The Wedding Sisters (26 page)

She had been all set to just get it over with—to go home from the office with Andy and tell him over dinner. And then she'd gotten the call—no, the summons—from her mother. Amy had told her mother it wasn't a good night, but Meryl insisted.

“I have news,” she said. “And all you girls need to be here.”

Her mother could be so dramatic sometimes. But apparently Meg was in town, so maybe it was important.

Amy was the last one to arrive at the apartment. Her parents and sisters were sitting in the living room already. And her grandmother.

“Finally,” said Jo. “I'm starving.”

“I didn't bring food,” snapped Amy.

“No shit—but the sooner we get this show on the road, the sooner we can order Chinese.”

“Girls, please,” said Meryl. “Amy, sit down, hon.”

“Okay, you're freaking me out,” said Amy. “Is something wrong? Are you sick?” Her eyes grew wide. That's it. Her mother was dying. Her cosmic punishment.

“No, sweetie, nothing is wrong.”

Amy squeezed onto the couch between Meg and Jo. Her grandmother sat on the love seat, and her father in his Eames chair.

Meryl remained standing. “So, as you know from the Page Six articles and the photographers outside Monique Lhuillier and the call I got from
New York
magazine, your engagements have inspired a lot of media interest.”

Had her mother really called them there just to lecture them about avoiding the media? Amy had already gotten the memo from her mom's nearly hysterical call about not talking to that reporter. Just because her mother worked in book publicity, she thought she was a PR guru. Amy had told Jeffrey about it, and he told her that all publicity was good publicity. And really, he should know.

“Photographers wait outside Toby's apartment building every morning now,” said Jo.

“Really?” Amy resisted a surge of jealousy. Why her?

“Girls, the attention is just going to increase. That's why we need to start taking control of the publicity. I met with
People
magazine today. They want to do a story on all of you that will run online, ahead of anything
New York
magazine publishes, and then an expanded piece in the magazine next month or so.”

“We should really run this by Jeffrey's PR team,” said Amy. It wasn't surprising that
People
wanted photos of the wedding. The Bruces were the biggest fashion family in America. But Jeffrey was so into maximizing publicity, it was possible he was already talking to someone about the wedding.

“No,” said Meryl, so sharply, it startled her. “We are not running this by anyone except the people in this room. Girls, we have three weddings to plan—and frankly, your father and I simply can't afford it.”

“Mom, the Bruces will take care of anything we need—”

“What I need is for you to be quiet and listen! Your father and I have been trying to figure out what to do. Look, girls, I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner, but your father is no longer with Yardley.”

“I thought you said it was a sabbatical,” said Meg.

“When did you go on sabbatical?” said Amy.

“He's leaving Yardley,” Meryl repeated. “And so, financially, things are challenging. But talking to the editor at
People
today offered a solution for this. They will pay us—a lot of money—for the exclusive rights to the wedding photos.”

“Cool,” said Jo.

“But there are two conditions: one, the wedding takes place in early May so they can run this in their June wedding issue.”

“What do you mean, ‘the wedding'? Whose wedding?” Amy asked, confused. Was this all about Meg again?

“That's the second part. We discussed the idea of a triple wedding.”

Amy's mouth dropped open. This had to be a joke. She turned to Meg, but she only nodded calmly.

“That's so crazy, it's kind of genius!” said Jo.

“Mom, please tell me you're joking,” said Amy slowly.

“She's not joking,” said Hugh. “And I'm asking you girls to seriously consider this. It's unconventional, but we've always done things our own way, haven't we?”

“That's one way of putting it,” said Rose.

Amy looked at her grandmother, who was now a fixture in their midst after a lifetime of being largely absent; at her father, who she could only guess quit his job to write that book; and at her mother, who was … Was she wearing red lipstick?

“I'm all for it,” said Meg.

“You are?” Amy couldn't believe it.

“It will be fun!” said Jo. “Like when we were kids.”

