Genevra was walking dogs at the ASPCA with Ben for the third week in a row, trying to hold a young, very large part-labrador back from dragging her across the small yard leading them to the big dog play yard, when her Life Coach line rang. She had to let it go to voicemail while Ben opened the gate and they released their sibling dogs to go zoomies and piss all over the place.

She wiped her hands on her jeans and looked at her phone. Aunt Florence.

The message was just “Call me, we need to talk,” so it was with some trepidation that Gen called her back. The bride was suing? The groom was? The unknown cousin wanted to date her?

“Florence Donbey speaking,” the older woman barked out.

“Aunt Florence, this is Genevra,” she replied with as much sweetness as she could muster.

“Good. I have another job for you. Another wedding.”

Gen winced. “Last minute again? I hated doing that last one.”

“No, no. At a wedding, but not the bride and groom. They’re young and stupid, but not crooks and they can’t help being stupid.”

“Can’t help being young, either,” Gen said before thinking that might not be a nice thing to say to an elderly person.

Aunt Flo coughed, but it might have been laughter. “My nephew’s making a huge mistake and I need you to confirm or deny it and break them up if it needs to be done. He’ll be an usher at the wedding and bring his boyfriend.”

Homophobia?

Flo scoffed before Gen could formulate a question. “It’s fine that he’s gay, I know I’m old, but I used to be involved in theater and half my friends are gay.”

Uh huh. Sure. “Is just the wedding and reception going to be enough time, do you think? Because I have a day job and not much time off saved up.”

Aunt Flo got quiet. Then: “With the prices you charge, it seems like you could quit the day job.”

Genevra laughed bitterly. “I have massive debts and rent is expensive out here. Also, I don’t have Life Coach jobs every day.”

Ben, who was inside the dog park, throwing tennis balls for the twin dogs, turned to stare at her, expression unreadable. One of the dogs barreled into his legs and almost knocked him down. Both he and the dog yelped.

“But you have time to walk your dog,” Aunt Florence said acerbically.

“I don’t work twenty-four hours a day and it’s not my dog. Anyway, when do you need me to come?”

***

She arrived at the big chain hotel where everyone who didn’t fit into local family and friends’ houses was staying and found Aunt Florence in the bar, drinking an awfully large cocktail for eleven o’clock on Thursday night.

Gen plopped down next to her. “My boss thinks it’s shifty that I keep taking Fridays off. Family emergency in St Louis this time, but she’s going to want details.” Genevra had promised to try to make up the time if she got home early enough on Sunday, but she had the sinking feeling she was on unofficial probation.

“Well hello to you too,” Florence said.

Her breath reeked of cigarettes, so there must be a smoking area somewhere, possibly outside. Gen didn’t know the smoking laws here, but the bar itself smelled of booze and desperation and air fresheners, not smoke.

“Hello, sweet Aunt Florence. I trust your trip here went well?” Gen asked, taking off her too-thin overcoat. November in Missouri was cold and her blood was warm from a lifetime in California.

“Less than an hour on the freeway,” she answered with a hand wave. “I made your cousin Matthew drive me.”

Gen nodded. And then bitched at him the whole time to slow down. No, to speed up. She tried to remember if she’d met Matthew in the chaos of the last wedding. She cared more if her unnamed fake cousin in the bridesmaid’s dress would be there.

“My flights were fine.” No thanks for not asking. “The second one was delayed, which is why I’m here at eleven. Luckily, it’s only nine in California, so I’m not completely wiped out.” She’d gotten up at four to get her eight hours of work in early so she could catch her flights, so that was a bit of a lie, because she was tired.

She took out her phone and texted her mother to say she’d arrived at the hotel. She always told her when she was going out of town and where, because if she dropped off the face of the earth, someone should know where she was headed.

Then she pulled up the pictures of the cousins she’d sort of met the last time, including the ex-bride and her brother. Florence had drawn a messy arrow toward a young man standing off to one side: the target nephew. Gen zoomed into the picture, but it pixelated into blobs before she got a good look at his face. Gen was impressed Flo had figured out the arrow, considering how much she complained about technology. “Do you have a better picture of him?”

Flo squinted at her screen. “It was a good picture on my computer.”

“Just be sure to introduce me first thing tomorrow. I’d like to not disrupt the wedding itself.”

“How about now?” Florence said, with a gleam in her eye. “Yoohoo! Matthew and Tyler! Come same hello to your cousin Genevra.”

Two young men who looked startlingly alike turned toward them and tried to hide their dismay.

“Aunt Florence,” the first one said as they approached the table. “I figured you’d be asleep by now.”

She glared at him. “I’m never asleep before midnight and don’t get up until ten because I’m retired and I do what I want.”

The two guys glanced at each other.

