with Bridget and her family. We’d spend the days babysitting her brothers, ages twelve, ten, and five, and going to her neighborhood pool, where we planned to work on our tans and the crushes we had on Sam and Steve Schroeder, the twins in our grade who lived at the end of her cul-de-sac.
But first, there was tonight and the wedding, here at the Lakeview Country Club, where the ballroom had been lined with twinkling lights and fluttering tulle and we, along with two hundred other guests, had just finished a sit-down dinner. Despite the lavishness of the celebration, the ceremony itself had been simple, with me as Tracy’s maid of honor and Nana standing up with my dad as his “Best Gran.” (One of the wedding planners, a dapper man named William, had come up with this moniker, and he was clearly very proud of it.) I’d been allowed to choose my own dress, which I was pretty sure was Tracy’s way of trying to make it not a big deal but instead did the opposite, as who wants to make the wrong decision when you are one of only four people in the wedding party? Never mind that I was an anxious girl, always had been, and choices of any kind were my kryptonite. I’d ended up in such a panic I bought two dresses, then decided at the last minute. But even now, as I sat in my baby-blue sheath with the spaghetti straps, I was thinking of the pink gown with the full skirt at home, and wondering if I should have gone with it instead. I sighed, then reorganized my place setting, putting the silverware that remained squarely on my folded napkin and adjusting the angle of my water glass.
“You okay?” Ryan asked me. We’d been friends for so long, she knew my coping mechanisms almost better than I did. Perpetually messy herself, she’d often told me she wished she, too, had the urge to keep the world neat and tidy. But everything is welcome until you can’t stop, and I’d been like this for longer than I cared to remember.
“Fine,” I said, dropping my hand instead of lining up the flowers, glass jar of candy, and candle as I’d been about to do. “It’s just a big night.”
“Of course it is!” Bridget said. There was that optimism again. “Which is why I think we need to celebrate.”
I raised my eyebrows at Ryan, who just shrugged, clearly not in on whatever Bridget was planning. Which, as it turned out, was turning to the table beside us, which had been full of young hygienists from my dad’s office until they all hit the dance floor, and switching out the bottle of sparkling cider from our ice bucket for the champagne in theirs.
“Bridget,” Ryan hissed. “You’re going to get us so busted!”
“By who? They’re already all tipsy, they won’t even notice.” She quickly filled our flutes before burying the bottle back in ice. Then she picked up her glass, gesturing for us to do the same. “To Dr. Payne and Dr. Feldman.”
“To Dad and Tracy,” I said.
“Bottoms up,” added Ryan.
We clinked glasses, Bridget with a bit too much enthusiasm, champagne sloshing onto the table in front of her. I watched them both suck down big gulps—Ryan wincing—as I looked at my glass.
“It’s good!” Bridget told me. “Even if you don’t drink.”
“My mom says it’s bad luck to toast and not imbibe,” Ryan added. “Just take a tiny sip.”
I just looked at them. They knew I wasn’t a drinker, just as they knew exactly why. Sighing, I picked up my flute and took a gulp. Immediately, my nose was tingling, prickles filling my brain. “Ugh,” I said, chasing it with water right away. “How can you really enjoy that?”
“It’s like drinking sparkles,” Bridget replied, holding the glass up to the light just as Nana had, the bubbles drifting upward.
“Spoken like a true princess.” Ryan tipped her glass back, finishing it, then gave herself a refill. “And my mom also says nobody really likes champagne. Only how it makes you feel.”
“All I feel is that everything is changing,” I said. Saying it aloud, it suddenly felt more true than ever.
“But in good ways!” Bridget said. “Right? New stepmom, new house, and before that, new summer full of potential . . .”
“For you two,” Ryan grumbled. “I’ll be stuck in the mountains with no internet, with only my dad and some drama nerds for company.”