The Wedding Sisters Page 15

  “I don’t understand,” Tippy said.

  Welcome to the family, Meryl thought.

  It was a two-hour drive to the suburb of Philadelphia where the Campions lived and where the party would take place at their country club. Meryl figured she and Hugh would have a few hours to relax at the Marriott before they were due at the club at six thirty. Jo and Amy were driving separately, and Meg was staying at the Campion house.

  “I see you’re part of the Campion party room block,” noted the woman at the check-in desk.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Hugh’s phone rang. He took the call, walking away.

  The receptionist handed her a shiny, black paper gift bag. Looking behind the front desk, Meryl noted a half dozen others lined up, the silver tissue paper peeking out of each one in exactly the same way.

  The bag, a thoughtful touch, made her anxious. It was the type of detail she would have to keep in mind for the wedding.

  “Enjoy your stay,” said the receptionist.

  Meryl looked around for Hugh and found him standing off to the side in the hotel’s small gift shop. He was on his phone, deep in conversation. She gestured to him but he turned his back to her.

  She sighed and sat down to wait on a couch, next to a tray of Philadelphia soft pretzels. Meg had told her many times about the “ridiculously good” Philly pretzels.

  Meryl took a bite. Softy, doughy, with just the right amount of rock salt. It was worth the calories, she told herself. And all the more incentive to get Hugh on the dance floor that night—burn off some calories. Finally, she felt relaxed.

  Hugh, finished with his call, cut through the lobby toward her.

  She stood, brushing the salt off her jeans.

  He gestured toward the elevators.

  “Mrs. Becker?”

  Meryl turned at the sound of her name.

  “Hi, Mrs. Becker. It’s Leigh. Leigh Beauford—the wedding planner?”

  Meryl felt her smile falter. “Hi, Leigh. I guess you’re … here for the party?”

  A very beautiful woman, Meryl noticed for the first time fully. How had she not seen that before?

  Leigh reached into a large canvas bag slung over her shoulder and brought out a bottle of wine. She handed it to her. Meryl looked at her quizzically.

  “I’m running a little late. They should be in everyone’s rooms.”

  Meryl looked at the bottle in her hands, as if it held the answer to something.

  “Have a great time tonight. The menu is fantastic.” Leigh smiled and headed for the front desk.

  “Who was that?” Hugh said.

  “The wedding planner.”

  “I thought you said no to the wedding planner.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, she seems pleasant enough.”

  “That’s not the point,” said Meryl. “Who were you on the phone with?”

  “Long story. Let’s get settled in.”

  Their room was on the fourth floor. Meryl pulled back the heavy, gold brocade curtains. The view wasn’t much: the hotel’s circular drive and, across the street, the WaWa convenience store. Still, there was always something romantic about being in a hotel room, and she felt a surge of optimism. Maybe just being out of New York would be the shift she and Hugh needed to reconnect. After all, they were the parents of the bride. This was special. One of the rewards of making it through three decades of marriage was being together on a weekend like this.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, watching Hugh unpack. He was still so handsome—barely changed since she first saw him at the front of the lecture hall all those years ago. His hair, sandy blond, now gray. Still thick, still cut in that shaggy way that was slightly bohemian and suggested someone who would never wear a suit to work. His six-foot-three frame still lean, his clothes always classic and so virtually indistinguishable from the khakis and button downs and V-neck sweaters he’d worn in grad school. Meryl imagined standing up behind him, pressing her body against his. It had been months since they’d had sex, and if she remembered correctly, that had been a perfunctory, “eleven o’clock news, mostly dressed in pajamas” event.

  Sex was always better in a hotel room. She felt like a different person—or a least a better version of herself. In a hotel room, she was twenty-five again.

  Meryl glanced at her own still-packed suitcase. She wished she’d thought to bring nice underwear. Maybe she should have bought something special for the weekend away. There was that store on Columbus, Only Hearts, full of pretty things without being off-putting like the windows of La Perla or Kiki de Montparnasse. Lately all the windows looked like the mannequins were acting out a scene from Fifty Shades of Grey.

  Or maybe she could just take off her clothes and forget about the underwear altogether.

  Hugh turned around and smiled at her. Was he thinking the same thing she was thinking?

  He sat next to her on the bed. She’d probably have to make the first move—that’s how it had been lately. For years, really. But today, that was fine with her. She stroked his arm, and he leaned forward and kissed her.

  “We’re going to have a good weekend,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “So I don’t want what I’m about to tell you to spoil it.”

  She pulled back. “What?”

  “Harrison called,” Hugh said. “They’re letting me go.”

  “Letting you go back to work?”

  “I’m fired, Meryl. I’m done at Yardley.”

  She shook her head. “They can’t do that.”

  “It’s a private institution. They can do whatever they want.”

  She stood up and paced, pressing her fingertips into her temples as if exerting hard pressure would make the information feel different as it entered her brain.

  “If they fire you, how are you going to find another teaching job? You won’t have a recommendation. You won’t even have unemployment!”

  “Well, I’ve given this some thought. I don’t know if I’m going to try to find another teaching job.”

