Page 112 of How to Ruin a Wedding

Business ownership is exactly what I thought it’d be: challenging, scary, overwhelming, and entirely rewarding. Though the rewarding part is the animals outside or watching HD dog TV, and not housekeeping work that tends to pop up each time I think we’re finally settled.

My phone buzzes in my overalls pocket.

I answer Valerie’s FaceTime, and she grimaces in rollers and an unfinished face of makeup. Taina peeks her head in and waves, then grimaces too. “Gross.”

“Thanks, you’re both so sweet,” I say to the girls, who have become incredibly close since Taina began visiting every other week in between traveling around, trying to find “what place calls to her; what place feels like home.” Close enough that Taina’s doing her wedding makeup tomorrow.

“You better get your ass dried and presentable, rehearsal starts in three hours.”

“Do you really need me there?” I ask.

Valerie narrows her eyes. “You’d have to see Anders at the wedding anyway, wouldn’t it be better to get it over with before then?”

I scoff. “That’s not what I meant.”

Taina snorts. “Sure it’s not.”

“Wow, betrayed by my own flesh and blood.”

“Be honest,” Valerie says, “have you really not heard from him all this time? Is this going to be your first time seeing him in months?”

“It is,” Taina answers. “Lucy, don’t forget to pluck your eyebrows. You can’t see him looking like that. Have some dignity.”

I slap the phone to my forehead.

It’s true, I haven’t spoken to Anders in months. Stalked online? Searching his social media every single day, waiting for a new post (he never posts), watching to see if he uploaded any stories? (He only did three times, all covers he was working on.) I typed up his name to call, then immediately turned off my phone, then immediately turned it on, and dialed from a private number to hear him say “Hello?” enough times that he thought it was spam and stopped answering. Drove by his house a couple of times trying to see if his car was there, pretending I had the courage to go up and knock on the door and say hello and sorry and bring up all the unresolved emotions that keep me up at night and raise my water bill when I’m in the shower for way too long—stuck on an endless cycle as permanent as day turning to night and night turning to day.

Yes, humiliating. Yes to all the above.

Has my heart stuttered every time my phone rang, hoping it was him, feeling endlessly disappointed when it wasn’t?

Also, embarrassingly, yes, of course.

So the thought of having to see him again is invigorating and terrifying and embarrassing because, even though I was the one who pulled away first, I can’t help but feel like he’s completely finished with whatever we were building. Which is totally fine, for him.

And yet I spend so much time thinking of ways to reach out, then finding reasons to pull away instead, and cycling these useless thoughts over and over again instead of facing it head-on.

“Earth to Lucy,” Valerie says.

“I’ll go,” I mumble. “See you later.”

I hang up and head out to the entryway, larger now, with new, easier-to-clean floorboards and a fresh coat of light-blue paint on the smooth walls. Dainese frowns as she hangs up the phone from behind the desk.

“No luck?” I ask her.

“Too much luck,” she says. “Ever since you moved here, everyone is ... nicer when I call?” She shakes her head. “That’s not the right word; it’s not that they weren’t nice, but they’re almost too eager to help. And their quotes are way lower than they used to be.”

“Are you sure?” I frown. “I don’t know anybody, so I wouldn’t warrant any special treatment. Maybe they like you and you don’t realize it.”

She counts off her fingers. “The vet charges way less for visits. Our bulk orders have been discounted fifteen percent each time, the carpenter didn’t even charge us for the floorboard changes, and this plumber just quoted me two thousand less than when the pipes first broke.”

“Well”—I point to my drenched appearance—“I’m not often lucky, so whatever is happening, I say we don’t question it.”

“I guess,” Dainese says. “But if you’re sleeping with any of the vendors, you can be honest, I won’t judge you for it.”

“Excuse me? Most of them are, like, sixty years old.”

“Nuh-uh,” Dainese says. “The plumber is our age, and he’s genuinely the sexiest man I’ve ever seen in my life.”