Grownups

On a Tuesday in January, I checked my mail and found a postcard addressed to "Miss Gemma Hart" in an ominously elaborate type.

"Save the date! Noah Davidson and Christie Peters will be married on June 23rd at the Mooshead Lodge in Brunswick, Maine. Invitation to follow," the letter threatened.

An invitation did follow. Many invitations, actually (eight, to be exact, though three were, mercifully, scheduled for the same day in different states). Had I been feeling optimistic about life, this may have been a sign that I had a lot of friends, but I was not feeling optimistic and was instead filled with complete and total misery. All of my friends were getting married while I was living in a rundown studio apartment, working a day job giving tours on an hourly wage at the Portland History Museum and a night (unpaid) job of staunch singleness.

And so, wedding season, in all its glory, began.

Noah Davidson’s wedding was my third of the season and, thankfully, did not require much traveling. The Moosehead Lodge was only about a forty-five-minute drive from my apartment in Portland. I had previously decided that I would wear the same dress to every wedding, just to spite the system, but for this ceremony, I changed my plan and actually put a bit of effort into my appearance. 

I had spent the better part of college loving Noah Davidson from afar, though I’d never bothered to tell him. And now he was marrying Christie Peters, a co-worker from his office on Capitol Hill who just happened to come from a town in Maine. Facebook had revealed that she was too perfect-looking to actually exist. I fully hoped to discover at the wedding that her profile had been a sham and she was actually a hideous gremlin.

That hope was dashed the moment that damned wedding song began to play. There she was, perfect as ever, even shedding one perfectly formed tear of happiness as she made her way down the aisle on the arm of her equally perfect father.

“Dude, check out the body on that chick.” This loudly whispered commentary brought to me by Alvin, my next-door-neighbor and stellar, last-minute date. 

I had RSVP’d to all of the wedding invites with a ‘plus one’ because I’d been seeing a fellow tour guide from the museum at the time and things had been looking smooth-sailing in that relationship. But two weeks before the start of the dreaded season, we’d called it quits. I braved the first two weddings on my own, but found that I couldn’t stomach another alone. So I called on Alvin for a favor. It was only fair after all of the cooking ingredients I’d leant him. 

With his whispered commentary came an unmistakable whiff of whiskey. As if being an all-around jerk wasn’t enough, my date had also pre-gamed a wedding. 

The ceremony took place on the outdoor patio of the Moosehead Inn. A massive white tent had been set up beside the patio for the reception. When the newlyweds had gone back up the aisle, the guests began to mill around near the tent. I spotted college acquaintances everywhere I turned, but I scanned the crowd in search of the face I most wanted to see�"Jack, my good friend since the first week of college and the only saving grace of wedding season. I caught sight of him standing on the other side of the patio, talking to another friend from college, his enormous, rugby-build filling his corner completely. 

“Think there’s an open bar?” Alvin asked, stopping me from heading straight to Jack.

I made no effort to mask the irritation in my voice. “I don’t know, Alvin. You might just have to rely on the flask hidden in your suit pocket.”

Alvin guffawed stupidly. “Right on, Gemma. How’d you guess?”

I had to breathe long and deeply to keep from biting his head off. “Tell you what, you go see about that open bar and bring me back a glass of red while you’re at it, okay?”

As soon as he was gone, I let out a sigh of relief.

“Gemma! How’s it going?” 

Luke and Katie White were standing a few feet away, both giving me a smile of greeting. Theirs was the last wedding I’d attended, just two weeks ago, and they were back from their honeymoon looking tanned and blissful. Now that they were married, I thought of them as a unit in my head�"LukeandKatie White. I wasn’t even entirely sure which of them had actually spoken to me.

“LukeandKatie,” I greeted, trying hard and failing to give them a genuine smile in return. I hoped they hadn’t witnessed my exchange with Alvin. “How was the honeymoon?”

“Oh, amazing,” Katie said. “Wasn’t it, Luke?”

“Yeah, really amazing,” Luke said.