“Shut up, Jo. Of course you don't care. This engagement is just another one of your random impulses. Does it even mean anything to you?”

“I find it really hard to believe you're judging
my
engagement,” Jo said pointedly. And Amy regretted, oh how she regretted, confiding in her.

“I think we all just need to calm down,” said Meg.

Meryl, her arms crossed in front of her chest, glared at Amy. “I would like for you, just once, to think of someone other than yourself,” she said.

Amy felt like she'd been slapped. Of course,
she
was the selfish one. Meg was handling this elegantly and perfectly, Jo was down for anything, and Amy was the bitch for stating the obvious: This was crazy.

*   *   *

Meryl closed the door behind the girls, wishing she could go with them. The apartment felt claustrophobic, the tension of the conversation still sucking all the air out of the room.

“That went well,” said Hugh. If Meryl didn't know better, she would think he was being sarcastic. But Hugh didn't do sarcasm. As usual, he'd just misread the room.

“In what sense? That it didn't devolve into physical violence?” said Meryl.

Rose barked a laugh.

“Oh, come on, Meryl. The girls squabble. But Jo and Meg are fine with it, and Amy will come around. You did a good job.”

She had to admit, his praise felt good. But what would have felt better was him being a partner to her—at least once—when it really counted.

“Amy will do whatever Meg does. She always has. It's money in the bank,” said Rose.

“Okay, Mother, I don't know if this is your idea of being supportive, but please just stop.”

For the second time in her life, her daughters had drawn her mother out of her closed-off shell and awakened an odd hybrid beast—part wisdom, part irritation.

Twenty-eight years ago, it had been Meg's heart condition that pulled her mother out of her silence and resentment. Rose couldn't keep quiet when something needed to be said, and when Meg called her crying, insistent that the doctor wasn't giving her clear answers, Rose had stepped in.

“Your father's old friend, Sol Klein, is on the board at CHOP,” she'd said. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. It was the place to go, her mother insisted. Meryl couldn't make any more decisions at that point. She was confused. Now the cardiologist was throwing around terms like “tetralogy of Fallot.” Meryl sat on the floor of the Yorkville Library, Meg in her lap, paging through a cardiology book, trying to make sense of it all because the damn doctor wasn't telling her anything useful. Every three days was the same agonizing routine of chest X-rays; a visit with Dr. McFlynn, where he asked how much she seemed to be eating; and then an assessment of how much weight she was failing to gain.

“Do you think she needs the surgery soon?” Meryl asked. She dreaded both a yes and a no. A yes would get it over with, but a yes meant surgery. A no meant more uncertainty, but it sustained her perhaps irrational hope that surgery could be avoided.

She couldn't sleep. She watched over Meg with a compulsion, as if only her vigilance would solve the problem. As if the answer could be found in the uneven rise and fall of her tiny chest. Her mother said to her, “There are two types of problems in life: fixable and not fixable. This is fixable. So let's fix it.”

The doctor at CHOP was different. He was decisive. There was no reason to wait. Meg, her heart the size of a walnut, would have surgery in a matter of days.

There had been an unreal quality to handing tiny Meg off to the anesthesiologist. The woman was already wearing a surgical mask to cover her mouth. All Meryl could see—and would always remember—was the woman's bright blue eyes, and the way she said with such confidence and certainty, “We're going to get this fixed.”

And then there was nothing for Meryl and Hugh to do but wait. There was a certain closeness in that, a solidarity. And Meryl had known that while she had traversed the past few months feeling alone, she wasn't. She had Hugh.

Meryl's phone rang. Her first thought was that it was one of the girls—together, walking to their dinner, they'd decided on a mutiny. No wedding.

“Hello?” she said.

Hugh was already retreating to his office. And her mother had moved to the couch and picked up a copy of
New York
magazine.

“Meryl, it's Scott.”

“Oh!”

“Is this a bad time?”

“No—I just, I wasn't expecting you. I thought it was … Never mind. How are you?”

