Page 38 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
Day 2:Cradle Island Olympics
Day 3:Bachelor Parties
Day 4:Wedding
I ran over the schedule three or four times. Tried not to cringe openly at the copy she’d written. The dramatic ellipses. The Hallmark subheader. Karma elbowed me in the side. When I looked up, her jaw hung open in a display of feigned astonishment. I covered my mouth to keep from laughing.
“We’re not here for vacation, Karma,” Mom was saying. “We’re here for Taz and Helene’s wedding. In case you forgot.”
“Well,” my sister replied, fanning herself with cardstock. “I certainly won’t forget now.”
“Each member of the family is responsible for one part of the weekend,” Mom said. “Caleb and Clarence are running the Olympics today. Karma and Shelly have generously volunteered to cook the wedding dinner—”
“Volunteeredis a nice way to putblatantly forced,” muttered Karma.
“—Speedy, Helene’s parents, and I will handle the rehearsal dinner. Eliot—” She turned to me. “You’re in charge of organizing the bachelorette party.”
I stared at her. “Sorry?”
“The bachelorette?” Karma spoke slowly, a mother to a slow child. “A heteronormative tradition where a group of drunk sorority sisters wear tiaras and scream at each other outside dingy nightclubs? Surely you’ve heard of it.”
“Right,” I said. “Except we’re not sorority sisters, and we’re on an island miles away from anything even resembling a bar. How the hell am I supposed to plan a bachelorette party?”
“You’re a writer,” said Mom, patting my shoulder. “You’re creative. You’ll figure it out.”
A copywriter, I wanted to say.Not a bard spinning fairy tales.
“And if you come up empty, you can always speak to Manuel.” Mom pivoted to look at my best friend, beaming proudly. “From what I understand, he’s already put togetherquitethe schedule for the boys.”
“Uh-uh.” Clarence shook his head adamantly. “No girls allowed.”
“I was only suggesting that they share ideas,” Mom said.
“Sorry, Wendy.” Manuel flashed his disarmingly beautiful smile at my mother. “Clarence is right. The bachelor party is strictly top secret.”
My mom smiled back at Manuel. She wasn’t mad. She could never be mad at her precious Manny. How could she, when he faced her with a smile like that?
Against all my better judgment, I found myself wishing that he would look at me that way, too. A smile from Manuel Garcia Valdecasas is a rare, achingly beautiful thing.
We began splitting off into teams of two. As adults, one might assume us capable of choosing our own partners. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The process quickly became so heated Mom had to shut the whole thing down and assign them herself.
Surprise, surprise! The partner she gave me?
I’d always known that Mom wanted Manuel and me to end up together. Not right away, obviously—fall in love too young and the jig’s up, the relationship explodes before we’ve even had the chance to figure out who we are. But eventually. Eventually, Wendy wanted her unofficial son as an official member of the family. To do that, we’d have to pull back the veil of friendship and discover we were made for each other.
Ha.
We shuffled awkwardly toward each other on the rocks. I kept my eyes on the soles of his well-worn running shoes as they drew nearer.Fuck.Less than an hour ago, Manuel and I were fighting in the kitchen. Now we were supposed to spend the entire day together?
Damn my mother.
Caleb, who was walking around the group passing out sunscreen, placed a brown bottle of Sun Bum at our feet. We both stared at it. Glanced at each other. Looked quickly away. Manuel’s throat bobbed. Then he grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head.
I froze.
Manuel was shirtless. Shirtless and standing less than a foot away from me.
I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Of course Manuel was shirtless; we were on an island. The primary activities here all involved the lake: swimming, tubing, waterskiing, wakeboarding, paddle boarding, rope swinging…the list goes on.
