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  “And then what?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “And then, I believe, he’ll stay to watch them grow up. How could he not, after realizing what he missed with you guys? He’s finally learned, I think, that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Listen, I want you to know that I love Patrick, and he loves me. And he wants to love you, and to see more of you in the future, if you’ll let him. If you’ll let us.”

  “I guess we could work something out,” I answered.

  Suddenly, Zoey yawned, then sneezed, then fell back on her pillow. “I’m sleepy,” she said in amazement.

  Yawns are contagious. I said, around a yawn of my own, “Me too.”

  Zoey turned off the light a third time. In the darkness she said, “Don’t worry, Kristy. It’ll be okay. And thanks for listening.”

  “Thanks for talking,” I replied, and meant it.

  Zoey rolled over and, I think, fell asleep almost immediately.

  But I stayed awake to worry a little while longer. Zoey, I concluded, was much cooler than my father. Like my brothers, I wasn’t sure exactly what she saw in him, but she didn’t seem to be blind and smitten. She wasn’t just a kid marrying her first love. So maybe it would be okay.

  I hoped so, for Zoey’s sake as much as for my father’s, and perhaps just a little bit more.

  “What a great day for a wedding,” sang Patrick, throwing his arms out wide. “What do you think, Kristy? I ordered it up special.”

  I smiled and walked out onto the deck. “You did an excellent job.”

  “How’d Zoey sleep? You girls stay up all night talking about weddings?”

  “Something like that.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug. “And she still wants to go through with it?” he teased.

  Not quite sure how to take that, I said, “Zoey’s very strong-minded.”

  My father gave a shout of laughter. “You mean stubborn,” he said. “And a good thing too. I have to tell you, I didn’t sleep a wink. So I woke up Sam and we watched Australian football reruns. Have you ever watched Australian football?”

  I shook my head. “Not really.”

  “We should have watched the celebrity wrestling,” Patrick said sorrowfully.

  Now it was my turn to laugh. My father, I thought, probably could charm the birds out of the trees.

  “What’s so funny?” Sam said, shuffling onto the deck to join us, one hand wrapped around a glass of orange juice.

  “You are,” I said. “Your hair is sticking straight up.”

  Sam yawned hugely and slurped some juice.

  “Anybody else thirsty?” Patrick asked. “Kristy?”

  “No, thanks,” I said, and Patrick disappeared inside.

  I looked at Sam. “How’s it going?”

  “He’s nervous,” said Sam. “Like a little kid. Excited.”

  “Like a little kid,” I echoed, and remembered what Zoey had said about Patrick-the-kid the night before.

  I had wandered back out onto the deck later when a car pulled into the driveway. I recognized Jessica. She had brought Mrs. Argos and Ms. Amberson. It was time for the bride to start getting dressed.

  The back door banged open. “Kristy,” said Patrick, “why don’t you make some coffee for everyone? Come on, Sam my man. It’s time we got dressed.”

  “But —” I began to protest.

  It was too late. Patrick had made his escape, banging the door again. Sam gave me a grin and vanished too, just like the Cheshire Cat on a bad-hair day.

  After that, things picked up speed. I have only a blurred memory of the events leading up to the wedding. I made coffee while Jessica and Zoey’s mother and grandmother joined Zoey. I put a thermal carafe of it on a tray, along with some mugs, sugar, and milk. Jessica swooped down on it gratefully and so did Ms. Amberson. But when Zoey reached for a mug, her mother said, “No! Don’t drink that.”

  “Why? Is it bad luck?” asked Zoey, but she lowered the mug obediently.

  “Nerves,” said Ms. Amberson. She looked at me. “Is there anything without caffeine?”

  Zoey rolled her eyes but she handed the mug of coffee back to me. “We have herbal tea in the cupboard next to the sink,” she said.

  “I’ll make some,” I said.

  As it turned out, Zoey didn’t drink the herbal tea either. By the time I returned with it, she was wrestling with her stockings and muttering under her breath.

