They had found the perfect hotel bar, one that was completely open to the beach so they could watch the sun set while they drank their first round of freezing-cold strawberry daiquiris. Then there were greasy appetizers and more strawberry daiquiris—tonight even Lucy was eating and drinking—while they watched the hotel staff blow conch shells and race around lighting gas torches all over the property in some ancient Polynesian torch-lighting ritual. Then there were hula dancers and more daiquiris.
They laughed and talked for hours, all three of them with their hair rough and wavy from thè salty ocean wind, their faces glowing from the sun they'd soaked in that afternoon and from the torchlight that fell on them now. They were dressed similarly in sleeveless cotton summer dresses and their bare legs were smooth above flat jeweled sandals. It was no wonder various guys all night long tried sending them drinks and stopping by their table. They took the drinks, sent back the men, and every one of them knew that this was one of those nights you remember forever, when the drinks are as cold and sweet as a childhood Popsicle but leave you reeling from a bitter punch that makes you glad you're an adult.
“So tell us about Kevin,” Sari said to Kathleen when the night sky was dark everywhere except where the torches fought back. “Tell us what you love about him, why you want to marry him. So if we ever meet the right guy, we'll know it's him.”
“I may have met him already,” Lucy said.
“All the more reason for you to shut up and listen.”
Kathleen took the tiny umbrella out of her drink and held it open above her head. “Look, it's raining,” she said, which seemed to strike her as incredibly funny.
“Come on,” Sari said, with the determination of the seriously drunk. “I want to know. Why do you love Kevin?”
“I don't,” Kathleen said. Then she said, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Of course I do. He's nice, don't you think? Have you ever met anyone nicer? Look how he flew you guys here just to surprise me. How nice was that?”
“He even paid for our tickets,” Lucy said. She let her head flop back against her chair. “He's a prince.”
“He's the prince,” Kathleen said. “Prince Charming.”
“Was he mad you wanted to go out alone with us tonight?” Lucy said.
“Of course not,” Kathleen said. She twirled the toothpick part of the umbrella between the palms of her hand, and the brightly colored paper spun until the colors all merged. “He doesn't get mad. Kevin doesn't get mad, he doesn't get upset, he doesn't get excited, he doesn't get anything.”
“Except laid, I hope,” Sari said.
“Not if he doesn't get aroused,” said Lucy and they all laughed wildly at that—so wildly that a couple talking at a nearby table gave them annoyed looks.
“But you love him, right?” Sari said.
“Of course,” Kathleen said. “I love my Prince Charming. Would it matter, though, if I didn't? People get married all the time without being in love. Don't they?”
“I wouldn't want to,” Sari said.
“Doesn't matter,” Kathleen said. “Because we do. Love each other. He really really loves me. And I kind of really love him,” There was a beat. Then, “Did I tell you he wants to start a family?”
“Like right away?” Sari said.
“He says he can't wait to have kids.”
“Did you tell him you hate kids?” Lucy asked, raising her head.
“Of course not.”
“So you lied to him? Way to start a marriage, Kathleen.”
“It wasn't a lie.” She opened and shut the little umbrella rapidly. “Maybe I don't hate kids as much as I think I do. I could probably learn to like my own, don't you think?”
Before either girl could answer, a guy came up to their table. He was slightly younger than they were and a little on the plump side, but not bad-looking. He was wearing a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt over jeans. “Hey, guys,” he said with a nervous laugh. “My friends and I have been sitting over there—” He pointed to another table and three guys there raised their hands in greeting. The girls waved back. “—and we were wondering what you girls might be up to for the rest of the evening and whether you'd like some company.”
“That's so sweet,” Kathleen said. “Do you have a car with you?”
“Sure do.”
“Terrific!” she said. “Our house is a little ways down the beach. You want to take us home?”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “That's like so … Wait—just let me go tell the guys. Don't go anywhere.” He dashed off.
“What are you doing, Kath?” Sari said. “Inviting four men back to Kevin's house? The night before your wedding? Are you insane?”
