She managed to wait until he was gone to burst into tears, but only just. Tears led to sleep, and by the time the grey day dawning woke her, she was too weary to care. Pulling the dark comforter up around her shoulders, she flipped in the bed, wondering if anyone would notice if she...just never got out. But her stomach was growling, and while she could ignore that, there was an insistent throbbing lower down that she definitely had to pay attention to. Stumbling into her stark, white bathroom, she twisted the shower knobs, starting a hot mist that thickened the air in the small cubicle. Evan. What was she going to do about Evan? He’d been so sweet, winging across the country to be at her side, and she’d rewarded him with digs and snapping and petty complaints.
The hot water cascaded down on her back, working out knots left by tension and fear. Turning the water off, halfway decided on a course of action, she blindly groped for a towel. Only Evan would have had the foresight to wash all her new linens while they built the bed, and she should have thanked him for that. Swathed in the towel and a sheen of nervous perspiration, Wynn tossed herself down on her bed, reaching to the charger for her phone.
To her surprise, it rang in her hand. Feeling a wave of hot gratitude, she clicked “talk” instantly, bringing the phone to her ear. “Evan I’m so sorry. I was so wrong. I should have listened to you. I should have asked you to talk. You were completely right. And I’ve been thinking: what if we take a vacation together, at Christmastime? We could go to the Azores, like we wanted to for our honeymoon...”
“WYNN!” shrieked the voice on the far side of the exchange. “Wynn, he proposed!”
“Annette?” Wynn asked, her mouth drying out. “Annette, is that you? Holy hell, but how has my favorite baby sister been?”
“I’m your only baby sister,” Annette reminded her. “And Paul proposed!”
“You haven’t even been dating him a year,” Wynn replied, dumbstruck. “You’re only twenty four.”
“He said he couldn’t let the chance of a lifetime pass him by,” Annette said, proudly. “He said nothing this perfect could happen twice. We’re getting married at Christmastime! So you can’t go to the Azores. What did you do to Evan, anyway,” her sister asked, wariness entering her voice.
“I, ah. I got a promotion,” Wynn said, weakly. “And I took it without talking to him about it. And then we had a fight and I totally misunderstood him and I flew out to Seattle alone...”
“How the hell can you be married if you’re in Seattle and he’s in New York City?”
“Long distance relationship?” Wynn quipped.
“You’re getting a divorce, aren’t you,” Annette asked, her voice flat. “And my fool ass called you this damn early for Seattle just to tell you I’m getting married. Damn it, I’m so sorry,” her sister offered.
“I was awake,” she protested, cradling the phone. “Just took a shower and everything. Look, Annette, it’s me who’s sorry. I should be over the moon for you right now, and I’m just...”
“But you’ll be here at Christmastime,” Annette assured her. “You gotta be, because I couldn’t have anyone else for my matron of honor.”
Wynn winced, but her voice was steady. “I’ll be there. Unless you run off and elope, too, that is,” she teased her little sister.
“Fat chance,” that girl returned. “Mama’s still angry about you and City Hall and Jamaica. Whoo, every time she has a little too much of her “iced tea,” it’s the topic she goes off on. “Don’t you run off and elope like Jemima, Annette: your family wants to be there! You mark my words,” her sister went on in her imitation of their mother, “nothing good can come out of a wedding where...Oh hell,” her sister ended. “Damn. I do stick that foot in my mouth, don’t I.”
“It’s all right, Annie, I’ve heard Mama say it a million times. And look, while we’re on the topic of Mama, I’ll call her and tell her all this later. Don’t squeak a peep, okay? We could still work it all out.”
“I hope you do, Wynn. Evan is good for you,” her sister said. “You looked so happy the last time you swung by Savannah. Mama was hoping you were pregnant,” Annette revealed, a bit of the bubbly happiness returned to her voice, “but I told her, you wanted to wait a few years.”
“You’re not pregnant, are you, Annie?”
“Of course not,” Annette said, blithely. “I wouldn’t fit in Mama’s dress if I was, that’s for sure.”
Their mother’s dress, a stiflingly huge concoction of cobweb lace and Victorian lines, had a waist so tiny that it could be spanned by a man’s hands, in the true Southern belle tradition. Annette would look spectacular in it. A Christmas wedding meant red, gold, and green, all colors that would look lovely in counterpoint to the gown’s aged ivory. Picturing the family church and the ceremony, Wynn felt a little hope spark in her heart. It would be magical. Could it be good for her, as well?
When Annette signed off a few moments later, Wynn held the phone closely a moment before dialing Evan’s number from memory. The voice that greeted her was still thick with sleep, and she detected more than a hint of alcohol. Her heart in her throat, she said, “Evan, I still love you. I want to work this all out.”
He didn’t answer.
“Evan?” she asked. “Evan, we could go to counseling. My sister’s getting married in December. We could go together. Maybe we should renew our vows. This time, we could promise to love, honor, and communicate,” she said, half-teasing, half serious.
“What if,” he asked, his voice soft, “I say no?”
“Evan,” she whispered, “are you giving up on us?”
“If I did,” he countered, “I’d only be the last rat off this sinking ship, wouldn’t I?”
“No, Evan,” she protested, but the hiss of dead air swallowed her words.
She called back. He did not answer. The phone rang four times before cutting itself off abruptly. “Your party does not answer,” a robotic voice informed her. Piqued, she threw the device at the wall.
Only to recover it a few moments later, and stab out a message for text.
“Don’t give up on us,” she typed out. “Please.”
Although she had had plans this morning, she still perched, naked except for that towel, on the edge of her new bed. Her phone had all her attention: she scoured its display every few seconds for some hint of an incoming message. So firmly was she entrenched in her new misery that she lifted the phone to her ear hopefully at the sound of her doorbell before realizing what it truly was. Clutching her towel, she elbowed her way into her bathrobe and stumbled toward the door, passing the leftover Thai containers as she did. A peep through the fisheye lens into the hall had her crying out with joy: she clawed the locks off and yanked Evan inside, heedless of the bag of doughnuts she crushed to his chest with her welcoming hug.
“I am so happy,” she told him. “We’re going to get through this. Right?”
“If you want to,” he said. “Nothing gets in the way of your ambitions for very long, anyway.”
“I want to,” she told him. “I know we can do this. And it won’t be for long. I promise.”
The doughnuts fell to the floor, forgotten, only to join the leftover Thai containers in the garbage later.
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