“Was that your date we saw walking away?” Katie asked. “He looked friendly.”

“Yeah, really friendly,” came the seconded response.

‘Friendly’ was, no doubt, the adjective chosen because no others fit.

“Alvin lives in my building,” I explained shortly, though they were looking at me with expectant faces.

“You didn’t bring him to our wedding, did you?” Katie was fishing for more information. “I should remember, I know, but the night is honestly a complete blur.” The last word was lost in a happy giggle. 

Luke added his own chuckle into the mix. “Definitely a blur.”

They were waiting for an answer. I’d neglected to give them one because I was too busy marveling at the specimen of ‘one flesh’ standing before me.

“Oh, um no,” I said. “Last minute kind of thing, you know?”

Katie probably meant to give me an understanding smile, but the look she subsequently exchanged with Luke told me that they were now having an unspoken conversation about just how pathetic I’d become in the space of a year. 

“Excuse me for a sec,” I said. “I’m just going to�"”

The thought was left unfinished. I figured that if I just sort of let my voice drop off, there’d be no need to supply an actual excuse. The plan worked perfectly�"I’d slipped away from LukeandKatie before they had a chance to respond.

Jack caught my eye as I crossed the room in his direction. He was still in conversation, but he shot me a grin that lessened my lingering discomfort from the LukeandKatie exchange. 

“Gemma,” he said as I came to a stop beside him. “You remember Blake?”

Blake had played Gandalf in our college’s production of The Hobbit. That was all I remembered about him. It was funny the way an entire network of acquaintances had disappeared from my memory only a few months after graduation.

“Of course,” I said as politely as I could. “Blake! How are you?”

If memory served, he looked like he’d put on a bit of weight, which either meant that he was eating well (signifying a comfortable living), or he was living in his parents’ basement (signifying a lazy living). 

“Not too bad, Gemma,” he answered. “Jack and I were just talking about the theater world�"my firm’s representing a guy who’s being accused of plagiarism.”

So it was the comfortable living, then�"all the wining and dining with clients.

“How about you?” Blake went on.

“Oh, I’m doing well,” I said. “I’m working�"”

“Blake!” Some college buddy was waving him over.

“Hey, Andrew!” Blake called back. “Sorry, Gemma. Catch up later, okay?” 

“That’s probably a good idea. It really wasn’t worth hearing,” I said to his retreating back.

Jack cocked a knowing grin at me. “Wedding number three, huh? Has it driven you to therapy yet?”

He never failed to make me laugh. “I’m getting dangerously close,” I said.

“Well, you look great, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Oh geez, I’m glad you’re here, Jack,” I said. “I don’t think I’d make it through these things if it weren’t for you.”

Alvin had found his way to the open bar. He was headed toward me now, holding what looked like a scotch on the rocks (he’d forgotten about my glass of wine), but he slowed down to smile at a wedding guest in a mini-dress. An elderly woman crossed his path while his head was turned and I watched in horror as the two collided and Alvin’s drink covered the bottom third of her dress. I shut my eyes in absolute embarrassment. Could it get any worse?

When it came time for the dinner to begin, I saw that the night could, in fact, get much worse. Alvin and I were seated at table twelve with Jack, thankfully. Jack and I wandered into the tent and over to our table together. He began to read out the names from the other place cards.

“Luke and Katie White, Megan Murphy�"haven’t seen her since graduation day�"Rachel Laswell�"”

“Oh dear,” I said. “Rachel? Lord, give me patience.”

Rachel had lived on my freshman hall. Her annoyingly positive personality and apparently extensive knowledge on every subject known to man had been a thorn in my side ever since.

“We’ll just put this large vase of flowers between you two,” Jack said, sliding the flowers so as to obscure my view of whoever sat directly across from me. He picked up the next place card to continue reading. “Uh oh,” he said.

“What? Who is it? Someone bad?”

“Uh, no, not bad, per se,” he answered. 

“Well, who is it?”

“It’s Kevin,” he said.

The Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain bar I’d eaten on the way to the wedding�"in case the food was gross�"threatened to come back up. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish. Who knows what Noah was thinking on this one?”

I could feel a headache coming on. “No, no, this is not good. This is really not good.”

“Okay, I’m going to get you a drink,” Jack said. “I don’t normally encourage using alcohol as a refuge, but I think you’re going to need a buzz.”

And of course, the moment he headed off to the bar, Kevin materialized beside me. The timing of this perfectly wretched evening was just impeccable. 

“Gemma, are you seated here too?” Kevin asked, probably hoping that my answer was ‘no.’

I painted a falsely enthusiastic smile on my face and turned to look at him head on. “Yeah, I am. It’ll be nice to catch up!”

Oh dear, I was overdoing it.

Kevin nodded calmly. “It’s good to see you, Gemma. You’re looking well.” He pulled my chair out for me and then took a seat at the table setting right beside me. It just kept getting better. “I hear you’re working at a museum in Portland now?”

I coughed in an effort to regain normal breathing. Where was Jack? “I’m a tour guide at a history museum. I’ve been learning a lot about Portland recently.”

“Not really up your alley, though, is it?” he said. “I would have thought you’d be working for a law office or something like that.”

As if I needed reminding of my career failures. “Well, this is just sort of a stepping stone,” I said. “It’s kind of a temporary thing.”

“Oh, I see.” He said it in the sort of tone that conveys how little he did see. “That your date over there?” he asked, nodding his head toward the bar where Alvin was replacing his spilled drink.

Oh, the shame. “Yeah, he’s just an acquaintance from my building.” I put the stress on ‘acquaintance.’ Why couldn’t I have brought some smoothly handsome date who would have sat next to me and told Kevin all about his exciting job as a neurosurgeon or something? Why did I have to bring Alcoholic Alvin, who was doing his very best to show Kevin that my dating preferences had, in fact, gone down the tubes since dumping him? “Where’s Elizabeth tonight?” I asked, hoping that was the name of the girl I’d heard he was seeing.

Kevin sipped his glass of wine. “She’s out in California visiting her parents,” he said. “I was with her for a while�"that’s why I missed Luke and Katie’s wedding�"but I came back in time for Noah’s.”

“Oh, great. So she’s doing well?” The answer mattered about as much to me as the history of Portland, but I pretended to care for the sake of the conversation.

“Really well,” he said. “We just got engaged, actually.”

A bomb of the atomic kind detonated in my head. Kevin was engaged. My hopeless ex-boyfriend who’d followed me around like a puppy for a good four months after I’d dumped him. I’d freed myself from him and set out into the wide world of dating, looking forward to someone�"anyone�"who was better than him, and nowhe had found ‘the one’ while I was forced to resort to Alcoholic Alvin because no one else on earth would have me. I tried very hard to focus the needle of my hatred on Kevin, but I found that it just kept spiraling back to me. I had become a magnet for self-loathing.

“Wow,” I said, grimacing. “That’s so wonderful. Congratulations, Kevin. I’m really happy for you guys. You’ll make a great husband. This is just awesome, really.” I was rambling through slightly clenched teeth.

“And here’s a Cab for you, Gemma.” 

Jack had returned, thank the Lord. He set the glass of wine on the table in front of me.

“Good to see you, Kevin,” Jack went on. “How’s Maryland treating you these days?”

Dinner was a bit like Chinese water torture. I took too-large mouthfuls of overcooked filet mignon, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables, while LukeandKatie shared an endless supply of anecdotes from their honeymoon. Which was “amazing,” by the way. And then there was Rachel Laswell’s description of all twenty-three schoolchildren’s backstories from her fifth-grade class. Followed by Megan Murphy’s long stream of updates on her latest mission projects. Topped off by Kevin’s infuriatingly romantic proposal account. All presided over by Alcoholic Alvin’s complete lack of decorum and class. 

It was when the toasting began and Alvin had stumbled off for another drink that Jack leaned over and whispered, “Hey, wanna get out of here for a bit?”