  She went from muttering to threats of stocking-murder when she ran the first two pairs. Jessica and Mrs. Argos both produced extra pairs and looked sheepishly at each other as Zoey burst out laughing. “I guess I don’t have to worry about people not being prepared.” She sobered and added, “Except maybe me. What time is it?”

  “You have plenty of time,” Jessica said. “And I even have more stockings. Take it easy.”

  But Zoey was beginning to feel nervous, I could tell. I slipped out to get ready myself.

  When I peeked in Zoey’s room again, she was sitting on the floor in her wedding dress, her eyes closed and her head tilted back.

  “What happened?” I gasped. “Did she faint?”

  Jessica said, “Relaxation technique. Deep breathing.”

  “I just wish she wouldn’t do it on the floor in her wedding dress,” Ms. Amberson said.

  “What time is it?” Zoey asked, letting out air like a teakettle letting off steam.

  “You have plenty of time,” her mother said.

  “You do,” I agreed. “And anyway, they can’t start without you.”

  “Right,” said Zoey. She inhaled, and I closed the door and went out to the living room.

  Zoey’s grandmother, Mrs. Argos, was there. She was sitting in what I thought of as Patrick’s chair, a recliner lined up in front of the television, only she had turned it to face the windows. She had raised the footrest and taken her shoes off.

  “Relaxation technique,” she said with a smile when she saw me.

  I burst out laughing.

  “Come,” Mrs. Argos said, grinning more broadly. “Sit. It’s going to be a long day.”

  I sat. I took my shoes off. I propped up my feet on the coffee table.

  Patrick and Sam emerged. “Is the coast clear?” Patrick asked in a stage whisper.

  “All clear,” I whispered back.

  He and Sam walked out, looking self-consciously pleased with themselves. They looked splendid. I jumped up to get Patrick’s camera. “Don’t move.”

  I took a photo of Sam and Patrick. Then Charlie came downstairs. He agreed, after only a slight hesitation, to be photographed with Sam and Patrick. Then Mrs. Argos took a photo of me with Sam, Charlie, and our father (I didn’t realize until I saw the print that I had forgotten to put my shoes back on).

  We heard a door open.

  “Go,” commanded Zoey’s mother. “Shoo. The bridegroom can’t see the bride until she is walking down the aisle.”

  Sam and Patrick ran like rabbits out of the house. I had to laugh.

  My laughter turned to a gasp of admiration when I saw Zoey. She was beautiful.

  “Zoey!” said her grandmother. She beamed. “Always the smartest and the prettiest. Still it’s true.”

  “Oh, Grandmama,” Zoey said, and threw her arms around her grandmother.

  We made it to the wedding on time.

  Charlie and I sat with Zoey’s mother and grandmother. Zoey’s dad and Maude sat across the aisle. Mona sat across the aisle from Ariel, who sat behind Charlie, leaning forward to whisper to him whenever she felt like it. The music began, a crash of triumphant sound that wasn’t the traditional wedding march. I jumped a little.

  Patrick and Sam joined the minister, a short woman in clerical robes. Everyone turned as Jessica walked down the aisle, followed by Zoey.

  Even though I had seen her just a little while before, I blinked in amazement at the transformation. As she walked steadily up the aisle
, her eyes were locked on Patrick. I had a feeling she didn’t know the rest of us were there at all, at least not at that moment.

  Patrick stepped forward and took her hand, and his smile lit up his face.

  Had he and my mom looked at each other that way at their wedding?

  What had happened?

  I wondered if I would ever know.

  Then the minister began to speak, and I focused on the service.

  It was short, and Ms. Amberson, Maude, Mona, and Ariel all cried. Zoey’s grandmother didn’t. Both Mr. Amberson and Ms. Amberson stood up when the minister asked who was giving the bride in marriage.

  Then she said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” and it was over.

  They walked down the aisle to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

  After that, there was a great party. We headed for the Greenhouse, which looked like a fairy tale come to life. We ate and talked and Sam made a funny toast.

  Then, just when I thought the toasts were over, Charlie stood up. He cleared his throat and I felt my body grow tense. I clutched the edge of the chair under the table.

