I made a face. This was a familiar rant from Jilly, who had been long convinced that I squandered the relative freedom I enjoyed as an only child of a single, non-food-truck-owning parent. In my shoes, she was fond of telling me, she’d be the kind of person who was always out Doing Stuff and Making Things Happen. (The specifics of what, exactly, these terms meant were never explained; as with any fantasy, vagueness was part of the appeal.) Moreover, it wasn’t just a waste of my life but of hers as well, that I willingly spent time away at the beach sitting in bed watching a news special about a murder mystery while covered in cracker crumbs. I wasn’t Jilly, and never would be, but I would have given her some of my open hours if I could have. She definitely deserved them.
The next morning, I went for an early run and jumped into the hotel pool before showering and meeting my mom and William for our scheduled nine a.m. strategy breakfast. Over a table of pastries, coffee, and fruit, we synchronized schedules, divided up our to-do list for that morning, and went over the cheat sheets I’d printed out in the hotel business center. By ten thirty, I was back in one of the vans, navigating the streets of Colby in what was basically a glorified scavenger hunt. According to my (bullet-pointed) list, we needed a hardback, attractive but not too embossed bible (the family one had been forgotten back in California), four black bow ties, and “two rolls of pennies, preferably polished.”
These items could have been challenging to procure even back in Lakeview, which had several malls and a thriving retail district downtown. Colby, however, offered up much less in terms of options, which was why an hour later I’d only gotten the bow ties. Lillie’s Occasions, the only formal wear place, did not look kindly on renting out accessories last minute. I had to promise they’d be returned by noon sharp on Sunday, pay twice the normal price, and slip the owner forty bucks cash before she’d let me take them, and even then I could feel the stink eye on me all the way out to the parking lot. So I was already visibly beaten down by the time I found a bible at the local bookstore and basically pleaded with them for some rolls of pennies from their safe, which they gave me purely out of pity.
“There you are,” my mom said to me when I finally returned to the private dining area off the ballroom we were using as ground zero for our planning. All the flower arrangements were lined up on a nearby table, programs already folded and stacked beside them. “Did you get the pennies?”
“I got some pennies,” I said, pulling the rolls from my pocket and putting them next to where she was sitting at the head of a table, her folders organized in a clock face pattern around her. Each one held a task that needed to be completed before the ceremony began, and she’d move through them accordingly, checking each off as she went. “But they aren’t polished.”
“That’s not as important as getting them on the cards.”
“Cards?”
Instead of answering, she reached for a yellow folder not in the clock face, pulling it toward her. Everything at Natalie Barrett Weddings was color coded, so I didn’t even have to see the (neatly printed in William’s writing) label on it to know it held Last-Minute Items. She flipped it open, taking out a sheet of paper and handing it to me. “Josef’s mom was named Penny. She died of cancer when he was ten. They’ve decided to honor her by handing out cards with her name, dates, and a bright, preferably shiny penny to each guest.”
“And this happened in the last two hours?” I asked, having no recollection of hearing anything like it during the previous months of planning.
“It was decided last night, at the gathering after the dinner.”
This was such a dreaded practice we actually had an acronym for it: a last-minute DAB, i.e., Decided at Bar. “Please tell me you are kidding.”
“I wish I was.” She sighed, her face tired. “Now, I know you are going to hate me, but I need you to go back out and pick up the cards from the printer. They were a rush job and are already paid for and ready.”
“Seriously?”
“I said you’d hate me,” she replied, as if this actually made anything better. And plus, I couldn’t hate her, anyway; she’d never made a DAB. She was way too organized. “Just remember; next summer, you’ll be almost out of here to college. No more tasks like this. You can get a nice, normal job, like selling produce.”
This was what she’d started saying to me at times like this, as if a promise of weighing cucumbers in the future softened any current blow. It was also as close as she’d come to addressing me leaving for school, something so fraught with emotion she wasn’t even able to joke about it. Yet. I said, “I know you’re trying, but the idea of working at a farmers’ market is hardly a comfort right now.”
“No?” She gave me a sympathetic look. “How about this: get the cards and I promise, barring any unforeseen disasters, you can knock off early tonight.”
“Define disasters.”
“No. I refuse. It’s like tempting fate.” She shut the folder. “Just say yes to the offer, will you? A free night at the beach! You can study up on the produce business.”
“You’re not funny,” I grumbled.
“Maybe not. But I am desperate.” She took a quick, apologetic glance at the van keys, which I’d deposited next to the pennies. “In all seriousness, I wouldn’t push on this. But . . .”
“. . . the client gets what the client wants,” I said, before she could complete yet another one of her mantras. I picked up the keys. “But I am not polishing pennies. I draw the line there.”
“That’s fine. William will do it.”
“Wait, what?” William said, entering the room at precisely that moment. “What am I doing?”
My mom pretended she didn’t hear him. “Just think about weighing those cucumbers next summer!” she called out as I started to the hallway. “So easy! So relaxing!”
I didn’t reply, just waved a hand behind me as William said, confused, “Cucumbers?”
At six p.m. sharp, Margy walked down the aisle on the arm of her father, looking gorgeous in her cap-sleeved gown with a bejeweled bodice, and crying happy tears. We’d hit the jackpot on the weather: warm but not too hot, a good breeze but not enough to send veils and dresses billowing up. The only wrinkle was a loud Coast Guard Helicopter flying by low over the beach and drowning out the beginning of the vows. Even my mother couldn’t control the military, although I would not have put it past her to try.
After the ceremony, I sat in the BRR as the wedding party and then guests exited to the ballroom, where the bars were open and the DJ already playing beach music, the bride and groom’s favorite. Once the chairs were empty, I helped some guys from the Piers fold and stack them to clear space for what would later be the dance floor. Left behind were crumpled programs, a few stray tissues, and, to me, entirely too many of the penny cards William and I had hastily assembled in record time before the ceremony. Oh, well.