“Yes. Oh, yes, please,” I whispered back.

I grabbed my Sam Adams�"I’d moved far beyond that one glass of wine somewhere in the middle of Megan’s fourth mission trip�"and followed him out through the front entrance of the tent. The evening air with its slight chill and smell of saltwater cleared my head a bit.

We made our way down across the street to the inn’s dock, letting the water’s rhythm do the talking for us. When we’d descended the stairs, I took my shoes off and sat down on the rough wooden surface, smoothing my dress out beneath me. The water was icy to the touch when I dipped my feet in. Jack rolled up his pant legs and sat down beside me.

“What are you thinking about, Gemma?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“I was just thinking how weird it is to watch Noah Davidson get married after those four years I wasted, blindly loving him,” I said.

“Are you sure you really loved him? Not just the idea of him?”

It was a fair question. I would have liked to respond with confidence that I had loved him, but I wasn’t sure my emotions were quite so trustworthy. 

“Maybe it was the idea of him,” I said. “But I’m guessing you knew that all along?” 

“I may have guessed,” Jack said. “Sometimes, it takes an outsider’s perspective, though.”

“You should have clued me into the fact!”

“You never would have believed me. You had it bad.”

There was nothing to say to this. I did have it bad back then. Even when I’d dated Kevin. Or maybe, especially when I’d dated Kevin. I told myself that that year-long relationship had been my effort to get over Noah and find happiness with someone else, but some tiny, hideously selfish part of me may have hoped that Noah would see me if he couldn’t have me anymore. And some other larger, but equally hideous part of me had just ‘settled’ for Kevin because he’d been right there. I’d imagined myself out of his league in those days. But he was getting married and I was still single, so it was looking more and more like it may have been the other way around.

A loon landed on the water several feet away from us and dipped quickly under in search of food. 

“How’s the writing coming these days?” I asked Jack. “Made any progress on your one act?”

“I don’t know about all that,” he said. “The theater has me reading all of the plays people submit, you know, and the amount of crap that comes in… I don’t want to be just another amateur who thinks he’s got something worthwhile to say.”

“But you do have something worthwhile to say,” I said. “You’re a good writer, Jack. Don’t get discouraged.”

He gave me a small smile. “Thanks, Gemma. I’m just trying to think in small increments�"work at the theater for another year or so, save up my money, head to grad school. It’s less overwhelming when it’s in little steps like that.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, stretching out onto my back so that I could look at the endless stars above us. “One year out of college and the road ahead still looks pretty uncertain. Didn’t we think we’d have more figured out by now? These weddings are not helping. It’s like six straight hours of show-and-tell every other Saturday. ‘Meet my new boyfriend!’ ‘Did you hear about my trip to Europe last month?’ ‘My firm is stationing me in Hawaii! Isn’t it great?’ And all I’ve got to share for myself is an extensive history of Portland. That’ll be sure to impress.”

“Hey, your date seems nice,” Jack offered by way of consolation.

“He was drunk before we got here,” I said. “He’s a total prick.”

“Right, that’s what I meant to say,” he said, deadpan. “Didn’t work out with that other guy, huh? The one from the museum?”

My sigh was swallowed up by a wave hitting the dock. “No surprise there. Just another ‘Gemma Hart Failure.’” 

He didn’t respond to that. 

“So I brought Alvin instead,” I went on, “which just adds to the fun of the night. And to top it all off, Kevin’s engaged too? I can’t handle this.”

He was silent for a beat too long. I wished that I could read his expression, but I was lying down and he was seated with his back to me, feet still dipped in the water.

“Does Kevin’s engagement bother you because you wanted to give the relationship a second shot?” he finally asked.

I wrinkled my nose at the very thought of a return to that relationship. “No way,” I said. “That would be a nightmare.”

“Oh, okay, is it because you were hoping to set him up with someone else?” 

“No, that’s not it.” I had a sneaking suspicion as to where this was headed.

“So, let me get this straight: Kevin’s engagement pisses you off because you broke up with him, but somehow, he’s getting married first. Is that it?”

