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“You miss her, don’t you?” Dinah asks, settling in beside you and resting her head on your shoulder. It’s a miraculously calm moment between the flurries of hectic motion that planning and preparing a wedding entails. You weren’t expecting to have any quiet moments with Dinah and you rather wished you’d been right – she’s too perceptive by half and this isn’t a conversation you anticipated or prepared for and all you can think to do as you sit in the growing silence, knowing it is giving Dinah much more information than you intend, is to lie.
“Not at all,” you say, keeping your voice as steady as possible. “Life’s much quieter now.”
Dinah stifles a laugh as she sits up and looks over, meeting your gaze with those bright, knowing eyes. “Exactly,” she says.
Liz is worse than Dinah.
You’re not sure how she got you alone, but there she is, studying you with that piercing gaze of hers. You feel like you understand Mike a little better now as you force yourself to meet her eyes, to not blanche as she reads you like an open book.
“You’re falling for him, aren’t you?” she asks.
You shake your head, flick your eyes to the doors to make sure no one’s eavesdropping on you. Because you both know the answer, regardless of what you say, and it’s bad enough one person knows, let alone the whole blasted house.
“No,” you say, once you’re sure you’re unobserved. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
The smile that tugs at Liz’s lips is sad and she turns away with a sigh. “Just don’t hurt him. I’ll be the one picking up the pieces.”
George knows.
You know George knows and George knows you know he knows and it’s all too farcical for your liking, but you’re not sure what more you can do besides stay out of the way and let her get married because it isn’t as though you can change how you feel about her. It’s much too late for that. But you had your chance and you more than blew it and you aren’t about to stand in the way of her happiness.
So what does it matter what George knows, anyway?
You pour yourself another drink and avoid the man stepping into your shoes
“How can you love both of them?”
Dinah’s cornered you again and you would very much prefer that she’d done so in a room with a bar, but you’re forced to remain sober as she studies you. How a girl her age can be so perceptive is lost on you, but really she always has been. And now you’re reconsidering some choices – namely, bringing Mike and Liz here at all, regardless of what it was going to keep out of the papers – as you force himself to meet Dinah’s gaze.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” you say.
She just smirks and looks so frighteningly like her sister that you’re forced to flee.
Margaret is a surprise.
“You know, if you asked, I don’t know that she wouldn’t have you back,” she says. She’s roped you into helping catalogue presents – though you know full well the staff have already done it – and you have never felt more trapped than you do now under your ex-mother-in-law’s gaze.
“Pardon?” you ask.
She doesn’t answer, just studies you for a moment before returning to her list and while you’re certain you haven’t dodged anything, you can’t help feeling a sense of relief that she’s at least agreed to drop it.
When Mike arrives drunk at your place, you worry you’ve been a less convincing liar than you thought. But Mike’s more caught up on Tracy and Sid and the whole sordid affair than he is on you, which is more than a relief.
Except a part of you deflates a little, knowing you’ll never taste those lips, never feel Mike’s arms wrap around you. And you curse your cowardice and the modern world that holds you back every step of the way.
Why shouldn’t you love both of them?
When it all starts to fall apart, you wonder if it’s all your fault. You knows it isn’t, logically and rationally, but part of you wonders if things would have been different if you’d just left well enough alone. Let Sid publish his rag, let Seth deal with the fallout.
Except Seth wouldn’t have been the only one dealing with it and despite everything, you don’t regret trying to keep the brunt of it from hitting Tracy and Dinah and Margaret.
But now George is gone and Tracy is about to be alone at the altar and leave another house full of guests disappointed, without even an elopment to make up for it.
So you’re speaking before you can stop yourself, letting yourself tell the truth before you can hold it all back.
And you marry Tracy Lord once again.
This time, it really will be til death.
Yours first, you’re sure, when you’re sitting together during the reception and you lean over to whisper in her ear. Another truth, one you’ve been afraid of this whole time but one you can’t let go of.
“I’ve fallen for him, too, Red,” you say, following her gaze to where it’s fixed on Mike. He’s sitting with Liz, sipping his drink and barely touching his meal.
Tracy startles at your words and you flinch as she whirls to look at you, but instead of disgust or anger, a knowing smile tugs at her lips.
“Then we ought to do something about it,” she says. She stands and is gone before you can pull her back, traipsing through the tables to Mike and Liz. She accepts Liz’s hug and they whisper to each other before Liz disappears into the crowd and Tracy bends down to whisper in Mike’s ear.
It’s his turn to startle and he looks up at Tracy with wide eyes before looking across the floor to the head table and meeting your gaze. You give a slow, certain nod, and the smile that lights up Mike’s face is everything.
It’s a crowded marital bed, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.
None of you would.