Wheres the Groom

by Sophie Meyer

  “I want to find someone to really Love,” Ashley burst out from a place inside that she’d had no contact with before. It actually startled her. “I want to be happy, I want to get Married!” She stopped suddenly and gasped. That was the first time she’d ever said so clearly that she actually wanted to find a husband.

  “Great,” said Ray, cheering her on. “Say it again!”

  “No,” Ashley stopped, “that’s enough.”

  “It’s okay, Ashley, it really is,” said Ray. “Everyone wants to find their soul mate and live a life of love.

  Ashley hadn’t said a word about her soul mate, but that sounded fine, momentarily. Why not? If they were dreaming, may as well dream big.

  “Do you want to find your soul mate?” Ray repeated.

  But then Ashley flinched. “My husband,” she said. Asking for a soul mate in the bargain just felt like way too much.

  “Okay,” Vince continued, “look again in each other’s eyes.”

  They all did.

  “Now, one by one, proclaim to your partner that you Have what it is your dreaming of. For instance, say to the person, I now have the Home of my Dreams, or the Man of my Dreams, of the Car of my Dreams.”

  Ray looked deeply into Ashley’s eyes and said, “I now have the perfect studio for my yoga classes.”

  “Great,” said Ashley.

  “When more than one are joined together, focused on an outcome, it must arrive!” Vince’s voice almost sounded like a song.

  “Now say what you want,” Ray urged Ashley.

  “I now have the perfect husband for me,” Ashley repeated, gazing into his eyes.

  “So be it! So be it!” Vince insisted, as if the husband was sitting just a few rows away.

  Ashley shivered, and Ray held her hands more tightly.

  “It’s going to be fine, it’s going to be wonderful,” Ray assured her. “I see your perfect husband coming. Do you see my studio?”

  Ashley had no idea what to say. Once again Vince stepped in at the perfect moment.

  “The next Step, a huge step to take, is to VISUALIZE what you want,” Vince continued, “ACT AS IF IT’S ALREADY HERE! By acting as if you already have what you want, you draw it to you. When you act like you don’t have it, or like it’s impossible, you actually push it away.”

  Suddenly, this was all too much, it sounded glib and crazy. Ashley squirmed in her seat feeling as if she was in way over her head. She wanted to get out of there, go home, take a bike record, or roller blade along a familiar route. She wanted to let her husband come to her naturally, in whenever he felt like it. What a crazy waste of a weekend this was. She wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten so roped in.

  “It’s normal and natural to feel excited one minute and to have doubts the next,” Vince proclaimed, looking down at her straight from the podium.

  Ashley was humiliated. She was probably the only person there who wasn’t in the game.

  “I’m sorry,” Ashley whispered to Ray softly.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” said Ray. “You’re here, you’re terrific and whatever doubts you may have, the wheels are in motion. We’re both going to have our dreams come true.”

  *

  As the workshop was coming to close late Sunday afternoon, Ashley felt as though she’d been through the ringer. They’d done all kinds of exercises, visualized success, shared fears and memories, and acted “as if” what they wanted was here. They’d also received homework to take with them. Each of them was to write a statement of truth, an affirmation, and was told to write it and speak it ten times a day, morning and night, to plant it in their consciousness.

  Some affirmations were personally designed, others were basic, for each one to do. The basic one all were given was from Sandra Ray’s book - I deserve love. They were to say it, feel it, remember it constantly. If any doubts or negative feelings arose, they were to write them down and cross them out – out of their minds, their thoughts, their lives.

  As one of the final exercises of the workshop, they all had to practice saying their affirmations out loud to their partner time and again. Over the din of voices declaring their affirmation, Vince’s voice rose loud and strong.

  “We do deserve love,” Vince said his voice ringing through the room. “We are love, we deserve to have our dreams come true. But how many really believe that?”

  A smattering of people raised their hands.