  “What? Why not? What are you going to do?”

  Hugh looked sheepish. And then she knew.

  “I’m thinking now’s the time to finally finish the book.”

  The book. The book that had been languishing for twenty-five years and could take another ten years to finish for all she knew. And what were they going to do for income in the meantime?

  “Is that really practical?” she asked, trying to keep calm.

  “In the long term, I think it’s important. For me—for both of us. And in the short term, we just have to cut back and maybe you pick up a little more work.”

  As if she wasn’t trying.

  “Cut back? We have two weddings to plan.”

  “Well, the girls are going to have to manage their expectations a bit.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you don’t want to give in and concede that maybe the Campions and Bruces should contribute to the weddings—”

  “It’s not about them contributing, it’s about them taking over. I want to plan our daughters’ weddings. I want to plan and throw them—with you. Can you please try to understand that?”

  “I do understand,” Hugh said. “But you have to meet me halfway, Meryl. Even then, we can only do what we can do. And I think the best way to stretch our budget is to throw a double wedding.”

  “A double … What? No. Hugh, that’s out of the question. Amy has felt overshadowed by Meg her entire life. And Meg has always resented how competitive Amy gets. The last thing they will want is a joint wedding. They each need their own special days. And what would our in-laws think?”

  “They’ll think the truth: that we don’t have two hundred grand to throw away.”

  “Goddamn it, Hugh! Why couldn’t you have waited until after the party tonight to tell me this?”

  “You’re my wife. I needed to tell you the truth.”

  “Do me a favor—don’t go telling anyone else the ‘
truth.’ We don’t need the entire engagement party to know you’ve been fired.”

  “Meryl, I need you to be supportive. This isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s a change I’m ready for. I didn’t expect it; I didn’t necessarily want it. But it’s here, and I’m not going to act like this is a punishment. I’m going to see it as an opportunity.”

  “An opportunity,” she said dully.

  “Yes.”

  Meryl looked at her husband, and in that moment, hated him.

  * * *

  Philadelphia Racquet and Hunt was the oldest private club in the country. Dating back to 1854, it was founded by a group of English men, students at the University of Pennsylvania, who wanted a place to play cricket.

  Meryl learned this during Tippy’s guided tour.

  “The original nine-hole course was built in 1895 by Willie Tucker—he also did St. Andrew’s Golf Club and Sand Point Country Club.”

  With a half hour to go before the guests were due to arrive for dinner, Meryl had asked Tippy to show her the room that would hold the wedding reception. This had launched a twenty-minute tour of the club that culminated in the grand ballroom.

  Meryl made no attempt to hide her awe.

  “This is absolutely stunning,” she said. The room could easily accommodate five hundred people. The floor was marble, with a distinct dance space in the center of the room. The ceilings held half a dozen chandeliers, and the massive windows overlooked a lake and the lush green golf course. How they kept the grass that color in the fall was beyond her, but she could only imagine the vista in the heart of springtime.

  “That entire section of the grounds will be flowers,” Tippy said, taking Meryl’s arm and steering her to another corner of the room. “I’m hoping you can coordinate the floral arrangement with the exterior garden.”

  “Oh, okay. That might work.”

  “Visual cohesion is so important. We can discuss it with Leigh,” Tippy said.

  After the debacle the day of the gift registry, when Meryl had left Leigh Beauford with Meg to get some things done, she’d hoped that would be enough involvement to mollify Tippy. She hadn’t heard from her since, and she thought maybe that was that.

  Apparently not.

  But now wasn’t the time to get into it, she knew. Although, now wasn’t really the time for Tippy to be dictating the floral scheme either, but maybe this entire weekend was going to be one long pitch for how she wanted things done.

  “Is your husband here yet?” Meryl asked, deflecting. “I would love to meet him before everyone else gets here.” Unbelievably, they still had yet to meet—or even speak to—Reed Campion. He was flying in from Harrisburg, but she thought for sure he’d be at the venue by now.

  “No, not yet! I’m sorry. It’s been so hectic lately, and unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse from here. That’s why the timing of this engagement was so important. If anything, I wish Stowe had gotten it out of the way sooner—or waited a few years.”

  Meryl tried to hide her irritation. “Yes, well, you can’t control these things.”

  “Oh, heavens no. But at least having the wedding here, we can keep a close eye on things. Do it the right way.”

  Suddenly, the massive ballroom felt like it was closing in on her. “I think we should get back to the dining room,” Meryl said.

  Cutter Campion, Stowe’s younger brother, called out to them from the hall. “Father’s arrived. Are you almost done in there?”

  “Oh yes,” Tippy said, her face lighting up. “Reed is here!”

  * * *

  Meg pulled her dress out of the closet. Tippy had vetoed the one she’d bought at Monique Lhuillier. It was too short. “The photographs are going to run in a lot of places, dear. We have to make sure you look right. It reflects on Reed, you know. It’s not personal.”

  Meg, of course, thought there was nothing more personal than her choice of what dress to wear at her engagement dinner. But Stowe had backed his mother on that one. “She’s not getting involved in the wedding planning or any of that. Just humor her for one night, okay? For me?”

