“Hullo?” His voice, first thing in the morning, stops my pacing. It stops everything in the room. He sounds hazy, almost sweet.

  “Glasswell, this is Olivia.”

  Ideally, he’ll hang up now, and I can beg the silence for forgiveness.

  But a grunt tells me he’s still there.

  I sit down on the nautical-shammed window seat, looking out at the broad expanse of sandy beach. A gray marine layer scarfs the sky, making the shore feel close and cold. It always amazes me how something so seemingly dense “burns off” into blue every morning. I tell myself to be like the sky, to let my inner fog dissipate into incandescent wisps, to clear the way for brighter things.

  “Olivia who?” Glasswell says, the edge back in his voice.

  Okay, so we’re picking up our battle where we left off, but Masha needs to hear us making up.

  I glance at the chaos of the suite. Masha’s dress hangs in the closet, fresh from being steamed, but her veil is still a wrinkled mess. Her cousin’s six Caboodles have exploded cosmetic detritus over every surface of the room. In the corner, my mom’s hot glue gun heats up to affix popsicle sticks to programs so they can be used as fans—temps this morning are supposed to be five degrees warmer than expected. I still need to stuff the monogrammed favor bags with the back-ordered-until-this-weekend needlepoint kits Masha is Instagram-obsessed with. Then I have to text the violinist, confirming I found the Acus amplifier she requested. And the caterer, to relay the coordinates where the Santa Monica City Council said he can park his pupusa truck.

  If I can’t have dignity on this call with Glasswell, I must insist on efficiency. Masha’s mom and aunts are on the way to the bridal suite, and I need to get through this call before my audience increases in size.

  “It’s Olivia Dusk,” I say evenly into the phone. “And I’m calling to”—wow, this is hard to get out—“ap-apol—”

  “Are we on speaker?” Glasswell asks.

  “That’s big of you to say.” I give Mash a thumbs-up.

  “But Masha’s in the room, right? And this call is the bride’s condition for you to hold on to your reign of terror as maid of honor?”

  “That’s such a refreshing point of view.”

  “And perhaps a condition for your best friend walking down the aisle at all?” he prompts.

  “You’re funny.” I laugh theatrically and point at the phone. “He’s a riot, Mash.”

  “Well, as long as it’s not coming from a place of sincerity,” Glasswell says. “Do you mind if I record this? It’s for your benefit. That way, when you go off the rails at the wedding, we can play this recording and save some time.”

  I laugh jauntily and say, “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Now, grovel.”

  “Well, Glasswell, I won’t keep you—”

  “Call me Jake.”

  “I should have welcomed you last night, not attacked you. For that, I’m sorry.”

  “How sorry, Olivia?”

  “What’s that?” I say. “You’re sorry, too? Mash! He’s sorry, too.”

  “Awwww!” Masha says. “See?”

  I continue for her benefit: “He says he recognizes that he can often be an enormous—”

  “Stop,” Glasswell cuts me off before I’ve chosen the right insult. “I’m going to save you from yourself. Think of Masha, okay?”

  I take a breath. He’s not wrong. “Thank you.”

  “Now,” he says, “is there anything else before I go get dressed?”

  The idea of Glasswell rising from bed in a state of undress causes me to gulp, then visualize, then—

  No. I recover.

  “You and I,” I say, “are on the same team this weekend. We’re here for our friends. Let’s not lose sight of that.”

  I look at Masha, who is nodding, satisfied. I smile at her. She beams back and I know that I’m forgiven. I commit to being better, kinder to Glasswell for the rest of the day.

  “I . . . look forward to seeing you soon,” I say into the phone.

  I almost end the call before I realize he hasn’t responded.

  “You used to be a much better actor,” he says, sounding suddenly less playful. “Don’t quit your day job, Dusk.”

  As I pull the phone away from my ear, I hear Glasswell say, “Actually, do quit your day job. You can’t drive for shit.”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  Noon finds me less composed and glamorous than I would like to be, but at least I’m heading for the wedding canopy, strappy heels looped around my wrist. Across a solid mile of sand, I’ve lugged gift bags, programs, a ring bearer pillow, and Masha’s forgotten outfit change for the reception. When I finally release my burden behind the PA, I see Masha and Eli posing adorably for the wedding photographer. Less adorable is the conspicuous absence of Glasswell.

  I reapply deodorant and exhume the melted remnants of my lipstick from its tube. Using my phone as a mirror, I’ve painted my top lip rather adroitly when Masha takes me by the shoulder, panic on her face.

  “Don’t worry, I got your clothes. And your something blue!” I fish from my purse the blue satin garter Masha left back in the suite.

  “It’s not that—”

  “The glue is dry on the programs. They’re down to fan your grandparents.”

  “Liv—”

  “And the replacement extension cord for the violin magically worked,” I gesture toward the band setting up behind us. “It isn’t brown like the one that didn’t work, but I think sound trumps vision in this equation—”

  “Olivia,” Eli cuts in. “Yogi Dan is lost.”

  I blink. “Who?”

  “The officiant,” Eli says.

  This was Glasswell’s one contribution today.

  “What do you mean, ‘lost’?” I say.