“It's easier than calling a cab,” Kathleen said.
“No, it's not. All a cab driver expects is money.”
“Well, these guys won't get even that.”
“So we're going back to the house now?” Lucy said, confused. “To sleep?”
“No.” Kathleen tossed the umbrella on the table and gathered up her purse as the men eagerly approached them. “To knit and talk.”
They all packed into the guys’ small Volkswagen convertible— three of them in front, four in the back. The girls were sitting on top of their hosts, who didn't seem to mind it at all. “Excuse me,” Lucy told one of them. “My ass seems to be inserting itself into your hand. One of us should probably be doing something to fix that situation.” The guy turned red and adjusted his hands accordingly.
When the driver—the guy who had come up to them at the restaurant and whose name, they had since learned, was Sanjesh—pulled up to the house, he gave a low whistle of appreciation. “This is yours? Sweet!”
“Well, not ours exactly,” Lucy said. She opened the door and basically fell out of the car, then stumbled into an upright position. Kathleen and Sari also slipped out quickly. “It belongs to Kathleen's fiancé.”
“Who's Kathleen?”
“She is,” Sari said, pointing.
“Oh, man,” said Sanjesh. He had turned the car off, and he and his friends were all getting out. “You didn't tell us you were engaged.”
“Sorry,” Kathleen said. “I guess I forgot. Thanks for the ride, boys. Don't feel you need to walk us to the door. We can find our way.” She and the other girls moved forward.
Sanjesh froze. “Aren't you going to invite us in?”
Kathleen considered briefly. Then she shook her head. “Nope.”
She, Sari, and Lucy scurried up to the door and threw themselves inside, slamming the door shut behind them. They burst into incontrollable giggles.
“Hey!” A door opened on the floor above and they all tilted their heads to see up the stairway to the landing, where Kevin appeared in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. “There you are,” he said. “Welcome back. Do you need me to take care of the cab driver?” He came down the rest of the stairs.
“No cab,” Kathleen said. “Some nice young men gave us a lift.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“I’m guessing you're not angry,” she said and collapsed into fresh giggles.
“You guys got a little drunk, huh?” he said.
“What makes you say that?” Lucy asked, with a snort of laughter.
“Just a lucky guess. How ‘bout we all go to bed now? Get a good night's sleep, wake up all bright and cheerful for our wedding day? Our wedding day.” He shook his head. “It still sounds unreal.”
“You go to bed,” Kathleen said. “I want to stay up with the girls. We're going to knit.”
“You want to knit right now?” he said. “It's past one.”
“That's what all brides do on their wedding nights,” Sari said. “They knit. It's kind of an old tradition.”
“Only the men aren't supposed to know about it,” Lucy said. “That's why you've probably never heard about it before.”
“Really,” said Kevin, with a broad grin that meant he knew he was being made fun of and was prepared
to be a good sport about it. “Well, don't let me stand in your way. Just do me a favor and don't drink any more tonight, will you? You're all starting to scare me.”
“He says we're scaring him,” Kathleen said to the girls. “And yet he doesn't seem scared, does he? Or nervous, or anything? That's my guy!”
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Kevin said. “Which must mean it's past my bedtime. Good night, girls.” He started back up the stairs.
“Oops,” said Kathleen. “My knitting's in the bedroom. Let me just grab it and I’ll meet you guys back in your room.” She joined him oh the stairs.
Sari and Lucy stumbled their way across the house to the room they were sharing. It was a huge guest bedroom suite, with a king-size bed, a marble-floored bathroom, and a lanai that, because the house was built on a cliff, had a stunning view of the ocean.
Sari closed the door behind them and turned to Lucy. “We have to stop this wedding,” she said.
“You're drunk,” Lucy said. “Me, too.” She collapsed down on the bed.
“I know,” Sari said. “But I mean it. She doesn't love him.”
“Big deal.” Lucy rolled onto her back and closed her eyes.
“She can't get married—it would be a huge mistake.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Lucy said sleepily.
“Will you please take this seriously?”
