“Hey! I think that had ice in it!” Everett cried.
“Wait, really?” Charlotte’s pulse quickened.
“No.” At that, Everett shot a perfect snowball toward her; it smashed against her leg and disintegrated.
“You tricked me!” Charlotte said.
“Ha! Sucker!” Everett said.
The snowball fight went on another ten minutes or so, until the three of them stood, gasping for air with their hands on their knees.
“I forgot how tough it is to run through the snow,” Everett admitted.
“Yeah. I’m exhausted,” Charlotte said.
“Too exhausted to work, maybe?” Everett said sneakily.
“Naw.” Charlotte laughed. “But good try.”
“Ha. Well.” Everett glanced back toward the Sunrise Cove Inn. “I guess I’d better head back.”
“Sure. Everything okay there? You’re the only guest?”
“For the time being, yeah,” he said. “And it’s fun. A big, creaky inn, all to myself. Now that would be one hell of a Stephen King book.”
“Don’t let the ghosts bite,” Charlotte said.
Everett held her gaze for a moment. “Thanks for a beautiful Thanksgiving. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow before the rehearsal dinner.”
“Indeed,” Charlotte said. “Let the games begin.”
“You’re going to kill it,” he told her. “I’ve never seen anyone more capable.”
Rachel and Charlotte turned to walk the rest of the way to their house. Charlotte buzzed with anticipation. They had walked for a full two minutes in silence before Rachel said, “I’ve never seen anyone more capable,” in a voice that clearly resembled Everett’s darker one.
“What? He’s kind,” Charlotte said with a shrug.
“He likes you. I’ve never seen anyone crush so hard since Abby with this kid in art class,” Rachel teased.
“Don’t be silly. We’re working together. We’re basically in the same business. It’s good to meet new friends,” Charlotte insisted.
“I would tell you you’re being delusional, but I think you already know that,” Rachel retorted.
“Where do you come up with this stuff? You’re fourteen!”
Back inside, Charlotte brewed them some cups of hot cocoa, while Rachel snapped on a chick flick and burrowed herself in blankets on the couch. Charlotte checked her various messages, mostly from Ursula, Tobias, and Ursula’s mother.
URSULA: I just got word from the quintet. Apparently, they’re going to make it after all? Can you plz confirm.
URSULA: Charlotte? I need your go-ahead before I press play on these shoes. I wanted to wear these other ones, but what do you think of these?
URSULA: I went ahead and bought both pairs. You can help me decide when I arrive tomorrow.
URSULA: Finally, back in New York. Guess we’re on track. We are going to take all these supplements to beat the jet lag!
URSULA: Omg, Orion is being so difficult about his tux. I swear, men are such idiots, right?
URSULA: Are you getting these, Charlotte?
URSULA: CHARLOTTE?
URSULA: Okay. Call me when you get this.
Charlotte called Ursula that moment, but the call went straight to voicemail. Nothing Ursula, Tobias, or the mother of the bride had sent seemed pressing. They had just seemed like overly-anxious messages; the kinds people sent a few days before a huge, multi-million-dollar wedding.
Everything was in place.
Everything would be fine.
She had to believe it.
In a very strange way, having Everett tell her that had made her believe it even more.
She settled in beside Rachel with her hot cocoa. Rachel gave her an incredulous look.
“You’re already done?”
Charlotte shrugged. “I think it can wait till morning. All parties are headed our way. Tomorrow, Martha’s Vineyard will explode.”
“Ha. And you think you’ll be able to sleep tonight?” Rachel asked.
“Of course not,” Charlotte said with an ironic laugh. “But I’ll close my eyes and pray to God above that everything will go smoothly.”
“What do you think of Everett?” Rachel asked then.
“Not this again.”
“I’m just curious,” she said. “I don’t know.” She swallowed another gulp of hot cocoa, then added, “He makes snowballs almost as good as Dad.”
Charlotte’s heart sank. “Yes. He does.”
“But Dad’s hurt more,” Rachel said. “Or maybe I was just younger, so I thought they hurt more.”
It was their second winter without him. Both of them stewed in this fact for a moment, staring blankly at the rom-com as it whipped from one dramatic plot to another. Charlotte’s throat constricted.
“You know what your dad thought of rom coms?” she asked.
Rachel shook her head. A tear trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t make any motion to brush it off.
“He said that they were silly. And you know what? Every single time I convinced him to watch one, he complained about it for the first fifteen minutes, and then, by the end of it, he was mopping up his tears,” Charlotte said, smiling to herself.
“That’s ridiculous,” Rachel replied.
“I know. And he always made me promise never to tell anyone. Can you imagine what would have happened if one of his fishermen buddies had heard?”
“They would have never let him hear the end of it,” Rachel affirmed with a laugh. She squeezed her eyes shut again, then forced them open again. Tears lined her cheeks. “Thank you for telling me that. It changes him a little bit, but in a good way.”
“I’ll give you as many memories as I can of him, for as long as I can,” Charlotte said. “It’s all we can do to keep him with us.”
Before she turned out the light for the night, Charlotte blinked again at the old closet, still stocked-full of Jason’s old coats and shirts. She ran her fingers over the old flannel, inhaling the last lingering scent of that horrible fish.
“I still love you, you know,” she told the shirts, as though Jason himself could hear her.
Chapter Twelve
It was Friday: the day of reckoning.
This was what Everett wanted to text to Charlotte as a joke, if only he had taken her number. As it stood, he was all alone, a cup of coffee in hand and a piece of leftover pie on a plate there in the Sunrise Cove Inn. He watched the Sound as it shifted