  “I just want to say to Patrick and Zoey, best wishes. I hope you have a wonderful life together.” He sat down abruptly.

  Patrick stood up and looked at Charlie for a long moment. Then he smiled and said softly, “Thank you, Charlie.” And then he looked out at us and said, “Thank you all. Now, let’s dance!”

  The band began to play. Patrick and Zoey stepped onto the dance floor and swept around the room. After that, Zoey danced with her father.

  And Patrick walked across the room and bowed — to me.

  I stood up, not sure what to do. Charlie said, firmly but kindly, “Go on.”

  Patrick offered me his arm and led me out onto the dance floor.

  “It was a beautiful wedding,” I said.

  “One of the things that made it so beautiful was your being here,” said Patrick. “Thank you, Kristy.”

  I felt a lump in my throat. “Sure,” I replied.

  I saw Charlie leading Ms. Amberson onto the dance floor, and then I saw Sam leaning over and offering his hand to Zoey’s grandmother. And then we were all dancing and I was suddenly so happy, that, well …

  I could have danced all night.

  “So that’s how it went,” I concluded.

  Mom and I were sitting in Adirondack chairs in the shady backyard, drinking lemonade, talking a little, being quiet a little. We had the whole place to ourselves. Charlie and Sam had taken Emily Michelle, David Michael, and Andrew to the park. Karen was with her two best friends at a pool party. Nannie and Watson had gone to the public library’s annual fund-raiser — a plant sale.

  I’d been telling Mom about the wedding in between stretches of comfortable, it’s-good-to-be-home silence. Only I didn’t think of it as the wedding, I thought of it as The Wedding. Of all the weddings I’d been a part of, this was the one that would stand out for me for a long, long time.

  “I wish Patrick well,” Mom said. “And Zoey.”

  I glanced at my mom. I could tell she meant it. Whatever bad feelings Mom had had about Patrick were gone. She certainly didn’t love him anymore, I realized, but she wasn’t angry anymore either.

  It occurred to me then that Mom was very happy. That she loved her life. I looked down at the lemonade and laughed.

  “What?” Mom asked.

  “Life gave our family some lemons and we made lemonade,” I said. I wasn’t calling Patrick a lemon, not exactly. But Mom knew what I meant. She smiled. I went on. “I hope Patrick sticks around and doesn’t disappear this time, just because of a few lemons.”

  Raising her glass in a toast, Mom said, “Here’s to lemonade made with your own lemons. It’s the sweetest and the best.”

  I heard a car turn into the driveway and recognized the rattling thump of Charlie’s engine. Doors slammed. Charlie said, “Don’t slam the door.”

  “I didn’t,” I heard David Michael say.

  “Will it fall off?” Andrew said.

  “Hey, Charlie, what has four doors and is yellow?” I heard Sam say.

  “A lemon,” Charlie said. “That joke is so old.”

  “I don’t get it,” David Michael said.

  Their voices were growing muffled as they headed toward the house. I heard Emily Michelle laugh and say, “Jemonnnn.”

  “Because a crummy car is called a lemon, see?” Sam said.

  “No,” said David Michael.

  I looked at Mom. We started to laugh.

  * * *

  “You really do look good in a dress,” Claudia said, leaning over to study the photographs critically. Zoey the efficient (no wonder I liked her — she reminded me of me) had had some of the candid wedding photos developed at a one-hour place and had given Charlie, Sam, and me a set just before we’d boarded the plane. The official wedding photographs would come later.

  “Very good,” agreed Stacey. “You should wear a dress.”

  “No,” I interrupted. “Forget it. It’s a nice dress. But even a nice dress could never be as comfortable as jeans.”

  “True,” said Claudia, who was herself wearing cutoff jeans over bicycle shorts, and suspenders she’d decorated with buttons. Beneath that, she was wearing a paint-splattered T-shirt, which she called her tribute to Jackson Pollock.

  Jackson Pollock is, I think, a painter.

  I was in cutoffs and a Cynthia Cooper WNBA shirt.

