Archie’s mother came by with the wedding planner and asked the Stockton family to stay together—the photographer would be taking pictures of the groom’s side shortly. Sasha and Cord were starving, so they made a beeline for the waitstaff, who were starting to circulate with appetizers. Cord had long ago perfected the art of eating like an absolute pig at weddings. He loved crispy coconut shrimp and tiny beef Wellington, skewers of chicken and little lattice chips topped with tuna tartare, so he quickly identified where the servers were emerging from the tent and stood nearby so that he could intercept each tray. He was shameless. He would stride right up to a group of strangers helping themselves to golden triangles of fluffy pastry exclaiming, “Oh! What do we have here?” even when he’d already sampled half a dozen. Georgiana was usually just as bad. They ate like wild animals together and delighted in chasing the waiters, while their mother was obviously horrified, but tonight Georgiana only stared glassily out at the water. Sasha wished desperately she could tell Cord his sister’s secret, wished he could try to help her through this, but she knew better. Georgiana had trusted her.
Cord had just put a martini glass filled with crab legs in Georgiana’s hand when a server rushed out of the tent holding a clattering rack of champagne flutes. Georgiana drew back to get out of the way and bumped her elbow into a tent pole, dumping the entire glass of crab and cocktail sauce down her front.
“Oh shit,” she swore. Bright red tomato juice soaked her chest, her dress ruined. Cord grabbed a stack of white serviettes, but it was beyond help. No amount of blotting could save her.
“Oh, Georgiana, the photos are in five minutes,” her mother said with dismay.
“I’ll go see if they have Shout wipes or something in the ladies’ room.” Sasha excused herself and dashed inside. There were small baskets in the lounge filled with breath mints, bobby pins, hair spray, and tissues. Georgiana came up behind her.
“Anything?”
“No, only hair spray and mints.”
“Here, I’ll just wet a paper towel.”
“You can’t use water on silk. You’ll completely destroy your dress.”
“I don’t think it can get any worse,” Georgiana said despondently.
“If you bring it to the dry cleaner they can probably fix it. But if you put a wet paper towel on it you’ll make a water ring that won’t come out.”
“Fuck.” Georgiana looked glumly in the mirror.
“Here, trade dresses.” Sasha reached behind her back and unbuttoned herself.
“Oh my God, no way.”
“I have another dress at the house. You can put this on and do family photos and I’ll just take an Uber back and change. I’ll be here for dinner. I don’t know anyone anyway. It’s totally fine.” Sasha stepped out of her blue silk dress and stood in her bra and underwear holding the dress expectantly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, now don’t make me stand here naked!” Sasha laughed.
Georgiana worked her damp and tomato-scented dress up over her head. “You’re so smart to pack two dresses, I never would have thought of that.”
“Oh, I never know what to wear with your family, so I bring options.”
Georgiana stepped into the blue sheath and turned so that Sasha could button her up. It was a little tight, but fine, and Sasha felt a rush of happiness and sisterly warmth. Sasha slipped the lavender dress over her own head and then cocked her hip in the mirror and grinned, the stain more disgusting than ever. “Okay, I’m going to wait in the driveway for my Uber. Tell Cord I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
“Thanks, Sasha.” Georgiana leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek before heading back out to the lawn for photos.
* * *
—
When Sasha got back to the rented house she flopped down on the bed, careful not to kick the low ceiling. How long could she get away with hiding from the wedding? She pulled out her phone and contemplated watching half an hour of something on Netflix. Surely nobody would miss her for that long. She put her hand on her flat belly. Hello in there. But then, guiltily, she got up and changed, calling a car to go back to the festivities.
By the time she found Cord, the family photos were over and cocktail hour was winding down. The seating chart had been arranged so that the Stockton siblings were separated, Darley and Malcolm across the room with the D.C. cousins, Georgiana seated with some younger siblings and her best friend, a cousin named Barbara who everyone called Bubbles, while Sasha and Cord were stuck with a table of bankers. Sasha shook hands and kissed cheeks with everyone at the table and then sat down next to Cord, carefully tucking her small handbag behind her back and draping her shawl across the chair.
“Finally,” the man to her right grinned hugely, sticking out his hand, “I get to meet Cord’s better half.”
“Oh, hello.” Sasha laughed uncertainly. It always struck her as sort of funny when a man described a woman as his “better half.” It was said in a joking way, in the same way they might say, “My wife is the boss,” and you knew they didn’t really mean it. The phrase somehow inherently raised the prospect of status in a marriage: one half was better, one half was worse. Sasha knew that to most of Cord’s family he was unequivocally the better half.
“I was so sorry to miss your wedding,” the man continued. He was slightly older than Cord, but had his same exact nose, and Sasha found herself staring at it, hypnotized as he spoke. “I wanted to come, but my wife was nine months pregnant with our fourth and I was too afraid of missing the big moment.”
“Oh, so you have a new baby! Congratulations.” Sasha smiled.
“Thank you. It’s a hole-punch thing like at the coffee shop—tenth one free, so I’m almost halfway there.”
“Noah, stop flirting with my wife,” Cord said, leaning over.
“Cord, stop interrupting me while I flirt.” The man waved Cord away. “Sasha, I hear you’re an entrepreneur and you started your own business. Tell me about it.”
Sasha rarely thought of herself as an entrepreneur, but it was true that she worked for herself. After she graduated from art school she took as job as a designer at a boutique media agency. She designed book jackets and advertisements, corporate annual reports and catalogs. After moving up the ranks at the agency she set up her own design firm, realizing she could earn more money and focus on the kinds of projects she enjoyed, looking at a brand as a whole, coming up with an entire look and visual story. She leased a small office down in Dumbo where she kept a computer and where she could send and receive packages, and at thirty-five she was making more money than either of her parents ever had. She was, by her own definition, a success.
It wasn’t the sort of success that meant much to other people. Her parents and her brothers knew she ran her own business, knew she did design work for brands they had heard of—the Transit Museum, Brooklinen, Sixpoint Brewery, the New York Philharmonic—but her work was abstract enough that nobody wanted to really spend time talking about it. Her in-laws were perhaps even less impressed, if that were possible. Sometimes it seemed that everyone in their orbit worked in finance, law, or real estate, and any field beyond that was irrelevant or possibly déclassé. Sure, Sasha wanted to be an artist. Yes, she would rather spend her days drawing and painting. But she had her drink and draw sessions and meanwhile had found a way to fold art into her life, to use her talents to make money.