I nodded, then pushed myself up to sit on the kitchen counter and looked around. The kitchen had always been the center of the house. It was where everyone seemed to congregate and the first place I looked when I was trying to track down either siblings or parents. And even though it was a big room—the island and stools on one end, the kitchen table at the other, with an area by the door that was kind of like an ad hoc mudroom, hooks on the wall for coats and a bench to remove snowy boots that inevitably ended up kicked underneath it—the kitchen always felt cozy. I thought briefly about one of Lily or Greg Pearson’s horrible kids running around in here when this place would no longer be ours and felt my stomach drop.
“You okay, kid?” my dad asked as he crossed toward me and opened the kitchen cabinet. Even a month ago, it had been stocked full to bursting, with a collection of mismatched mugs and dishes we’d accumulated over twenty-five years of living here. But now there were only a handful left inside, the only ones that had survived my parents’ we’re-selling-the-house purge and subsequent massive tag sale on the front lawn, the one I’d refused, full stop, to participate in. And when my parents had realized that I was planning to make loud comments to potential buyers about bedbugs and fake antiques, they’d sent me to spend the weekend with Linnie and Rodney in Boston.
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, giving him a smile. I nodded at the mug he was pulling down. “That for me?”
“Obviously,” he said, pouring me a cup of coffee and adding just the amount of milk I liked, then handing it to me with a wink.
My dad, as ever, looked a little rumpled, even though he couldn’t have been up for very long. Despite the fact he wasn’t teaching today—he was a botany professor and the head of the physical sciences department, which meant he had enough pull at Stanwich College that he hadn’t had Friday classes in more than a decade—he was wearing what he always wore during the week, corduroy pants and a button-down shirt with an elbow-patched cardigan over it. His glasses were pushed up into his hair, which was mostly just salt now, with a sprinkling of pepper.
“Hungry?” my mom asked. There was a pencil holding up her curly blond hair and she was wearing her drawing clothes, an oversize sweater and black pants, even though she hadn’t had to draw new strips for six weeks now—there was a lag time so that the strips could get inked and colored. So while she’d known for weeks how Grant Central Station ended, none of the rest of us had any idea. Linnie really wanted to know, but I wanted to read it in the paper and find out the end of the story along with the rest of the world. “Rodney should be back any minute now.”
“Well, it’s not the window sensor,” my sister said as she came into the kitchen from the dining room. She smiled at me. “Nice of you to join us.”
I grinned back at her. “I thought I might as well make an appearance.” My sister laughed as she pulled down a mug and slid it across the counter to my dad, who caught it, then poured her a cup of coffee.
“Happy wedding eve,” I said, clapping my hands together. When I was six and Linnie was seventeen, I used to think she was the most beautiful girl in the world. And now that I was seventeen and she was twenty-eight, I still pretty much thought that. She took the most after our dad—his dark wavy hair and blue eyes and, to her eternal disappointment, his sticking-out ears. At five seven, she was just two inches shorter than me, but the fact that she’d inherited our mother’s curvy figure, and I decidedly had not, meant that while I stole Linnie’s clothes whenever I could, most of her dresses were off-limits to me.
“I don’t think that’s a thing,” Linnie said, taking a sip from her mug and then nodding at my dad. “That’s good coffee, Daddy.”
“I do my best.”
The doorbell rang—on the front door, the one that was only used by deliveries and company, since we all used the kitchen door almost exclusively. “Who’s that?” my mom asked, squinting at the kitchen clock. “I didn’t think any guests were coming until this afternoon.”
“It’s probably a delivery,” Linnie said, starting to move toward the door, but I shook my head and hopped off the counter.
“I’ll get it,” I said, taking my mug with me as I pushed through the kitchen door and headed to the front hall. “I should make myself useful!”
I could hear my dad laugh as the door swung closed again behind me and I crossed the front hall, taking a sip of coffee as I walked. The front door was half glass, and I could see someone standing on the step outside, their back to me. I unlocked the door and pulled it open, and the guy standing there turned around.
“Hi there,” he said with a smile, and I immediately took a step back. I don’t know who I’d been expecting, but not this—a guy who was very cute and who looked around my age.
He was tall and lanky, an inch of wrist showing below the dark-green fleece jacket he was wearing with jeans and rubber-soled duck boots. He was holding a matching green binder in one hand and a cup of to-go coffee in the other, the name on the cup an illegible scrawl. He had thick, dark-brown hair that swept down long and straight across his forehead, reminding me for a second of an actor in a movie my siblings had shown me when I was little, about a werewolf who plays basketball. When he turned his head slightly, I couldn’t help staring at his profile—he had a snub nose, almost squared off at the end, like Matt Damon or Dick Tracy. I’d never seen it before on anyone who wasn’t a movie star or a cartoon character.
“Hi,” I said, glancing down at myself briefly and wishing that the sweatshirt I’d pulled on over my pajamas had not been this one—an ancient one of J.J.’s that read GO BIG OR GO GNOME on the front. (A fierce-looking gnome was printed on the back.) “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” the guy said, smiling even wider. “Where There’s A Will.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding as I took a step back and started to ease the door closed, wondering what kind of weird cult person I’d just opened the door to. He didn’t look like a weird cult person—but then again, he probably wouldn’t have been very successful if he had. “Good point. Thanks for stopping by—”
“Wait,” he said quickly, his face falling as he stuck a foot out, keeping the door open. “Sorry—I mean I’m from Where There’s A Will. The event planners?”
“We already have an event planner,” I said firmly, knocking the door against his boot, trying to get him to move it. “Thanks though.”
“Yeah, Clementine Lucas,” the guy said, raising his voice, and I paused and opened the door a little wider.
“How did you know that?”
“Pland sent us to take over,” he said. “I guess my uncle hasn’t arrived yet? I was kind of hoping he’d be here to explain.”
I opened the door all the way. “Come in.” Normally I might have been embarrassed about the way I’d just treated him, but right now I needed to figure out what was happening, because it really didn’t sound good. The guy carefully wiped his feet on the mat and stepped inside, and I noticed now that “Where There’s A Will” was written in script on his fleece, just over his heart, sewn in gold thread.
“Charlie?” Linnie called from the kitchen. “Who is it?”
“It’s, um . . .” I looked at the guy.
“Bill,” he supplied. “Bill Barnes.” I nodded, trying not to look surprised. There were a ton of Wills and Williams at my school, and even a Willem who got really annoyed if you didn’t pronounce his name correctly, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever met a Bill my age before.
“I’m Charlie.”
Bill nodded. “Bridesmaid, right?”
“Um,” I said, wondering exactly how he’d known that and what, precisely, was going on. “Yeah. But—”
“Charlie?” Linnie called again.
“It’s Bill,” I yelled back, even though I knew this wouldn’t mean anything to her. I headed toward the kitchen and gestured for him to follow me.
“Who?” Linnie asked, as we walked through the swinging door.