Ugly Girl Ties the Knot

by Alice Wasser

  Ugly Girl Ties the Knot

  A novel by

  Alice Wasser

  Ugly Girl Ties the Knot

  © 2015 by Alice Wasser. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents and places are the products of the authors’ imagination, and are not to be construed as real. None of the characters in the book is based on an actual person. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

  For all the ugly ducklings who never turned into beautiful swans.

  And for all the men who'd rather have a nice duckling than a stuck-up, bitchy swan.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FEBRUARY

  MARCH

  APRIL

  MAY

  JUNE

  EPILOGUE: JANUARY

  FEBRUARY

  February 13:

  A year ago, I had given up.

  I know that 80% of people get married at some point in their lives. I just never believed I would ever be one of those people.

  Think about it. It’s one thing to date a person or even date them exclusively, but consider the commitment you have to make to say that you never want to be with another person for the rest of your life. To say that you will share your bed and your home and your life with this person until you die. That you might even want to create new, smaller, cuter people with this person.

  You’ve got to really love that person, right? You’ve got to believe in your heart that nobody else better is ever going to come around.

  For a long time, when I stared at myself in the mirror, I just couldn’t imagine any man looking at me and saying to himself, “I just want her. Nobody else. Forever.” It just didn’t seem possible when I looked at my reflection.

  So when Sam Webber, my boyfriend of six months, held out a little blue velvet box to me on the steps of my home, I almost had a heart attack. This felt like something that should be happening to someone else—not me. Some little blond hottie in size two jeans.

  (Sorry if you’re a little blond hottie in size two jeans, but I definitely hate you.)

  To be fair, Sam may not exactly be the kind of guy that little girls fantasize about standing next to them at the altar in their dream wedding. First off, he can’t stand at all. He’s a quadriplegic. Other than that, he’s great. Other than that one totally unimportant and insignificant thing.

  If you’ve never met a quadriplegic before, you’re probably picturing somebody like Christopher Reeve (the former Superman, who was paralyzed from the neck down when he fell off a horse). You’re probably picturing a guy strapped into a giant power wheelchair, breathing with a ventilator. That’s what I would’ve been picturing a year ago.

  But apparently, much like the color gray, there are many shades of quadriplegia. Sam can’t move his hands, but he can move his upper arms pretty well. He uses a sporty-looking manual wheelchair, and does pretty much everything for himself, including dressing, bathing, eating, etc. Considering he can’t move his hands, he does an awful lot with them. It’s a little bit hard to believe sometimes that the only help he gets is a woman who comes in to clean, and he claims that’s just because he hates cleaning.

  Sam might be the nicest guy I’ve ever met. He’s not perfect. He’s kind of a (huge) dork. And while he’s really funny, sometimes he has trouble being serious. But those are minor issues. And damn, he’s good-looking. He has this smile that I call “adorably sexy,” and always manages to get my pulse racing. And his brown hair always manages to be just the right amount of tousled, despite the fact that all he does is wash it in the shower and let it air-dry. Definitely no complaints from the neck up.

  From the shoulders down… well, you know. He’s a quadriplegic, like I said. But after six months, it’s not something I think about all that much anymore.

  At some point, I realized that Sam had been holding the blue velvet box to me expectantly for several minutes.

  “Uh, are you going to open it?” he asked.

  “Am I supposed to or do you do it?” I asked. Is the woman supposed to open the box or is the man? I have no idea. This is my first proposal.

  (Obviously.)

  “Somebody should,” he said thoughtfully. He flashed me a crooked smile. “You do it. I’m too nervous. I’ll drop it. It’ll fall into a sidewalk grate or something.”

  I took the box from his hand with fingers that were shaking about an equal amount to his. I couldn’t believe this was happening. He looked about as terrified as I felt. I don’t know why I was so nervous. Maybe I thought he’d change his mind as soon as he realized what he was asking of me.

  “Open it,” he encouraged me.

  I slowly opened the box and was almost blinded by the ring inside. Oh. My. God. A woman like me should not have a ring that looked like that. It was just… beautiful. Too beautiful. And big. So big. I don’t know enough about rings or diamonds to spout out nonsense like “it’s a whatever carat solitaire diamond” or something like that. But I’ve got eyes and that rock was freaking huge.

  “Wow,” I managed. “Sam, I…”

  “Wait,” he said. “I had a speech planned.”

  “A speech?”

  His ears turned pink. “Well, it wasn’t… all right, never mind. Forget the speech.”

  “No, I want to hear it.”

  “Yeah?” He grinned at me then leaned forward to dig around in the pouch on the back of his wheelchair, which was resting in front of the steps to my house. He retrieved three index cards, which were covered in his messy scribble. It was so adorably dorky that I just about died.

  “Millie,” he began, reading off the first card, “I knew from the first moment that I saw you that you were somebody I wanted to spend the rest of my life with…”

  This was the most romantic moment of my entire life. Nothing this romantic will ever happen to me again even if I live to be 100 years old. Which is why it was absolutely the wrong time to get the giggles. But I couldn’t help myself. I was just too excited and happy and giddy.

