“All right, team,” Charlotte said, whipping around to grin at her family. “You heard the lady. Let’s party!”
Chapter Twenty-One
The party took on a new dimension after Ursula’s announcement.
Charlotte hadn’t seen anything like it, not in all her years of party-planning, or even when she had visited girlfriends off the island at various college parties. The booze flowed; the gorgeous people fought and danced and laughed; Zach put out appetizer round after appetizer round and managed to only get into a few little spats with his servers.
“That’s the most incredible part of all of this,” Christine said to Charlotte in the corridor, after they had both fixed their lipstick in the bathroom. “Zach? Not fighting that much? I mean, the man is a hothead.”
Charlotte laughed.
“Ah, but I love him. So much. I hope when we finally get married; he lets someone else do the cooking, though,” Christine continued. “I don’t know if he trusts anyone else.”
Dinner was served in the dining hall. Charlotte stuffed another chair at the family table to allow for Everett to sit with them, and the two of them got lost in banter and good wine as the courses flowed out of the kitchen. Occasionally, Charlotte turned her eyes toward Ursula, who sat with her best friends, still in her wedding dress, and laughed and gossiped as if this was just any other day. What went through her head? Did she regret calling it all off?
But the air in the room didn’t reek of regret. It was cinnamon, simmering with smells of roasted pork, potatoes, all the fixings, including croissants and pies. Christine asked if she should pull out the wedding cake, just to be featured, and Charlotte said, “Sure. What the heck! You created such a beautiful masterpiece. Let’s not let it go to waste.” When the cake was wheeled out, Ursula posed near it as a joke, and everyone laughed and snapped multiple photos. Charlotte heard more than one person ask who had made the cake. At this, she walked up and slipped one of Christine’s cards into their hands. Christine deserved all the fame in the world.
Sometime around nine that evening, Charlotte found Everett near the coatroom. Her heart lurched as she asked, “You aren’t going, are you?”
“No. Not at all. I can’t miss the rest of whatever this is,” he said with a big smile. “I just wanted to get some air. It looks like it started snowing again.”
Charlotte watched as Everett slipped on that massive coat, the one that had belonged to her Uncle Wes. “You really do look like you belong here,” she told him. “No longer that west coast guy who arrived only days ago.”
“Funny how things change,” he said with a laugh as he looked down at his boots.
Charlotte grabbed her coat and headed out onto the porch with Everett. The snow fell softly, lit only by the moon. It was such a beautiful night.
“I wonder what will happen next in their lives,” Everett said.
“I don’t know. They’re still young. They have everything ahead of them,” Charlotte said.
“I wonder if they ever really loved each other,” Everett said. “Or if it was all a lie, they told themselves.”
Charlotte shivered. “I think love is a beautiful answer to something. I don’t know what the question is, exactly, but...” She trailed off and then forced herself to say, “I was married for about twenty years. My husband passed away last year in a fishing accident. For a long time, I thought I wouldn’t live through it. I woke up every day in that bed alone and I thought—what’s the point?”
As she said the words, Charlotte realized that she hadn’t explained her situation to anyone since it had happened. Everyone in her life had either known about it or not gotten close enough to her to find out.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Charlotte said, suddenly feeling a bit embarrassed about sharing too much. He hadn’t even asked her about her situation, so why did she tell him that?
“I want to know this stuff,” Everett said softly as he turned to look at her.
Charlotte’s heart grew warm. She was reminded of that Grinch, whose heart outgrew his chest.
“You don’t have to,” Charlotte said. “I know this isn’t your life. You’re just a visitor. But...”
Everett shrugged. “But isn’t it nice to be seen?”
Charlotte nodded as she looked at him.
But before she could answer, someone near the far end of the porch called her name.
Charlotte and Everett turned quickly to find Orion and Ursula.
Ursula was still dressed in her wedding dress; Orion had donned his tux.
They stood awkwardly, like young adults who had just been caught doing something wrong.
“Everett,” Orion said in greeting.
“Orion,” Everett nodded. “Hello, Ursula.”
Ursula turned her eyes toward Charlotte. They glowed beautifully. “Charlotte, we’ve had a long conversation about today.”
Finally.
“And we want to get married after all,” Orion confessed.
What?
“But we don’t want to do it in front of all those people,” Ursula said. “I hardly even know most of them. O and I are almost always in the spotlight. It’s our instinct to be in front of people. But what if that isn’t the best way? What if the only way to step forward in marriage is to be by ourselves?”
Charlotte could hardly believe what she’d just heard.
Beside Ursula, Orion gave a firm nod. “Maybe you know somewhere we could go? A little church, or...”
“There’s a little chapel,” Charlotte said. “It’s not far.”
“A chapel. How quaint,” Ursula said.
At first, Charlotte thought Ursula was being sarcastic. What would an LA-actress want with a little chapel and nobody to watch?
But her eyes reflected just how certain she was of this new