  “Work on yourselves night and day to know that truth your flesh and bones,” he said. “When you know it’s true, things will change, your life will turn around. Finally, you’ll let yourself be happy, and let others be happy, too.”

  “I deserve love,” Ashley had said to Ray for what seemed like the thousandth time in a tiny voice.

  “Say it louder, Ashley,” Ray encouraged, “say it again!”

  Ashley was sick of saying it. It was making her nauseous. By now she didn’t know whether she or anyone deserved love, and she didn’t like living in a cotton candy world. Maybe they all deserved the disappointments they got each day? Maybe they deserved to have their hearts broken, plans thrown to the wind. Who knew? Maybe it made all of them stronger? She knew these were odd thoughts and she didn’t like thinking them, but that’s how she felt. Of course she didn’t dare say something like that to Ray, though. He was flying high as the day came to a close, and told her that although he couldn’t see it yet, he knew his new studio was waiting for him close by!

  “That’s great, Ray,” Ashley managed, with what last spurt was left of her energy.

  “And what about you, Ashley?” he said, “do you feel your groom hovering around?”

  Ashley stopped a moment and considered it. She actually had no sense of any groom coming for her at all.

  “Do you, Ashley? Do you?” asked Ray.

  “Not really,” she answered. “But what do I know? It’s late afternoon, maybe he’s out there hiding in the fog.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Ashley returned from the workshop not only exhausted but upset. Things in her life seemed much more dismal now than they had before she went. She’d never spent time looking for some glorious experience or insisting that she deserved love. That was foreign to her. Life as it was had seemed good enough. There were many things she’d enjoyed thoroughly, like drawing, running, skating, poetry, and all the good people she’d met along the way.

  And, did she really deserve love? She’d never thought about something like that once. She didn’t exactly feel that way around her family, where she was always a bit of a disappointment, no matter what she did. They were more formal than she was by nature, and had higher expectations of everyone. But families were famous for pressuring you to be what they wanted. Ashley felt she’d taken the middle road between respecting their wishes and being who she was.

  Now the words of Vince Raine rang in her ears, disturbing her well-constructed equilibrium. Are you living the life that is worthy of you? Are you dreaming big? Fulfilling your destiny? Ashley wondered what brought her from a run of bad dates to this?

  Going over her life in this way, inevitably thoughts of her relationship with Scott arose. She’d felt happier, freer and more herself then, than ever before or after. It was only after they’d met that she began drawing and painting, even realized she wanted to go into art. They would go to the beach together and she’d sit on the sand sketching, while he sat beside her writing incredible poems. Everything seemed possible then, no door ever felt closed.

  But that was just a first love, Ashley thought grimacing now. It was a time of awakening, nobody lived that way all the time. Even if she said her affirmations a thousand times, she couldn’t return to that ever again, could she?

  Despite herself, Ashley went to her closet, dug deep inside and pulled out old scrapbooks, with pictures of her and Scott. It was startling to look at him again. She’d forgotten how handsome he was, hadn’t opened the scrapbook for years. There he stood in the photos with his well-toned rippling body, long, shag
gy dark hair and big, all knowing eyes. Ashley was also stunned to see how much younger she looked in those photos. There was a fresh, carefree spirit about her that had gotten lost along the way.

  A sense of sadness settled over her as she turned one page and then the next. Thankfully, the phone rang and interrupted her lonely trip through the past. Ashley thought it was probably Ray checking in and quickly picked up the phone.

  “Where were you all weekend?” Her mother was on the other end, clearly upset. “Your father and I have been trying to reach you. You didn’t pick up your phone. We were worried all weekend. This isn’t like you.”

  Ashley quickly realized that she’d had to shut off her cell phone during the workshop. It had never even occurred to her that her parents would be trying to reach her. She should have thought about it, though. Her parents called, like clockwork, every Saturday afternoon or Sunday to check in.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ashley said slowly. “My phone wasn’t registering calls.”

  “Why not?” her mother was definitely on edge. “Where were you this weekend, anyway?”