Self-disgust colored my cheeks. I was grateful for the evening light that somewhat hid the flames. No wonder I was still single. “I know, I know,” I said, throwing an arm over my eyes. “I suck.”

He laughed softly. “You do not suck, Gemma. Those feelings you have kind of suck, but hey, you’re human.”

I was shaking my head before he’d finished. “Let’s be real, Jack. I live in a crappy apartment, I’m working a crappy job, and I’m living a crappy life. I definitely suck.”

“Oh, come on, Gemma, that doesn’t sound like you. Whatever happened to that fearless optimism of yours?”

“The real world happened. Anyone can be fearlessly optimistic in college,” I said. “And what even is the real world?”

“Some imaginary place they throw you into when you graduate?”

“Well, whatever it is, it sucks too,” I said. “Or maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing. Everyone else is busy doing the next thing�"getting married, you know�"and I’m left behind, trying to figure it all out for myself and screwing it up.”

“That’s not what I see,” Jack said. “I see an independent woman, supporting herself, living on her own. You know, you’re one of my only friends who never moved back home? And anyway, you’re only twenty-three, Gemma. You might give it at least another decade before you resign yourself to spinsterhood.”

“Let’s hope I don’t have another decade of this,” I said before lapsing into silence. 

Jack gave the water a solid kick. It took a second for the displaced drops of water to fall back in. “Who says marriage is the sign of adulthood, anyway?” he asked. 

I picked listlessly at the label on my beer. “It’s just… I don’t know.” I was having a hard time articulating my dissatisfaction. “It feels like our professors spent a lot of time complaining about the immaturity of our generation, but then they never taught us how to be adults.”

“I think it’s more of a ‘learn as you go’ kind of thing,” he said.

“By ‘learn as you go,’ you really mean, ‘learn the hard way,’ right?”

“There’s no ‘easy’ way, Gemma. You think getting married is going to make you an adult, right? Like signing a marriage license will automatically transport you to the grownup table where everything makes sense. But actually, marriage is just combining all of your own issues with someone else’s issues so that the two of you can carry double the issues together instead of separately. And then, every time you screw up, someone else’s life gets screwed up too. Does that sound easier to you?”

It didn’t sound easier, but I wasn’t willing to admit defeat. I took a swig from my Sam Adams to avoid answering. 

“I think the only way to survive this so-called ‘real world’ is to recover some of that optimism you used to have,” he went on, filling my silence.

“I don’t know, Jack. Maybe that was just naivety on my part,” I said, shaking my head. “The thing is, I know it’s time that I became an adult and I really do want to, but I’m just so freaking terrified.”

“Gemma Hart,” he said with sudden gusto, “that just might be the most grown-up thing you’ve ever said.”

“I wasn’t kidding, Jack.”

“Neither was I. It’s the children who don’t want to grow up. You’ve already fought half the battle.”

“But now I’ve got the scary part ahead of me.”

“Now you’ve got the scary part ahead of you.”

We were silent for a moment. The far-off strains of “Shout” disturbed the otherwise tranquil lullaby of the water. I was glad to miss Alvin’s drunken version of that dance. An idea occurred to me suddenly, no doubt inspired by the softer musical chorus of the waves surrounding the dock. I stood up with a bit too much confidence and Jack reached over to steady my legs with his strong grip. 

"I'm afraid of growing up," I told the water.

"You've said that already," he reminded me. He still had his hand on my ankle.

"I'm not telling you," I said. "I'm throwing it out to the waves, in hopes that it'll just float away."

"Well, since it's the shoreline, the waves are actually going to just--"

I wrenched my foot from his steadying grasp. "Stop being so reasonable."

He leaned back with a laugh. "Fine, but that didn't look like throwing it out to me. You just dropped it right in front of you."

I shook my head in annoyance. “You try it, then.”

He stood up to join me, planting his left foot only about six inches from my right. “It’s like this,” he said in a condescending tone. “I’m afraid my writing will never get published,” he shouted to the sea.