  Cynthia Cooper is an MVP basketball player.

  Mary Anne was in khaki shorts and a faded polo shirt. Stacey had opted for linen overall shorts and a ribbed sleeveless undershirt the exact color of her eyes.

  We were in Claudia’s room. We had just finished our BSC meeting. Things had gone smoothly while I was away, so there wasn’t a whole lot to catch up on. We took a few calls and tried to plan ahead for the back-to-school rush. Now we were preparing to order pizza and do some serious hanging out for the rest of the evening. I was in wedding recovery mode.

  Picking up another photograph, Mary Anne squinted at it. “Patrick?” she said.

  “Got it in one,” I replied.

  “He looks good,” said Mary Anne. “He doesn’t look different at all from when we were little.”

  I looked at my father and realized that it was true. The Patrick who smiled out at us from this new photograph was the exact same Patrick (except for shorter hair) who smiled in all the old photographs we still had in the album in the attic.

  “No, he hasn’t changed,” I said. “It’s weird. Mom looks different. I look different. Charlie and Sam look different, and, of course, David Michael isn’t a baby anymore. But Patrick is exactly the same.”

  “Like Peter Pan,” said Claudia. “You know. He never grows up. He never grows old.”

  “And he lives in never-never land,” said Stacey. “Peter Pan, I mean. Not Patrick.”

  “But Patrick does too,” I said slowly. “I don’t mean California. I mean in a world where, if something doesn’t work out right away, he gets mad. Or he quits. Or leaves.”

  “Like a little kid playing with toys,” Mary Anne said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Poor Patrick,” said Mary Anne.

  I looked at her in surprise.

  “Well, think about it. We’ve been friends forever, practically. We’ve had fights and we’ve disagreed and we’ve apologized and we’ve, we’ve …”

  “Gone to art shows, even though some of us don’t like art,” Claudia said, taking up the theme.

  “We always like your art,” I assured her, and she grinned.

  Stacey said, “And we’ve been here for one another when our parents left or got divorced or remarried. When I had problems with diabetes, you guys helped me pull it together.”

  “And all those baby-sitting disasters,” I said, seeing in my mind’s eye the baseballs going through windows and bathtubs overflowing and kids running away and hiding and a hundred other moments in our careers.

&
nbsp; “And successes,” Mary Anne pointed out. “See what I mean? Patrick didn’t stick around for things like that. He doesn’t have the same memories. Or friends. How can he, when he didn’t hang in there for them the way we have for one another?”

  We were silent for a moment. Finally, I said, “He doesn’t have the family he could have had either. It could have been a different wedding if Patrick had only tried to stay in touch with us, tried to be a part of our lives, instead of ducking out.”

  “Right,” agreed Claudia.

  I said, “I still don’t know how I feel about him. I mean, I love him, because he’s my father. But I don’t know if I’ll ever like him very much.”

  It was weird, saying that about my own father. It kind of hurt, deep in my chest. But I felt a sense of relief, saying it out loud.

  No one seemed surprised or horrified. Even softhearted Mary Anne nodded. She patted my arm.

  I took a deep breath. “He could change,” I said.

  “Maybe he will,” Claudia said diplomatically.

  “And if he doesn’t, well, I’m still … pretty lucky,” I concluded. I was getting sentimental. I could tell, because Mary Anne’s eyes looked suspiciously shiny, as if she were blinking back tears.

  “You are,” agreed Stacey. “You’ve got a cool family — and the coolest friends in the entire world.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “And I just want you guys to know that if you decide to get married someday, I’ll wear a dress to your weddings.”

  “You have to,” said Mary Anne seriously. “If you’re going to be a bridesmaid.”

  “You don’t have to wear dresses in weddings,” Stacey observed. “People have all kinds of weddings.”

  “I’m going to design all the clothes that people wear in my wedding, if I get married,” Claudia said. Her eyes took on a faraway look. “It’ll be like an art installation. Wow. This is a great idea for an art piece. I could …”

  “Good grief,” I said. “Let’s order some pizza.”

  And so we did.

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Nola Thacker