The Truth About Ever After

by Rachel Schurig

  Eric will still be gone, a voice in my head reminded me. And the two of you will still be barely taking.

  I sighed, wishing that voice would shut up for once.

  Set-up for the wedding was a complicated process, but I had plenty of help. I was thankful again that Sarah had decided on the club. It might be a slightly impersonal site, but they were old pros at throwing weddings. They had staff to carry out most of the set-up. My job was to oversee things and make sure the vendors were able to get in. Even with all the help, it was exhausting. We had a lighting designer and his crew setting up in the ballroom, a small army from the florist’s creating intricate arrangements at both the reception and ceremony sites. There were chair rentals, linen rentals, caterers—all running around, all asking me for help and instruction.

  The best thing I could say about that level of stress is that it made things go fast. Though I had arrived at the club by six a.m., the morning seemed to fly by. I was in and out of Sarah’s dressing room, conferring with vendors, running from ceremony site to ballroom. It was a crazy rush, and though I was tired, I was also thrilled. In the end, it would look great. And I had made it happen.

  “Okay,” I said to the flower designer. “Let me just have a minute, okay?”

  He nodded and stepped back, allowing me to walk around the table slowly and take in his creation. Sarah had requested a traditional look, and the designer had complied. The tall crystal vase was filled with roses and lilies, greenery draping down elegantly. Little crystals flashed in the light from the candles on the table below.

  “I think it’s perfect,” I finally said, smiling at him. I saw his face sag in relief. This was a huge account for him, and I was pleased to see the work he had put into it. He’d be getting a ton of referrals from me. I shook his hand, congratulating him, before turning to one of the million more things I needed to do.

  “How’s it looking, Mrs. Thompson?” Michael asked, coming up next to me.

  “Great, thank you,” I told him. I was suddenly wishing I hadn’t stopped moving. I felt okay when I was on the go, but once I stopped, it all started to hit me.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked. I watched as a shadow of concern crossed his face. “Kiki, you don’t look very well. Why don’t you sit down?”

  I shook my head, thinking of the chair rental vendor. He was due to be finished setting up any minute and I needed to get down there and sign off on his work. As I moved to step away from Michael, I felt the world spin dangerously around me.

  “Sit down, Mrs. Thompson,” Michael said, his voice calm but firm. I was surprised to see his hand on my arm. He must have grasped me to steady me, but I hadn’t felt a thing. Maybe not such a good sign.

  I sank into the seat he pulled up for me, feeling woozy and dizzy. “Put your head between your legs,” Michael instructed. This time I didn’t argue. I was sure I was about to faint.

  Michael knelt down next to me. “Tell me what you’ve had to eat today,” he said.

  I shook my head. I just hadn’t had the time. Michael made a noise of disapproval at the back of his throat. “Carter, come here please,” he called. I sensed him stand next to me, my eyes clenched tight as I concentrated on taking deep breaths. “Will you please go to the kitchen and get Mrs. Thompson a plate?” he was saying to someone. “Very quickly please. Some kind of meat, salad, and a potato. And a glass of juice, too. Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I murmured. “I have a pop tart in my bag.”

  Michael snorted in a most undignified way, and I couldn’t help but raise my head to look at him in amazement. He grinned back sheepishly. “An overload of sugar isn’t going to help you at all,” he explained. “You need some protein and good carbs. No arguing.”

  “There’s so much to do,” I said, looking around at the half-completed ballroom.

  “You have plenty of help,” he said. “You can take a few minutes. You won’t be much help to Ms. Vandermark passed out on the ballroom floor.”

  I gigged. He had a point.

  Michael sat with me while we waited for the food to arrive. I was very touched by his concern. Carter returned within minutes with a plate for me. Grilled chicken salad and a baked potato. I felt my stomach rumble and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a proper meal. I hadn’t even eaten at the rehearsal dinner the night before.

  I smiled at Michael as I speared a piece of chicken. “Thank you. You don’t have to stay with me, though; I promise I’ll be a good girl and eat it all.”

  He smiled at me and stood. “Please do, Mrs. Thompson. You know…” He paused for a moment, as if he was considering his words. “The people here who remember you from your days at the club are very proud of the work you’ve done for this event.”

  I stared at him in astonishment. What a sweet thing to say. He looked down at me, warmth in his eyes. “I was very lucky to watch you grow into such a nice young lady, Kiki. You were always so polite and kind to everyone here. We’ve missed you.”

  “Thank you, Michael,” I whispered, feeling close to tears. He patted my back and turned to go, leaving me alone with my meal, marveling at the way you could make an impression on someone without even realizing it.

  ***

  “Kiki, table three is still waiting on champagne.”

  “Thanks, Marcus, I’m on it,” I told our intern, thanking God we had hired him. He had been a tremendous help to me throughout the day. I went in search of the maître d’. I had already asked a waiter to get the champagne, and didn’t like to go over his head to his boss, but felt I had no choice if the job didn’t get done. Luckily, I saw the waiter in question skirt by me, holding a champagne bottle.

  “Sorry,” he said, sounding out of breath. “We had to find a new case.”

  I smiled at him and patted his arm. “You’re doing great.”

