Free If We Lived Here by Lindsey Palmer Page B

excitement, the thrilling potential born of the unknown.
    The bus jolted forward and a fishy stench invaded the air. Emma stared stubbornly ahead, gaze fixed on the horizon, and thought, We’re almost there, we’ve got to be almost there .

Chapter 6
    “E m, it’s time.”
    Emma blinked awake, disconcerted by the darkness. She had that half-relieved, half-unsettled feeling of jolting out of a nightmare: In her sleep, she and Nick had been setting up a new apartment, laying down masking tape to indicate which half of the space belonged to each of them, and then Emma had discovered her closet was jammed full of her teenage clients, all freaking out about the SATs.
    “What time is it?” she asked.
    “Eight. I called Eli and they know we’re running behind. We’ll rush to the hotel—”
    “Let’s just head right to the dinner. We’re already so late. We can pop into a bathroom and change.”
    But when their cab pulled up to the restaurant and Nick and Emma raced in with their bags, a distracted concierge directed them left instead of right, not to the bathrooms but straight into the reception hall. They pushed through a set of double doors and, both still in their hoodies and jeans, found themselves gaping at hundreds of Eli and Annie’s guests, everyone suited up and cocktail-attired, chic and tailored and so very appropriate.
    “Ah, Nick and Emma finally make an appearance!” The words echoed through the ballroom in surround sound. “I was just discussing you two.” It was Connor, Eli’s best man, perched on a platform at the front of the room and speaking into a microphone. Hundreds of heads swiveled to face the entrance, where Emma and Nick stood frozen. Emma waved awkwardly, searching in vain for Annie’s face to gauge her friend’s level of fury.
    Connor went on: “I was saying how if it weren’t for you guys, there’d be no Eli and Annie, and none of us would’ve had to schlep all the way down to humid, hazy D.C. and have the last weekend of our summers ruined.” Polite laughter all around. Emma wished Connor would stop pointing in their direction; half the crowd was still eyeing her, probably noticing her unwashed hair, maybe even detecting a faint stink of Greyhound.
    “So what’s with the late entrance?” Connor continued, a glint in his eye. Connor was known as a jokester among Nick’s and Eli’s college friends, but what others regarded as “edgy” humor Emma found to be plain not nice. “I hear you guys are moving in together after only—what?—three or four years? Nice work stalling, Nick. You should’ve offered Eli here some tips. Looks like you could’ve used even more stalling tonight to pull together some decent outfits. Eli, man, next time you get married, make sure to write ‘No sweatshirts’ on the invitations. Apparently that wasn’t clear. Well, ladies and gentlemen, let’s raise our glasses to our maid of honor and her boyfriend, fashionably late in not-so-fashionable attire, and to all of you gathered here tonight, and of course to the couple of the hour, who knew within months that they were meant to be together forever. Hear, hear, to Annie and Eli! L’chaim! ”
    No sympathizer surfaced to hand Nick and Emma drinks. So, as all of the room’s flutes raised and everyone sipped at champagne, the two of them stood in the doorway empty-handed. Emma tried to cover her humiliation with a smile and, noticing her fingers clenched into fists, unfurled them. She whispered to Nick, “Is he drunk or just awful?”
    “It’s hard to say. Probably both.”
    “Can we escape now?”
    “Yes, let’s go.”
    They found the bathroom, and were quiet as they changed from bus-casual to party attire. The halter dress Emma had chosen because it accentuated her tanned shoulders now looked off in the mirror, like she was playing dress-up in a big sister’s closet; though she supposed it didn’t really matter, since everyone had already seen her in ratty jeans. Her hair was frizzy