“Fine.” Lucy sat up and leaned back against the headboard. Sari sat down on an upholstered chair facing her. “Even if it is a mistake,” Lucy said, “what difference does it make in the long run? They'll just get divorced. No big deal. Maybe she'll even get some money out of it.”
“It's depressing to get divorced,” Sari said. “I see divorced people all the time, and it's like this emotional tattoo you can't ever get rid of. And if she takes his money, then she becomes the kind of girl who marries rich guys and takes their money and I don't want Kathleen to become that.”
“Why don't you think she loves him? She said she did. And he's a nice guy.”
“He's nice enough. But there's no spark. He's …” She groped. “He's spark-less. Kathleen sparkles and he's spark-less. That's a huge difference.”
“Just one s,” Lucy said.
“Please, Lucy, help me. We have to try at least, or we'll never forgive ourselves.”
“We can't,” Lucy said.
“Sure, we can. I mean, she listens to us—”
“No, I mean, we could maybe change Kathleen's mind, but it would be wrong. The guy bought us plane tickets to Hawaii, Sari. He put us up at his house. We'd be repaying him by ruining his life. That's fucked up. As am I, by the way.”
“No, wait—I have an argument to that.”
“What?”
“Shit, I forgot it.” Sari banged her hand on the side of the chair. “Oh, no, there it is again. I knew I had one. Kevin's better off losing Kathleen now, before he's committed his whole heart and bank account to a marriage that won't work. We're doing him a favor.”
“It doesn't feel like we're doing him a favor.”
“Well, we are. And we'll know it even if he doesn't.” There were footsteps outside their door. “Quick,” Sari said. “Get your knitting out!” They both pounced on their knitting bags, pulled out their work, dived into chairs, and propped fake smiles on their faces.
Kathleen opened the door. “Hey,” she said. “Room for one more?”
“Pull up a bed,” Sari said.
Kathleen kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed, where she hiked her dress up above her thighs so she could sit cross-legged. She pulled out her knitting. “Kevin wanted to have sex,” she said, as she detangled the yarns and straightened out the work she'd done.
“Did you?” Lucy asked.
“How fast do you think I can do it? No, I told him I’d rather hang out with you guys. We have years of matrimonial screwing ahead of us, right?”
“Right,” Sari said with a meaningful glance at Lucy. “Years and years with the same guy every night. Just the one guy forever more.”
“No one else,” Lucy said. “Ever.”
“I hope it's the best sex of your life, with Kevin,” Sari said. “Because it's him and only him from now on.”
“What are you trying to do?” Kathleen said with a little laugh. “Scare me shitless?”
“We just want to make sure you know what you're getting into,” Sari said. “That you're going into this with your eyes open.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“So you think the sex is better with him than it could ever be with anyone else?”
There was a pause. Then Kathleen said, “That's a stupid question, Sari. It's un—unanswerable.” She stumbled over the last word, but got it out.
“Think about this then,” Sari said. “Is there any guy out there right now—anyone—who, if Kevin were out of the picture, you'd want to sleep with?”
“Is there any guy out there she doesn't want to sleep with?” Lucy said and dissolved into high-pitched giggles that rapidly turned into snorts and then hiccups.
“How much did she have to drink?” Kathleen asked Sari.
“same as us.”
“Man, then we must be totally wasted.”
“You haven't answered my question,” Sari said.
Kathleen knitted in silence for a moment. Then, looking up, she said slowly, “If the question is, is there another guy out there who—” She stopped.
“Who what?” said Sari, when several seconds had gone by and Kathleen still hadn't finished her sentence.
“Oh, what difference does it make?” Kathleen said. She went back to knitting, stabbing the needles at each other with a sudden wild energy. “It's all just what maybe could be or might be but isn't and I have Kevin now and he loves me and he gave me this ring and this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in and even the twins don't own a beach house in Hawaii and why are you doing this to me, Sari? Why won't you let me enjoy it? Are you jealous? Is that what this is about?”“Yeah,” said Sari. “I’m jealous. That's what this is about.”