  Now that the champagne was sorted, the toasts could start. I walked to the head table and motioned for the best man. “You’re on,” I said, handing him a microphone.

  The best man’s speech was beyond boring. He didn’t share a single anecdote about Sarah or her relationship with the groom. Instead he droned on and on about the times he had spent golfing with Tom. “Real sentimental, buddy,” I muttered, thinking about Eric’s speech for his brother. The thought made my stomach plummet, and I forced Eric from my mind.

  Beth’s toast was slightly better. She at least tried to fake some emotion, managing to squeeze out two perfect tears as she talked about her life-long bond with Sarah. I managed to keep from rolling my eyes, trying not to remember the time in college when Beth had gotten completely trashed and proceeded to tell everyone how much of a bitch Sarah was behind our backs.

  Now that the toasts were done, I needed to oversee the serving. I was determined that the service be flawless; luckily, the wait staff at the club were very experienced dealing with formal dinner service. Everything went off without a hitch.

  “How are you feeling, Mrs. Vandermark?” I asked, stopping at her chair as I made my rounds around the dining room.

  “Wonderful, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “You’ve done a lovely job.”

  “The staff at the club makes it all very easy,” I assured her.

  “We do miss seeing you around, Kiki. I hope you can find some time in your schedule to come spend some time here. I know it would mean a lot to your parents.”

  I pondered that as I walked away. I had never considered my increasing absence in their social circle as an issue for my parents. Perhaps I was wrong. But there was no time to think about it now; Marcus was trying to get my attention on the other side of the ballroom. I gave him the thumbs up. Time for cake, my last big job of the evening. The dancing that followed would mostly take care of itself. I was almost free.

  ***

  “Kiki, dear, have you seen Sarah?” Mrs. Vandermark asked, her face concerned. I scanned the dance floor, where most of the guests were now enjoying the live swing band.

  “I haven�
�t,” I told her. “But I’ll go take a look around. Don’t worry.”

  “Thank you, dear,” she said, patting my shoulder. As she touched me, the smell of champagne wafted over to my nose. I wondered how much she’d had to drink so far.

  Sarah was definitely not in the ballroom, nor was she with her new husband, who was standing at the bar with several groomsmen, sipping scotch and talking about their stock portfolios.

  I found her, ten minutes later, in her dressing room. I had nearly missed her when I peeked in. She was sitting in the windowsill with all the lights off, seemingly just staring out over the grounds, her beautiful, custom-designed dress billowed out around her.

  “Sarah?” I asked, my voice quiet for some reason, as if I were in church. She turned, the light from the hallway behind me cutting across her beautiful face. She looked incredibly sad.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, Kiki, I’m just feeling a little disillusioned.” She smiled wanly at me. “How cliché, huh?”

  I was unsure of what to say. Vulnerable Sarah was something I had no experience with.

  “I was actually thinking about you,” she said, watching my face closely. “About your wedding.” She took a long gulp of champagne and it dawned on me that Sarah was getting drunk. “You know, Beth and Val really went to town that night. They thought the fairy theme was a bit passé, I’m afraid.”

  I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I didn’t want to hear this. But somehow I was frozen in place, watching her bitter, sad, beautiful face as she drank her champagne. “But I was jealous, if you want to know the truth. That girl of yours had taken something so silly, so… so, Kiki.” She spat out my name as if the very sound of it were distasteful. “But she took it and turned it into something magical and sophisticated. How did she do that?”

  “Talent,” I said, venom in my voice.

  “Oh dear,” Sarah said, not a hint of contrition in her tone. “I’ve offended you. I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention. I was actually trying to compliment you. You see, the thing I was really jealous of was how happy you looked that day. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life been that happy.”

  I stared at her, no idea how to respond to that. I realized, for the first time in my life, that I felt truly sorry for her. It must be awfully lonely to be so terrible.

  “It was my wedding day,” I said, shrugging. “Of course I was happy.”

  “Today’s my wedding day,” Sarah said, her voice low. “Do I look happy to you?”

  “No,” I said. “And I’d like to help you, if I can.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Kiki. Everything is so easy for you, isn’t it?”

  “No,” I said evenly. “Lots of things aren’t.” I met her gaze, hoping she could tell I was referring to her, the way she had treated me all throughout school. “But my wedding day was easy, because I was in love.”

  “Well, now we have something in common,” she said, raising her glass in my direction. “Because I am in love. It’s my husband I’m not so sure about.”

  I gaped at her. What a positively horrible thought to have on your wedding day. “I’m sure he loves you,” I said. “He asked you to marry him, didn’t he?”

  “You might not understand this, Kiki, what with your background.” She sneered a little at that word. I felt strangely relieved that she was being so openly rude to me. For once she wasn’t hiding behind a veneer of poisonous sweetness. “But oftentimes people in our circle marry for reasons beyond love. Money. Position. Status.” She ticked each point off on her perfectly manicured fingers as she spoke. “That’s what Tom got when he married me.”

  “If you knew all this, why on earth did you go through with it?”

