Chapter
1
The ferry pulled into the familiar dock. The one I'd come to associate with cold cheese pizza and sweet tea vodka sodas, bonfires in backyards and moon gazing on a starlit beach. Sand under fingernails, damp hair. Even the mosquito bites felt beautiful.
"You ready?" Ben asked me.
"I can hear the bells already."
My husband grabbed my hand and squeezed as the deck crew tied us in, a synchronized dance practiced to perfection. A gentle rock that might cause the uninitiated to lose balance if they weren't holding on to the paint-peeling handrail. For a moment, bliss.
And then reality crashed back full force like a tidal wave. Kids ran and parents scolded as passengers crowded their way down the just-too-steep staircase, disembarking with duffel bags and brightly colored coolers bursting with groceries that would somehow still need to be replenished before the end of the trip. Hosts greeted their arriving newcomers with hugs and red Solo cups-God forbid someone stay sober on the Island for the three-minute walk from the dock to the houses.
The Fourth of July weekend smelled the same every year.
As the chaos unfolded, I peered over the ferry's edge-we liked being the last ones off-and caught sight of Jo walking down the dock, wagon in tow. Her hair was golden from an early start to the summer sun. Jo had that inherent sense of style money couldn't buy, despite how hard one might try. She told me fashion was just in the hips, as if all attractiveness came from a confident walk and posture alone. Today, Jo was outfitted in an effortless wide-brimmed hat that I could never pull off and a midi white sundress billowing in the breeze.
The subtle glow of a bride-to-be.
"She's actually on time," I said with surprise.
Ben laughed. "Should we make a code word for the week? In case things get hard?"
"The only words I need to focus on are 'maid of honor,'" I said, as my gaze tracked north toward the beckoning town square. The Inn and the Out, the town's two adjacent restaurants, already filling with suntanned customers. The Red Wagon storefront overflowing with local crafts, the warmth of the Pizza Shack competing only with the constant rhythm of the sea.
These were the welcomes I craved, the dock arrivals that had decorated my weekday daydreams ever since I was a little girl. Only this time, my hallmark homecomings seemed to stare back with a crooked smile. Somehow, they knew: despite the celebratory pretenses, summer contentment couldn't have felt further away.
I slipped the itinerary out of my tote bag with a sigh, the paper creased and folded. While Jo couldn't have cared less about potential crinkles in her invitation packet, I cursed my decision not to splurge for the laminator when I printed inserts at Staples all those weeks ago. Now my handwritten doodles danced back at me with derision.
"Don't you have that memorized already?" Ben said, elbow into my waistline, when he caught me rubbing the paper on my thigh as if my body were a human ironing board. Before I could retort, he stole the sheet straight from my clutches.
"Very funny," I said, my hand outstretched for the paper's return, but neither Ben nor his growing grin relented. I wasn't exactly in the mood for games, but I was even less in the mood for anything remotely resembling an argument.
Not after the way things had ended last night.
Fine. If Ben wanted to play, I'd play.
"'Welcome to Fire Island!'" I started to recite the lines from memory, my voice assuming a cheery octave like a docent rehearsing a script. "'We are so glad you have chosen to celebrate Joanna's wedding with us all week. Below is a schedule of optional activities should you wish to partake in early wedding fun. Please note: nothing else of import shall be happening over the next seven days, so, if by chance you think there's anything else the Sharp family is celebrating, you, my dear guest, are mistaken.'" I cleared my throat in conclusion. "How'd I do?"
"B-plus." Ben laughed. "It's 'Joanna and Dave's wedding'-your first mistake. How could you forget the groom?!"
"To my credit, it's barely been six months-"
"And I'm sorry to say, but the jury isn't seeing any of that last part on our answer key. Totally wrong."
"Ah, must have been thinking of an earlier draft. Pretty sure there was one that said: 'Happy thirtieth birthday, Amy and Jo! You made it! And oh yeah, Dave is here, too. Open bar all week!'"
Ben's smile remained, but I could see his eyes start to soften with concern. "Are you sure you're good, Ames?" he said, his tone lower. More serious. "We have time if you want to call Nina?"
"I'm fine." I swallowed, embarrassment growing alongside annoyance. I'd never have agreed to seeing a therapist if I'd known how often Ben would bring her up. "Seriously, I'm fine."
"Babe, you know you can always talk to me about-"
"Ben, I said I'm fine." Game over, I grabbed the itinerary out from his fingers and tucked it back into my bag. "We should get going anyway. Jo's waiting, and we have a ton to do at the house."
Ever since Jo had announced that she and Dave were to be married on our birthday this summer, the date had filled me with dread. Jo and I were born on July 4-two Cancers with every colored emotion to prove it, not just red, white, and blue. But this year, there'd be no need for stars and stripes, or the sun-faded birthday banner we always hung across the kitchen with care. It was wedding decorations only, whether I liked it or not. (And like it I did not, but being a twin meant sharing the spotlight, despite how one-sided the cause.)
