The Wedding Game

by Quinn, Meghan

  “Don’t throw things!” I yell, but I run it back to our workbench because it’s a great find.

  “I don’t see any burlap!” Declan calls out.

  “Keep searching!” I scream, my voice sounding more shrill than normal. At the very end of the table, I see wooden objects, and I quickly take off to grab them all—and run straight into Alec’s chest. Like I’ve run into a brick wall, I smash my face against his pecs and stumble backward. On my way down, I reach for anything to grab on to, which turns out to be Helen’s apron strings. She spins away from the table and lands on top of me.

  “Sabotage!” she shouts as her arms flail around my head. “Judges, she is sabotaging me.”

  “I am not!” I reply, trying to push her off me, desperate to get to the wood. “I accidentally grabbed on to you.” I glance up to find Alec staring down at me. For a brief second I can sense him wanting to reach out to help me up, but it’s fleeting, and he instead takes off, clutching a bundle of palm fronds. Jerk!

  “She was headed for the wood. Luciana, grab the wood while I have her down!” Helen calls out, clearly not understanding the word accident.

  “What? No! Get off me.” I try to shove the old woman now, but the broad holds her ground, pinning me to the floor. “Judges, judges, is this legal?” I look back toward the cameras and the crew, who are all just standing there, laughing. Great, I know what they’re thinking: perfect television.

  Looks like it’s every man for himself.

  “Cohen, the wood, for the love of God, the wood!”

  Before I can locate Cohen, Alec steps over me to go back to the display, where Thad is running in place, hands on his head, yelling, “I can’t decide, I can’t decide! What? Naomi, put that down. We are not having a circus wedding! Are you out of your beautiful mind? You’re pregnant—go sit down.”

  “Hey!” she replies, clutching the colorful glass figurine. “I’m carrying a child—I’m not an invalid.”

  Thad gestures to me, still struggling to push away a fifty-year-old. “Do you see the mess of limbs on the ground? That could be you. Now put the clown down and step away from the table.”

  “It’s not a clown, it’s a . . . a . . .”

  “It’s a clown!” Thad shouts.

  “This isn’t a clown.”

  “It’s a clown,” Alec says, being the relay person for Thad, who is now picking up random objects.

  “Got the wood!” Cohen shouts.

  “Still no burlap,” Declan announces.

  “Ooo, feathers,” Thad gleefully cheers.

  “Do we want the clown?” Luciana asks.

  “Let me see the clown!” Helen calls out, now straddling my stomach.

  “How dare you!” Thad snatches the clown away. “That’s our clown.”

  “No stealing!” Mary DIY calls out. Oh, now she intervenes.

  “We saw it first,” Thad says.

  “And you set it down. Your loss!” Helen calls out.

  Luciana snatches the clown and shows it to Amanda, who shakes her head, and the poor clown is tossed back on the table . . . where Declan picks it up.

  “Do we want the clown?”

  “Put the clown down, for the love of God!” I scream. “Burlap, Declan, find the freaking burlap!”

  “Two more minutes at the table, then return to your workstations!” Mary calls out.

  “Ugh, get . . . off . . . me.” I shove Helen with all my might, but she doesn’t budge.

  So . . . I pinch her.

  “You nasty rat,” she yelps, and she jumps just enough for me to roll away, right into Alec’s shoes. He topples over me from the force of my roll. Our bellies touch, our bodies forming a cross.

  “Watch it!” he says, just as something crashes down to the floor.

  We all pause, and silence falls as we stare at the shattered glass on the ground.

  The clown.

  Naomi stands over it, tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh no . . .”

  Looks like no one will be using the clown.

  No time for a memorial. I push Alec away, finally stand, and scour the tables.

  Skeletons, no.

  Disney princesses, no.

  Shrek. What? No.

  Camo, no.

  Playing cards, no.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  “Crap.” I sift through the items, tossing boas and scarves to the side.

  “Look, a boa,” Thad says, snaking one away from me. He wraps it around his neck. “Alec, want a boa?”

  “I’d rather stick my dick in a pickle jar.”

