52
It feels funny walking down Main Street with Wyatt. In fourteen years, stores have turned over and lots of faces are new, but I can’t shake the feeling that the town itself remembers us. The streetlights and the garbage cans, the red brick post office on whose steps we sat to watch the Fourth of July parade. I feel like we still look like a couple.
The bell over the door dings as we walk into Ginnie’s Bakery. Ginnie’s husband, Raoul, looks up from the cash register and puts his hand over his heart when he sees us. “I knew it!” he booms, stepping out from behind the counter. He hugs me and shakes Wyatt’s hand. I know what’s coming, and I know Wyatt knows too. He puts his arm around me to make sure it’s coming. I think he thinks it’s funny. I just can’t.
“Hello,” I say. “I see you remember Wyatt. He’s here to help with the tasting. I’m marrying someone else.”
Raoul’s face falls. “Oh.”
“Imagine how I feel,” says Wyatt, and I give him a shove.
Raoul quickly corrects himself. “I’m sorry, I just thought . . . You two walking in here the same way as when you were kids, the leaning. Ginnie always remarked about how you two walked together, sort of leaning into one another. We were like that too.”
I am, I realize, sort of leaning toward Wyatt. I look at the space between our shoulders as we stand side by side and it’s not normal. Wyatt is watching me notice this and gives me a shove back. “So let’s talk cake,” he says to Raoul.
“The cake. Yes, come sit down.” We sit at a corner table where two slices of cake are waiting for us. Raoul introduces the first one. “This is a vanilla cake with a buttercream frosting with hints of lemon. Just hints.”
We each take a bite. “It’s delicious,” I say.
“I’m not so sure,” says Wyatt. “I taste no hints at all. What else have you got?”
“This is an outlandishly lemony cake with a lemon buttercream frosting. It’s a bridal favorite.”
We each take a bite and Wyatt nods. “It’s outlandish all right.”
I knock my knee into his. “Are there any more choices?”
“There’s another one I like.” Raoul goes back to the kitchen.
Wyatt’s laughing as he reaches over to wipe frosting off my mouth with his napkin. He hasn’t gotten it all, so he brushes the last bits of sugar with his fingers. I feel his fingers on my lips everywhere in my body. “You’re a mess,” he says.
Raoul brings us chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, layered with chocolate chip buttercream frosting. I must have made a sound when I tasted it.
“She likes this one,” says Wyatt.
“You don’t know that,” I say.
“I know your sounds, Sam. She’ll take this one.”
“You can’t have a chocolate cake for a wedding, right?” I ask Raoul, taking a third bite.
“You can do whatever you want, but no, traditionally it’s white cake. The fun thing about this one is the white frosting looks traditional, and no one knows it’s chocolate until it’s cut.”
“Let’s go back to the first two,” I say.
“Sam, if you want a chocolate cake, get one. People love chocolate cake, it’s something no one can argue with.”
“Jack won’t like it,” I say, and mop up the last chocolate crumbs with my finger.
“You should have what you want.” He’s not joking around anymore.
“I’ll take the first one,” I say.
We walk back up Main Street toward the Old Sloop Inn, where we are supposed to be looking at linens for the tables. I haven’t slept and now I’ve eaten too much. “I’m tired,” I say. “Let’s skip the linens and take naps.”
“You’re probably just going to pick white anyway,” Wyatt says.