Gen held out a hand. “Sorry, are you Matthew or Tyler? I’m Genevra.”

“Our cousin, apparently,” said Matthew, shaking her hand. His hand was warm and his vibe was long-suffering, but basically kind. This must be the same Matthew who’d driven Aunt Flo up. She wondered how many repeat names this family had, since there were apparently two hundred aunts, uncles, and cousins, only half of whom were coming to this wedding.

Tyler nodded from behind her. “I didn’t know we had a cousin Genevra?”

“Third cousin. Or fourth?” Gen said. “Aunt Florence contacted me a few months ago and wanted me to get to know the family.”

“Oh shit.” Matthew winced. “Pardon my French. You came for Yvonne’s wedding. That was a cluster, uh, disaster.”

“Yeah, I only met a few people before the, you know, mess.” She grimaced. “Not a great way to meet the extended family.”

Florence was being awfully quiet, so Gen glanced at her. She smiled smugly, which made Gen worry.

“Yvonne was always super nice to me, even after she got sophisticated and grown up.” Tyler bumped Matthew’s arm. “Remember how we used to gang up against the bigger kids at the big family gatherings? I feel awful for her.”

“Her fiance was a shit,” Florence declared.

Tyler sat down at the table, so Matthew gave in and sat, too.

“Still, it was so upsetting. She was ready to spend her life with him.” Tyler was seriously distraught. “She didn’t deserve to be mistreated.”

Genevra hoped like hell Tyler’s man was treating him right and Aunt Flo was way off base, because this was a sweet person who felt deeply.

“How’s she doing now?” Gen asked. “I barely met her right before the problems and talked to her for two minutes at the reception.”

“She’s recovering,” Tyler said. “She keeps finding out new things about him and spiraling, though.”

Genevra couldn’t hide the wince. She’d caused that. If only she could have split them up a few months before the wedding, maybe before they got engaged. “The groom – see, I can’t even remember his name – told her she was a Stepford wife.”

Tyler looked even sadder. “She did grow up to be perfect, but there’s no need to be mean about it.”

They all sat in silence, even Aunt Florence.

“Anyway,” Genevra said. “Are you two joining in the museum trip tomorrow? I haven’t decided yet.”

The two guys looked at each other and had an entire silent conversation about if they wanted to invite this stranger who’d been brought into their orbit by their difficult auntie.

Finally, Matthew said, “Some of us – y’know, the middle generation, sort of 21 to 40 – are doing a pub crawl. Spencer rented a small bus from a limo company. Those of us who don’t have to be sober for the rehearsal, you know? Well, some of them are coming, too, but we’re sending them back early in a cab. Meena would murder them and then us.”

She nodded to remind herself that Meena was the bride, Jasmine, who’d allowed her to come at the last minute as Aunt Florence’s plus one.

“Would you like to come with us?” Tyler asked Gen. “It’ll be mostly cousins and various partners and so on, so most of us have known each other our whole lives. A bit trial by fire for you.”

He didn’t really want her to come, but the museum tour was all their parents’ and grandparents’ generation. And she had work to do.

“I’ll be confused most of the time and I’m not great with names and faces, much less an entire lifetime of stories. Maybe Aunt Florence should have printed out the family tree and I could check names off as I go.”

They all looked over at Florence, who’d nodded off. Matthew and Tyler exchanged significant looks.

Gen set a hand on her arm and gave her a little squeeze. “Aunt Florence? I’m ready to go up to bed, I don’t know about you.”

Flo’s eyes snapped open and she glared at the young men across the table. “I never could tell you two apart when you were younger. Help me up.”

Matthew went around the table and steadied Aunt Florence as Tyler brought her rollator closer.

“We should probably turn in, too,” said Tyler. “We didn’t get our drinks, though.”

“We girls will be fine,” Genevra said.

Florence gave a little snort. “Of course we will, but stop calling me a girl.”

“We’re meeting at ten in the front lobby,” Matthew called after her.

“Thank you,” she called back, truly grateful, not only for the reasons they expected. But also for that reason.

***

“Oh hell no,” said a woman’s voice behind her.

Genevra turned her head and smiled because here was the cousin she’d been longing to see. She quickly tamped down her smile because Cousin Bridesmaid was not happy to see her and was coming toward her through the little knot of 20 or so cousins and their partners.

Gen stepped back from the group, hoping to make this conversation a private one.

“Listen, Geneva,” the other woman said.

“Genevra,” she replied automatically. “And I never caught your name.”

“Sophia.” She didn’t look like she knew why she’d told Gen her name. “Aunt Flo brought you again? Didn’t you do enough damage last time?”

And yeah, some of the other family members were watching, including Tyler, who was clearly conflicted about rescuing her.

