* * *
AND WE JUST WANT TO say that we wish you all the happiness in the world,” Priya said as she lifted her glass. She was standing with the Jennys at their end of the table as they gave their shared toast.
“Yes,” Jenny W. said, raising her glass as well. “We love you both and want nothing but a wonderful future for you guys.”
“But,” Jenny K. said, her brows drawing together. “Rodney. If you do anything to hurt Linnie . . .”
“Anything at all,” Priya added, her voice growing low and serious.
“We will find you and it will not be pretty.” All the bridesmaids glowered at Rodney for a second. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, keeping a faltering smile on his face, like he wasn’t entirely sure if they were joking or not.
But then Priya smiled and raised her glass again, and the Jennys followed suit. “To the happy couple!”
I smiled and raised my own glass, then set it down and speared another forkful of chocolate cake. So far, the dinner had been going great, the bridesmaids’ speech notwithstanding. All twenty-one of us were around one long table—Linnie and Rodney, Rodney’s parents and mine, Max, Brooke, my brothers, Jesse, Rodney’s sister and brother-in-law, me, his cousin Marcus and his wife, the bridesmaids, and Uncle Stu. Bill had done a great job with the decorations—everything was arranged beautifully, and there wasn’t a koala to be seen.
As the food was being served, Rodney and Linnie had welcomed everyone, thanked them for coming to share this occasion with them, and talked about how much the assembled guests meant to them. Linnie had only gotten teary once during this. For the most part, she had held it together, which I thought was a pretty good sign for tomorrow.
Rodney and Linnie had divided the toasts up so that some people would give them at the rehearsal dinner and some people would give them at the wedding. My mother had given one about how she felt like she’d watched Rodney growing up alongside Linnie, and how he’d felt like her son for long before it would become official tomorrow. Rodney had sniffled when she’d said this and then had had to clear his throat loudly before he could thank her once she was finished.
Things had started to go off the rails when my uncle Stu decided to give his own speech, which was basically a pitch to join him in selling supplements. Rodney’s dad had redeemed things somewhat with his speech, talking about how proud he was of Rodney and how big transitions like this are always a challenge—but necessary to have the kind of life you can be proud of. When the General finished his speech, most people were blinking very intently down at their place settings.
The bridesmaids’ speech had started out sentimental, with Jenny K., as the maid of honor, kicking things off with an anecdote about when she first became friends with Linnie. But when the other bridesmaids joined in, the toast basically turned into a litany of stories about Linnie from college that I was fairly certain a roomful of relatives didn’t necessarily need to hear and now was finishing up with a not-so-subtle threat of bodily harm.
I set my fork down and glanced toward the other end of the table, where Jesse was sitting. He was looking down at his place setting, though, and I glanced away before it became obvious that I was staring. We hadn’t had a chance to talk yet, just the two of us, although occasionally I would glance in his direction to find that he was looking at me and I’d hold his gaze for as long as I felt I could without drawing suspicion. It was, I had found, a unique kind of torture to be this close to Jesse, in the same room as him, and still not be able to talk. Because there was so much I needed to know: When he’d said he would see me tonight, was this it? Or were we actually going to have time alone together? I’d thought about texting Jesse, but the last thing I wanted was for Mike to see my number on his screen and start asking questions.
Not that I was entirely sure Mike would have noticed—even as I was mostly looking at Jesse, I couldn’t help but see that Mike would smile and clap when everyone was smiling and clapping, but mostly he was hunched over the drink Danny had gotten him, not looking like he was making much of a dent in it.
Our waitress was walking around with coffee, and I nodded for a refill, pushing my cup forward and taking another bite of cake. I looked around and saw, to my surprise, Bill standing by the back doors. I’d seen him rushing around with his uncle before the dinner began, but I’d just assumed that once things had gotten going, he would have left. He met my eye, and I gave him a smile, starting to raise my hand in a wave before I realized I was still holding my fork. I quickly set it down, then checked to make sure I hadn’t gotten chocolate on my dress.
