I Take You (3 page)

Yes. They’re meeting for the first time.

Mom’s speechless. She turns pink. “This is … I’m so … this is amazing!” She ignores his outstretched hand and hugs him, too.

The grey-haired lady is hovering around us. “Oh, sorry!” Mom says. “I forgot! Lily and Will, this is Mattie.”

Mattie. Our wedding planner. Mom hired her five months ago, when Will and I got engaged and decided to have the wedding down here. Although “hired” might be the wrong word. Liberated from an asylum? Rescued from a storm drain, where she was adjusting the antenna on her mind-control helmet and crooning to the manatees? Because Mattie is completely—

“Thank
goodness
you made it!” She clutches my hand in her skinny little paw. “I was so
worried.
The weatherman said there was a low-pressure zone over the Southeast, and a storm building over the Atlantic. All I could think about was you and Will, trapped on a
plane
!” Her bright blue eyes widen. “There was a flight stranded last year in Minneapolis
for twenty-eight hours! A seeing eye dog had a
seizure
! What if that happened to
you
?”

Help me, Epictetus. Luggage finally starts tumbling onto the carousel. Mattie is standing right next to me. I edge away. She fidgets closer. I’m about to tell her that she’s going to need a flashlight pretty soon when she clears her throat and says, “Lily? Did you get my … my thing?”

“Your thing?”

“Yes, my, my … oh, God bless it!” She slaps her forehead. “What’s the word? My … you know … with the …?” And she wiggles her fingers.

“Piano?” I say, taking a wild stab.

“No no no, it’s the thing with the … and you use the …?” She’s still doing the finger thing.

“Gloves?” I say. “Fake fingernails? Little baby worms?”

“
E-mail!
” she cries. “Did you get my e-mail?”

Mattie has a bad memory. It made our phone conversations a challenge. “No,” I say. “Nothing today.”

She frowns. “Aren’t computers so unreliable?”

“Actually, they’re pretty—”

“I’ll just tell you what I wrote. I wrote—” She breaks off and starts whirling around. “The gown! Where’s the wedding gown?”

“It’s okay,” I say, trying to calm her down. “Freddy’s got it.”

“Well, he’d better give it
back
!”

My hangover is threatening to return with a vengeance. Fortunately Will steps in. “Freddy is Lily’s maid of honor. She made the dress. She’s flying into Miami this afternoon and driving down with another bridesmaid.”

Mattie nods slowly. “I see. That’s … well, I don’t want to question your judgment, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea. There’s that low-pressure zone, and you know how inexperienced drivers skid right off Seven-Mile Bridge
all
the time… .”

Our suitcases finally appear, and we head out to the parking lot. I glance at Mom.

“Don’t,” she says.

I hold up my hands. “I didn’t.”

“Our options were very limited,” she points out.

“I didn’t say anything, Mom!”

She ignores me, getting all worked up. “This is what happens when you’re in such a rush to get married!”

I tilt my face to the sun. The sky is a brilliant blue, and a breeze off the ocean rustles the leaves of the tall palms circling the parking lot. Hard to believe that only five hours ago Will and I were in slushy, grey New York. “Relax, Mom. Mattie’s a gem. She’s going to be a wonderfully Zen influence on us all.”

We both laugh. Then she asks, “Are you happy to be home?”

I hear the concern in her voice. I turn and see it in her eyes. I throw my arm around her shoulders and kiss her cheek. “Very.”

She looks like she’s about to say more, but instead she starts helping Will load our suitcases into the trunk of Mattie’s car.

“Now, Lily.” Mattie glances at me in the rearview as she steers out of the lot. “First thing tomorrow we need to go to Blue Heaven and review the menu for the rehearsal supper.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n.”

“Oh, I’m not the captain of this ship!” Mattie laughs. “I’m just the … the …”

“Bosun?” I say.

“Swabbie?” Will suggests.

“Master gunner?”

“Powder monkey?”

Mom turns around and gives us a look like Children, please.

“First mate,”
Mattie says brightly. “You’re the captain, and I’m the first mate. But about the rehearsal. We have a number of options. We can do fish, or we can do pasta, or chicken, or chicken with pasta, or fish and chicken
together
, although I’m not sure that’s wise… .”

We’re driving along the south shore of the island. To our left is Smathers Beach. Sails dotting the horizon, volleyballs flying through the air, pale bodies littering the sand. Bicyclists and skateboarders and drunks clutching paper sacks. Standard Florida wintertime fun.

