Fixer-Upper

by Linda Seed

  On the morning of the wedding, he laid out his clothes, thinking not only about the ceremony and the reception but about how he could get Martina to go all in with him.

  Yes, the fact that she’d invited him meant something—meant, certainly, she was softening in her resolve to be finished with him. But he didn’t just want her to tentatively spend time with him. He wanted her to give things another full-out try; he wanted her to enthusiastically throw herself into their relationship.

  And he wanted to find a way to let himself do the same.

  Obviously, his statement that he never wanted kids had been an effort to distance himself from her, to keep himself safe from the vulnerability of a real, meaningful relationship.

  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that obvious. Maybe he’d needed Karen to tell him. But still.

  Why did you say that, Chris? Karen had asked him. Did you mean it? Do you really object to the idea of ever having children?

  At first, he’d assured her he had meant it—he did really object to the idea of himself ever procreating. But the more they’d talked, the more he’d started to question his motives.

  Ask yourself what this has to do with your own parents, she’d said.

  The irritating thing about therapy was that she wouldn’t just outright tell him what it had to do with his own parents. Instead, she’d assigned him to think about it.

  So he had.

  But the more he thought about it, the more the answers eluded him. His mother was a drunk. His father had left—and had only returned to ask for money. They hadn’t shaped him; he’d had to shape himself. So what relevance could the two of them possibly have to his current love life?

  Ask yourself what this has to do with your own parents.

  It was like a puzzle with several key pieces missing. Or like the parts of a car door. The harder he tried to put everything together, the bigger the mess he made.

  He ruminated over the whole thing while he showered, while he drank his second cup of coffee of the day, while he sat in his study and browsed his social media, and while he paced restlessly through the cavernous spaces of his house.

  Ask yourself what this has to do with your own parents.

  Frustrated, he called Karen on her cell phone.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with my own parents,” he said when she picked up. “How could it? They’re barely in my life.”

  “Chris, this number is for emergencies. Are you having a mental health emergency right now?” Her voice was calm and even.

  He hesitated. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “Are you a danger to yourself or others?”

  “I’m in danger of ruining this thing with Martina if I can’t figure out what my problem is. So, yes. Yes, I am. I’m a danger to my own relationship.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and I think you know that.” Her voice was as serene as a mountain lake.

  “Look. I’m going to see her again today. She invited me to her sister’s wedding. This is big, and I don’t want to fuck it up. So, a little help, here?”

  Karen let out a gentle sigh. “I would suggest to you, Chris, that your troubles with Martina have more to do with your relationship to your own parents than you’re willing to admit.”

  He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Yes, you’ve made that clear. I just don’t think—”

  “Why are you dismissing it?”

  “Because they’re barely in my life!” He was raising his voice now, and he had to make an effort to modulate his tone.

  “Don’t you think that’s something to examine?”

  “What is?”

  “They’re barely in your life, and when they are, they represent something burdensome to you.”

  He was about to throw his phone at the wall. “So?”

  “So, might that not color the way you think about having children? Might that not color the way you view the experience of being a child?”

  “That’s … I don’t …”

  “We’ll talk about it more at your next session, Chris. Enjoy the wedding.” And then she was gone.

  Martina and Chris had agreed to meet at the wedding. He’d wanted to pick her up, but Martina would be going to the church early to help Sofia get ready, pose for the bridal party photos, and generally run interference should any last-minute problems come up. Unless he wanted to be at the church three hours before the ceremony, it made more sense for him to meet her there.

  Once Sofia, Benny, and Martina arrived at the church, each of them with voluminous dresses in garment bags thrown over their arms, Martina was glad he wasn’t here. The whole thing was barely controlled chaos, and she wanted to have herself together—both in terms of her appearance and her emotions—when she saw him.

  Right now, all three of them were a mess of sweatpants, hair scrunchies, flip-flops, and facial blemishes, and they wouldn’t be ready for male eyes until they’d changed clothes and the hairdresser and makeup artist had finished with them.

  Bianca was already at the church when they got there. “There you are! Oh. Jeez. We shouldn’t have had the bachelorette party the night before the wedding. You look like Keith Richards after a bad bout of insomnia.”

  “Which one of us?” Sofia asked.

  “All of you.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Benny barked back at her. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

  “I haven’t,” Bianca said. “But I have a newborn, so I have a good excuse.”

  “Oh, God,” Sofia moaned. “I need to be beautiful for my wedding. Tell me I’m going to be beautiful for my wedding.”

  “You will be,” Martina said soothingly. “The makeup artist is going to make you look as fresh as an alpine meadow.”

  The baby was asleep in his carrier as they got settled in the bride’s room. Martina, Benny, and Sofia took turns oohing and aahing at him—quietly, to avoid waking him—as Bianca fussed with the contents of her diaper bag.

  “TJ’s going to be on call—he’ll be able to swoop in and take AJ at a moment’s notice if he starts to fuss. We just thought it would be easier for him to start the day here with me so I can feed him. I hope that’s okay, Sofia. I know it’s your day, and I didn’t want—”

  “It’s perfect. I love having him here.” Sofia was beaming, the effects of her hangover starting to wane in favor of the excitement of being a bride. “God, he’s perfect. Isn’t he?”