It was loud enough that I glanced wildly behind me, as though I were afraid of disgruntled wedding guests shaking their fists at us for ruining their pedestrian line dances. 

“No one’s going to hear you, Gemma,” Jack said, reading my mind. “Now, are you going to try it or not? It was your idea, after all.”

Why not? I thought, mentally throwing my hands up in resignation. “I’m afraid of growing up,” I bellowed with as much force as I could muster. And just like that, I didn’t care who heard me yelling. But more importantly, I didn’t care who judged my maturity level anymore.

“Nicely done, Gemma,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll never find a job with good benefits,” he went on, shouting just as loudly as before.

“I’m afraid I’ll be stuck in my job at the museum forever,” I yelled.

Each fear was brought forth and thrown to the strong arms of the glassy waters before us�"arms that caught our fears easily and washed them far away from us into the great basin of the uncharted seas. 

“I’m afraid my car will die soon.”

“I’m afraid my rent will go up next month when the new landlord takes over.”

“I’m afraid of the loans I’m going to have to take out to pay for grad school.”

“I’m afraid I’ll never get married.”

“I’m afraid I’ll never be able to support a family on a writer’s salary.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to have children.”

“I’m afraid that Gemma will never know how much I love her.”

Something real hit the water with a short splash. I realized a moment too late that in my shock at Jack’s final fear, I had loosened my grip on my half-finished Sam Adams. It was likely now plunging to its watery grave among a school of fish who were in for a summer treat. 

“What was that?” Jack asked. “Did you drop something?”

“Only my beer. I’ve probably had enough anyway. And also, what the hell did you just say?” 

Jack still faced the water, but I was no longer planted firmly like I had been before. “I didn’t mean to say that,” he said. “I’m quite a few beers in too, you know.”

“You said you love me,” I said, ignoring his last statement. “What did you mean?”

“Gemma�"” I’d never seen him so uncomfortable before. He turned away from me and wiped a hand across his brow.

“Were you being serious?” I wasn’t going to let it drop. “Or did you just say that because our friends are pairing off left and right and we’re the only two left standing?”

He laughed at that and the easy sound of it brought a slight relief to the tension between us. “You know me better than that, Gemma.”

“I thought I did. Then again, you just said you love me,” I said.

“Fair enough.” But he still wasn’t giving me an answer.

“Jack, it’s me. You can be honest with me.”

He finally looked at me then and I didn’t need to hear his words to know that he’d meant what he said. His eyes, with all their raw emotion, told me enough.

“I think I’ve always loved you Gemma. We met on the second day of orientation, remember? Kevin introduced us at the square dance. You had your hair in two braids and you’d painted freckles on your cheeks. You looked so cute, but I could tell that you wanted to be anywhere else in the world. I wanted to ask you to be my partner, but then, somehow Kevin ended up paired with you instead. They gave us ice-cream sundaes afterward and I stood behind you in line while you piled yours high with sprinkles, chocolate sauce, and cherries. You sprayed a bit of the whipped cream on your spoon and popped it right in your mouth. When you saw me looking, you winked and told me not to tattle. I loved you then.”

“But you… you never said anything,” I said, struggling and failing to process what he was revealing. “You never told me.”

“How was I supposed to tell you, Gemma?” he asked. “You were head over heels for Noah the moment you met him, and then there was the whole thing with Kevin. Between the two of them, I figured what you really needed was a friend.”

I didn’t know what to say or even think, for that matter. Jack and I had been friends for five years and he’d never once breathed a word of this to me. 

“I remember the square dance,” I said. “I didn’t want to be paired with Kevin. He had too much personality, but somehow we ended up together.”

“Funny how things work out, isn’t it?” he said.

“But you�"you helped set me up with Kevin,” I said, remembering how he’d orchestrated our first date. “Why did you do that if you�"if you�"” I couldn’t articulate it.

He shook his head with a sigh. “It was what you wanted, Gemma. When you told me that you liked Kevin�"I just wanted you to be happy, even if it was with someone else.”