  “What?” I whip my head around just as Amanda swoops in next to me.

  “Found the burlap, Mom.”

  The rough texture of the fabric slides under my hand, and before it disappears, I clutch it in my palm.

  “Drop it,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “You don’t have to be—”

  “I said, drop it, Amanda. I have no problem driving my elbow into your breast.”

  Her eyes widen, and she drops the burlap just as the timer goes off. “To your workstations!” Mary calls out as guilt floods me.

  “I’m sorry,” I quickly say to Amanda, who looks terrified to even be within a ten-foot radius of me. I can feel the crazy in my eyes, the snarl of my lips, the tension in my neck that’s likely making every vein pop out. Cohen’s not the only one with a throbbing vein. Lucky for me, it runs in the family.

  She dodges my gaze and hurries back to her workbench.

  Damn it.

  “Luna, come on!” Cohen calls out, waving me over to our bench.

  It’s the first time I’m getting a chance to take in everything we collected and, to be honest, I could not be more proud of Cohen and Declan, especially because I was trapped under Helen’s ass for the majority of the challenge.

  “You may purge one item!” Mary calls out. “Only one, so if you just so happened to collect something that won’t work, put it in your purge box, but beware: another team is allowed to steal.”

  Knowing how it works, I lay everything out and assess. Greens, creams, and natural wood. Textures, soft and hard. And rustic all around. I look up at Declan and Cohen and give them a giant smile. “I think we have a winner here, boys.”

  “America picks the wedding winners, but our judges pick the challenge winners, and the judges have spoken.”

  Standing between Declan and Cohen, I hold their hands and can’t stop looking at what we’ve put together for a vision board. Stunningly beautiful, it’s romantic and natural with earth tones—everything the boys wanted.

  I glance over at Team Hernandez and wince just slightly. Even though I love our board, I can’t help but fall in love with theirs too. Filled with pastel pinks, cream, and gold, their vision board is decked out in dream catchers, macramé, flourishes of green, and succulents.

  Obsessed.

  Then . . . there’s Team Baxter. All I can say is . . . wow.

  Just wow.

  Pink, green, and yellow, their board is overflowing with feathers, palm leaves, and flamingos kissing. There’s no rhyme or reason to the board, no cohesion, just an array of items taped and pinned.

  I almost feel bad for them. How on earth are they going to work with that?

  Key word being almost.

  To top it off too, Thad made the team dress up in boas, so the snob himself, Alec Baxter, is sporting a yellow boa—looking like he’d prefer to use it as a noose.

  Now we wait quietly as the judges take in our vision boards and make a decision. This is how it is after every challenge: they clean up, and then we’re judged. I’ve seen the show more than a dozen times, and this is the most nerve-racking part, when the judges silently walk around, taking everything in, before deliberating off to the side, never in front of the contestants.

  Each vision board is labeled with a theme to give the judges an idea of what we have planned.

  Team Rossi’s Modern Rustic.

  Team Hernandez’s Boho Romance.

  And
. . . Flamingo Dancer. Team Baxter’s unfortunate mess of a board. It’s practically stapled together and has no cohesion—not to mention they wrote and said flamingo dancer, when in actuality it’s flamenco . . . not the pink bird.

  The judges confer for a few more minutes before Mary DIY nods. They separate, and she turns to the camera. “The first-place winner of today’s theme challenge will get an extra five hundred dollars to add to their budget. Second place will receive an extra one hundred dollars, and third place will receive nothing.”

  The extra money would be great, but I know we can deliver a great wedding for under $10,000. If anything, I’m scrappy, and if you give me a spork and an avocado, I can make a beautiful centerpiece.

  Based on the vision boards and the judges’ reactions, I would say Boho Romance is first, just because they spent the most time marveling at what Luciana, Amanda, and Helen put together. We’re surely in second, and the unfortunate Flamingo Dancers will be in third, which makes me feel a little bad for Naomi, who can’t seem to stop tearing up about the broken clown. She keeps muttering something about it not being able to live out its destiny. Her pregnancy psychosis is making me rethink ever having children.