  “He is.” Bianca looked lovingly down at her son. “Though, he’s a little less perfect when he wakes up at three a.m. with a raging attitude and a full diaper.”

  “Knock knock!”

  They all looked toward the door, where a woman with armloads of photography equipment was leaning in and greeting them.

  “Oh.” The woman frowned. “Maybe we should start with the dress and the rings until the hair and makeup people get here.”

  37

  Chris sat in the pew he’d been shown to by one of the ushers. The church was Catholic, which made sense, given Sofia’s Italian ancestry. A string quartet played some undefinable, soft music as the guests found their seats. Jesus, on the cross, looked down on Chris sternly.

  On this side of the church were mostly people with dark hair and Mediterranean coloring. On the other, the assembled guests were mostly fair of skin and hair, with more than a few of them looking like they might be prone to melanoma if they didn’t keep up their sunscreen regimen.

  He felt somewhat uncomfortable, though he couldn’t say why. A few rows ahead of him, Bianca’s husband, TJ, cradled their baby in his arms, looking at the boy with undisguised love. He was cooing something to the baby, jiggling him in his arms.

  Ten minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, Bianca came down the aisle in her bridesmaid dress to check on her son. Finding him well cared for and content, she hurried back up the aisle to attend to her duties.

  At the appointed time, when the clock indicated it was precisely two p.m., the men assembled at the altar: Pat
rick; his best man, a guy named Ramon whom Chris had met once or twice; a man who looked so much like Patrick it had to be his brother; and another man Chris had never met but who had the studious look of a college professor—no doubt one of Patrick’s friends from the university. Chris supposed TJ would be up there, as well, if he hadn’t had responsibility for the baby.

  The music changed, and the procession began. The ring bearer. The flower girl. And then the bridesmaids, one by one.

  First was Bianca, who was trying to keep her eyes forward but whose attention kept drifting to her husband and son. Then Benny, looking surprisingly at home in a long, floaty dress.

  And then, there was Martina.

  Chris was transfixed.

  Did people say bridesmaid dresses were ugly? Were they considered to be less than optimal for showcasing a woman’s beauty? Martina looked like a goddess, like some kind of forest nymph, in a dress the color of pink champagne or perhaps a woman’s blush. Her glorious hair hung down her back in auburn waves, and she wore a wreath of flowers on her head. Her shoulders, all creamy, flawless skin and sinuous form, were bare. The neckline of the dress plunged into a deep V, giving him a glimpse of the perfect, soft curves of her breasts.

  Had there ever been a woman so beautiful? Had there ever been anyone more perfect?

  Everyone stood as the music changed to Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus,” but Chris didn’t notice until he was the last one still seated. He couldn’t focus on anyone—or anything—but Martina.

  As Sofia walked up the aisle alone, holding her bouquet, she looked beautiful. Striking. She would have been perfectly at home on the cover of a magazine. But, God, Chris felt as though the very molecules of air and light in the room converged around Martina. The energy circled her, as though the space around her was where everything good lived. Everything hopeful.

  When she turned to face the altar, the halter back of her dress showed an expanse of silky skin.

  He couldn’t say exactly what was happening to him. He’d been struck stupid by the sight of her. He’d seen Martina looking beautiful before. He’d seen her naked, when she’d been perhaps the most beautiful of all. But seeing her walking down an aisle in a church to the music of a string quartet, in the sight of God and an assembly of well-wishers? Well, that was something he’d been entirely unprepared for.

  How big of a cliché was he, only realizing the power of his love for Martina in the context of a wedding? This was why people didn’t invite casual dates to weddings, he supposed. At least, he never had.

  When he tore his gaze away from Martina to look at the others standing at the altar, he noticed Patrick. The man was looking at Sofia with utter devotion, his eyes red as he brushed away a tear that glimmered on his cheek.

  He looked the way Chris felt.

  Maybe it had been a mistake to come. Chris felt his life choices narrowing even as he sat here. He felt as though his destiny were being formed and shaped without his consent right in front of him.

  Once the wedding was over, pictures had to be taken. Everyone had to be ushered to the reception venue and entertained until the bride and groom arrived. The priest and the quartet had to be paid, and the women had to clean all of their things out of the room they’d used to get ready.

  Martina, Benny, and Bianca focused on attending to business so Sofia could simply bask in her role as the bride.

  The photographer had taken a lot of the formal photos outside, where the temperature was barely in the fifties, so by the time they had their things loaded into the limo and were on their way to the reception, Martina could barely feel her fingers and toes, and she shivered as they blasted heat into the back of the car.

  Sofia and Patrick, who would be posing for a slew of photos on their own now that the ones with the wedding party were finished, would be coming in a separate car.

  Martina, Benny, Bianca, TJ, and AJ basked in the comfort of the limousine as they headed toward the winery in Paso Robles where the reception would be held.

