The Shippers(89)

As well as by keeping wildly, frantically busy every single minute.

Still, though—nightmare singing scenarios came at me all day like I was being dive-bombed by pelicans. What if I croaked like a frog? What if I burst into tears? What if Ashley burst into tears? What if somebody filmed it all and put it up on YouTube? Tone-deaf maid of honor destroys family with worst toast ever—and you’ll never believe what happened next!

What happened next?

I so badly wanted never to know.

But there was no way out. I’d be living through this day, and this wedding, and this reception, and this serenade, whether I wanted to or not.

Alone.

I wished over and over that I’d never agreed to let Cooper help me.

It was bad facing this alone. But thinking for a while that I didn’t have to—before reverting back, again, to facing it alone?

A hundred thousand times worse.

I comforted myself with the idea that time doesn’t play favorites. It tromps along at its own pace no matter what. Moments you wished could last forever moved at the exact same tempo as moments you wished were already over. All you had to do was just not die.

I pep-talked myself. I could do that, right? Not perish for the length of one song?

Guess we were about to find out.





Twenty-Nine


THE WEDDING ITSELF was undeniably lovely, held out on the aft deck on our final night at sea after we set sail for Texas—with a ribbon of wake in the water behind us and an orange-and-purple sunset as a backdrop.

I tried to focus on my sister’s happiness and not my own misery, I swear.

I tried to stand up there in my genuinely lovely pink organza strapless bridesmaid dress and feel insistently grateful that Ashley’s newly altered gown draped perfectly now and made her look like an absolute goddess. I tried to focus on that blazing sunset, and the thrill of the breeze, and how Grandma Dodie had brought her new gentleman friend, Edward, as her plus-one, and how my parents were now sitting side by side in the front row—holding hands.

There really was so much to feel lucky about.

But the dread of the serenade pierced through everything.

And fine. I’ll say it. It wasn’t just dread.

It was dread plus heartbreak.

Thanks a lot, Cooper.

Name any emotion that it sucks to feel, and I was feeling it.

So, yeah. It was hard to just decide to be happy.

But I sure did fake it.

Once the deed was done, we took a thousand photos before we lost the light. And then we went inside to the ballroom, and I stared at—but could not bring myself to eat—a pale white chicken cutlet with capers on top … while sitting next to Cooper’s empty seat.

I cut the meat and rearranged the pieces, covering my plate with a hundred tiny cubes like mosaic tiles.

That’s when Ashley raised her glass and clinked it, and as we all got quiet, she thanked us for being here, declared earnestly that it had been the best week of her life, and announced that her sister, JoJo, was going to kick things off.

And so here we were. We’d arrived at my moment of not dying.

I rose and walked toward the microphone. I wasn’t sure I could feel my legs. And was that a rushing sound in my ears, or just the ocean outside being noisy? We’d set the A/C in this room too low, that much was certain, at least. What was it in here? Forty degrees? I had actual goose bumps on my arms.

I picked up the microphone with cold hands and turned around to face the room.

What was I supposed to do again? Not die?

I didn’t like my chances.

The sight of all those faces turned toward me prompted an icy crackle of fear in my chest—and I remembered the tragic feedback loop of how being afraid can make being afraid worse.

But I ignored it. I brought the mic closer to my mouth, and I clutched it tight.

So tight, my hands felt like the metal claws in those claw machines.

And then I just stood there.

I couldn’t sing. But I also couldn’t not sing.

I couldn’t do the thing Ashley wanted—but I also, apparently, couldn’t let her down and not do the thing she wanted, either.

And so I just … froze.

I froze with a miserable smile on my face, and I listened as the pleasant ambient sound of forks on plates and cups on saucers shifted into a building murmur of concern.

But that’s when, as I was really just about to change my bet on the dying thing, I saw a figure moving through the room and coming toward me.

Cooper.



* * *



FOR REAL: COOPER.

The same Cooper who had missed the boat. The same Cooper who had quit the wedding. The same Cooper who had—in no uncertain terms—left.

Here he was. Magically returned, somehow.

Ashley’s tropical vision for her wedding involved linen and pastels. To my horror, on her “Ashley & Brody Forever” home page, she’d encouraged the men to wear linen suits to the ceremony with their own choice of solid tie. Tropical, three-piece, beige linen suits.

“Beige?” I’d demanded, when I saw the look.

But Ashley held up a hand, like Stop. “Not beige. Natural.”

Needless to say, most of the wedding guests were not pulling off this look.

Even Brody, ostensibly the most important man there, looked a bit wrinkled.

But then Cooper walked in, mini banjo in hand.