“They do an excellent appetizer. It’s called … oh, I forget what it’s called. Something to do with raw seafood. But perhaps that’s not a good
idea, now that I’m giving it a little bit of a think. Perhaps not. After all, you wouldn’t want to
poison
everyone the night before the wedding… .”

“Not everyone,” Will says agreeably.

We pass a block of shabby pink condos, a scrubby park, a motel. We could be anywhere—anywhere poor and southern and sad—except that to our right, visible between buildings and through rusted chain-link fences, are the salt ponds, long abandoned, slowly being reclaimed by the mangroves, and the feeding pelicans, and the silence.

I lean forward and tap Mom on the shoulder. “When do Jane and Ana get here?”

“They arrived last night,” she replies.

“Really?”

“Yep!” She quickly turns to Mattie and asks her a question.

“Your stepmothers?” Will asks. I nod. The wedding isn’t for six more days. I wonder why they’re here already.

Mattie takes a right, then a left onto Truman. We pass an auto-parts store, a self-storage lot, a supermarket. A large strip club, its parking lot empty this early on a Sunday. All at once, things get lush. The vegetation takes over, crowding the ramshackle buildings on their tiny lots. Palm and banana-flower trees, snow bushes and oleander, hibiscus. A million other trees and shrubs whose names I don’t remember, or never knew. And bougainvillea everywhere, trailing along the white picket fences and climbing the low concrete walls, crazy and pink and relentless.

We’re on White Street now, entering my old neighborhood. Bring on the quaint! The streets are narrow, some only one-way alleys dark with foliage. The sidewalks are cracked and weedy. But the homes—tiny shotgun cottages, towering Victorians, pastel conch houses—are beautiful. They flash by, only a detail springing out here and there. A set of tall white shutters. A sloping tin roof. A porch ceiling painted sky blue.

I relax into the backseat and squeeze Will’s hand. I thought it would be strange, coming home. I thought it would be hard after so long. But it feels natural. It’s like a warm embrace.

Meanwhile, Mattie has barely paused for breath. “Martin has recommended gardenias for the centerpieces, but I wonder whether that strikes the right tone.”

“Who’s Martin?” Will asks.

“The florist,” Mattie says. “He’s very talented, but I’m worried that he’s not quite …” She taps her forehead. “
All there
, if you know what I mean.”

A scrawny chicken darts across the road. Two kids on bikes appear out of nowhere, racing alongside the car. A girl and a boy, maybe ten, maybe twelve. My heart stops. It’s me and Teddy. For an instant I’m sure of it. The boy has sun-streaked, shaggy hair. The girl is all arms and legs. They’re screaming with laughter, swerving around potholes, banging into each other. The boy glances over his shoulder and starts pedaling faster. They veer down a side street, skidding, almost crashing. The boy hollers. The girl shrieks. Our car keeps moving.

I twist around, craning my neck to look out the back window. But I’m too late. They’re gone.

Will is watching me. “Friends of yours?”

I try to think of an answer, but I can’t. So I shake my head, and smile, and say nothing.

A few more turns
, a few more beautiful old Florida blocks, and we’re home. Our bags are barely out of the trunk before Mattie tears off, muttering something about napkin rentals. I gaze up at the house. My house. It’s an old island Queen Anne with a double-decker veranda and a round tower on one side. Lavish scrollwork drips from every available surface, barely visible through the palms and the banyans in our tiny front yard.

Will looks impressed. “You grew up here?”

“It seemed so much bigger back then,” I say.

“Maybe the new color makes it look smaller,” Mom suggests. “Do you like it? I did a little research at the preservation commission last year—this is the original yellow.”

Will turns to her with amazement. “How did you match it?”

Mom launches into an earnest explanation as he listens, rapt. He’s not kissing her ass, either—he lives for random historical details like this. I push through the wooden gate and run up the steps.

Ana is hovering just inside the front door. “Lilybear!” She hurls herself at me like a tiny tornado. “How the hell are you? How was the flight? Look at your hair—good Christ!”

Will follows me in. “Is this Will?” Ana says. “Listen to me—what a moron. Of course it’s Will!”

“Will, my stepmother Ana. Ana, Will.”

He holds out his hand. “This is such an honor.”

