I walked out on him.
Five
Rylan
Slides. They cannot be serious.
I catch Calista’s eyes over Alice’s bird’s nest of red hair. She’s trying not to laugh, which only causes my laughter to bubble up in my throat.
“Pete said this is what you do for weddings.” Alice’s concerned look ping-pongs between Calista and me. I don’t have the heart to tell this poor lady that Pete is about forty years behind on his information.
“Well”—I know Calista will never say anything to be mean—“let’s have a look.”
Jean takes out the projector and Alice puts the slide circle on it. It strikes me as funny, since usually it’s the younger generation showing the senior citizens how to use electronics, but I’d have no idea how to use that thing if my life depended on it.
I close the drapes while Calista takes pictures off a wall to use as a makeshift screen. It’s dark enough, thanks to the overgrown vegetation around this place.
“You guys are gonna love this. There’s even a few of you two.” Alice winks at me.
I nod, stuffing my hands in my pockets. I need to suffer through this because Declan wouldn’t stop giving me shit last night and he’s right—I’ve done nothing to help with this wedding and I promised that as soon as my season ended, I’d be home and help with whatever he needed me to. I’m the best man. Even his bachelor party was more planned by his dad than me, but Declan isn’t a Vegas-and-stripper kinda guy. We went up to his parents’ cabin up north and fished and chilled out. At least for that I didn’t have to come into town at all. I flew into Anchorage and drove straight up to the cabin.
“You guys ready?” Alice beams and presses the button on the slide machine.
The thing makes a loud sound as it flips to the first picture, which is of Calista and me on the soccer field around the age of six. It must be the first time Jamison was coaching us. Our shin pads look bigger than our legs and my hair is sticking up in the back. Could my mom not have given me a cooler haircut? Calista’s hair is in braids and she’s smiling at the camera while my mouth is half hanging open. She’s so much more photogenic than me.
“Huh,” Alice says and glances at Jean, who shrugs.
They press the button for the next slide, and I know without discussing it that Calista will never let this slideshow happen at Aubrey’s wedding.
The next photo is again Calista and me, but this time we’d won a game and we’re high- fiving one another. I think it must’ve been when we were eight, when our hatred dulled slightly because our team won so many tournaments that year.
“I hope Pete didn’t get all this mixed up?” Alice bites the inside of her lip, clicking to change the picture again.
The third slide is us at a soccer banquet. It’s probably the first time I saw Calista in a dress, and I remember how mad she was when her mom said she couldn’t play in it. Eventually, her dad went home and got her shorts to wear underneath because she pouted while all the boys used the empty field to play. Her hair was long and straight with a barrette holding back the front, showing off ears that she’d gotten pierced that year. I only remember because she kept trying to get past the refs and every time we were about to start, we’d have to wait for her to take out her earrings. I was a jerk of a kid to always razz her about it.
“Oh, dear.” Alice presses the button over and over, streaming through pictures of Calista and me… at prom, high school graduation, college days, college graduation, the day I was drafted. Grandma Dori’s ninetieth birthday where I took a shot and kissed Calista, not knowing what would happen.
I suck in my bottom lip, watching all the years of our intertwined lives flash before me on a bare wall.