I’d overlooked him because he’d been too quiet to ever say anything. I hadn’t seen him all those years because he’d been standing right beside me, his close proximity rendering him invisible. No doubt, he expected me to just brush off his confession, but I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to do that. I was having a revelation on the dock of the Moosehead Inn and it was no small matter. 

“Jack�"”

“There you are,” came a voice from behind us, interrupting me before I could go on. 

Rachel was making her way down the stairs toward us. My heart dropped at the sight of her. She was trampling on our moment with each step down. 

“I should have guessed that you two would slip off somewhere,” she continued. Her heels made a loud clicking noise on each wooden stair. “You missed the bouquet toss.”

“Oh, dear, guess I’ll never get married now,” Jack said. 

“They’ve just gone to change.” She was at the bottom of the stairs now. “They’ll be leaving soon.”

As though in answer to her words, Noah’s Honda Civic, decorated with lipstick writing and a ‘Just Married’ sign pulled up in the road behind us. 

“So we’ve got to go throw rice, huh?” Jack asked.

“No one does that anymore,” Rachel answered in that ‘Rachel’ way of hers. Oh, how glad I was to only see her at weddings these days. “It’s bad for the birds, you know.” 

“Oh, I’m going to throw something,” I said. 

Jack gave me an amused look. He could read my mind better than anyone, but I was sure he had no idea what I was thinking just then. 

“Well, I suppose we should head up then,” he said.

I was loath to leave that dock where the revelation had occurred. I imagined that the second we stepped off the wooden steps and onto the grassy bank, the moment would pass beyond salvaging. But Jack was already mounting the stairs with Rachel just behind him. 

“You coming, Gemma?” he said over his shoulder. 

“I just need a minute.”

“Did you meet Beth’s boyfriend?” Rachel asked, going on as though I hadn’t spoken. “Apparently, he’s a doctor. I always knew she’d marry rich.”

Their voices faded behind me as they got to the top of the stairs and continued back to the tent. 

“Oh, geez,” I whispered to myself. “Jack just said he loves me. Jack loves me.”

Saying it out loud didn’t make it any less shocking. I just couldn’t fit the idea into my head�"or maybe, there wasn’t room for it beside the notion that I was entirely unlovable. Or underneath the additional revelation that maybe Jack was more to me than just a friend. And I had just let him walk away without saying a word. What was I doing?

I bounded up the steps and was halfway to the tent before I realized that I’d left my shoes on the dock. But I could see Jack on the other side of the dance floor, talking to some relation of Noah’s, and I knew if I went back, I’d lose all resolve. So I flitted through the tent in bare feet, weaving frantically between half-drunk friends and family until I was right in front of him.

“Gemma.” He raised his eyebrows at me with a teasing grin. “Forget your shoes?”

The other man gave me a knowing look, likely assuming that I’d had too much to drink.

“Jack, I know the moment’s gone now, but I�"”

“Hang on, Gemma,” he interrupted, stopping me mid-speech. 

He led me out through the back entrance of the tent, his hand between my shoulder blades. A gravel path through the grass led to a gazebo strung with Christmas lights. We headed down the path, Jack still guiding me, but the first step on the gravel made me wince. He must have sensed my discomfort because he stopped to look at me. Realizing my predicament, he lifted me off my feet with one swift movement and carried me, bridal-style, to the gazebo. What might have been a friendly gesture before was now charged with a familiar tension�"the sort of feeling that made my heartbeat quicken and my stomach flutter. Once at the gazebo, he set me back on my feet and squeezed my shoulder lightly. 

“Okay, now what were you saying?” he said.

I shouldn’t have been out of breath�"he’d been the one carrying me, after all�"but I suddenly found that I couldn’t quite fill my lungs sufficiently. 

In tune, as always, to my feelings, Jack gripped my arms in his hands and took a deep breath. “Breathe, Gemma,” he said.

I shut my eyes and obeyed. When I opened them, he was tilting his head at me, his look caught somewhere between concern and amusement. 

