Page 1 of Business Casual
1
NOVA
The tree fieldsare glowing.
I don’t know who was in charge of wrapping the pine trees with strands of twinkling lights, but whoever it was, they did their job with enthusiasm. Every tree in the south field looks like a star plucked straight from the night sky above, a warm, golden glow reaching its fingers across the dusky fields.
There’s a dance floor in the middle of the trees pieced together with old rugs pulled from storerooms across the farm, a patchwork of color and patterns littered with pine needles. Tables cluster around the edges, tidy bonfires contained in shallow metal drums to chase the early autumn chill away. The big red barn has its doors thrown open wide, and wedding guests spill out into the fields with laughter and music and light, their hands curled around mugs of wine and cider.
Woodsmoke curls between the blooms that are twined in garland from tree to tree—sunflowers, chrysanthemums, daisies—an unbroken chain of flowers circling the entire wedding. Baby’s breath peeks from in between the branches of the trees, nestled so it looks like snow has settled on the thick green branches. Jimmy Durante rasps over the speakers about making someone happy and beneath the canopy of flowers and lights and branches of pine, the groom dances with his bride.
Luka spins Stella out and her pale pink dress flares around herlegs. He tugs her back, and she folds herself into him with a smile that rivals the twinkling lights around them. They slip between the trees, and I lose sight of them, nothing but the fabric of her skirt and the edge of his jacket as they spin around and around.
“They look happy, don’t they?”
My sister appears at my side, cake plate in hand. She sighs wistfully as the happy couple appears again on the far side of a misshapen Douglas fir, eyes locked on each other. Luka says something, and Stella tips her head back with another laugh, long hair tumbling over her shoulders. Luka’s smile softens into something tender and private. It feels like I shouldn’t be watching them at all.
“They should be.” I reach for the half-empty bottle of wine in the middle of our table and top off my drink until the red is even with the lip of my glass. I lean forward and take a noisy sip, raising my eyebrows at my sister. “It’s their wedding.”
A wedding that is a decade in the making. Luka and Stella spent a majority of their relationship pretending they didn’t want to be more. It took Stella buying a Christmas tree farm and inexplicably deciding she needed a fake boyfriend to nudge that in the right direction.
Harper narrows her eyes and pinches her lips in a look so reminiscent of our mother that I get a shiver down my spine. She takes the seat next to mine and balances her dessert plate on her lap, hunching over it slightly. I think she’s afraid I’ll swipe it right out of her hands.
“Is that your third slice of cake?”
Harper looks at me with her fork sticking out of her mouth. “You’ve been counting?”
“Yes, Harper. I’ve been sitting here in the shadows, counting how many slices of cake you’ve decided to eat tonight.”
I’m surprised there’s any left. Layla, the bride’s best friend and the owner of the tiny bakehouse in the middle of the tree farm, made quite the statement with her confection. Three tiers of delicious sponge cake. Buttercream icing. Cannoli filling piped between thelayers. Tiny daisies iced around the edges and pine branches lovingly hand-painted over every inch. The cake looks like it belongs in a museum, not in the middle of a field with a bunch of inebriated townspeople.
There was almost a fistfight when they brought it out.
I reach out and swipe my finger through the icing on my sister’s plate, ignoring her scowl.
Harper pinches the skin right above my elbow in retaliation. “Be nice,” she says.
“You be nice.” I rub at the spot she twisted. “What? You can’t share your cake?”
“You can get up and get your own.” She gracefully crosses her legs and tilts her plate farther away from me, gold stilettos glinting in the lantern light. I wiggle my bare toes in the grass. I have no idea where my shoes are.
“I meant be nice about the happy couple.” She shoves another forkful of cake directly in her mouth. “Doesn’t it make you feel even the slightest bit romantic?”
“The cake?”
She waves her fork in the air, then stabs it in the direction of Stella and Luka. They’re barely swaying between the trees, their arms wrapped tight around each other as the world moves around them.
Harper sighs dreamily. I take another loud slurp of my wine.
“Don’t you want something like that?”
I don’t bother thinking about it. “No.”
This day has been lovely, but…I don’t know. Romance isn’t exactly a priority for me right now. Of course I’m happy for Stella and Luka. After an almost decade-long game of “Will they? Won’t they?” it’s nice to see them happy.
But do I want that for myself?
Not particularly.
