Page 5 of Sister of the Bride

Toby’s toe catches the corner of a wonky brick in the sidewalk, and he pitches forward a step. When he rights himself, he shoves his hands into his pockets.

“No,” he says, then clears his throat. “Actually, we broke up.”

Now it’s my turn to stumble. Toby and Jen have been dating since the beginning of med school, when they met at some weird future doctor costume party that involved dressing as an injury. She’s beautiful and smart and nice, like the grown woman equivalent of a golden retriever.

“Seriously? When?” I ask.

“Uh, I don’t know. A few weeks ago?”

I pause on the sidewalk, reaching up to grab his arm and pulling him to a stop. I don’t know Jen or the inner workings of their relationship very well, because Toby has rarely talked about it with me. I’ve met her only a handful of times on quick visits to Boston, and while I cannot fathom being in a relationship with the same person for that long, ending one seems kind of intense.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine. I’m just tired. Seriously, that flight was like being strapped in next to a Weedwacker.” The corners of his lips lift, and he shrugs. “Look, the breakup sucked, but it’s absolutely over. I just want to move on.”

I watch as Toby does what he does best: wills away whatever dark clouds are hovering around him. His furrowed brow relaxes, and his lips quirk up into a smile. He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, always a bundle of energy, and I can’t help but throw my arms around him again. I knew I missed him something fierce when he was gone, but I’d had no idea how wide that void felt until he showed back up.

“Okay, then, moving on,” I assure him. “You sure you don’t want to come with me to the airport to pick up Polly? You could surprise her too.”

“Nah, I really need to crash. My parents are expecting me to go to dinner with them at the club tonight, and if I fall asleep in a twenty-five-dollar martini while they grill me about my life choices, they won’t let me live in the basement apartment. You going that way?” Toby points in the direction of the Charles Street T stop, but I shake my head and nod in the other direction.

“I think I’m gonna walk over to Park.” I’m in the mood for a nice walk, and it’ll be just as fast as walking to Charles and waiting for the train. Besides, it’ll give me a few extra blocks with Toby as he heads back to his parents’ town house on Louisburg Square.

“Well, I start my residency tomorrow, but the first week is just a lot of orientation and social stuff. I want to get in as much Pippin time as possible before the hospital swallows me whole,” Toby says as we dodge a group of Gen Xers looking for the Real World Boston house.

God, I missed him. It’s been so long since we’ve actually lived in the same place. When he left for college, I didn’t realize how final it would feel. Toby, always the go-getter, the achiever, the golden boy, spent all his summers in college doing internships and study abroad trips and acts of do-goodery that earned him top honors and entrance to one of the best medical schools in the country. Once there, he continued to spend his summers working his tall, skinny ass off to be at the top of his class. I wasn’t a bit surprised when he called to tell me that he’d been accepted to a prestigious PhD program doing neuroscience research at Stanford, the first step on his way to following in his mother’s footsteps and becoming some fancy-pants award-winning medical researcher.

That’s how the dad jokes started. Toby, always overwhelmed with classes and studying and projects and internships, could barely find time to talk. When we realized we’d accidentally gone several months without speaking, he started firing off the most groan-worthy dad jokes in an attempt to make peace. And they stuck. They’ve become our love language, even though I mostly love to hate them. At least I’ve still had a bit of him in my days, even if the eye rolls nearly gave me migraines.

“Hey, now that you’re back, does this mean the dad jokes are over?”

Toby turns and gives me the kind of puppy eyes usually reserved for animal shelter ads. “I thought you loved me just as I am.”

“I do, but maybe we can just, you know, turn down the volume on that part of you?”

He flutters those infuriatingly long eyelashes at me, and I groan.

“Fine. But no more than one a day. Please.”

Toby pumps a fist, narrowly missing taking the hat off a man in a fanny pack photographing a Dunkin’ Donuts.

“Oh my god, you’re really back!” I cry, the realization hitting me once again. “What should we do first?”

“Christopher Lloyd film festival,obviously.”

“Did we settle on Lloyd? I thought we were leaning toward Mike Myers.” For years, whenever we can manage to cram in a free night to veg, we pick an actor and watch a selection of their classic films. Last time Toby visited at Christmas we did Julia Roberts, and let me tell you,Mystic Pizzastill slaps.

“Yeah, but then I looked up Mike Myers’s filmography on IMDB, and I realized that a lot of his classic roles have not, shall we say, aged well? I think I’d rather just leave them in the past and watchSo I Married an Axe Murdererfor fun.”

“True. I’d like to pretendThe Love Gurunever happened.”

“I’m thinking Mr. Myers might too. So Lloyd, then? The only question is, do we watch all threeBack to the Futures? Or do we pick one?”

“First of all, I submit that it’sBacks to the Future, like attorneys general or courts martial,” I say. “And if we’re going to pick only one, two is obviously the correct choice.”

“Fair. I’ll text you tomorrow when I’ve slept enough to operate my fingers.” Toby yawns and is about to peel off at Mt. Vernon Street, but before he can cross, I spot a flash of red between groups of tourists. A pair of khaki pants steps around an Asian family, and the next thing I know, I’m leaping behind Toby to avoid being spotted by Holston, the ex-boyfriend with the unfuckable name.

“Oh my god, Toby, please hide me,” I whisper, even though there’s no chance of Holston overhearing me on a bustling city street. Thankfully, my best friend tops six feet by several inches and makes an excellent hiding spot.

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