  “Poetic, right?” Masha says, her hairline dotted with sweat. “The person supposed to guide us into the next phase of our relationship has no idea where he is. And if he’s still not here when Babushka and her rabbi show up—”

  “Easy, Mash,” Eli soothes, putting an arm around her waist. “I’ll handle Babushka and the rabbi.”

  “And I’ll find Yogi Dan,” I say, my eyes darting around the beach, which suddenly looks crammed with millions of people who aren’t yogis. Well, this being Santa Monica, a couple hundred probably are.

  “I’ve got him.” A resonant voice slices through the tension.

  I turn and face Glasswell in a tux. I try but find no fault in the sight of him. His barn door is sealed, his hair is styled differently than on his show, different than last night, and for a moment he looks like he did in high school.

  “He’s at a cannabis café called Milo and Lhüwanda’s,” Glasswell says, opening a map on his phone.

  “On it,” I say, swiping Glasswell’s phone and tearing off toward the boardwalk.

  “What the hell!” he says, and tries to grab it back. But my adrenaline high is far beyond his reach.

  “This is my responsibility!” Glasswell says, catching up.

  As soon as we’re out of earshot from Masha and Eli, I do my patented Glasswell spin. “That explains why it’s completely fucked!”

  “You don’t know what Yogi Dan looks like, let alone how to talk him down from Mars.”

  “And you do?”

  “He’s an old acquaintance,” Glasswell says. “And very hard to book for weddings.”

  “All I know is he’s the one piece falling through.”

  “If you want him to officiate the wedding, you’ll let me handle it.” Glasswell looks me up and down. “He’ll take one look at your energy and migrate to another plane.”

  “Look back there.” I point to the beautiful, beaded wedding canopy, to the electric string quartet tuning up, to the pupusa truck emanating aromatic steam. “I did that. Just like she wanted. And what did you do? You made her cry.”

  “You win the wedding, Dusk. Is that what you need to hear?”

  “What I need is for you to let me fix this.”

  I don’t waste time letting him answer. Life’s too short for bullshit from men. I kick off the heels I’d just strapped on and run for the shortcut alley behind the next light-blue lifeguard stand.

  I’m a quarter mile down the boardwalk when a gust of wind blows my carefully crafted hair into my face. I look and see Glasswell approaching on an electric rental scooter.

  “Want a ride?” he says like he thinks he’s James Bond.

  “Pass.”

  “It’ll keep you from sweating.” He stops the scooter, looks at the top of my head. “And your hair will thank you for it.”

  I board.

  My arms around him, a memory rises. The last time I had an arm around Glasswell.

  It was the Tuesday after prom, when we posed for yearbook, each of us representing our class for Most Likely to Succeed. We were light-years beyond awkward, but the photographer insisted: Glasswell’s arm around my shoulder, my arm around his waist. I could feel the heat of him, smell his eucalyptus skin, which made me wonder how my heat smelled to him.

  That photograph exists in the multiverse somewhere. I’ve never seen it. By the time the yearbook was shipped to my house that summer, my dad had died, and I couldn’t see much of anything. I’d made the shift from Most Likely to Impossible to Succeed.

  Maybe we’re all always one slight motion away from a different life.

  “We’re here,” Glasswell says and leaps off the scooter.

  I mentally reacclimate. Task at hand: find officiant.

  Glasswell’s three paces ahead. I follow close behind, pushing into the quiet café with a sense of catastrophic terror.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” says the security guard as he stands up behind a midcentury modern Danish desk. He waves his hand from high to low as if washing a window. “You need to chill this way the fuck down.”

  “Dan the man!” Glasswell says, smiling at what must be Yogi Dan, seated at an immaculate zinc bar. He looks like a cross between Bob Ross the PBS painter and Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood. He wears a white kurta and has tied a sand-colored headscarf around his Afro. In one hand he nurses an espresso in a small mug decorated with sky blue fleurs-de-lis. In his other hand he holds a joint the size of an andouille sausage.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I yell at Yogi Dan, who doesn’t stir.

  “Are you Jake Glasswell?” the security guard asks.

  “Don’t you know how late you are?” I shout.

  The security guard points a finger at me and looks at Glasswell. “Is she with you?”

  “With is a strong word,” Glasswell says, “but I’m willing to take the blame.”

  “You can stay,” the guard says, then hulks toward me, “but Calamity Jane needs to take her talents outside.”

  “I really hope,” Glasswell says to me as I turn grudgingly to go, “that these lessons start sinking in.”

  Outside is like a dream, a slow-motion beach town in a late spring heat wave, while I’m trying to deliver the wedding-equivalent of a vital organ in a beer cooler.

  The café door swings open and the two fools I’m waiting on stumble out, arm in arm.

  “I’m so glad you made it,” Glasswell says to Yogi Dan, his glassy eyes suggesting he thought we had enough time for a toke before the wedding. I’m furious, and also a little bit jealous. I’d actually love to chill this way the fuck down. But Masha needs me.

  “Yogi Dan hasn’t made it yet,” I correct Glasswell. “And the bride is freaking out, so if the two of you don’t mind . . .”