She takes his hand in both of hers and gives him a dazzling smile. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, Will. I get far more death threats than compliments. Last week, I—”

“Ana. You’re tearing his arm off.”

“Sorry!” She lets loose with her raucous laugh. “Professional hazard.”

Will laughs, too. He seems totally comfortable around her, which is a relief. Ana tends to intimidate people. She’s in Congress—serving her eighth term in the House, one of the distinguished gentlewomen from California—so she’s got a real aura of power about her, which is somehow magnified by the fact that she’s barely five feet tall. She’s fierce and scrappy—famous for her tirades on the Sunday talk shows and for antagonizing her constituents at town-hall meetings. She’ll say anything, to anyone, which tends to provoke either fanatical devotion or homicidal rage.

She looks wonderful. I haven’t seen her since July, when she was in New York for a fund-raiser. There, she was dressed in one of her ugly power suits and all cranky from having to ask rich people for money. Here, she’s the real Ana—long hair loose, eyes twinkling. I hug her again. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I whisper.

She whispers back, “We need to talk.”

“Lily darling.” We all look up as Jane descends the staircase. She’s wearing a shimmery blue dress and scary-high heels. Her perfectly straight, perfectly platinum hair floats gently around her. She zeroes in on Will, showing him her expensive teeth. The poor boy is going to go blind from all this smiling.

“Will, this is my stepmother Jane,” I say. “Jane, Will.”

She holds out an elegant hand. “I hope your flight down wasn’t as wretched as mine,” she says, in her flat, slightly bored voice. She’s looking him in the eye, but I know she’s also appraising every inch of him—clothes, shoes, haircut.

“Oh, no!” Will says, sincerely concerned. “You had a rough flight?”

But she’s already turned to me, all business. “Let me see it.”

I give her my left hand. She scrutinizes the ring from a distance, then closer. She turns it on my finger. Her brow would be furrowing right now, except that it hasn’t done that in years. She looks up at me at last. “Where is the diamond?”

Will clears his throat. “There isn’t one. It’s a replica of a Roman ring in the British Museum. The Romans didn’t use gemstones in their—”

“And why is it all … scratched like this?” Jane asks, picking at the ring with a sharp fingernail.

“I had an inscription added,” Will says hopelessly. “In Latin.”

I pull my hand away. “Give it a rest, Janey. I love my ring.”

“So do I,” says Mom, coming through the front door. “It’s very artisanal.”

I can feel Will cringing. He hates that word. Jane gives me a look of boundless pity, then drifts toward the living room. Will watches her go. I squeeze his arm sympathetically. I always marvel at how Jane is the opposite of Ana, in almost every way. She’s cultured and poised. A fancy society type who spends her time organizing galas and minimizing her cleavage wrinkles. Condescending to maître d’s and pretending to care about art. Hiring huntsmen to lead all the younger, prettier women into the woods and … you know.

“Gran!” I yell.

“Kitchen!” she yells back. Something crashes in the distance.

I turn to Ana, who’s typing on her phone. “She’s not cooking, is she?”

Ana nods grimly.

“Is that a bad thing?” asks Will.

Before I can answer, Gran shoots through the dining room with crazy hair and flour on her nose. “Finally!” she growls. I get another crushing hug. Then she leans in to smell my breath.

“Cut it out!” I whisper, pushing her away. “Gran, this is Will. Will, this is my grandmother Isabel.”

Gran looks him up and down while she takes his hand. “What a pleasure,” she says. “I’ve heard
so little
about you.”

He laughs. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

I clap my hands together. “I have an idea—let’s go out for lunch!”

Gran yanks on a lock of my hair. “Nice try. Food’s ready.”

We file into the dining room and sit down. The table is a crime scene. There’s a sickly looking salad, slabs of greyish meat heaped on a platter and a tureen filled with … I don’t even know what that is. Gruel, maybe? We fill our plates dutifully. Silence descends, interrupted by occasional gagging noises.

“Thank you, Isabel,” Will says. “This is delicious.”

Ana smothers a laugh. Mom sighs. Jane shakes her head sadly.

Gran points her fork at Ana, who’s checking her phone. “Put that machine away before I toss it into the fucking street.”

“Mother, please!” Mom says. “We have a guest!”

“I’m expecting an important e-mail,” Ana protests.

“Do it, Izzie,” Jane drawls. “You’d be performing a public service.”