  Ashley shuddered. The very last thing she could tell her mother was where she’d actually been. Her mother would not be able to relate to the remotest reason in the world why Ashley would go to a workshop on finding love. And, at the moment Ashley wasn’t sure how she could justify it, either.

  “Obviously, you forgot that your father and I were planning to come down to celebrate your birthday with you over the long, holiday weekend.”

  “Oh my God, mom, I’m so sorry.” Ashley’s blood ran cold.

  “You forgot?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  A long moment of silence hung between them. “Ashley, is something wrong?” her mother definitely sounded uneasy.

  Ashley couldn’t bring herself to answer as tears welled up in her throat.

  “Did you go away with Brad for the weekend? Your father and I assumed that’s where you were.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Ashley finally answered.

  Another silence hung heavy in the air. “Ashley, what’s the matter?” her mother insisted.

  “Brad and I broke up a while ago,” Ashley said.

  “Again? You broke up?” Her mother’s voice rose higher. “Who broke up with who?”

  “Mom, I’m sorry, but -.”

  “But what? You’re breaking up with everyone these days, becoming overly picky. Tell me why you would break up with Brad, a perfectly lovely young man? You’re causing us all to worry, including your sister, who entered her seventh month yesterday.”

  Seventh months, already! Ashley hadn’t realized that so much time had passed in her sister Trish’s pregnancy.

  “Wow, that’s fantastic,” said Ashley, “the baby’s almost here.”

  “That’s not the point exactly, is it?” said her mother.

  “Of course it is,” Ashley answered crisply, all of this getting on her nerves. “I’m thrilled about the baby coming.”

  “Yes, of course,” her mother backed down a bit. “All of us are thrilled for Trish, but what’s going on in your life? How about you?”

  How about you? How about you? It was a refrain that wouldn’t stop sounding.

  “Life is good to me, mom,” Ashley replied.

  “Life is good to you? What kind of a statement is that? I’ve never heard you talk that way. You’re not yourself these days, Ashley. Your father has commented upon it as well.”

  Ashley shivered at the thought of her father saying anything about her at all. There was nothing she could ever do to please him, anyway. Ashley couldn’t actually think of even one time she’d had her father’s wholehearted support.

  Her mother went on now, heatedly. “Your father was just saying again, that he thought you should return to San Francisco, go to law school, and work in his firm.”

  Ashley didn’t say a word.

  “Did you hear what I said, Ashley?” her mother’s voice sounded unusually strident.

  “Mmmmm,” Ashley responded.

  “You’re purposely being evasive,” her mother replied. “You always had this rebellious streak. Most children grow out of that when they hit twenty.” Her voice got lower then, filled with echoes of doom, “but you’re thirty now!”

  Thirty! Was it a year of dread? Had everything wonderful passed by? Was time going so fast that she should get ready to listen for whom the bell tolls?

  “So, is everything downhill from here on?” Ashley gathered her spirit, and spoke up. She wasn’t going to let her mother strike fear in her heart as she did so often.

  Her mother didn’t like it. “You’re being rude and disrespectful. Clearly, this isn’t a good time to talk. I’ll call you back sometime next week.”

  “I’m busy next week,” Ashley quickly remarked, as rather unexpectedly, her mother hung up the phone.

  The call was the last thing Ashley needed. If she’d felt upset before she spoke to her mother, she felt much worse now. She dragged herself to her dresser, pulled out the little journal she wrote in occasionally, picked up a pen, climbed into bed, opened a fresh page and wrote.

  This has been the absolutely worst birthday I can remember in a long time. How did it come to this? In just a few days it feels as though my life is slipping through my fingers. My parents obviously feel it too, or they wouldn’t bring up law school again. My father knows I never wanted to be a lawyer. He never suggested that Trish become a lawyer, either. After college, he was perfectly happy to have her working in sales.

