Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink (39 page)

I smile. “Thanks, Ben. Your story means more to me than you know.”

Mel happily bounces back to us and hops on her barstool. “What did I miss?” she asks Ben cheerfully.

Ben smiles at his bride. “Well, I’m guessing that Mel here has this guy on her mind. And I can’t tell if she’s torn because she thinks she’s supposed to be with him, or if it’s because she thinks she’s supposed to stay away from him. Either way, her heart has already told her what to do. Now she’s got to have the strength to do it.” He winks at me. “So, are you going to go get your cake?”

A smile creeps onto my face, and everything suddenly becomes clear. “You know, Ben, I am.”

F
IFTY
-
FIVE

About ten minutes after my conversation with Newlywed Ben, during a quick break, I head into the back room to text Married Ben.

Did you get married because you wanted to, or because you felt like you were supposed to?

Ben takes about fifteen minutes before he writes back:

A combination of the two I guess. I was of a certain age—it’s expected. So, do I get to see you?

I read and reread his text several times. Finally I type back:

Do you want to meet me at Male ‘Ana a little after closing? Say around 1?

I can do that. But are you sure you don’t want to come to my place? More privacy to yell at me.

I’m done yelling. You either thought about me after JFK or you didn’t. Bring the bracelet.

At midnight, we closed up, and by one o’clock we were all cleaned up and ready to head out.

Leilani stayed with me while I waited.

By 12:55, I felt as if I was going to throw up. “I need a drink,” I say, grabbing a beer pint and getting ready to pour.

“Uh-uh,” Leilani says, pulling the pint glass out of my hand and filling it with Diet Pepsi. “You need to be fully present for this.”

I take a deep breath, then a nervous sip of soda. “What about a Valium? Would that be poor form?”

“See, I knew there was a reason you liked me. Free drugs,” I hear Ben joke.

I turn around, and he is standing by the door, looking amazing in a simple T-shirt and blue jeans.

I feel as if I’m about to faint and fall back ever so slightly to feel Leilani catch me and prop me back up. “Hey,” I say.

Yup—witty as ever with my openings.

“Hey,” he replies. Then he nervously tells me, “You look good.”

“Thanks.”

The two of us stare at each other for what seems like seven years.

“Okay, well, I hate to miss out on all this witty repartee, but I got an MFV I’m late for.” Leilani grabs her purse, then rubs my shoulder. “You good?”

I nod once decisively.

“All rightie. I’m a phone call away if you need anything.” She walks toward the door to leave, but can’t help but kindly suggest to Ben, “You be nice. I’m kama’aina. I can have five Brigham Young football players here in twenty minutes.”

Ben is unfazed by the threat. “I will keep that under advisement.”

“Good. And if it turns out she chooses you, I’m having a little shindig at my apartment next Sunday. You two should come by.”

And she’s out the door.

“I suppose I deserved that,” Ben tells me as he walks toward the bar. “So, how have you been?”

“I’ve been fine. So what did your ex say?” I blurt out.

“Wow. Jumping right in, I guess,” Ben says, shaking his head once quickly.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him nervously. Why won’t these butterflies go away? “Can I get you a drink?”

“Sure. Can I have a beer?”

“No problem,” I say, pouring him the same Maui Brewing Company IPA he drank during the torch-lighting ceremony.

“You remembered,” Ben says as I hand him his glass.

“I remember a lot of stuff,” I say, trying to sound light. “Such as … and I’m just throwing out a random example … how you told your wife about me—”

“Ex-wife.”

“—ex-wife about me and you wanted to tell me all about the conversation.”

“I’m not sure that’s quite how I put it.” I pull out my phone and show him his text. “Or, that’s exactly how I put it.” Ben takes a nervous sip of beer. “Okay, before I tell you about that, I have something to tell you, but you have to promise—”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

He chuckles. “No, no. It’s a good thing. Ever since we met, I’ve been thinking about you. A lot. I had just come from Isabella’s apartment, and I knew it was over, like
over
over, and I was just sitting at the airport bar feeling sorry for myself, and then here comes this cute girl, and she was cute and funny and self-deprecating and it must have taken me twenty minutes even to say hi. And then it was easy. And I liked this girl. But of course she was on her way to Paris to be with the love of her life—”

“He was so not the love of my life.”

“Well, I had known you an hour. Although I will say, all the way to LA I kept thinking, ‘That relationship wasn’t going well, you could have taken him. Why didn’t you at least get her number, you idiot?’ And then you walked into urgent care and…” Ben looks down at the bar, unsure of what to say next. “Well, in a six-word memoir, ‘Don’t ever let her leave again.’”

I squint at him, smiling. “Do men really say things like that?”

Ben shakes his head and exhales a deep breath. “You know, we really don’t. It doesn’t become us. I’m already ready to kick my own ass right now.”

I run around the bar and give him a big kiss.

We kiss for a while, and the butterflies dissolve. “I thought about you too,” I admit.

Ben smirks. “Good.”

“Shut up. Okay, what happened with Isabella? Did she yell?”

“No,” Ben says in a cryptic way. “I told her I’d met someone, and she wasn’t mad at all. Which it turns out makes sense because she’s back with her boyfriend, and they’re now engaged.”

My eyes bulge out, my chin drops, and my mouth falls open. Ben points to me. “Yeah, that’s pretty much how I reacted. She invited me to the wedding, but that’s a little too ‘we can still be friends’ for my taste. But no yelling. The whole conversation, I kept bracing for the other shoe to drop. Or, more likely, to get thrown at my head. But, no, nothing. It’s over. We’re cool. On to the next.”

“Wow,” I say, a little stunned. “So, you really are getting divorced.”

“Yeah. She filed the paperwork with the State of New York today, and I should be served any day now.”