  Glasswell puts a finger to his lips, opens my purse, and drops the remainder of Yogi Dan’s joint inside.

  Yogi Dan turns to me, eyes kind and sparkling. “That is one bold lip.”

  At first, I think he means my attitude. Then I remember my mouth was only partly painted when the Where’s Yogi Dan scandal exploded.

  “She’s bold all over,” Glasswell says. “May I present Olivia Dusk, maid of honor. A beehive best left un-poked.”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  “Friends and loved ones of Eli and Masha,” Yogi Dan says, a mere twenty minutes late, “we welcome you with gratitude.”

  I’m standing at the altar, still out of breath from our dash on the scooter back to the wedding site—me chauffeuring Yogi Dan while Glasswell jogged beside us in his sand-buffed black oxfords.

  By the time we made it, the guests were being seated, Masha was hyperventilating in a corner, and Babushka’s rabbi was circling the altar. When she saw us, Masha’s eyes lit up, her shoulders relaxed, and she took her place with her dad. I cued the string quartet to start “The Ocean” by Led Zeppelin.

  Now, as I look out at the friends and loved ones gathered, all is as it should be. I know each one of these eighteen guests intimately. And for all their bellyaching, the mothers of the bride and groom don’t seem to mind that their bridge clubs and accountants weren’t invited. They only have eyes for their kids, who only have eyes for each other.

  You did it right, Mash, I convey with a light squeeze when she hands me her bouquet.

  For ten minutes, Yogi Dan speaks about marriage’s joys and trials. Before I know it, it’s my turn to step forward, take the mic, and give a reading.

  When Masha asked me to choose a passage, I knew immediately which one. It’s from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, which we read together in AP English our senior year. She was falling in love with Eli, and we’d found these words to be impossibly romantic.

  “ ‘What art was there, known to love or cunning,’ ” I read, holding my paperback copy from the class, the pages detaching from the spine, “ ‘by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving [make them] one?’ ”

  As I pass the microphone back to Yogi Dan, I catch his eyes, a quick blaze of interest in them, as he says, “And now a reading from the world’s best man.”

  As the congregation chuckles, I struggle for composure. I didn’t know Glasswell was giving a reading. It’s not listed in the program, unlike my reading.

  He pulls out a King James Bible and opens it to a bookmarked page.

  “ ‘Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?’ ”

  Glasswell’s eyes cut toward mine. I quickly look away. I wonder if this reading was his choosing or Eli’s. I wonder what Ecclesiastes means to him. Is he religious? Does he believe in marriage? Does he even believe in love? Does Glasswell believe in anything beyond the life in his lenses?

  And, perhaps most pressingly, was he naked when we talked this morning?

  I stop myself from prancing down that tempting mental lane. I’m not jealous because Glasswell is successful and I’m not, but I struggle with how he glided to the top of a game I never really got to play. In high school, he wanted to be a journalist; I was supposed to entertain. When Masha told me the story of how Glasswell sat by a TV executive at a Tuesday afternoon Yankees game, struck up a conversation, and by the seventh-inning stretch had landed a seat in the writers’ room of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, no one but me could believe it.

  I believed it, because that’s how life works out for him.

  The thing is, deep down, I know that if my dad hadn’t died, if I’d taken a place at Juilliard, the odds are long that I would have become a Broadway star. Too much luck involved, too many things would have had to go exactly right. Still, it bothers me that I never even got to take my chance. That’s how life worked out for me.

  It’s embarrassing to wallow in regret. Most of the time I don’t even let myself imagine the alternate reality where my dad is still alive, where I went after every dream.

  Except when I’m around Glasswell. Then I can’t seem to shake the feeling that something better might have happened had I done things differently. I know I made my own choices. I can’t blame my dad’s death or my mom’s heartbreak. But if I’d been bolder, more ruthless, if I’d gone to New York like I planned, consequences be damned . . .

  What would have happened? Where would I be?

  “Our maid of honor made a fascinating point,” Yogi Dan startles me by announcing to the wedding guests.

  I glance at Glasswell, intending to smirk triumphantly if he looks my way. But he’s not simply looking my way. He’s staring. At me. And I can’t stop staring back. His gaze holds me in place, goose bumps rising on my skin, as Yogi Dan goes on:

  “Olivia said inextricably, a gold-gilt frame for the union you dawn today. Your lives never will untangle after this ceremony. You are forever connected, inextricably.”

  Glasswell and I are still staring at each other, and it’s gone on long enough to feel like a game of visual chicken. This time, I’m determined to win. Competitive heat builds in my core, so warm it’s a little alarming. I feel my cheeks starting to flush—

  I don’t care how juvenile it is, I’m going to win this stare-down.

  “You may kiss to seal your love,” Yogi Dan says.

  Wait . . . it’s already time for the kiss?

  The opening chords of the string quartet’s version of “Just Like Heaven” begin to play around us. Light blooms in my periphery, but I don’t blink. The ground beneath me shakes, but not even an eight on the Richter scale would make me quit this contest. When the guests erupt in applause that says the kiss is underway, I’m still staring at Glasswell, and he’s still staring at me.