“Okay, my turn.” J.J. was standing up a few seats down the table from me, clearing his throat and holding up his phone. “I hope you don’t mind—I wrote down my notes for my toast on this. I’m not, like, texting someone.” There was scattered laughter, and he smiled broadly at the assembled guests before taking a deep breath. “So. I’d like to start by sharing a story about my dear older sister, Linnea. I think she knows the one I’m going to say.” Linnie groaned and buried her head in her hands, and J.J. nodded. “Oh, she knows. So. When she was ten and I was seven, she had me convinced, I mean absolutely convinced—” The low, thumping beat of electronica music suddenly filled the room, and J.J. frowned at his phone. “Whoops, that’s me.” He squinted at the screen, and then his face brightened. “Oh, awesome,” he said as he answered the call and pressed the button to put it on speaker. “Hello?”
I glanced over to see both Linnie and Rodney exchange a glance and my mother staring daggers at J.J., clearly trying to get him back on track, apparently forgetting who she was dealing with.
“Um, hello?” the voice on the other end of the phone said. It was a guy, and he sounded unsure. “J.J.?”
“Yes, it’s me,” J.J. said. “Thanks so much for getting back to me.”
“Sure,” the voice said, not sounding all that enthusiastic to be speaking to my brother. “What’s up, man? Is everything okay?”
“Yep. I just had a question for you. Your name is what, again?”
“J.J., you know my name,” the guy said, now speaking more slowly. “You called me, remember?”
“I know, I just needed to check something. If you could just tell me your name. Your full name.”
I met Danny’s eye two seats down from me. He shook his head and then gave me a half shrug and eye roll combo, a series of tiny, quick gestures that I could nonetheless understand perfectly: No, I have no idea what he’s doing. But really, what did we expect?
“Uh,” the guy on the other end said. “It’s Billiam. Billiam Kirby.”
“Billiam!” J.J. said triumphantly, raising the phone above his head. “See? Did I tell you? Did I tell you?” Most of the guests just stared blankly back at him while my dad gave him the hand-across-the-throat gesture that in our family had always meant shut it down.
“No way,” Rodney muttered, reaching for his wallet.
“Dammit.” Danny sighed, tossing his napkin onto the table. “I owe him twenty-five bucks.”
“He got me for fifty,” Rodney said, shaking his head.
I turned around to look at Bill, still standing at the back of the room. He caught my eye and shook his head, but I saw he was smiling.
“A little louder, if you don’t mind,” J.J. said, raising the microphone to his phone again. “Nice and loud so that everyone can hear you. You’re on speaker.”
“I . . . am?” Billiam asked, sounding taken aback. “Uh—where?”
“My sister’s rehearsal dinner.”
“Wait, what?”
“Here, I’ll show you.” J.J. held his phone out toward the table, moving it back and forth. “Say hi, everyone.”
“Hi,” a few people murmured, distinctly unenthusiastically.
“Wait,” Billiam said on the other end of the phone. “I don’t understand any of this. What’s going on?”
“I just needed you to verify your name, that’s all. And it worked out great, because now there’s a ton of witnes
ses.”
“J.J.,” Billiam said, incredulity creeping into his voice, “was this seriously what you called me about? You said it was an emergency.”
“This was the emergency,” J.J. said. “I mean, come on, like you were doing something more pressing?”
“You know I work for the Pentagon now, right?” Billiam asked, his tone getting very cold.
“Hey, good for you!” J.J. said. “Well, it was nice to catch up. Let me know if you ever need Pirates tickets.”
“What—” Billiam started from the other end, just as J.J. hung up on him. He set down his phone and picked up his glass. “To the happy couple!”
* * *
An hour later, the rehearsal dinner had technically passed the end point specified on the invitation, but nobody seemed in a huge hurry to leave and the party had just moved into the lobby, much to the apparent dismay of the guy behind the check-in counter, who was sending unhappy looks our way. Rodney’s cousin Marcus had left, and his sister and brother-in-law—and Uncle Stu had disappeared around the time the server showed up with the bill—but aside from that, everyone was hanging out.
