He Called Us Rival Brides, We Went Home Together novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Future Mrs. Holtworth

Duncan's gift boat arrives at Avery's boathouse with a bride's name painted on the hull, and the two women fight to change it before a photographer arrives.

The new boat arrived at our boathouse at six on Sunday morning, on a trailer, with a banner.

It was a racing four, white and slender and worth more than my car.

Down the hull, in gold letters a foot high, it said THE FUTURE MRS. HOLTWORTH.

A man with a camera stood beside the trailer, photographing it.

My four rowers stood on the dock in their rain jackets.

They were all in their fifties, and they had rowed at six every morning since before I started coaching them.

"Coach," said the rower with the braid. "Somebody sent us a boat."

"Duncan Holtworth sent us a boat," I said.

"It's a good boat," said the braid.

"It has a woman's name on it that I'm supposed to answer to," I said.

"It still floats," said the braid.

I looked at the hull, where the gold paint was dry.

I did not own a can of white paint big enough, so I went for the duct tape.

I tore off a strip as long as my arm and pressed it over HOLTWORTH.

The boat now said THE FUTURE MRS., and the tape curled up at one end.

"That's worse," said the rower with the gray bangs. "Now it sounds like you're expecting somebody."

"Everyone, take two steps back from the boat," I said.

"We are two steps back," said the braid.

"Take two more," I said.

Lydia got out of a small blue car in a long coat.

She carried a cardboard tray with two coffees and a paint can under her arm.

"I read the newsletter," Lydia said. "Duncan sent it at five."

"What newsletter?" I asked.

"It's called Holtworth Happenings," Lydia said. "It says he's donated a vessel."

She handed me a coffee, and it was black with one sugar.

I looked at it, because I had never told her that either.

"Is this a guess?" I asked.

"It's a coffee," Lydia said, which was not an answer.

She took a set of stencils out of her coat pocket, along with a small gold brush and a bag of newspaper to kneel on.

She knelt on the dock in her good coat and began to stencil a new name over the old one.

"The future Mrs. Kesterton-Wetherford," Lydia read aloud. "It's a hyphen. It's classic."

"A hyphen is a concession," I said.

"A hyphen is how names get to know each other," Lydia said.

"I'm not sharing a boat with your name," I said.

"It's our name, in public, on a hull, which proves it," Lydia said. "It's Gesture 7."

"Are you reading from a card?" I asked.

"No," Lydia said, and tucked one into her sleeve.

The photographer lifted his camera and asked us to stand close, with the boat behind us.

"Give me a smile for the left side," he said to me. "The dimple."

"I don't have a dimple," I said.

"The left cheek," Lydia said immediately. "It shows when she's trying not to laugh."

I turned my head, and she was looking at the boat.

"I don't try not to laugh," I said.

"Right," said the braid. "You never do."

The photographer circled us while the rower with the gray bangs fed him a banana, for reasons of her own.

Lydia stood up, brushing paint off her knees.

She stepped to the hull, spread both arms, and sat on the gold lettering so that she covered the whole word MRS.

"I'm a hundred and forty pounds of cover," Lydia said. "Take the picture."

"This is not in your plan," I said.

"It's in the plan under If Plan Fails," Lydia said.

"You wrote a section called If Plan Fails?" I asked.

"It's section nine," Lydia said. "It's mostly about sitting."

I stood in front of the remaining letters and folded my arms.

The boat now read THE FUTURE with two women attached, one sitting on it and one frowning at it.

The photographer took twelve pictures, and I know because the rowers counted out loud.

Then his phone rang, and he held it out toward us on speaker.

"Ladies," said Duncan, from what sounded like a large empty room. "I wanted you to feel included."

"Take the name off my boat," I said.

"It's our boat. I only paid for it," Duncan said.

"The name is a gift, Avery," Duncan said. "It would look unkind to return a gift in front of the press."

Lydia leaned toward the phone.

"Duncan, you didn't spell my name anywhere on it," Lydia said.

"It's a place of honor, Lydia," Duncan said. "You'll get the next boat."

He hung up, and nobody on the dock spoke.

I put my palm flat on the white hull, near the stern, where the paint was not gold.

It was lighter than anything we owned, and my four rowers had saved for years to buy a boat half as good.

"I hate that it's perfect," I said.

"I know," Lydia said quietly, and took her weight off the hull. "I'm sorry I covered the good part."

My phone buzzed against my leg with a link from Nina.

The newsletter had updated with a picture of me frowning and Lydia sitting on a boat behind me, her hair half out of its pins.

The caption said: RIVAL BRIDES SHARE A DAWN.

Under it Duncan had written, in his own happy voice: She's a spitfire. They both are. Choose your side at the Gala.

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