  “The judges have deliberated, and it was a close competition,” Mary continues. “In third place, receiving no extra money, is . . .”

  She pauses, the dramatics of it all a little too much.

  Flamingo Dancer—just get it over with. We all know who’s last.

  “Team Rossi.”

  “What?” I shout before I can even stop myself. “How is that—?” Cohen claps his hand over my mouth before I can say anything rude, and believe me, a rant is simmering on my tongue. There is no way in hell Flamingo Dancer is better than our theme.

  “In second place . . .”

  “This is an outrage,” I mutter as Cohen shushes me and squeezes my hand.

  “Team Hernandez, which means Team Baxter adds five hundred dollars to their overall budget.”

  A shrill scream fills the set. You’d think it came from Naomi, but nope, she’s frozen in silent shock along with Alec as Thad puts his hands on his hips and starts doing an Irish jig.

  “Hell yeah! I knew the feathers would tickle the judges’ fancy.” Thad winks, and it’s right then and there that I decide Alec is paying off the judges.

  It’s the only explanation.

  How on earth would they even consider feather boas and palm leaves a number one wedding theme? It screams tacky. They might as well have stuck the clown in there.

  While Mary talks about next week’s episode and challenge, I stew between Declan and Cohen, staring down Alec and watching his every move. Is he nodding at the judges? Winking? Making any kind of gesture that would represent being in cahoots?

  He swipes his finger under his nose, and I shout, “Ah ha!”

  All eyes focus on me as Diane yells, “Cut!” She sighs. “Please, no outbursts while Mary is talking.”

  “Sorry.” I wave my hand in apology and melt behind Declan and Cohen. While Mary jumps back into her closing statements, I glance back at Alec, who’s looking at me, a smirk on his face. A knowing smile. The kind of smile that says . . . “Gotcha.”

  To which I silently respond . . . No chance in hell, you pretentious, snobby, loafer-wearing, flamingo-themed-wedding Chris Evans look-alike.

  Think he could read all that in my eyes?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LUNA

  “Hey, you’re home . . . uh-oh. Why are the fudge-striped cookies out and dangling off your fingers?” Farrah asks as she shuts the door to our apartment and sets her purse on the side table in the entryway.

  I hold up my bag of booze with my cookie-free hand. “I’m drinking this too.”

  “You brought out Parrot Bay?” Farrah winces. “I’m guessing today didn’t go well?”

  “An understatement.” I take a giant sip from my straw. “Grab one, join me. There’s a strawberry daiquiri with your name on it.”

  Farrah, being the loyal friend she is, doesn’t even ask questions. Nope, she strips out of her pants—just like I did—leaves them in the entryway, and then goes to the freezer, where she collects her sugar-laden alcoholic beverage of choice and joins me.

  We clink the plastic bags together, and Farrah starts decorating her fingers with cookies as well.

  I nibble on one of mine but don’t break it off. Frankly, these decorative cookie rings are the only thing I have going for me at the moment.

  “Lay it on me. Was the competition tough?”

  “Lesbians,” I mutter, leaning back, my booze bag clutched to my chest.

  “Lesbians are on the show?”

  I nod. “The lesbians—”

  “Names, Luna, names. I know you’re upset, but lesbians have names too.”

  I give her a look. “Luciana and Amanda, along with Amanda’s overbearing mother, named Helen, who sat on my stomach while we had to collect items for the theme of our wedding.”

  “Luciana and Amanda,” Farrah says dreamily. “Short or long hair?”

  “What? Long—blonde and brunette. Does it matter?”

  “Long-haired lesbians—oh, I see you, Wedding Game, trying to get the male demographic involved.” She shakes her head. “Perverts.”

  “Are you even listening? Get over the lesbians. A middle-aged woman sat on my stomach today.”

  “I heard you. I thought the lesbians were more important than your demise. It’s not very often you get to see lesbians in the wild, especially on television.”

  “That’s not true. There’s plenty of lesbian representation.”

  “Name some. Name some major network TV series that have lesbians.”

  “Well . . . Ellen—”

  “Got canceled shortly after the gay episode. Next.”