I smile and joke, “Can I do it?”

“Ha-ha,” Ben deadpans. “Anyway, that means I’m now free to date whoever I want for as long as you want. So, how much longer are you in town for?”

Which is my cue to say, “Okay, I need to tell you something. But you have to promise me you won’t freak out.”

E
PILOGUE

One year later

You know the best part of a destination wedding? No cake charms!

I’m kidding of course. The best part is you can throw the whole thing together in less than a month, and if you do it through a fabulous five-star resort, very little planning is involved.

On the anniversary of the day we met back at JFK airport, Ben proposed at a sacred Hawaiian burial site called Dragon’s Teeth in Kapalua, which is a dramatic collection of jagged rocks overlooking the Pacific. We decided to marry on the anniversary of our first kiss.

We immediately called a resort in Wailea, then our friends and family. The whole process took about an hour.

It was a small wedding, fewer than thirty people. Our theme was “no runaway brides or grooms.” Actually, Ben and I did have our own little mantra for the wedding: If you’re not relaxed right now, change what you’re doing. Today, it’s someone else’s problem.

I refused to let Nic and Seema throw me a bridal shower—arguing that I had had enough of those to last a lifetime. We also didn’t bother with a gift registry. As far as I was concerned, I had everything I could ever want or need. Instead, we asked guests who wanted to give gifts to donate to Math Rocks!—a college scholarship fund I created for women who wanted to major in mathematics. (Turns out, I still have some excitement about math after all.)

Jeff threw our rehearsal dinner at Male ‘Ana and had it catered with all of my favorite Hawaiian foods I’d discovered in the past year: Kalua pork, furikake-crusted calamari, and of course lots of poke! We also had fresh pineapple and guava, vanilla and lilikoi cupcakes, and so many honeymoon cocktails that we used all of the cabs on the island for a brief few minutes sending guests home.

The next day, I got the gift that I had waited for my entire life: to be the bride. My dress was a beautiful white, sleeveless gown I picked up at a consignment shop in Kahului. I wore a white-orchid lei and fresh flowers in my hair instead of a veil.

Nic was my maid of honor, and Seema was my bridesmaid, just as we had planned in college. I let them choose their own bridal-party gowns. (As I have said before, sometimes it pays to be the beta dog. No eight-hour trips to the bridal salon! No arguments over the benefits of satin over taffeta! No headaches and blurred vision trying to see if there is a difference between amethyst and lilac!) Nic looked spectacular in a dark purple, sleeveless sheath gown from Pea in the Pod. Yup, Pea in the Pod. She was once again pregnant, although fortunately only five months along, so we didn’t worry about her water breaking or anything else going wrong at this wedding. Seema wore a lavender, sleeveless, V-neck chiffon dress with ruching from Suzy Chin. One wore flats, one wore sky-high heels. They could not have matched less.

They were perfect.

We held the ceremony a little bit before sunset, in front of the sparkly Pacific Ocean. Instead of flowers, we had the gazebo decorated with money trees. Jeff officiated. Ben’s sister was his best woman, his best friend from college his groomsman. We had one ring bearer, Jason Jr., and six (count ’em, six!) flower girls: Ben’s two nieces from Los Angeles, Nic’s stepdaughters, Malika and Megan, and Seema and Scott’s twin girls, Bindu and Jyotsna.

It is now just after the ceremony, as light turns to dusk, and as waiters hand out flutes of champagne, our guests get to watch our own private torch-lighting ceremony. (Which basically just consisted of us ordering a dozen torches to be lit by one of the hotel employees. But I am loving it!)

Dinner is an amazing five-course feast featuring local cheeses, fresh fish, locally grown beef, and the most famous dessert in the world: wedding cake.

Our cake is nothing fancy, just a standard three-layered, white-frosted confection with purple orchids decorating the top. On the bottom and middle layers, however, is something a little different: purple satin cake-charm ribbons poke out, hinting at a treat inside.

“You didn’t,” Seema says in disbelief when she sees the cake being wheeled out into our reception area.

“I did!” I proudly tell her. “And, Nic, in honor of you, I rigged it!”

“Really?” she asks, intrigued. “Which one’s mine? You have no bride and groom on top of the cake: How do you know who gets what? Are you the first one to pull?”

“Relax. It will all work out the way it’s supposed to.”

I walk up to Ben, who begins a toast. “I’d like to ask everyone to gather around our cake for a moment.”

Our guests do as they are told, and Ben explains, “A little over a year ago today, I met the most beautiful, amazing, funny woman in the world. And in a bar, no less!”

Laughter from the group.

Ben looks at me and smiles. “At a bridal shower for a friend, this amazing woman pulled a silver charm from a cake, similar to the cake you’re looking at now. The charm was called a money tree, and my bride”—Ben turns to me as he realizes for the first time—“no, my
wife
 … didn’t quite know what it meant. Nonetheless, the charm led her on a spiritual journey, which led her to Hawaii, which led her to me.”

I look at my … oh, my goodness, it’s
husband,
isn’t it?… smile and give him a quick kiss. Then I turn to our guests. “I need everyone to put their finger through a loop and pull. Whatever charm you get should tell you your future.”

“But how do we know—” Nic begins.

“Just pick one. It’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to,” I assure her.

Everyone pulls, laughs, and starts comparing their charms. The kids immediately begin licking off the ganache filling around their charms.

“Wait, are they all money trees?” Seema asks, amused.

“They are!” I answer.

At which time, Ben holds up his glass and makes a toast: “May you complete all of your journeys and find all of their charms.”

ALSO BY KIM GRUENENFELDER

There’s Cake in My Future

Misery Loves Cabernet

A Total Waste of Makeup

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