You're Invited (2 page)

The groom drops the bride's hands.

I
drop the dog's leash.

Fake Max goes tearing off in wild circles around the deck, barking like crazy at the circling seagull, who looks like he's lining up target practice with the top of my head again.

“Grab him!” Mom screams as Fake Max pulls up at my ankles, panting hard. But I don't grab him, because:

1) I can't take my eyes from the seagull, who looks suspiciously like he's about to dive-bomb straight for my head, and

2) I'm thinking about how I'm going to use a printed program to remove bird poop from my hair.

Fake Max is eyeing the gull too, and when the bird swoops low, the dog jumps into the air at him. Of course he misses, since his shaggy fur is probably completely covering his eyes. Landing, he then tears off across the deck in hot pursuit of the bird, who I would swear is laughing more than screeching. Fake Max runs, pauses, and then jumps, chasing the seagull straight off the back
of the boat, his four furry legs still running through the air, as he drops to the water below.

His owner shrieks, “SHEP!” and shuffle-runs across the deck in her mermaid dress. She doesn't even hesitate at the railing, just goes right up and over, tumbling into the water after her dog.

“Bridesmaid overboard!” someone calls, and several men run to the stern, one carrying a life preserver.

I rush to help, but when the man with the life preserver swings it behind him before heaving it into the water, I have to dodge out of the way. I stumble back and straight into the box the steering wheel is mounted on, where my elbow connects hard with a button.

KA-BAAM! POP! POW! BANG! BOOM!

The entire ten-minute fireworks display planned for the end of the reception explodes at one time from the barge on the starboard side of us.

Activated by me.

I stand frozen in place again, my wide eyes locked with my mother's, as a group of tuxedo-wearing men haul a dripping mermaid/bridesmaid/whatevermaid and her soggy dog out of the water. At least the pouch with the rings is still attached to his collar.

But that thing I said about being really good at my job?

Maybe not so much today.

• • •

Mom likes to borrow a theater saying when she talks about her “event philosophy”: The show must go on. I'm pretty sure she's never had to apply it quite like this before. I clean up belowdecks and then hang back as much as I can, trying to help without getting in the way. Mom barely even acknowledges me as she rushes around doing wedding-planner stuff, but when she does catch my eye, I see the way her lips tug down into a frown. Each time it happens, my stomach has that hollow feeling you get when you just know you are so completely in for it once everyone else leaves.

The ceremony resumes where it left off and is pretty uneventful except for Max/Shep shaking himself dry at the top of the aisle during the you-may-now-kiss-the-bride part. Luckily for us, once people get over the shock—and after Mom changes the bridesmaid into a backup mermaid dress (only two sizes too small)—things start looking up (not for me, but at least for the guests). The bridesmaid calls her mom to come to the marina, and we send the horrible-smelling wet dog
back to the mainland on the dinghy. He's joined by the still-puking photographer.

By the last toast of the night, the video of the entire incident, which one of the groomsmen wasted no time posting to YouTube, has 244,365 hits. By the last dance at sunset, the bride and groom have agreed to detour to Wilmington on their way to the honeymoon in order to discuss their “hilarious wedding disaster” on the local morning show.

All's well that ends well? Not where Mom's concerned, I'm guessing. The chug of the departing dinghy signals the official end of the reception. The only people left on the boat now, besides me and Mom, are the caterers cleaning up and Izzy, who's gone back to her book down below.

Mom crosses the deck and points me into a chair near the giant Prince Eric ice sculpture.

“I'm so sorry, Mom,” I say before she can get a word out.

She sighs and reaches for my hand. “I know you are, baby, and I understand how it happened.”

Her smile is the kind that doesn't go all the way into her eyes, which are a little sad-looking. I stare back
into them as she says, “On the other hand, I have the reputation of my business to think about, and I have to put that first.”

Ahead of me?

I drop my eyes to my lap. Mom sighs again. “Sweetness, maybe twelve is just too young to be handling everything I've asked of you. Maybe we need to rethink things a little bit.”

Wait a minute. Am I getting fired? By my own
mother
? This cannot be happening.

“You've been a huge help to me, Sadie. You know that. But this mistake is going to cost the company thousands of dollars after I refund the bride's dad for the fireworks show he paid for. Plus we lose any referrals that bride could have given us. I just hope she doesn't mention my company by name on television Monday morning.”

She tucks me under her arm and gives me a squeeze. I keep my body stiff when she says, “I'm not mad, Sades. It's my fault for giving you so much responsibility. Summer's just starting. You should spend it doing kid stuff. Fun stuff. Not dealing with all this stress.”

Does she not remember the whole reason I started working with her is because I DO find it fun? Well, at
first it was just because it was a chance to be with Mom, but it turns out I'm really good at it . . . most days. I'm the one who came up with the idea for the ice sculpture to match the statue in the movie. And it was me who tracked down the sheet music for “Kiss the Girl” for the wedding band. I love coming up with fun details to make the weddings memorable and I
thought
Mom loved it too. She's always going on about what a huge help I am to her.

I didn't notice anyone
else
thinking to bring a blender for that groom who'd had emergency dental surgery the morning of the wedding, so he could still have some wedding cake. Or finding weights to clip onto the bridesmaids' dresses' hems when we had an outdoor wedding on the beach during a super-windy day. And, I mean, it's not like I haven't made some little mistakes at a wedding before. There was the time I accidentally left with the keys to the reception site and the florist couldn't get in early to do the centerpieces. But I rode my bike over as fast as I could the second she called. Maybe tonight's was a little more . . . severe, but in the past Mom's always understood that events might have wrinkles.