Right after the dinner, I’d noticed my mother and Mike standing together in the back of the lobby, talking, my mom’s face turning red, the way it did when she was upset, and Mike folding his arms tightly and looking at the floor. I’d gotten pulled into a conversation with Mrs. Daniels, and after that I hadn’t seen Mike again—or Jesse, for that matter. I wasn’t sure if Mike had left, but the thought that Jesse might have left without saying anything was making my stomach knot, and I was checking my phone far more than I knew I should be.
“Okay, where’s the bride?” This was Priya, flanked by the Jennys. “Are we ready to do this?”
“Do what?” I asked as I looked up from my phone.
“We’re taking you out,” Priya said, tugging Linnie up from her barstool.
Jenny K. slung her arm around my sister’s shoulders. “We voted. We need to have our last single-girl night.”
“Just a second,” Rodney said.
“Nope,” Jenny K. crossed in front of my sister, blocking Rodney’s path. “You get to be married to her for the rest of your life. She gets one more girls’ night with us.”
“Guys, it’s not like we’re going to not hang out after I’m married,” Linnie pointed out.
“But it won’t be the same,” Priya said, her voice going wobbly.
“Okay,” Rodney said, clearly knowing when he was beaten. He took Linnie’s hand and gave her a quick kiss, then stepped back. “Have fun. But not too much fun.” He was clearly trying for stern but not really pulling it off. “See you at home?”
“See you then,” Linnie called as she was swept out the door, laughing, pulled along by her friends.
“Rodney!” J.J. yelled at a volume that was far too loud for the lobby. “Brother-to-be! Come join us. Belly up to the bar.” Rodney smiled and walked over to join them.
“Hey.” I looked over and saw that Bill had appeared next to me. He was wearing a white button-down and a gray tie, the shirt only slightly wrinkled and the sleeves rolled up. His tie was loosened, and his hair was as eighties-movie impressive as ever. You might have mistaken him for one of the guests, except that he had a tablet and a phone in one hand and a pen tucked behind his ear.
“Hey,” I said, smiling at him—I was happier to see him than I realized I’d be. “I thought you’d left.”
“Before an event is over?” He shook his head and lowered his voice to speak gravely. “Never.”
“Well, then, thank you,” I said.
“You guys certainly have entertaining speeches. I liked the Billiam one.”
I laughed. “I thought you might. The decorations looked great.”
“Thanks,” he said, tugging at the knot on his tie. “I mean, it was a little easier without people telling me that my decoration placement was wrong. . . .” I laughed. “But it would have been a lot more fun if you were here. You, um . . .” He cleared his throat. “You look really nice.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing down at myself and smoothing out my dress. “Thank you.”
“Sure,” he said easily, giving me a smile.
Our eyes met, and it was a beat too long before I realized I’d just been staring at him without saying anything. “Um, you do too.”
“Yeah?” Bill asked, sounding pleased as he looked down at himself. “Thanks. I kind of had to get ready in my car. The shirt’s not too wrinkled?”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “Why were you getting ready in your car?”
“Well, my mom moved out of Putnam when I went to school. I’ve been staying at my uncle’s and he lives over an hour away. So I have all my clothes with me, since I knew I wouldn’t have time to go back and change before the event.”
“I didn’t know being an assistant wedding coordinator was so intense.”
“You have no idea,” he said, his voice low and faux serious, making me laugh.
“Charlie!” I looked over to see J.J. motioning me over to where he, Danny, and Rodney were all sitting at the bar. It currently looked deserted, and I wasn’t sure if this was because the bartender’s shift was over, or if he’d just gotten sick of my brothers—both seemed equally plausible. “And young Billiam! Come join us.”
I glanced over at Bill, but he was already smiling his usual wide smile—apparently he had not had enough of my family already today. As we walked over, I felt my shoes pinch for the first time—I would have to get out of them soon if I didn’t want to have blisters tomorrow.
“Here,” Danny said, taking his suit jacket off the stool next to him, clearing it for me, and I sat down.