  Tippy had shown up at their town house two weeks ago with a Carolina Herrera dress in hand. It had put Meg in a terribly awkward position. She didn’t dislike the dress. It was beautiful, a floor-length sheath of lilac silk—that wasn’t the issue. But she couldn’t separate the dress from the politics surrounding it.

  Focus on what’s important, she told herself. She looked at Stowe, and as always, if she let herself give in to it, if she pushed out all the other noise, her love for him overwhelmed her. She knew what she needed, what would get her in the right frame of mind for the night.

  She crossed the room and locked the door. Stowe, sitting on the bed, typing on his phone, didn’t notice what she was doing until she was beside him, topless. He looked up and after a moment of confusion, smiled the wide, dimpled smile that had leveled her that first night in Los Angeles.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, tossing aside the phone. He took her face in his hands, kissing her deeply. She heard herself give a tiny moan. The way he made her feel had not ebbed one bit since the beginning. She wanted him more, loved him more, every day. That’s why she could say yes to marrying him—her faith that it would continue that way.

  He pressed her back, moving on top of her. She fumbled with his belt buckle and the button on his jeans until she found her way to him.

  “I love you,” he breathed when he was inside her. She couldn’t speak, and instead clutched him harder, kissing his neck and letting her body do all the talking.

  Afterwards, in his arms, she said, “I wish we could spend the whole night just like this.”

  “That would disappoint a few people.”

  “I know,” she said wistfully. “I wish it was our wedding night. Then we’d be on our honeymoon tomorrow.”

  “Soon enough,” he said, kissing her and heading for the shower.

  Not soon enough for me.

  fifteen

  When Jo had read “dinner and dancing” on the invitation, she’d thought it meant music people could actually, you know, dance to. But the band—and really, it was more like an orchestra—was not producing anything a person under the age of fifty could move to. If she had known she’d be stuck in her seat all night, she wouldn’t have even bothered dragging Toby along. But he didn’t seem to mind.

  There were eight other people at their table, including Amy and Andy and some of Stowe’s friends from Harvard. They were all interesting in their own way, and entirely delighted by Toby’s stories of his royal family and itinerant education in boarding schools and summers on the Greek islands. They even found some friends in common, people in London whom Jo had never met nor even heard Toby mention before. They all assumed Toby and Jo were a couple, and she didn’t bother to correct them. It was so much easier to play along on nights like this. Besides, with nothing to do but drink—she could barely eat, because of course, there was no vegetarian option on the menu—her buzz was getting epic and she would probably fuck Toby in the coatroom if he suggested it. Right now, she kind of hoped he did.

  She looked at Amy, who seemed even more plastered than she was. Jo ducked behind Toby’s back and tapped Amy’s arm. “Want to get some air?”

  Amy nodded.

  Outside, it was utterly silent in a way they never experienced in New York City. The grounds seemed to unfold endlessly in front of them.

  “I feel like we’re in the middle of nowhere,” said Jo.

  “We are,” said Amy, sitting down on the grass. “God, I’m wasted.”

  “Me too.”

  “So what’s with you and Toby? Are you with him?”

  “No. I mean, I’m crashing at his place for a while. And he’s been great—a total lifesaver. But we’re just friends.”

  “Is he aware of that?”

  Jo sighed, looking up at the sky. Every star was visible; at least it seemed that way.

  “Well … I kind of slept with him �
�� a bunch.”

  “You should probably watch that.” Amy lay down, flat on her back.

  “I know. The thing is, I wish I could just be with him. It would make my life so much easier. Like, it could be perfect. I have this great, gorgeous friend who’s in love with me—”

  “He said that?”

  Jo nodded. “And he’s got all the money in the world and we could travel and collect art and just … well, anything. And idiot that I am, I’m hung up on my college girlfriend, who’s planning her own wedding as we speak.”

  “Caroline’s getting married?”

  Jo nodded miserably. “Every time I think about it, I feel sick. I seriously never want to be in love again.”

  “Well, we can’t help falling in love. Or lust,” Amy said.

  “Yeah, but at least you did it in a way that makes you happy.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  Jo grabbed Amy’s hand, touching the enormous diamond ring. “It looks pretty fucking simple from where I’m sitting.”

  Then, to Jo’s dismay, Amy started to cry.

  “Oh my God, what’s wrong? Did you guys have a fight?”

  Amy shook her head. “No.” Her voice broke.

  “What, then?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Fuck yeah, I do. Spill it.”

  Amy glanced behind her, back at the building where their families and friends were eating and drinking and dancing, a prelude to the year of celebrations ahead of them.

  “I cheated on Andy.”

  Jo wished she were more surprised. Andy was a nice guy, but he didn’t exactly seem like a dynamo in the sack. “What? When?”

  “Two weeks ago. And this is the gross cliché part—it was a model from one of the commercial shoots.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to shit where you eat?”

  “That’s all you have to say to me?”

  Jo put her arm around her. “I’m the youngest sister. I’m not supposed to have words of wisdom.”