  She looked at me as if I was insane. “What choice did I have? This is what girls like me do, Kiki. We get married. We move into beautiful big houses and our husbands take care of everything we need.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  She laughed again. “Oh, sure, Kiki. I could have taken your route. Married someone with no family name to speak of and spent my days working for other people. In the service industry.” She said it like it was a dirty word, and it made me want to laugh.

  “You know, there are actually plenty of people in the world who have money and who don’t give a shit about all this. Plenty of people who work for their money, and enjoy what they have, and don’t turn into terrible people.”

  “It’s not about the money, you child,” she spat. “Money means nothing. That’s what you never understood. It’s about being part of this society.” She gestured around her as if to include the club and everything in it. “It’s about being a part of this class of people.”

  That time, I did laugh. “Oh, Sarah, you’ll always be this unhappy as long as you hold onto that kind of crap.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand. It was always easy for you to do your own thing.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” I said. “You made it hard. You made it hard for any of us to do something you didn’t approve of.”

  She smiled, as if that had been a compliment. “But you did it anyway,” she murmured. “You married that guy and you ditched all of us, and you got your little job. I’ve always wondered why. You never struck me as very strong, you know. Maybe I was wrong.”

  I thought about that. Was I strong? Was I really any better than the sad and broken girl in front of me? I thought about Kara, so resigned to the fact that she would stay with her cheating husband. Then I thought of Eric, two hundred miles away. I hadn’t spoken with him in three days.

  I had always thought I was better than these girls. The Sarah Vandermarks and Beth Carters of the world. Even Kara—in my heart of hearts I had thought I was better than her, less shallow, more emotionally connected to my family and friends. But in reality, I was just the same. I had allowed greed and selfishness to come between me and my husband. I had wanted a baby above all else, becoming so self-absorbed that I didn’t even realize how unhappy he was.

  Eric, the man who was supposed to know me better than anyone, apparently was convinced that I cared more about his success than his happiness. According to him, my family and I were smug and self-important. How was that any different from what I had always thought about Sarah?

  At least you care, I thought to myself, and the realization was like a balm to my heart. At least you want to be better. At least you try.

  “You know, my mother told me something once,” I said, feeling a lump form in my throat. I was suddenly so, so grateful for that parents that I’d been born to. “When the business was first taking off, things were really hard for me. I had to switch houses and schools and people were being so terrible to me.” I met her eyes and she had the grace to look slightly abashed.

  “I felt like my life had been ruined, like I would never be happy again. But my mother, she told me I was wrong. She said that my life was what I chose for it to be. I could choose to let bullies be mean to me, I could choose to change so I fit in with them better. I could choose to let all the changes get to me. Or I could choose to be happy anyhow. I could choose to live my life how I wanted, with the people and the things that mattered to me.”

  She was staring at me, a hard, calculating expression on her face. I wondered if she was even capable of understanding what I was saying to her.

  Suddenly, it didn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t know what it was, exactly—maybe the fear of losing Eric had suddenly put everything into perspective. All I knew was that Sarah Vandermark meant literally nothing to me anymore. I had allowed her to control me, to affect me, to hurt me for years—and why? Because I was scared? Because I could still remember what it felt like to be a lonely, scared little kid?

  I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I had things in my life that were so much bigger than the petty, ridiculous words of the girl in front of me. And I was done wasting my time.

  “I chose to be happy,” I said, turning to go, knowing she was probably beyond my help. S
he probably wouldn’t even want it. “I make that same choice every day, Sarah. I choose to be happy.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “All right, we have snacks, we have virgin-cocktails, and we have Disney movies. I think that should just about do it, right?”

  Jen grinned up at me from her position on the couch. “That sounds perfect, Kiki,” she said. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

  “Hey, it’s tradition,” I said, setting down my armful of potato chip bowls and bags of candy bars on the coffee table. I grabbed a pillow from the armchair and plopped down on the floor, leaning against the couch. I looked up at Jen. “Do you need anything before we get started?”

  “Nope,” she said, pulling her blanket more firmly over her ginormous belly. “I’m good to go.”

  Jen and I had a long-standing tradition of spending the first Monday after a big event together, just vegging out. Jen called it essential decompressing time. Whenever we had a big weekend wedding, we would clear our schedules for the following Monday so we could relax together. Sometimes we would go to a spa for massages, or catch an afternoon matinee. But days like today were my favorite—we had agreed, since Jen couldn’t leave the house anyway, that we would stay in pajamas, eat junk food, and indulge in our shared love of Disney movies. I had been looking forward to it for weeks.

  Once I had my pillow arranged and I felt comfortable, I pressed play and the familiar strains of the opening music of Beauty and the Beast began.

  “I love this movie,” Jen sighed.

  “It’s classic,” I agreed happily, grabbing a handful of potato chips.

  “Ginny and Annie will never watch this kind of stuff with me,” Jen said wistfully. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”

  When Beauty and the Beast finished, I groaned. “I don’t want to move,” I whined. “I’m in a food coma.”

  Jen laughed. “We did eat a shocking amount of junk food already.”

  With a hefty sigh, I pulled myself from a lounging position and crawled over to the TV stand. “Okay,” I said, grabbing a few DVD cases and holding them up for her to see. “What next?”