“Thanks.” I smoothed my skirt under me and crossed my legs, letting my shoe hang off my heel and immediately feeling better about things. “Where’s Brooke?” I asked, finally noticing she wasn’t with them.
“Calling her sister,” Danny replied.
Rodney frowned down at his watch. “It’s getting kind of late, isn’t it?”
“She’s in California,” Danny explained, and Rodney nodded.
“Not so late then.”
“And Mike?” I asked as I looked around the lobby, which was emptying fast, people gathering up jackets and purses and heading toward the doors. And Jesse, I added silently.
Danny shrugged, but I could see that he looked a little worried about this. “I haven’t seen him in a bit. He probably just left early.”
I nodded, trying not to let the disappointment I was feeling show on my face.
“Did everyone have a good rehearsal dinner?” Bill asked, looking around at the group.
“No thanks to J.J.,” Rodney said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What are you still doing here?” Danny asked Bill. “Aren’t your official duties over? Considering that the event is?”
“Just making sure everything got cleaned up okay,” he replied. “Do any of you need rides back to the house?”
J.J. shook his head. “Your job sounds exhausting, young Billiam.”
“It’s okay,” Bill said with another smile. “And, uh, it’s really not Billiam. Just Bill is good. Bill Barnes.”
“That’s a good name,” J.J. said, pointing at Bill. “That’s a superhero name.”
Rodney raised an eyebrow. “How is it a superhero name?”
“The double letter thing.”
“Alliteration,” I supplied.
Danny smiled at me. “Charlie knows what’s what.” Then he turned to J.J. “I still don’t get how it’s a superhero name.”
“They all have them,” J.J. said, gesturing expansively.
“I’m waiting to hear specifics.”
“It’s true,” Rodney agreed. “You can’t make a claim like that without evidence.”
“Rodney’s a lawyer,” J.J. explained to Bill.
“Not yet,” Rodney said, shaking his head. “Not until I pass the bar.”
“That’s a total la
wyerly qualification to make,” J.J. sighed.
“Still waiting to hear examples,” Danny said as he took a sip from his nearly empty glass.
“Fine!” J.J. said, slapping his hand down on the bar. “Okay. How about . . . ?” He paused for a moment, furrowing his brow. “Peter Parker? Or Sue Storm? Or Bruce Banner?”
“Whoa,” Bill said, his eyebrows going up. “I guess I never realized that before. There are two superheroes named Bruce?”
“Who else?” I asked.
“Bruce Wayne,” Danny, J.J., Bill, and Rodney said at the same time.
“Oh, right, him.”
“Bruce Wayne is the exception,” J.J. said, shaking his head. “All the rest of them have the double letters.”
“Alliteration,” I supplied again, and Danny smiled.
“Reed Richards,” J.J. continued, starting to tick them off on his fingers. “Wade Wilson, Stephen Strange, Bucky Barnes, Lex Luthor, Lois Lane—”
“She’s not actually a superhero,” Bill pointed out.
“You’re not helping, Billiam,” J.J. snapped.
“What about . . . I don’t know . . . ,” Danny said. “Diana Prince, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Barbara Gordon, Clark Kent—”
“That sounds alliterative,” I pointed out. “So it might count on a technicality.”
“Archie Andrews,” Rodney supplied, apparently joining J.J.’s side on this. “Jughead Jones . . .”
“Okay, in what universe is Archie a superhero?” Danny asked, causing me to draw in a sharp breath.
“Hey now,” I said, and Danny rolled his eyes.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I forgot about your thing for those comics.”
“It’s J.J.’s fault,” I said, and Danny muttered, “Most things are.” J.J. had had a huge collection of Archie books that he’d declared himself over and too old for when he started eighth grade, so he’d passed them on to me. I’d loved them, nursing an elementary school crush on Reggie that I’d told nobody except Linnie about.
“There’s also Beetle Bailey—” Rodney continued, and Danny threw up his hands.
“So we’ve just moved arbitrarily into the newspaper comics?”