“I didn’t cause the groom to do any of the awful things he did to Yvonne,” Gen said softly. “Maybe you think I’m a bad luck charm, but I am your third cousin or whatever.”

Sophia stepped back and looked her up and down. Gen was in her best jeans and sweater, plus a hoodie and her too-thin overcoat. She didn’t own a coat that would hold up to freezing rain in Missouri in November, especially if they were going to be hopping in and out of a bus.

At least Sophia dropped her voice as she said, “I really need to see this family tree Aunt Flo’s working on. She’s been secretive lately and usually she blasts us with updates. I don’t know what she’s up to, but it can’t be good.”

“It’s not the bride and groom this time,” Gen opted for a bit of truth. “There are other people she’s worried about and I am literally a life coach and also your third cousin or whatever. But I haven’t seen the family tree, either.”

“So you might be a completely unrelated Donbey,” Sophia announced with a bit of challenge.

She wasn’t even slightly a Donbey, but that was the lie she did have to tell. “It goes back a generation before your great-grandfather, the one who had three wives and fifteen children who all went on to have a dozen kids and now you have a great horde of cousins.”

Gen had zero known cousins as her family mostly went only child marrying only child and having an only child, and they were gradually petering out. She sure as hell was never having kids.

Tyler appeared at Sophia’s elbow, looking grim. “Hey, Genevra, I’m glad you could join us.”

“Thank you for letting me come along. Could you introduce me to Spencer? I’d like to pay my share of this bus thing so I’m not a burden.”

Tyler led her away and told her softly, “Sorry about Sophia. And the bus is all paid for. I think everyone kicked in their share. We’re going to all contribute to a tip for the driver, so if you could go over thirty-five, which is what we paid, it would create some good will, I’m sure.”

He touched her elbow and she got the sense of him being even nicer than Matthew and even more eager to please. Which meant that if his boyfriend was an ass, he would be easy to take advantage of.

“What was that all about, anyway?” Tyler asked as they went outside to check if the bus was approaching.

Gen shook her head. “Yvonne’s wedding. I showed up with Aunt Florence, who dragged me into the room where the bridesmaids were getting ready. About five minutes later, all hell broke loose. Sophia seems to think I was the problem.”

She tried to recall if she’d even tangentially admitted as much to her at the reception before the bride came out of the back room. She was pretty sure she hadn’t. But Sophia had outright asked her, which meant she’d sensed something and figured it out.

Matthew and one other cousin who looked like a slightly older version of the two of them joined them out under the portico. “The driver just texted and he’s three minutes out.”

“Sure he is,” Matthew said. “And he has a bridge he wants to sell us.”

“Hi, I’m Spencer,” the third man said, turning toward her. “I’m told you’re Genevra and you’re a super-distant cousin my grandmother dredged up?”

Gen shook his hand. “Finally someone who’s directly related to Aunt Florence.”

Spencer smiled and she realized he was probably closer to forty instead of twenty-five to thirty like most of this group. “She’s…” He shook his head. “She isn’t easy. My parents stopped talking to her for a while when I was a kid and there are still a lot of boundaries in place, but they’ve made peace.”

“I’m going to wait inside,” Matthew declared. “Freezing my balls off.”

“I’m a California girl and don’t do well with cold,” Gen said, taking the high road and not making a joke about balls.

Once inside, Spencer stayed by the front doors, anxious that this bus and this plan were going to work out. A woman put her hand on his back and if this wasn’t his wife or girlfriend, then there was big trouble brewing because they were completely compatible. Spencer smiled at her and threw his arm around her shoulders, his aura relaxing as he kissed her hair.

“Oh gag,” Matthew said beside her. “They’ve been married for, like, fifteen years and they’re always like that.”

“I think it’s sweet. Fifteen years?” Gen paused, then asked, “So what happened to Aunt Florence’s husband?”

“Died twenty years ago, I think. I think it was a heart attack, but Spencer will know. I don’t remember him at all, but I grew up in Oregon, not Missouri, so we didn’t always make it to weddings and funerals. And when you’re six and racing around a park with a gang of kids, you don’t pay that much attention.”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty-seven. Tyler’s twenty-six. Like Aunt Florence said, she couldn’t tell us apart when we were little.” He smiled wickedly. “Most people couldn’t. Our dads are first cousins and our moms are identical twins. We used to get in so much trouble.”

“Genetically more like half-brothers. Cool. There is a strong family resemblance among almost everyone I’ve met so far. Something in the chin and eyes.”

She knew she didn’t look at all like them and Matthew was staring at her chin. But she was a fourth cousin and she took after her mom. The latter part was literally the truth.

A short bus or maybe large van pulled up out front and honked. Unnecessarily, because Spencer was already calling out to the crowd.

​

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