CHAPTER 26
In July, we get married. Leo and Bernadette have hired a crew to create a canopy of white lights over the entire back lawn. Leo and Arthur are in white linen suits. Bernadette and I wear simple white sundresses, chosen by Weezie. It’s hot, and at the last minute we all decide not to wear shoes.
There’s no need to add color—the forest behind the tea house is a curtain of all shades of green. Above it is a clear summer sky. On either side of the tea house’s open door is the annual explosion of blue hydrangea. They welcome me down the aisle, perfectly framing Leo in my line of sight. Leo’s here in July. And he’s staying for all of the Julys after this. Something blue, indeed.
After the ceremony, we move to the front yard, which has been transformed by candlelit tables, a band, and a dance floor. The caterers have taken over my kitchen and my porch, but the whole place still feels like home. The trees that surround the property give a feeling of privacy that I never really felt like I needed before. Laurel Ridge might be the perfect place for a celebrity to get married.
Luke gets up to make a toast about how I turned his brother into a real person. Leo rolls his eyes and gives me a squeeze. “Mom was so proud of you. She tried not to brag about you, but she couldn’t help herself,” he goes on. “And this family you’ve wiggled your way into, this is what she would have bragged about the most.” Leo takes my hand and kisses it.
There’s something extraordinarily celebratory about this wedding. It’s not just because the people there love us and want us to be happy. It might be because they lived through the time that we were apart and miserable. It might be because they all either lived through or saw the movie version of my marriage to Ben. Luke and Jenn, Kate and Mickey. Even Mr. Mapleton seems profoundly relieved that Leo turned out to be a good guy. Penny and Rick make Leo promise that we’ll come to their annual white party in East Hampton. Mr. and Mrs. Sasaki spend the whole night on the dance floor.
Weezie is giddy. “I met Nora right here last year,” she tells my parents. “She was worried we’d wreck her lawn, and she was right. And all the while there’s this thing brewing between her and Leo.”
Martin is there with Candy, who appears to be back in the rotation. “I take full responsibility for this,” he tells everybody. “It was my idea to film here. I brought Leo right to her door and let him sleep on her lawn.”
I am falling asleep in my bed with Leo, because he’s my husband now and that’s legit. We’re lying as close as we would be if we were still in the daybed in the tea house. I have two thoughts that I can’t shake. First, that dance floor is going to wreck my lawn for the summer. And second, that the best things come back. Sometimes it’s right after the commercial, sometimes it takes longer. But time and sunshine bring growth, and life unfolds just the way it’s supposed to.
My husband whispers in my ear. “You still awake?”
“Yes,” I say, though I’m nodding off.
“There’s a part for Arthur in a film I’m thinking about doing in the fall. He’d play my son.”
“Where?”
“England.”
Nothing’s how I planned, and I’m speeding into a future I can’t quite visualize. Life imitating art, imitating life, imitating art. “Let’s talk about this over the sunrise tomorrow,” I say.