It stinks to be unappreciated, but what's even worse
is being entirely invisible. Which is exactly what I'll be if she fires me. I'll fade back into the wallpaper like before.

I nod hard against Mom's chest so she won't catch on that I'm trying not to let the tears spill over. We're interrupted by the caterer, who needs her to sign some form, which leaves me free to slide my phone from my pocket and scroll through all my emoticons until I find the tiny pair of bat wings. I type it into a group text to my three best friends.

There. Bat signal sent.

It cheers me up a tiny bit to picture all of them heading for their bikes (or golf cart, for Lauren, depending on where she is at the marina) and pointing them to our Bat Cave. Well, our Bat Boat, if we're being technical.

I stand, cross the deck, and yell down to Izzy that I'm catching the next dinghy shuttle to shore. As I board the tiny boat, the last thing I hear is someone from the catering staff humming “Part of Your World” as she cleans up. Too bad my chance to be part of Mom's world exploded alongside those fireworks.

irk
verb

to annoy, bother, or make irritated

Use in a sentence:

My brother irks me when I'm trying to study and he's playing Death War 3000 at top volume.

I
'm memorizing the definition of “cerebral” (“of or relating to the brain or intellect”) when my phone sings out the theme to Batman. So I do what any best friend would—even one who has to memorize the definitions of fifty new SAT vocab words for prep class this week. I put down the flash cards and check my texts.

No words, just the bat signal. Which means only one thing: BFF meeting, ASAP.

“Can you watch the office for a while?” I ask Zach as I grab my flash cards, my phone, and this amazing
pink-and-maroon scallop shell I found on the beach earlier. I stuff them all into my backpack.

“I'm busy,” my video-game-playing older brother says. Between him and Josh, my oldest brother who's off at college taking summer classes to make up for everything he failed last semester, my brothers could hold the world record for number of hours spent slacking. The screen on the marina's office TV blasts a bright red
TERMINATED
at Zach.

I zap the thing off. “Not anymore. Give me an hour, tops.”

Zach pushes his rolling chair back to the desk. The lamplight shines off his newly shaved head. He thinks he looks like LeBron James. But what he really looks like is a younger, skinnier, browner version of Dad—minus the boat-patterned shirts.

“We'll be closed in an hour. Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?” Zach says.

“You. Every day.” I make for the door and step out into the sticky June night.

I bypass the golf cart parked out front and race down the dock toward the
Purple People Eater
. It's not an actual purple people eater, obviously. It's the name of the sad old lavender-colored yacht Dad bought a few years ago
for barely anything. He keeps talking about fixing it up and selling it, but until he gets around to that, it makes a pretty nice spot for four twelve-year-old girls to hang out on.

Fishing boats and yachts are coming in for the night at Sandpiper Beach Marina. I wave at the people onboard as I run past. When your dad owns the only marina in town, you get to know everyone who has a boat. At the very end of the dock, the peeling paint and rusty spots of the
Purple People Eater
disappear in the dim lights. I hop aboard just as the sweeping glow from the lighthouse rolls past and unlock the cabin door. Why Dad actually keeps it locked, I have no idea. It's not like anyone would want to steal this thing.

By the time Sadie pokes her head in, I've got the little bucket of flashlights all lit and sitting in the middle of the floor, plus snacks and bottles of water set out. It's about a hundred degrees inside, so I've opened all the windows to try to catch a breeze.

“You beat Vi here,” I say.

“The
Little Mermaid
wedding was tonight, remember? Those tiny dinghy shuttles are fast.” Sadie plops onto the floor and digs into a bag of pretzels.

The glow from the flashlights hits her face. I've been
friends with Sadie since preschool, and I can tell when something's not right. She just looks . . . off. I hand her a bottle of water.

“Sades, what's wrong?”

“That's why I called the meeting.” She takes a gulp of water and makes a face. “Why is this warm?”

“No electricity on the
Purple People Eater
, remember? So what happened?”

“Can we wait for everyone else to get here?” She drags a hand across her eyes, and I reach over and give her a hug. She sort of slumps when I let go. Something is definitely wrong.

Vi sprints down the steps. She's wearing her summer uniform—running shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. And her long blond hair is dripping wet in its ponytail.

“Were you swimming? It's almost dark outside,” I say. Seriously, Vi's in the ocean so much that one day she's going to turn into a mermaid. Now,
that
would've been perfect for the wedding Sadie was at—a real, live mermaid swim-by.

“Bat signal came when I was in the shower. I had to get the beach volleyball sweat off. But look what I brought!” She holds out a small plastic bag.

I peek inside. “Pita chips!” I grab the bag and have a
chip in my mouth before Vi can say anything else. She makes some seriously amazing food, but the homemade pita chips are my all-time, absolute, forever favorite. They never taste the same twice because she's always messing with the recipe.

“I tried sea salt this time,” she says.

“Like from the ocean?” Sadie asks.

I stop chewing for a second. The chips are really, really good, but no way am I eating gross ocean salt.

Vi laughs. “Yeah, but they sell it in the store. It's not like I took a bucket down to the beach or anything.” I must be making a weird face, because Vi looks at me and says, “It's totally safe, I promise. And kind of good for you too.”

I decide to trust her and start chewing again.

Vi joins Sadie on the floor and opens a bottle of water. “Yuck, this isn't cold!”

“No electricity,” I say again. Maybe I should rethink this whole providing-snacks-and-beverages-at-the-Bat-Cave thing and put Vi in charge of it instead.