Page 48 of Same Time Next Summer

I come downstairsin the morning feeling like it’s Christmas. I don’t know what it is, the fact that I have a free day at the beach, or the fact that I’m going to see Wyatt. The fact that my childhood home feels like home again. I want to grab a frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich and run through the dunes. My mom’s at the kitchen table watercoloring and smiles when she sees me.

“Is Gracie up?” I ask.

“She’s started sleeping until ten. You remember how that was.”

I smile at the memory of being twelve, almost thirteen. I wanted to sleep late too, but not as much as I wanted to get up and see Wyatt. “Oh, I remember.”

“Something’s loosened up in you. Nice to see.”

“Maybe it’s the sea air.” I pour myself a coffee.

She gives me a long look. “That, yes. And also maybe spending more time out here this summer. Making peace. Finally getting over Wyatt.”

I take a sip. “I think we’re going to be friends. It’s fine between us. Did you know he’s coming here this weekend? Like today?”

“I didn’t. Is that okay for you? Seeing him again so soon.”

“I think?”

She gives me a look.

“I mean yes, it will be good to see him again. And maybe we can have a friendship of some sort.” I think of a waiter warning me that the plate is hot. He’s told me flat-out that if I touch it I’ll get burned. And I touch it every single time.

My mom keeps painting, making wide ribbons of color across a stack of cards.

“What are those?”

“These came in the box with your wedding invitations, just extra card stock. I can’t believe you ordered invitations on watercolor paper, it’s so romantic.”

“My invitations are here?” I get up and she indicates the three boxes under the dining room table. I grab a box and open it at the table. “I can’t believe it.”

They’re beautiful. White cards with silver lettering. “Mr. and Mrs. Billings Holloway request the pleasure.” Jack and I picked these out at the stationer on Madison and Eighty-Sixth Street. I gravitated toward an invitation with an engraved beach motif at the bottom. “Babe, it’s a wedding, not a picnic,” he said. So, we went with these, clean lines all the way. And he was right, they are gorgeous, and the little bit of texture in the paper saves them from being plain. We had them shipped to my mom, because, of course, she knows calligraphy.

“We have more than we need. Can I just show you something?” My mom takes one, dips her brush in the pink paint, and gives it a swoosh across the middle, accenting our names. It’s breathtaking. “What if we did this to each one? All different colors.”

“It is so pretty.” I hold it in my hand and it feels like a summer breeze has moved through my wedding. “But Jack would think it was messy.”

“Oh, okay. Let’s skip it then. Maybe I’ll just keep this one for myself. They’re also very pretty without any color.” My mom has no ego about her ideas or her art. She creates for herself, for the delight she feels in seeing something in a certain way or hearing the rhythm of the right words strung together.

As the pink is drying across our names, I think,This is how I want my wedding to feel.I want there to be a breeze sweeping across it, for it to feel fresh and like it’s going somewhere. I realize, as I am thinking this, that I am imagining my wedding on the beach. But even at the Old Sloop Inn, we can be indoors and outdoors. It doesn’t have to feel so stuffy. I stare at that watercolor swoosh and suddenly it represents everything I want my wedding to be.

“Do one more. I’ll see what Jack says.”

49

Wyatt’s taxi pulls into his driveway an hour later, and I’m in my front yard cutting hydrangeas for the kitchen. His driver pulls away, and we stand there looking at one another from one yard to the next. I’m in shorts and an NYU sweatshirt. My hair is tied into an off-center bun on the top of my head. Not exactly my best look, and I’m pleased with myself for forgetting to care.

“Well, get over here,” I say, dropping my flowers and walking over to give him a hug. I bury my face in his neck, just the way I imagined. I take in the feel of him, so casually pressed against me.

He says, “You already smell like the beach.”

My arms are around his neck, and his hands are on my waist as he says this. We notice at the same time and take an appropriate step apart.

“How was your flight?” It’s the thing people ask.

“I was up all night.”

“No bed on your plane?”

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