  (I don’t think I’ve ever been giddy before. I didn’t know that was an emotion I was capable of.)

  “I know—it’s cheesy,” Sam said, as the flush in his ears crept into his cheeks.

  “No, it’s not,” I insisted, still giggling and shivering a little bit.

  He put the cards down on his lap. “Look, it doesn’t matter. All that’s really important is that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes!” That probably sounded a little overeager. I cleared my throat. “I mean, of course I will.”

  Sam wanted to put the ring on my finger, but he didn’t quite have the dexterity for that, especially considering how nervous he was. Like I said, he can’t really move his fingers at all. He gave it the old college try, but it was obvious that it wasn’t going to happen. Finally, I took the ring and put it on myself.

  The ring looked amazing. No, better than amazing. There needed to be a new word to describe the amazingness of it. Amazible. Spectaculazing.

  As I held out my hand to admire the ring, I felt a lump rise in my throat. I couldn’t believe Sam really loved me enough to want to marry me. I looked up at his face and he was teary-eyed too.

  “You like it?” he asked eagerly.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “I was planning to give it to you tomorrow, on Valentine’s Day,” he said. “I had this amazing proposal planned. We were going to go to the planetarium and the stars were going to light up to read, ‘Will you marry m
e?’ Then a bird was going to fly in carrying the box and drop it into your lap.”

  I frowned and studied his face. “You’re totally making that up.”

  “Of course I’m not!” he cried, as if offended by the thought. “Then after the bird brought you the ring, a live orchestra was going to be lowered in from the sky to serenade you.”

  I slugged him in the arm and he laughed. As crazy as that whole thing sounded, it also actually seemed like something Sam was capable of planning. He has a tendency to go a little bit overboard with the romance.

  So here I am, engaged to a great guy. I’m going to be a married woman. I’ll have someone to sleep in a big bed with me every night and an automatic date for every Saturday night. I am really happy. I know I shouldn’t say that because it will completely jinx everything, but I am. I’m happy. I love this guy.

  February 14:

  Sam originally had some big plans for us for V-day, but we ended up spending the entire day in bed. Literally.

  In general, I hate it when people use the word literally because they always use it wrong to mean something that is actually figurative. But we literally did spend the entire day in bed. Every time I made an attempt to get out of bed, he would tackle me and not let me leave. He eventually did let me get up to use the bathroom before I wet myself. And to get some food items and beverages from the kitchen.

  (So I guess I was wrong. We didn’t literally spend the whole day in bed. But damn near close.)

  “I think I’m getting dehydrated,” I told him at some point.

  He looked up at me. At that moment, his lips happened to be on my left nipple. “Too bad,” he said, then returned to the task at hand.

  His lips ran down the length of my abdomen and I felt myself instinctively tensing up. I hadn’t been on a scale in a while and when I finally weighed myself a few days ago, I was horrified. I had gained a lot of weight lately. It was daytime and therefore not dark in the bedroom, so Sam had to notice all the flab on my belly, every ounce of cellulite. There should be a law against making love in a room this bright.

  “Why are you so tense?” he asked me, concerned. “Doesn’t this feel good?”

  I’ve never completely shared with Sam all my insecurities about my body. I’m worried he’d think I was nuts. Men don’t want women who obsess over their weight—although, let’s face it, we probably all do on some level. Whenever I say anything hinting that my body is anything less than perfect, he gives me a look like I’m out of my mind. Then he points out the fact that his body is worse than mine. But honestly, it isn’t. I mean, he’s disabled and has no muscles in his abdomen, so he has an excuse for having a gut. I’m just fat.

  “Could we close the shades?” was what I finally said.

  He glanced up at the window. “Nobody can see us. Don’t worry.”

  “I just think it’s too bright in here.”

  He pouted. “But I want to be able to look at you.”

  “Yeah, but…” Now that he was distracted, I quickly pulled the covers over my belly to conceal myself. “It’s more romantic to fool around in the dark.”

  Sam frowned. “Why?”

  “Because…” Think, Millie! “When it’s dark, it’s like nighttime. And isn’t the nighttime more romantic?”

  Sam gave me a look like I was insane.

  I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m sorry my idea of romance is so bizarre to you.”

  “Millie,” he said firmly. “We’re not closing the shades.” When I didn’t move my arms, his voice softened: “I just want to be able to look at you. Is that so bad?”

  I couldn’t deny a simple request from my future husband.

  About an hour later, Sam allowed me to replenish my lost fluids with a glass of water, and then we made plans to move in together. I can’t believe I’m going to live here. I love Sam’s apartment, which is about ten times nicer than mine. It’s pretty big too, for a one-bedroom. But we’d have to move if it weren’t just the two of us anymore, which I suspect Sam is hoping for in the next couple of years.

  (Hint, hint.)

  February 15:

  The average woman’s ring size is a size six. That’s what Sam got for me, and naturally, it’s too small. This morning, my finger was turning purple.

