Page 56 of The Vineyard Bride

Lola laughed, the sound of it twinkling out across the water.“Then we’re going to St.Barts, where they speak French apparently?Then, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.Gosh, you look up the images of these, and they’re all seafoam green and turquoise and gorgeous twenty-somethings on beaches.”

“You’re a gorgeous woman who’s soon to be on a beach,” Susan countered.

“A honeymoon...”Christine breathed.“I can’t imagine that when Zach and I get married, we’ll be able to do anything like that.”

“Why not?”Audrey and Amanda demanded in unison.“You deserve it.”

“Come on.We have a new baby,” Christine offered.

Together, the other Sheridan women glanced at one another, perplexed.

“We’re there for you, Christine,” Audrey finally said.“And by that, we mean, we’re there to babysit Mia.You and Zach should run off and celebrate your love, don’t you think?You deserve it.”

Christine’s cheeks burned with a mix of embarrassment and joy.She dropped her gaze toward the water, where seaweed wrapped itself around her ankle.She attempted to kick it off but ultimately failed, laughing as she bent to remove the slimy green strands from her skin.

“I can’t tell you how happy I’ve been lately,” Lola breathed, dropping back on the sand, no longer caring what the sand would do to her clothes.“Every day, I come home and think, is this really my life?Is this really my gorgeous husband?”

The rest of the Sheridan women were quiet for a long time, watching the horizon.Lola felt the sand caked into her hair and the back of her head.She imagined herself later, scrubbing herself of sand.It didn’t matter.It was summer, wasn’t it?That’s what summer was for.

**

FAMOUS SAILOR TOMMYGasbarro was seasoned in the art of sailing from Martha’s Vineyard to the Caribbean Islands.Three days prior to their departure, he’d written a “TO DO LIST” that was thirty-five items long, none of which he thought was “that difficult” to figure out.Ultimately, Lola and Tommy found themselves scrambling for the last few items the night before their departure, throwing bread and cheeses and fruits into their grocery cart and laughing at the ridiculous nature of their “getaway.”It was now early July, only two days before the Fourth of July, and the island was ridiculously alive, with fireworks blaring in the evening sky, all the way to three in the morning.

They’d decided to depart the docks at seven-thirty on the morning of the third, telling everyone that they would sail to the Caribbean, island-hop, and return in two weeks (approximately).It had been a very long time since Lola felt so free, so alive.And as they prepared the sailboat for departure, she was hardly able to speak.Such was the dramatic nature of her excitement.

Around seven-fifteen, when Lola poked her head out of the storage space of the sailboat, she spotted four familiar faces peering out from the far end of the dock.Lola popped up and waved at them: Audrey, Amanda, Christine, and Susan, her heart in her throat.

“I can’t believe they came all the way here to say goodbye,” she muttered to Tommy.

“Are you kidding me?Where else would they be,” Tommy shot back.

Lola laughed and leaped from the sailboat, bumbling down the dock toward her daughter, her niece, and her two sisters.She hugged Audrey extra-long, obviously, inhaling the density of her brand-new “patchouli” perfume and asking herself if she was really “okay” with the fact that Audrey had moved on from her Ashlee Simpson perfume of yesteryear.

“There he is.Your handsome sailor husband,” Christine breathed, drawing an arm over Lola’s as they turned back to watch Tommy as he traced a rope around and around his elbow.

“He really is something,” Lola affirmed.“But don’t tell him that.”

“I would never,” Christine returned, her grin splitting open.

“You’ll send us pictures, won’t you?”Audrey asked.

“I don’t know,” Lola offered.“I had this idea that I could go completely off the grid.Force Tommy to crash into an island.Live out the rest of my days like Tom Hanks inCast Away.”

“You think you’re really funny, don’t you?You’re not,” Audrey howled.

Lola laughed.“Come on.I’ll send you pictures.I’ll probably annoy Tommy so much with how much I want to reach out to you.”

“Just make sure he doesn’t divorce you on the way home,” Susan said with a laugh.

“Although if he does, I’ll tell him that I have a pretty damn good lawyer,” Lola said.

Just before she scampered down the dock to join her new husband, Lola gripped Amanda’s hands and glanced down at the ring that now shone prominently.She yanked the hand around to show Susan, both surprised and aghast.

“Did you know about this?”Lola demanded.

“Oh, yeah.I just learned when he put the ring on her finger the other day at the Sunrise Cove,” Susan said, her laugh erupting over the waters.

“Amanda!When were you planning on telling us?”Lola scolded.

---