“I'm good—back in New York. A project is getting some traction, so I'll be here for a few days. Any chance you're free for a drink one night this week?”

Meryl glanced at her mother. “Sure. Thursday night?”

“Sounds good. I can come to you this time. Want to do that place you originally mentioned on Eighty-fifth?”

“Perfect.”

“See you Thursday.”

She felt a surge of energy, an almost giddy excitement.

“Who was that?” asked Rose.

Meryl jumped—she'd forgotten she was in the room. “Oh—just a friend.”

“What friend?”

Meryl hesitated. “An old friend from Nana and Grandpa's place at the shore,” she said. Really, she had nothing to hide.

Rose squinted at her with suspicion. “What friend from the shore? You didn't have any friends.”

“First of all, Mother, that's not true. And his name is Scott.”

“Erma and Lew's kid—with the limp?”

“No! That was Sammy Goldberg. Scott was the lifeguard at the beach.”

Rose shook her head. “Don't be ridiculous, Meryl. You're too young to be running around with that lifeguard. And don't tell your grandmother.”

Meryl looked at her, her heart thumping with alarm. “Mother, what are you talking about? I'm a grown woman. And Nana is gone.”

“Well,” said Rose, “as a grown woman, you should certainly know better.”

*   *   *

Andy, easygoing (or was it passive?) as always, took the news of the triple wedding calmly. “Really, babe—whatever you want. It's not a big deal.”

She had texted him to meet her for dinner. Andy, thinking she was going to eat with her parents, had made plans to have a beer with a friend in the Village. But he met her at the Mexican place Toloache when she said it was important.

“What about your parents?” she asked, pouring herself another margarita from the pitcher.

He shrugged. “They'll be cool with whatever. They did their whole big wedding thing, like, ten years ago. They don't need this for themselves.”

“What whole big wedding thing?”

“They renewed their vows. When they got married the first time, they were basically broke, so it wasn't exactly a dream wedding for my mom. So I guess it was a do-over.”

Amy swallowed hard. Would she end up wanting her own do-over if she agreed to this crazy idea?

“But what do
you
want?”

“I want whatever you want. Really. Your big family is kind of fun for me. It's so different than what I had growing up. I like Meg and Jo. And Stowe's cool. I don't know this other dude, but we had a few drinks at the engagement dinner. I think it could be cool. Kind of different.”

Amy nodded. “But what about the
People
magazine thing?”

“Oh please, you know Dad will
love
that. You in a custom Jeffrey Bruce wedding gown on the cover of
People
magazine? All good.”

“You think we'll get the cover?”

“I mean, if they're paying money, yeah. Unless some celebrity runs off and does something crazy, I think you'll be on the cover. They're not spending money to bury you in the back.”

“Oh my God! You're right!” Amy laughed, feeling genuinely excited about things again. She smiled at the image of the three of them smiling out from every newsstand in the city. Of course, the photographer would probably put Meg in the center.

It was counter-logical, but while a triple wedding did steal the spotlight from her—it actually cast a more intense glow. And maybe Andy was right—it would be fun. With everything that was going on—like the temporary insanity with Marcus—it might be advisable to embrace a wedding scenario that was about more than just her. There was no second-guessing, no postponing—this thing was happening. It was a freight train.

All she had to do was go along for the ride.

*   *   *

Meg knew that running off to New York had not been the most mature thing to do. But it had worked out for the best. If she hadn't been there to support her mom in the wedding decision, Jo and Amy might not have gone along with it.

She just had to get Stowe to accept it.

The way she saw it, she'd lost her job over Reed's presidential run. She'd taken one for the team. Now it was Stowe's turn.

“Hello? Babe, I'm back.” She tossed her keys into the bowl on the entrance table and shrugged off her coat.

“In here,” Stowe called out from the kitchen. Meg walked through the house, and he intercepted her in the living room.

He hugged her. “I missed you,” he said. “I wish you hadn't run off like that.”

“I needed some time. To process everything,” she said.