  We decided to take a trip to Tiffany’s today to get the ring resized. I was reading a little bit about diamonds yesterday, and I learned that the most popular diamond shape is round, which is what my ring is. The weight of a diamond is measured in carats rather than grams, and one carat weighs 0.2 grams. I didn’t go so far as to drop my ring onto a scale, but I can tell it’s a very big diamond. We’re talking multiple carats.

  When we walked into the store, I caught a glimpse of several diamonds in the display case that were all smaller than mine. “How much did you spend on this ring?” I whispered to Sam.

  He grinned at me. “I think it’s impolite to ask.”

  It probably was, but I couldn’t help myself. “Did you spend more than $5,000?” The average cost of an engagement ring in 2015 was $5,273.

  He snorted. “Please.”

  I looked down at my left hand. I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that I was wearing a piece of jewelry that cost more than $5,000. It definitely made me uneasy.

  “Did you spend more than… $10,000?” I asked.

  He hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

  I looked down at my hand again. Oh my God. I was wearing a piece of jewelry that cost more than $10,000. That seemed almost too hard to believe. My mouth felt really dry all of a sudden.

  “Did you spend more than $15,000?” I asked.

  At this point, I was hoping he would tell me that I was crazy, that nobody would spend that much on a ring. But he didn’t say that to me.

  “Oh my God,” I said, practically hyperventilating. “You did not spend $15,000 on this ring. You didn’t.”

  Sam was quiet now, although his eyebrows were raised and he seemed slightly amused by my response.

  “At least tell me you didn’t spend more than $20,000,” I begged him. “Just tell me it was less than that.”

  He didn’t tell me it was less than that.

  I looked down at my left hand one more time. Well, I was officially wearing a piece of jewelry that cost more than my car. “Oh God,” I murmured.

  He looked hurt. “I thought you liked it.”

  “I love it, but…” I looked down at the rings on display again. “I would have been happy with something… cheaper.”

  “I can afford it,” he insisted. “It’s not even three months of my salary. It’s not even two months.”

  (The idea that a man should spend several months of salary on a wedding ring originated from DeBeers marketing material. It’s not like there was some research indicating that marriages lasted longer if you spent exactly three months salary.)

  Anyway, he’s right that he actually can afford it. Yesterday, Sam shared some of his financial information with me while we were working out details of my moving in and… he’s pretty loaded. Our company is paying him a lot of money and he’s got a lot saved too. I mean, he’s not super rich like Trump or something (although he has much nicer hair), but he can definitely afford a really nice engagement ring.

  I’m doing pretty okay financially too, so between the two of us, the last thing I should be thinking about is money. But my parents always worried about money, so it’s just ingrained.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” a salesman whose name-tag said Adam approached us. Oh God, he called me “ma’am.” That was slightly traumatic. I must really be getting old. Good thing I’m getting married.

  “We’d like to have this engagement ring resized for her finger,” Sam spoke up.

  Adam looked at the ring then looked at the two of us. Actually, he was blatantly staring. To the point where I ran my tongue over my front teeth to make sure there wasn’t a big hunk of spinach stuck in them.

  “We’d like it back as soon as possible,” Sam added. />
  “Of course,” Adam said. He gave us another weird look. Then he took a measurement of my finger and it turned out Sam had underestimated my finger diameter by about half a size. I wondered if I lost 20 pounds, the ring might fit.

  Adam excused himself for a minute and I whispered to Sam, “He was staring at us.”

  “Yeah.” Sam shrugged.

  “It was weird.”

  “I thought you’re used to that by now,” Sam said. “He’s staring because the guy in the wheelchair is getting married.” He shrugged again.

  He was right that people do stare at us a lot. I just didn’t expect it at a fancy place like Tiffany’s. I started to wonder if the whole wedding planning process was going to be like this. We weren’t just going to be able to buy flowers and hire a caterer like a normal couple. Everyone was going to be looking at us and saying, “Hmm. That’s weird.”

  Well, screw ‘em. Let them stare.

  February 16:

  I think that Sam must have slipped Adam the Tiffany’s Guy a fifty, because they got my ring back to me this morning. I was willing to wait, but Sam drove me to work and we swung by the store on the way. I tried to play it down, but I have to admit, I was excited about showing it off at work. I’ve had so many engagement rings shoved in my face over the years. Finally, I got a turn to be the one who is so hot that I need to take my ring off.

  I work at a large company as an actuary, which is a job I love, believe it or not. If you’re wondering what the hell an actuary is, you’re not alone. Nobody knows what I do, including my own parents. But I know what I do, which is probably the most important thing. It involves calculating statistics and insurance rates—I absolutely love statistics. If you’re wondering why your life insurance premiums are so high, that’s probably my fault.

  (It’s probably also your fault for eating so many Big Macs.)

  I had probably been in the office for about five seconds when Donna, my best friend at work, sensed my ring through telepathy. I think she has ringdar. She ran over to my cubicle and picked up my hand. “You’re engaged!” she squealed, loud enough that a few people turned to look.