Free The Wedding Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini Page B

vampires, or like Harry Potter.”
    â€œThat’s Goth, not Gothic,” said Jeremy, “and Harry Potter was neither.”
    â€œJames wore my old Dunder Mifflin T-shirt to an aughts party in high school once,” Matt recalled.
    â€œYes, but no one understood it,” said Caroline. “Everyone thought he forgot to wear a costume.” To her brother she added, “You should have worn the Obama 2008 shirt instead.”
    â€œNext time I will,” James assured his sister. “The guys wear their pants low on their hips so you can see their boxer shorts. Seriously, why did you people dress like that? You can’t dance, you can barely walk, and you definitely can’t ride a bike.”
    â€œNo one rode bikes back then,” Gina reminded him, nudging him with her shoulder. Even if Sarah had been completely unaware of their blossoming romance, she couldn’t have dismissed the touch as a friendly or sisterly gesture. “They all drove around in their hundred-gallons-per-mile Hummies.”
    â€œThat’s Hummers,” corrected Jeremy, “and not everyone drove them, and some of us did bike, like me, and some used public transportation, like your mother.”
    â€œAnd not everyone wore their pants so that they would fall off if you stumbled on a curb,” said Anna, smiling as she brushed her long gray French braid off her shoulder. “If your father had dressed like that, I never would have dated him.”
    â€œYes, you would have,” countered Jeremy. “You couldn’t resist me.”
    â€œIf you had worn your pants falling off your rear end, I would have found a way.”
    Everyone burst out laughing, and as the young people went on to describe the parties and thus reveal what, to them, best represented the era, their elders were alternately amused and chagrined. Although Caroline, James, Gina, and Leo did not intend to be unduly harsh, people their age found it nearly impossible to discuss Sarah’s generation—their follies, crimes, wars, mistakes, and outrages against the environment—without implicit criticism. Sarah could hardly blame them. Out of greed, self-indulgence, fear, and hatred, they had almost destroyed the world their children would inherit. A global youth movement in the teens had inspired governments worldwide to take action to pull the human race back from the edge of self-destruction. What kids Caroline and James’s age sometimes forgot, however, was that their parents were the ones who had sacrificed to save the world they and generations before them had almost ruined utterly.
    â€œSo you’re at this aughts party,” said Russell, drawing the conversation back to his original question. “And Leo impressed you with his ability to keep his pants hovering above his knees with no visible means of support?”
    â€œNo,” said Caroline, nearly drowned out by laughter. “I was hip-hop dancing with my friends and he was on the other side of the room catching the end of the Lord of the Rings movie marathon on this little old forty-eight-inch television.”
    â€œLittle,” Matt echoed, raising his eyebrows.
    â€œDad, for us, that’s little.”
    â€œI saw her dancing and went over to introduce myself,” said Leo.
    â€œNo, you came over and tried to impress me with your dance moves,” said Caroline, smiling. “You didn’t say a word to me.”
    â€œI let my moves do the talking.”
    â€œThen the movie ended and someone put on this old television show where professional dancers perform with movie stars and athletes— Dance with a Celebrity or something?” Caroline shook her head, puzzled by the show’s title or perhaps the entire concept. “They were performing a waltz, and suddenly someone switched the sound system from the music files to the television.”
    â€œThat someone was my roommate,” said Leo with