  Ashley thought about how there’d always been a low grade competition between her and her sister that went on under the radar. And, when it suited their needs her parents knew how to play on it. Of course, there was no competition at all between Ashley and her little brother Lance, though. How could there be? He was only fourteen years old.

  I’m so sick of this competition between me and Trish, Ashley kept writing. It’s exhausting. Well, at least she married one of the lawyers in my father’s huge firm. A great way of placating him! Not only haven’t I married one of his lawyers, I haven’t married at all! My father’s asking me to come back to San Francisco and go to law school is clearly his way of telling me that nothing in my life is working! He can’t even respect my job. In his eyes I’m just a huge failure!

  I’m a huge failure, a failure, Ashley wrote all over the page. Nothing I do can please my father, nothing at all!

  She stopped a moment then and felt a little dizzy. When she opened her eyes again and looked at the page, it looked as though her words had been written by a drunken person, sprawled out wildly over the page.

  Then she caught herself and looked more clearly at what she’d written. A failure, a failure. But was it true? This was the perfect time to do the exercise she’d learned at the workshop. She had to cross those negative thoughts out, and write her positive affirmation immediately.

  Ashley picked up her pen again, very deliberately, and without really believing it, wrote in big letters, I DESERVE LOVE.

  CHAPTER 7

  Ashley finally put on a nightgown, crawled back into bed and lay there looking around. Her bedroom was beautiful, decorated in soft pink and lilac with white billowy curtains over the large windows. Photos of friends and family lined her bureau and usually the room was very soothing to be in. But tonight, she felt confined and restless, both tired and wide awake. Thank goodness the office was closed the next day as part of the three day holiday weekend, and she didn’t have to go to work tomorrow. She really needed a day to rest up and come to herself. Ashley leaned over and put on some soft jazz to calm her nerves, hoping it would help her sleep.

  After a little while she drifted into a light sleep, hazy dreams filling her mind. Ashley dreamt that she was with Scott who then turned into Brad, then Michael, Andrew, and a bunch of other guys she’d known. They were biking, dining, dancing, laughing, and then, suddenly, she was alone.

  Thankfully, the musical ring of her phone jarred her out of her dream. She sat up in
her bed and reached out to answer the call. Oddly enough, it was almost as if she were expecting it.

  “Hello?” Ashley leaned over and picked it, mumbling.

  “I know this is the middle of the night,” Ray’s excited voice was bouncing over the other end, “but I haven’t been able to sleep.”

  “Neither have I,” murmured Ashley. She knew full that they were both on a high from the workshop and couldn’t settle down.

  “Well, really wake up then,” Ray’s voice rose.

  “Ray, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “I know but I’ve been up thinking and watching TV and something suddenly hit me! Light bulbs started flashing! I’ve had an incredible inspiration! I had to call to tell you immediately.”

  “Please talk more softly,” Ashley moved the phone away. His voice was pounding in her ears.

  Ray’s tone dropped a decibel. “A wedding scene came on this show on TV, and suddenly I knew exactly what to do!”

  Ashley rubbed her bleary eyes. “Do about what?”

  “About finding your Guy!” Ray’s voice started booming again.

  “Oh that,” said Ashley, hoping to calm him down and also hoping that a middle of the night call was not something that was going to happen all the time now.

  “It came to me,” Ray sounded ecstatic.

  “Okay,” said Ashley, more alert now.” What came to you? Tell me.” She was starting to feel afraid.

  “Remember that Vince taught us that the most important thing is to act as if what we want is already here?”

  Ashley vaguely remembered, “Yeah, so?”

  “So it came to me,” Ray announced, “you have to act AS IF THE GROOM HAS COME. HE’S HERE!”

  “What groom? Where?” Nothing was computing, a wave of sleep washed over Ashley again.

  “Wake up, Ashley!” Ray called louder. She’d never heard anyone more excited. “I know what we have to do! We have to PLAN THE WEDDING even before the groom appears.”

  “What??”

  “You have to see yourself as a beautiful Bride. You never have, have you?”