The result? Our thirtieth birthday doomed to float by as a footnote.
"Can't believe the week's already here," I said now, my eyes once again looking down past the handrail and toward my twin sister. "Is it bad to say I sort of assumed she'd never get married?"
"Well, she's always been full of surprises." Ben smiled. "Consider this just one more."
"And, of course, she's literally glowing. I thought that was only in the movies."
"Hey, you glowed on our wedding day."
"Shone with sweat, is more like it."
"You were perfect. Our wedding was perfect," Ben said. "And everything is going to be perfect for Jo's, too. Surprising or not."
I nodded. If only I could believe that. A whirlwind engagement, a relative stranger now marrying my twin, all torpedoed by the fear of my own baggage taking center stage.
Perfect already felt like a broken promise.
As Ben hoisted our duffel bags higher up on his shoulders, I forced my stomach not to flutter at the flex in his biceps. Any butterflies felt like a betrayal. He'd taken to weight training, a new lifting regimen recommended by his doctor. An outlet for all the added stress. "To help process." I'd have been impressed, if I weren't the very reason for his needing an outlet in the first place. His muscles were now just another reminder of all that had gone wrong. All the ways I'd failed.
All the secrets we were still keeping.
One deep breath in to center myself. Nina's trick to silence the hamster wheel of worries running through my mind these days. I could do this. Whether I was ready or not, it was time to get off the ferry and run full force into Jo's Wedding Week Extravaganza.
I plastered on a smile and began the descent.
"A wedding, a birthday, a holiday weekend. What could really go wrong?" I said, hoping my voice now matched the breeze as we made our way down the ferry's steps.
"Nothing. But if something did, I'm sure one of your dozen color-coded planning binders would hold the solution," Ben said, without an ounce of malice in his voice. He always seemed to genuinely admire my organizational tendencies.
"First of all, there's only three binders," I said. "But fair."
"And look on the bright side: at least we'll never forget their anniversary."
"Ames! Benny! You're here!" my sister sang out, skipping over to us right as our toes touched the dock. Only Jo could make skipping look graceful at (almost) thirty.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," I said, as she pulled Ben and me both in for a group hug, each of us looped under one of her bangle-coated arms. She smelled like sunscreen and pencil lead. A writer on vacation.
"I seriously can't thank you guys enough for taking the earlier ferry," Jo said, her honeyed voice moving a mile a minute. "There's so much to finish, Dad's to-do list grows longer by the second. I swear, he's going to give me an ulcer before we even get to the damn aisle. That reminds me-we have to pick up more ice on the way to the house. We've been here less than twenty-four hours and we've gone through five bags already. We should've imported an igloo! What were we thinking? A wedding on an island? In July? Ha!"
In a millisecond, Jo's spiral subsided with a choke. Her eyes welled, and her face flushed as her lower lip quivered. "Look at me, a walking cliché. Pull it together, JoJo."
The Sharp family had a tendency toward the theatrical. Our grandpa cried so readily his nickname was Weeper. Jo and I both kept tissue boxes on all the coffee tables, a constant bracing for the inevitable heart-tugging commercial, and we'd taken many a stern look from strangers for crying "too loudly" during a Broadway show. We were suckers for a good cry, and weddings were especially dangerous territory.
Now, I took my sister by the shoulders, wiped a tear from her cheek. Whatever recent calendar grievances and marital strains clouded my brain instantly fell by the wayside. What mattered most stood right in front of me. "You, Joanna Sharp, couldn't be a cliché if you tried." Then Jo hiccupped out a sudden pitiful yet very loud sob, which made us both guffaw from the unexpected sound. It was just what we needed. A small relief that paved the way to belly laughs, a desperate break from all the tension that surrounded us both. The love language of our sisterhood had always been inexplicable, shoulder-shaking laughter. Once we started, we couldn't stop, and soon my own eyes blurred from surfacing tears.
"Do you guys need a minute, or can we get this show on the road? I think my forearms are burning," Ben said. He had dutifully reclaimed our checked baggage off the lower level of the ferry and loaded all the luggage onto the wagon. Suitcases and duffel bags threatened to topple over the edges.
"Yes, Benjamin, let us protect your pasty arms!" Jo laughed and grabbed my hand, leading the way even though it was equally as much my house as it was hers. Best to put aside protective claims to family ownership this week though, I thought. No good would come of that.
I turned over my shoulder and flashed Ben a grateful smile as he followed behind us lugging the wagon. Sure, last night ended in a rocky place, but that was marriage. Rough patches were par for the course, right? We would get through it; we always had. What mattered now was that we were here in Kismet. The weather forecast promised sun. My twin sister was getting married. And I was determined to be the best maid of honor the world had ever seen.
I could do this.
Copyright © 2023 by Becky Chalsen. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