“Jack,” I finally said. “Have I missed my chance?”

“Your chance?” he said. “What chance?”

“My chance with you. Maybe five years is too long. Maybe the statute of limitations is up or something. Or maybe we’re just too close for this to ever work.”

He was shaking his head with a wry smile. “Gemma, I’ve got nothing but patience where you’re concerned,” he said. Though I wanted to doubt him, all I could hear in his tone was complete confidence. 

“But what if we make a go of it and then end up ruining our friendship?”

He nodded. “It’s a concern. But this isn’t an engagement, Gemma. You’re talking about a test-run�"if it doesn’t work, maybe we’ll be able to admit that to each other like adults. Or maybe we won’t.”

“And then we’ll lose each other completely,” I said.

“Gemma, my fear�"the one I threw to the sea�"was that you’d never know, not that you’d never love me back. If you know and it doesn’t work out, at least we’ll be able to say we tried.”

And my fear was of growing up. But what if taking this chance turned out to be the first grown-up thing I ever did? What if Jack and I were supposed to grow up together, encouraging adulthood in each other along the way? Or, maybe it wouldn’t work, but if I thought that way about everything, I’d be too paralyzed to make any choices.  

“I don’t want to be paralyzed,” I said aloud. 

“What?”

“Will you take me on a date, Jack?” I asked by way of explanation.

His laughter was infectious. “Well, I’ve got a wedding to attend next Saturday. Want to go with me?”

I meant to punch him for that one, but he caught my fist in midair.

“Kidding!” he said, still laughing. “Why don’t I give you a call tomorrow?”

The band cut off from inside the tent and the noise of conversation picked up. I could hear variations of, “They’re leaving!” being passed from person to person.

“We’d better go and watch,” he said.

We avoided the gravel by traveling through the grass this time. It wasn’t until we were already inside the tent that I realized we were holding hands. The entire crowd was gathering on the other side of the tent just beside the road, armed with plastic bottles of bubbles to blow at the departing couple�"much safer for the birds, apparently. Jack and I came to a stop just at the outskirts of the throng.

“Want to know about adulthood in a nutshell, Gemma?” Jack asked, leaning in close to my ear in order to be heard above the cheering of the wedding guests. “It’s like this: when you were little, you could go ice-skating and fall on your a*s every other minute without getting hurt because the distance wasn’t so great, but once you grow up, the fall hurts a lot more. That’s adulthood for you. If we give this a try and it doesn’t work, it may hurt more than it would have back when we were just dumb college kids�"that’s the breaks. Welcome to adulthood, Gemma.”

When the couple had finally left and the guests began to disperse�"some intending to continue partying, others headed back to their rooms at the inn, or to retrieve their cars�"I looked around for my ‘date.’ Alvin had found himself a heavily made-up friend of Christie’s who was much too intoxicated to realize what a waste of time he was. He informed me that he was headed home with her, thereby relieving me of any responsibility for him.

Jack escorted me to the dock, no longer holding my hand. 

“Wait here,” he said.

He sprinted down the steps and returned a moment later, my shoes in hand. When he had set them on the ground before me, I gripped his arm to maintain balance and slipped my feet back into the tight straps. We walked to the parking lot in silence, comfortable with each other after so many years of friendship. At my car, he kissed my cheek and opened my door for me, helping me to climb in.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” he said.

I nodded in response, suddenly shy with him for the first time since we’d met each other. 

“Goodnight, Jack.”

“Night, Gemma.”

He shut my door carefully and then stepped back onto the sidewalk to watch me leave. As I made for the main road, I glanced at his receding form in my rearview mirror. Knowing he was there brought warmth to my spirit. He was, after all, the saving grace of wedding season.

I pulled out onto the street, taking the road beside the water. In the darkness, I could see only the next several yards or so, illuminated by my headlights, but I wasn’t worried. I rolled down my windows and listened to the sound of the waves carrying my childish fears far out to sea as I drove steadily onward.