“This is our family business.” There’s genuine confusion in my dad’s voice. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”
This is it. I want to be calm, collected, professional, the perfect wedding planner they’ve groomed me to be. The poised and dignified harpist.
But I’m not that person anymore.
“I don’t want this.” My heart is pounding against my rib cage. I throw an arm out, gesturing to the wedding wreckage. “Any of this. I don’t want to study business, and I don’t want to join B+B when I graduate.”
My parents pause their cleanup, Mom dropping into a chair and Dad letting a soggy centerpiece fall to the ground. The rest of the staff, as though sensing we’re having A Moment, give us some space.
“You don’t want to join B+B?” Dad says. “You… don’t want to work with us?”
Those questions nearly break me.
I have to summon all my bravery to keep going. “It’s not that I don’t want to work with you. It’s that all of this… It isn’t right for me. I get that you love it, but I haven’t felt that way for a while. For years, if I’m being honest. I can’t get excited about dress fittings or cake tastings. I’m not the kind of person who’s going to shed a tear when the bride walks down the aisle. All the timelines and calendars and vendors to organize, it’s too much. I go along with it because that’s what I’m supposed to do, but this isn’t my passion. It’s yours.”
It should feel better than it does to finally tell them. I expected an immediate untwisting of all the tangled, knotted parts of me. I thought I’d be able to take a deep breath, move forward, move on.
That doesn’t happen.
Dad takes a chair next to Mom, who’s still speechless. He loosens his tie, swipes a hand through his damp hair. “You always seem to have fun. Maybe not today”—he even chuckles at this, as though hinting that we’ll be able to laugh about this wedding in the future—“but with the betting on songs, and having Victoria and Lincoln as clients, and work brunch…”
The guilt comes rolling back. It’s possible I went too far, convinced them I liked this job when what I really loved was my family working together. I’m not sure how to explain the difference.
“I loved that we did this as a family,” I say, urging my voice to stay solid, to not collapse. “And part of the reason I held off on saying anything was because I didn’t know what I’d rather be doing, only that it wasn’t this. But I’ve been taking harp lessons this summer, and—”
“Harp lessons?” This is when Mom chooses to interject. She’s ghost-pale, her eyes barely blinking behind her cat-eye glasses. Even in all this chaos, her damp hair is free of frizz and flyaways. “But you already know how to play. You don’t want to be part of the wedding business, but you’re taking harp lessons?”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, like I could disappear and open them up in a new reality where Victoria and Lincoln are laughing and eating potato croquettes. “It’s a different kind of music.” My defense sounds thin. I knew they wouldn’t get it, and here is the brutal confirmation of my worst fears.
“Is it really you saying this, Quinn?” Mom says. “Or is it Tarek?”
“Tarek? What does Tarek have to do with any of this?”
“You’ve been completely different this summer—ever since he came back,” she says. “We always knew you had a little crush on him. We were worried at the beginning of the summer that he might make things tough for you. And now that you’re spending time together, well…”
I’m certain there’s nothing worse than your parents knowing you had a crush on someone.
“It’s not like that,” I insist. “We’re—” But there is no we’re. I made sure of that. “We’re nothing. There’s nothing between us.” The words don’t feel right. They’re too sharp on my tongue, but I press forward anyway. “I haven’t been acting a certain way because of him. Why is it so hard to accept that I made this decision on my own?”
Dad gets to his feet and holds out his arms, as though I am a wild animal he’s trying to pacify. “Maybe we should discuss this later. All of us are a little emotional right now, and we have a lot of cleaning up to do.”
“I’m not emotional.” My voice cracks, betraying me. “This is how I feel. You didn’t ask me to help out more when Asher was busy with her wedding. You never ask.”
“So we’ve forced you, then? Your whole life, we’ve forced you to be part of—the horror—the most beautiful, important day of other people’s lives?” Mom is all claws now. I’ve never seen her like this, but I shouldn’t be surprised. B+B is her baby. I’m just her employee.
“Fine. Maybe you don’t force me, but you sure as hell do an amazing job guilting me into it,” I spit out, gaining more power now as I stalk toward them, past the table where Victoria and Lincoln were supposed to eat their cake. “You always assume I’m going to do whatever you say because that’s what I’ve done for eighteen years. And it works out for you, because the truth is that I’m terrified of creating a rift if I say no. Because this family never fucking talks about anything.”
I’ve never sworn at my parents. Never. I’m shocked to have said it, to have put words to this thing we never talk about. More quietly, I add, “Not about anything important, at least.”
“What are you talking about?” Dad says, forehead crinkled with confusion.
“Hmm, maybe the six months Mom wasn’t living with us?”
This hits them in a soft whoosh, their features crumpling, shoulders sagging. Suddenly they look so, so small,
