When the Mansours dismiss us, I pile into a car with Tarek and Harun, his cousin and one of his closest friends; Stella, an Asian girl with a vine tattoo twisting up her forearm; Bryce, a white guy I’m pretty sure has been high his whole shift; and Elisa. Most of them, I’ve seen at past weddings, but since Mansour’s has a rotating staff, I didn’t know Stella or Bryce by name until five minutes ago. They’re all in college, either locally or home for the summer.
“Everyone good back there?” Elisa asks from the driver’s seat.
I’m squeezed in the back between Tarek and Stella, trying my best to keep my distance from Tarek without climbing into Stella’s lap.
“Perfect,” I squeak as we hit a speed bump that presses my thigh against Tarek’s. He’s half in his caterer’s uniform he changed back into, half in regular clothes, his shirt unbuttoned all the way and revealing a T-shirt with a band name I can’t read from this angle. I’m trying to remember the last time I saw him in short sleeves, which makes me think back to walking in on him changing, which then makes me unable to think about anything else. Cool cool cool. Love those intrusive thoughts.
“Your cake was a hit,” Stella says. “People kept asking me if I could sneak them an extra slice.”
“Your cake?” I repeat.
Tarek scratches at the back of his neck. “I, uh, made the wedding cake,” he says. “Well—I made the cake batter and my mom made the frosting and then assembled the whole thing. That’s about as much control as my parents will relinquish. I didn’t want to seem like I was bragging about it.”
“That is one-hundred-percent something you should brag about,” I say, impressed. “That’s incredible.”
“It was,” Elisa says emphatically. “That cake tastes the way an orgasm feels.”
“Exactly what I was going for,” Tarek says, and for a moment I’m stunned by the effortlessness of this exchange between them. I cannot imagine even whispering the word “orgasm.” Maybe if you’ve had one with someone, it gets easier to talk about. Maybe Tarek and Elisa hooked up at the end of last summer, gave each other heaps of toe-curling orgasms, and then cordially parted ways.
“That was why I left. I wanted to serve it.” Tarek tilts his head toward me. “Did you like it?”
“I didn’t get a chance to try it. I’m sorry.” And I really am, though the word “orgasm” is still pinging around my brain. “It looked great, though.”
“Next time,” he says, but there’s an odd uncertainty in his voice, like maybe he doesn’t think there will be a next time. “I had to beg my parents to let me help out with this one.”
We end up at Golden Gardens, a beach in Ballard ten minutes from my micro-hood of Crown Hill. Stella and Bryce run ahead to claim a firepit while the rest of us unload beach supplies from Elisa’s car. They managed to steal a couple bottles of wine and champagne.
“I always put them in here at the beginning of summer, just in case,” Elisa says as we root around her trunk for some blankets and towels, a cooler filled with off-brand LaCroix, and a stack of cups. At the winery, Elisa changed into something more casual; she’s in jeans and a T-shirt with an image of a beaker telling a test tube, YOU’RE OVERREACTING.
Even in my all-black wedding-planner outfit, I feel overdressed for the beach. Still, I am determined to use this night to prove that Tarek and I can be friends again. He was the best part of my summers, and for so long, I was devastated he might not be part of this one. Now that he’s here, it’s not just that I need an ally at work, a buffer between my parents and me—it’s that I want a friend, whether it’s the friendship we used to have or something entirely new.
It takes a few attempts to get the fire going as we position ourselves on blankets around the pit. Harun pours champagne into a plastic cup and takes a swig. “I’m always surprised when there’s alcohol left,” he says, passing it to Stella. “I feel like they usually underestimate how hammered their guests want to get.”
“They didn’t even splurge on the good stuff?” Stella peers at the label. “I don’t know if you can legally call this champagne.”
“Hopefully that just means we’ll get wasted faster,” Bryce says.
“I’ve seen worse,” I volunteer. “We had an open bar a few years ago that the couple stocked with only Manischewitz and Two Buck Chuck. There was almost a riot.”
“See, I bet you have the best wedding stories,” Elisa says. “While the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me was getting vomited on by a bride.”
Since she’s driving, Elisa declines, and when it’s my turn, I pour only a small amount into my cup before passing it to Tarek, whose eyes meet mine over the lip of the bottle. Now that we’re not pressed against each other in the back seat of a car, I can see his shirt says SHARON VAN ETTEN, a musician I like too. Maybe I’ll ask him about her later, since Tarek and I are friends again and that is a friendly kind of question.
“Anyone up for Never Have I Ever?” Stella says. “Harun and Elisa have been here the longest—well, aside from Tarek, who was basically born into this. But I only started working here a few weeks ago.”
“Team bonding!” Elisa says. “I’m game.”
“As long as we don’t corrupt my baby cousin,” Harun says.
“You’re only two years older than me.”
“Two and a half.”
We start by holding up ten fingers, taking a sip and putting one down each time we’ve done something. I should have known that with college kids, a game like this was bound to turn sexual immediately. The first round is innocent: declarations about school, work, awkward moments from childhood. “Never have I ever… hard-core embarrassed myself in public,”