Kathleen looked up then and their eyes met. “I’m sorry,” Kathleen said. “That was a stupid thing to say. But why are you making this so hard on me? The decision's been made, Sari. I’m wearing the guy's engagement ring, in case you hadn't noticed.”
“It's a surprise wedding,” Sari said. “No one else knows you're even engaged. So why not wait? If you and Kevin really love each other, you can get married a year from now and—”
“If I don't marry Kevin tomorrow, we won't last another week,” Kathleen said.
There was a pause. Then Lucy said, “”Well, then, why—”
“Because of me,” Kathleen said. She let her knitting drop from her fingers and curled herself up into a ball. “Because of the way I am. I’m always getting bored with guys—you two know that better than anyone. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of not having someone steady and I’m sick of not having anything I really like to do and I’m sick of not knowing what I want my life to be.”
There was another pause. Then Lucy said, “You like to knit.”
“Yeah,” Kathleen said with a sigh. “I like to knit. Maybe that'll keep me busy when I’m old and all alone.”
“You won't be alone when you're old,” Sari said. “You'll have us.”
“You guys will have husbands and kids. And cute little grandchildren.”
“Our husbands will die and our kids will ignore us,” Sari said. “We'll need you as much as you'll need us.”
“I don't think so.”
“Still,” Sari said, “you shouldn't marry a guy because you're scared.”
“Fuck you,” Kathleen said. “Why the fuck do you have to be so fucking right all the time?” No one said anything for a moment. Then she flung her hand out. “Fine, Sari, you win. No wedding. But you guys have to be with me when I tell him.”
“Does this mean you have to give the ring back?” Lucy said.
They slept together in the king-siz
e bed that night, all three of them. They left the doors to the lanai open and ocean breezes sent them all spinning into a strange, dreamy doze, until the alcohol wore off in the middle of the night and they woke up in turns, wildly thirsty and needing to pee.
At one of her more-awake-than-asleep moments, Kathleen stumbled into the bathroom and slurped water greedily straight from the faucet. When she came back, Sari whispered hoarsely, “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She crawled into bed next to Sari. “Except I feel like whatever I do tomorrow, I’m going to be making a big mistake.”
“That means that whatever you do, you're saving yourself from a big mistake,” Sari said. “Look at it that way.”
“That helps,” Kathleen said. She snuggled close and eventually they fell back to sleep.
The girls were subdued in the morning, not talking much as they showered and got dressed—not in sarongs and bikinis this time, but in their regular jeans and tank tops.
“Oh, shit,” Lucy said, picking up the knitting she'd left on the chair the night before. “Oh, shit!” She held it up for the others to see. A bunch of stitches had fallen off the circular needles and one stitch had pulled out in a run that went hallway down the whole thing. “I can't believe it,” she said. “I’m going to have to start all over again.”
Sari exclaimed in sympathy, but when she went to pick up her own knitting, she realized she had her own problems. “Oh, man, look at this. I forgot to switch colors. Now the red part's twice as wide as it's supposed to be. I’m going to have to rip out everything I did last night.”
“And mine's all tangled,” Kathleen said, shoving it into her knitting bag. “I’ll deal with it later. But clearly it's a mistake to knit when you're drunk.”
“They should warn people about this,” Sari said. “Maybe even make it a law—don't drink and knit.” She looked at Kathleen.
“How are you doing this morning?”
“A little hungover.”
“Any change of heart?”
Kathleen shook her head. “No. You're right. I shouldn't get married.”
“Is there someone else?”
“Not really. Maybe. But it's not that. It's—” She fingered a shell on the desk; Lucy had brought it back from the beach the day before. It was bone-white and smooth. “I like Kevin. But I don't really want to spend the rest of my life with him. I get bored whenever we're alone together for more than an hour or two.” She looked up. “I was drunk when I said yes. And I thought if I pretty much stayed drunk from then until the wedding, I’d get through it and then it would just be done and once it was done, I’d just, you know … kind of go with it.”