  “Will & Grace—”

  “Main characters are stereotypical gay men that the media portrays as fun and exciting. What about the fun and exciting lesbians? They’re always tool-belt wearing, short haired, and hot tempered.”

  I think on it, truly think on it, and yes, she has a point, but there has to be some lesbian representation . . .

  “Glee . . . oh, and duh, Grey’s Anatomy.”

  She mulls it over, sips her pouch, and says, “I’ll give you Grey’s Anatomy.”

  “Oh, and The Fosters.”

  “Ehh, not major network TV.”

  “This is getting off topic.”

  “Just trying to give the lesbians some love.”

  “Which I appreciate because lesbians need love too . . . but can we focus on how the elderly sat on me today?”

  “Yes, sorry.” She clears her throat. “So a crazy mom sat on you.”

  “She did, but if I’m honest, that’s not the worst thing that happened to me.”

  “A lady sitting on you is tame? In comparison to what?” She bites down on a cookie and eats it whole. “What the hell happened?”

  Staring off, I mutter, “Alec Baxter.”

  “Ohhh, I’m intrigued. Who is this Alec Baxter you speak of?”

  “Brother to one of the contestants. Divorce attorney. Rude. Thought I was a production assistant.”

  “How so?”

  We both take long sips of our drinks, and the bitter cold of the frozen alcohol hits me directly in the brain, freezing it over for a few torturous moments. Once the pain subsides, I say, “He stopped me on set and demanded I bring him coffee.”

  “He didn’t,” Farrah gasps.

  “He did.” I chew on a cookie, narrowing it down to just a ring that I easily pop in my mouth. “Yelled at me, actually, for not refilling the carafe, blamed me for having to get to set early, and sure, he said ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ but he didn’t mean it. You can’t say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ with malice dripping off the tip of your tongue.”

  “God, I hate when malice drips,” Farrah says sarcastically.

  “Dripping malice is hot garbage.”

  “Total hot garbage.” We clink our dr
inks again and down them until the bags are sucked dry. “Want another?” Farrah asks.

  “Do you even have to ask?”

  She gets up from the couch and heads to the freezer, where she pokes holes in the bags with our reusable straws. “So, he asked you for coffee—the nerve. Then what?”

  “His brother told him to apologize to me for being rude.”

  “So manners do run in the family, even if some of them drip with malice.” Farrah hands me my drink and starts stacking her fingers with cookies again.

  “Very few manners, but they’re there.”

  “Did he apologize?”

  Cheeks puckered, I suck hard, swallow, and then say, “No. Instead, he came over to my workbench in between takes and started insulting me.” Granted, I might have started the name-calling, but Farrah doesn’t need to know that.

  “What did he say?”

  “Called me ‘repugnant.’” Farrah’s eyes widen. “And then he said 1990 wanted their bedazzler back.” With my cookie-heavy fingers, I drag them carefully over my beautiful sequin shirt.

  Farrah sits up, brows sharpening in pure anger. “He did not.”

  I nod. “He so did.”

  Looking away, she whispers, “The motherfucker.”

  “And to top it all off, we had to put together the themes for the wedding today, and Cohen, Declan, and I built a beautiful vision board for a modern rustic wedding.”

  “That’s so Cohen and Declan.”

  “Right?” I groan and lean my head back against the couch. “The les—”

  “Luciana and Amanda.”

  “Right, sorry, you would think I’d be more sensitive. Blame the stress of it all.” I slurp some more booze, starting to feel the effects of all the sugar and alcohol combined. “Luciana and Amanda put together a boho-chic wedding that made my soul clench with jealousy. God, it was gorgeous, so dreamy.” I roll my head to the side and look Farrah in the eye. “And then there was Team Baxter.”

  “Pretentious?”

  “If only.” I shake my head. “No, it was themed ‘Flamingo Dancer.’ Which makes no sense whatsoever. There were flamingos on their vision board, but the dance is actually pronounced flamenco, and the dancer traditionally wears red with ruffles. It was a hot mess on all fronts.”