Page 54 of Fathers of the Bride
18
Andrew Lane
“This is boring,”Raj whined. “There’s no one here. No one’s coming. Poor Kelly, she’ll be devastated.”
After entering, we’d walked the entire pier and were now standing by the fishing area in front of the Mexican restaurant. The smell of refried beans and spicy salsa mixed with the fishy smell of the ocean. It sounds vaguely disgusting, but, in fact, it made me desperate for one of Miles’ fabulous mahi-mahi tacos.
Raj had his phone out and was videoing the thinly populated pier, even though both of us knew he’d never post it… filming things had become an automatic reflex. Compulsive almost. I tried not to think about the fact that I’d encouraged him in this.
“This is what happens when you’re on time,” I said.
“It’s notmyfault we’re on time,” he said, accurately. I’d forgotten the time had changed. I should have realized. I should have looked at my phone. Instead, I trusted the stove in the kitchen—old habits die hard. And so I’d rushed us out of the house, meaning we arrived much earlier than we should have.
On time.
“Take some shots of the sunset,” I suggested. It was particularly beautiful that evening, lavenders and reds. And there were still surfers in black wetsuits trying to catch the beginner waves.
“No one wants to see sunsets,” Raj said, glowering at me. He’d tried to tell me the time had changed, but I ignored him. Which had led to a fight about how I never paid any attention to what he said. At least, I think that’s what the fight was about. Honestly, I wasn’t paying attention.
“Everybody wants to see sunsets,” I said. “They’re liked all the time. It’s good for your algorithm.”
Grudgingly, he began taking shots of the sunset. He was on his fifth or sixth photo, when he said, “Oh look, Andrew, there’s She.”
She—just the pronoun, no first or last name—was one of my other clients. She had carved out a decent career for herself as a plus-sized model, though she hadn’t started out that way. Back when She was plain old Cheryl Brinkman, she’d been just another super thin model but hadn’t been able to get enough jobs, or really any. So she deliberately gained sixty pounds and became an advocate for the plus-sized set. Voila, success.
She wore a Diane von Furstenberg-style wrap dress in brilliant red, carried a two-thousand-dollar purse in her crelbow, and clutched a puffy donut-like pastry in her left hand. She’d obviously gotten it from the vendor who’d been hired to hand them out free as you entered the boardwalk.
“God, I’m already stuffed,” She said. “There’s going to be a lot of food at this thing, isn’t there?”
“I assume so.”
“That’s so depressing.”
Maintaining her weight was a constant struggle. Losing ten pounds would have jeopardized her entire brand. She had no choice but to keep eating. There was a kind of irony there, but I wasn’t about to chase it.
“Who’s going to be here?” she asked through a mouthful of donut. “Celebrity-wise.”
I eyed Raj suspiciously. I had not given my client list to the Lincoln-Collinses so it must have come from him.
“Don’t worry, She. There will be lots of celebrities to hobnob with. Just wait.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You-know-who is coming. We haven’t told many people. You know how she is, always disappointing her fans. We can’t contribute to that. Maybe she’ll be here, maybe she won’t. But right now,youneed to take a selfie with me.”
They squeezed together and Raj held his camera aloft. He snapped the photo and showed it to She, who asked, “Do I look fat enough?”
“Maybe not,” Raj said.
She adjusted her pose, and they took another shot, one they liked better. Then they spent a few minutes captioning it and uploading it to Instagram.
And that’s when I saw the cater waiters. They were tall, young white boys wearing colorful African print sarongs, while carrying a spear in one hand and an appetizer tray in the other. They didn’t look particularly happy.
“What kind of donut was that you had?” I asked She.
“African, I think. It was delicious. Or it would have been if I wasn’t stuffed to the gills.”
I turned and glared at Raj. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. I just mentioned a really great idea to Pudge and Lissa, andtheythought it was brilliant. Can I help that?”
“It’s wrong.”
