Page 27 of Take Me to the Wedding

“I think you should tell the whole world,” Caleb said, beaming.

Ick.Hey, buddy, eyes on the roadwas whatIwas thinking.All we needed was to end up in a ditch because of his googly eyes.

“Thanks,” Lilly said. “I’ve always been interested in all kinds of art, so it was a natural progression.”

I had no other interests besides struggling to find time to work out, reading, and trying to stay solvent.

“Caleb is all math and science,” Quinn said, which didn’t help my plan to make Caleb sound avant-garde—or at least interested in art.

“We’ve always been as opposite as they come,” Lilly said with a nod.

“Maybe not entirely,” Caleb replied. He turned to her again, and I couldn’t quite see his eyes, but I heard something in his voice. Something that sounded like longing. Or at least a sense of nostalgia.We were good together, remember?he seemed to be saying.

I felt something then, quite against my will. His pain. Oh drat. Ihadto think of something to make this all work out, or I’d never be able to face my best friend again. I’d be steeped in guilt forever.

That’s when I heard Oma’s voice.You know what to do. Get to work.

I didn’t come from a long line of matchmakers for nothing. “Well, you know what they say about opposites,” I said cheerily. “Friction creates fire.” I’d totally made that up. I decided to keep going. “Calebdoesappreciate art.” My mouth acted before my brain, as usual. The trouble was, I’d never even been inside Caleb’s apartment. Nothing, absolutely nothing that I knew about him, led me to believe that he thought about, appreciated, or enjoyed art.Yikes.

“He does?” Lilly exclaimed.

“I do hang Emma’s drawings on my fridge,” Caleb said. “She’s a very prolific artist. Her main media is crayons.”

Aw, cute.

Lilly smiled a little, so she probably thought it was too.

“Does paint ’n’ sip count?” Quinn said. “We did that once, right, Cay? It helped us get lai—dates.” He cleared his throat. “It helped us getdates,” he amended.

Caleb in the rearview looked murderous, reinforcing my gut feeling that Quinn was annoying on many levels—to men as well as women.

“So exactly how does Caleb appreciate art?” Lilly directed her question at me.

I didn’t even dare to look in the mirror, but I felt Caleb’s gaze burning into me. Quinn was half turned toward me expectantly. I had no clue what to say. All I knew was that it had to be good.

“Yes. Um. One time we visited the art museum in Milwaukee. Caleb fell in love with a particular section, didn’t you?” I was flying into uncharted air space here. I only hoped he’d catch on and fly along with me.

“When we went…?” He processed the fact that we’d never gone to the museum together. “Oh yeah, of course. Ancient Egypt.”

Oh come on, Caleb.I signaled via an eye glare in the mirror.Give me something to work with here.I tried steering him in another direction. “I was thinking more along the lines of famous portrait painters. Like, um… Van Gogh, Picasso, Sargent.”

“I love the art museum,” Caleb cluelessly said. “Best view of the lake from anywhere in the city.”

Lilly opened her mouth, probably to say he sucked. I mean, that’s certainly what I wanted to say. Ancient Egypt? Lake views? Comeon.

“I love the Georgia O’Keefe’s. She’s from Sun Prairie, you know,” said Quinn. “When I was in Spain last summer, we toured the Prado. I spent two days there. Goya, El Greco, Murillo, Velazquez…Las Meninasabsolutely floored me.”

“You know aboutLas Meninas?” Lilly said with surprise.

“That’s like, the most appreciated painting in the world,” Quinn said. “Not to mention the first selfie ever.”

Lilly laughed. Caleb looked pained. Absolutely pained. And he wasn’t saying anything either, probably because he didn’t knowLas Meninasfromlas bananas.

I took another tack. “Caleb is kind of an artist.”

“I am?”

I squinted my eyes at his reflection as if to telepathically conveyPlease let me help you to impress this woman.This wassomuch harder than I thought. I cleared my throat and tried for sincerity, using my hands to demonstrate. “Well, you sculpt bone and piece—things—together—and stuff.”

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