  “Woo! That’s done. Give me the champagne.” Benny reached out while Martina handed her the bottle the driver had provided to them.

  She uncorked the bottle with a loud pop that made AJ cry.

  “Aww, sweetie.” Bianca soothed the baby, who was buckled into his car seat. “Mommy needs a drink. Just a little one. Okay? Just a little one.” She cooed the last words in a baby-friendly tone that made the sounds almost undistinguishable as words.

  Benny poured and handed around glasses of champagne—just a half glass for Bianca so it wouldn’t interfere with her nursing. Since the rest of them had no such issues, Benny filled their glasses to the top.

  “We did it. We finally got them married,” Martina said with a happy sigh.

  “Hallelujah.” Benny took a deep drink of her champagne. “It was touch and go there for a while.”

  “Dad should have been here to walk her down the aisle.” Bianca’s face was pink, and she sniffled a little.

  “Don’t cry,” Benny scolded her. “Then we’ll all start, and it’ll mess up our mascara. That makeup artist wasn’t cheap.”

  “Worth every penny, though,” Martina said. “We woke up this morning looking like the wrong half of The Walking Dead.”

  “Well, you all look beautiful now.” TJ raised his glass to them.

  “You had to say that,” Benny said.

  “Yes, I did,” TJ agreed. “But it’s still true.”

  As they rode through the rolling green hills along Highway 46 toward Paso Robles, with the blue Pacific Ocean stretched out in the distance far below them, Martina grew quiet. She’d seen how Chris had looked at her. She’d read his expression, and it had scared the hell out of her.

  He was in this, she could see that. He was in it for the long term, if she wanted him. And she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to turn him away.

  She looked at AJ, now sleeping soundly in his car seat, his lips pursed into a tiny rosebud as he made little murmuring sounds in his sleep.

  She wanted a baby of her own someday with a longing that threatened to consume her.

  But she was pretty sure she wanted Chris even more.

  Tears threatened to come, and she blinked to force them back.

  “You’re thinking about Dad,” Benny guessed. “Don’t do that, I’m telling you. Remember your makeup.”

  Martina nodded. “Right.” She didn’t correct her sister.

  The reception was held in a big ballroom with windows overlooking the vineyards. The weather was glorious—bright sun and blue skies, even if the temperatures were a little cool. The band was already playing when they arrived, and the cake had been set up in one corner of the room. Round tables covered in white linen dotted the room, each with a centerpiece of pink and white roses.

  Guests milled about with drinks in their hands, and tuxedoed waiters passed around trays of hors d’oeuvres.

  Martina looked around the room until she found Chris, who was gazing at her with the same stark adoration she’d seen earlier. She went to him, took both of his hands in hers, and kissed him.

  “Did you enjoy the wedding?” she asked.

  “It was ... quite something,” he said. “You look stunning.”

  She knew he wasn’t just saying that. She knew, from the look on his face and the tone of his voice, that he meant every word.

  “I have to say hi to everyone. Come on. I’ll introduce you.” She took him by the hand and went to greet aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and acquaintances.

  The thing that struck Chris about meeting Martina’s friends and relatives was that nobody recognized him, and nobody’s eyes widened when they met him.

  In the world he used to live in, up in Silicon Valley, he was known for his wealth and success, and every new acquaintance reacted to that—sometimes subtly, sometimes not. In that world, he was Christopher Mills, he was never just Chris.

  This was different. Martina’s relatives didn’t know his name or his net worth, and more than that, they cle
arly didn’t care. Instead, he was just Martina’s new boyfriend, and that was how they evaluated him—based on whether the two of them seemed good together.

  It was a welcome surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been just another guy. He liked it.

  “So, you’re seeing our Martina, are you?” An older man with a comb-over and a course sprinkling of facial hair grabbed Chris’s arm in a friendly squeeze. “Take care of her. She’s special.”

  “I know she is,” he told the man in all sincerity. “Believe me, I know it.”

  Dinner was served, drinks were consumed, toasts were given. Then came the speeches.

  The best man, Ramon, talked about his role in helping Patrick woo Sofia, a story that got some appreciative chuckles from the assembled group. Martina, who’d filled in as maid of honor due to Bianca’s recent motherhood, said a few words about how happy she was for her sister and about what a wonderful man Patrick was.

  Then, when they all thought the speeches were finished for the evening, Sofia stood and reached for the microphone.

  After a brief introduction in which she spoke about her happiness and her love for Patrick, she began to speak about their father.

  Oh, God, Martina thought. I’m never going to make it through this. She steeled herself and listened.

  Chris had been having a good time—certainly, a better time than he’d anticipated.

  He’d enjoyed meeting everyone, and now he was feeling loose and comfortable after having a couple of glasses of champagne.

  But under that lay a current of discomfort, one he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  For one thing, it was the kids.

  There were so many kids, ranging in age from Bianca’s son to toddlers and awkward preteens, teenagers on the cusp of adulthood.

  He didn’t dislike kids, despite all that had been said between him and Martina about his reluctance to have any. He thought kids were fine, as long as someone else was raising them.