“Get up there and say something!” Gabe pushes Ari off Radhya’s lap, snapping her out of the thought spiral.
“Why?”
“Sentimental crap makes people more willing to spend money. Get up there and say something fucking moving!”
Radhya holds out a plastic champagne flute in Ari’s direction. “You have like two dozen wedding-related speeches on your phone, dude.” When Ari doesn’t take the drink, she gives a tiny shrug, pulls her hand back, and downs the prosecco herself. “Just please God, not that paragraph from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or the Apache Prayer.”
Nodding absently, Ari makes her way around the merch table, nearly tripping on her way to the stage as the DJ fades the song out. An unsettling hush falls over the bar. She picks the microphone up off the floor, triggering a surge of feedback.
“How about that, everyone? Beautiful, right?” She takes a breath. “Gabe’s been running this fundraiser for ten years and I think this is our first engagement. Congratulations to Kyle and Cameron!” There’s a smattering of applause and whistles.
She swallows and scrolls her Notes app, pausing on a speech labeled “Toast from a Cynical Father of the Bride Who Doesn’t Want to Mess Around with the Creep Factor of ‘Giving His Little Girl Away.’？” That’s literally the title. It’ll have to do.
“Here’s the thing, Rach—er, Cameron.” She clears her throat and reads off the screen. “When you fall in love with someone, you’re all optimism. You have no sense of the hardships you’ll face in a few years. You’re thinking ‘This is it!’ because, uh, Kyle makes you happy. But the truth is…”
Ari barely remembers writing this. Maybe it happened in a fugue state. A sativa haze. A NyQuil-and-tequila fog.
“The truth is…happiness is really complicated. It’s fickle.” Radhya’s face resembles the Chrissy Teigen awkward cry face meme. “People are too worried about being happy. If you want to be happy all the time, just watch cat videos. They’re fucking great.” There’s a very light smattering of chuckles. Gabe makes a smile gesture with his index fingers. “No one should marry the person who makes them happy. Marry the person you want by your side at your lowest p-point. Marry the person you…you never get sick of. Who you always want more from. Who makes you proud to be theirs.”
There’s an unmistakable constriction in Ari’s throat now, remembering where these words came from. Kyle and Cameron nod. She blinks rapidly, staving off the threat of tears. Because, if she’s being honest with herself, the Josh-shaped hole doesn’t actually feel like it’s closing.
“But if you…” She looks down but the phone is useless; the words are illegible now. “If you do happen to find your person, it’s an act of courage to tell them that. To say, ‘please love me back.’ To let someone else hold your heart in their hands, knowing it could—actually, it probably will—end badly. Knowing that they’re going to fuck up. Knowing you’ll both hurt each other. But if that’s your person, it’s worth the risk. Because your person will see the best version of you. They’ll have a whole list of reasons why they think you’re irreplaceable. And they’ll tell you.” Ari feels hot tears slipping down her cheeks. “If you want to watch someone you love grow into the person you know they can be, that’s when you get married.”
A hush falls over the crowd—less a “stunned silence” than an “ummm, is she…done?” vibe.
She doesn’t really care if they think she’s crazy or drunk or incredibly moved by her own words. Somewhere on this island is the person she wants to talk to right before falling asleep. The person who knows exactly how she wants to be kissed. Who wanted to hold her hand and wake up with her and take her out for breakfast and maybe become a better person than he was eight years ago.
Gabe jogs up to the stage, gently removes the mic from her hand, gives her a little shove off the stage, and raises a champagne glass. “To the happy couple!” He signals the DJ and launches into a rendition of “Wonder of Wonders” that’s bombastic even by Gabe standards.
Ari stumbles toward Radhya. There’s an idea gaining momentum, moving in a straight shot through her mind.
“Are you okay?” Radhya asks, handing Ari a prosecco. “That was—”
“Where’s Josh?”
Rad takes out her phone. “I think Briar’s boyfriend roped him into some running thing that sounded cold and miserable. Very on-brand for Kestenberg.” She opens Instagram. “Here, I think she tagged him—”