Page 6 of Sister of the Bride

Toby looks around, and I point at the offending polo shirt waiting for the walk sign on the opposite corner of Charles and Mt. Vernon. “That’s Holston, and I can’t see him because thelasttime I saw him was on his birthday when I told him I didn’t want to date him anymore.”

Toby groans. “Pippin, you broke up with the man on hisbirthday?”

“I didn’tknowit was his birthday. But thank god I ended things when I did, because he was about to take me to what turned out to be his surprise birthday party, where I would’ve met his entire fucking family, and it’s a lot harder to cut and run once you’ve met someone’s mother.”

Toby yawns again, his shoulders slumping. I duck down lower.

“Pippin, he didn’t take the walk sign,” he says over his shoulder, where I’m cowering like, well, a coward. Desperation is creeping into his voice. “He’s looking at his phone. And I’m so tired. I’m fading fast. Please don’t make me stand here much longer.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, walk past him like a grown-ass woman who accepts the consequences of her actions?”

“I’d rather step in front of an oncoming Uber.”

Toby groans again. “What did you do while I was in California?”

“I missed you. And also I had a lot of awkward conversations. I really need to stop dating guys in my neighborhood.”

Toby sighs, a full-body experience that I swear lowers his height by a full three inches. Then he turns around, wraps his arm around me like he’s trying to hide me from paparazzi, and leads me to a green wooden door.

I look up to see the sign for Harrison’s Hardware (est. 1948) and gasp. “I can’t go in there! I have to go meet Polly, and if I go in there, I’ll be late for sure!”

“It’s this or you faceHolston,” Toby says, and even though he’s exhausted and a little exasperated, he can’t mange to say the name with a straight face.

“Fine. But I’ll make you pay for this. We’re watchingWho Framed Roger Rabbiteven though Judge Doom gives you nightmares.”

Toby rolls his eyes and opens the door, the little bell strung up over the frame announcing my arrival. I give him a glare, and he gives me a shove, then turns and heads for his parents’ apartment and, I assume, the first flat surface upon which he can pass out.

The bell on the door does its job, and Mr. Harrison’s head pops up from behind the tall counter. I remember standing at the base of that counter staring what seemed like a very long way up while Dad talked Celtics and Bruins with Mr. Harrison. He would give Polly and me caramel apple pops that he kept in a plastic bin behind the register, and we’d spend forever trying to lure out whatever incarnation of shop cat was currently lurking among the shelves. The space smells exactly the same as it did then, like pencil shavings and grease, and for a moment I can almost hear Dad calling us back to the front of the store to go meet Mom for lunch.

“Pippin! Good to see you! Did your nonna lose her keys again?” Mr. Harrison asks.

“Nope. I just popped inreally quick,” I say, in what I already know will be a fruitless effort to dissuade him from a full-blown conversation. Mr. Harrison has always been a talker, but it got more pronounced a few years ago when his wife died. I usually spend a few minutes chatting with him while picking up steel wool for the saucepans or a handful of screws to fix a wobbly prep table, but I don’t have that kind of time today. Polly landed fifteen minutes ago, and if I want to be there to help her get her bags when she emerges from customs, I need togo.

I glance over my shoulder and watch Holston’s head bob past the front window of the shop. Crisis averted. Well, one of them, anyway.

“Anything I can help you find?” Mr. Harrison asks.

My eyes dart around the nearby shelves, trying to find something that won’t spark a conversation and preferably costs less than ten dollars. I land on the display of candy to the left of the register—boxes of dusty Paydays, Chunkys, Skor bars, and other things kids think they want because they’re candy but actually don’t because they’re disappointing (woof, what a metaphor for adulthood, huh?).

“Looking for a snack? Because my distributor just sent me a box of hot nuts.”

“Excuse me?” I blink at Mr. Harrison, who, by the way, isveryappropriately named. The man is covered in tufts of snow-white hair, and it’s so thick it looks like he’s wearing a mohair sweater beneath his flannel shirt. When Polly and I were little, we used to torture each other by whispering, “Do you think you can braid Mr. Harrison’s chest hair?” just before the other was about to fall asleep, leading to squeals and mental images that would keep the victim up for an extra twenty minutes at least. So hearing this seventy-five-year-old Sasquatch say the wordshot nutsto me is, well, jarring.

“I saidhot nuts,” Mr. Harrison repeats, his voice clanging through the store. He reaches for a red bag hanging from a rack and gazes down at the image emblazoned on the packaging. “They’re quite tasty, though they do leave a bit of an aftertaste on your tongue. I think the spicy coating gives an odd mouthfeel.”

An unholy combination of snort-laugh and gag gets trapped in my throat, and I have to clamp my hand over my mouth and convert it all into a cough. God, what I wouldn’t give for Polly to be here right now, hearing this right along with me.

Mr. Harrison glances up, and I quickly drop my hand and plaster on a smile.

“I’ll be honest, I was skeptical, but the hot nuts aren’t bad. Though I haven’t sold as many as I’d hoped. Maybe because people don’t like their nuts spicy,” he says. “You game?”

At this point, I can barely contain my guffaws, and I’m wondering if I can surreptitiously start recording on my phone so I can play this conversation for Polly as soon as I find her at the airport. Speaking of, this stop was definitelynoton the minute-by-minute schedule. I need to get out of here ASAP if I’m going to meet Polly in enough time to yell “hot nuts” in a pitch-perfect imitation of Mr. Harrison’s gravelly voice directly into Polly’s face enough times to make her pee her pants.

“I’ll take them,” I say. If nothing else, they’ll make an excellent visual aid for when I relay this story to Polly.

“Well, good,” he says as he punches buttons on his cash register. “Can’t imagine why these things aren’t moving.”

---