Amanda supposed confessing a crush on Shannon’s best friend might be the one exception. She smiled at the secret thought. “Thank you for understanding. But I’m still ashamed.”
“Look, you were happy and you took the step of wanting to be with this woman for the rest of your life. It didn’t work out. You made a mistake. All you can do is move on and learn from that, right?”
“I know and I have, believe me.”
“I’m still shocked that you got married before I did. Please don’t ever elope on me again young lady!”
Amanda laughed, relieved to be free of this burden, relieved her aunt still loved her. “I promise that next time you will be walking me down the aisle to give me away.”
“Damn right I will!”
“You’re my hero, do you know that? I do want to walk down the aisle for real one day, like you’re doing. And who knows, maybe even have babies the way you and Dani are planning.”
Shannon released her from her loose embrace, sadness in her slumped shoulders. “Well, I’m not so sure about that.”
Amanda, still distracted by her relief in the emotional reconnection with Shannon, said, “Not so sure about what?”
“I’m not going to have babies,” Shannon said quietly. “In fact, I’m not even going to have one.”
“What?”
Shannon turned sad but tearless eyes on her. “I can’t have children. My ovaries are dysfunctional and can’t produce eggs anymore.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. How long have you known?”
“Not long. A few weeks.”
“Shit, that’s terrible. Isn’t there something they can do? What does Claire have to say about it?”
She shook her head. “There isn’t anything they can do and Claire can’t help me. I’ve been checked and triple checked. Consultations, second opinions. There’s no hope.”
This confession was far worse than her own, and Amanda felt foolish and selfish. “I wish I could help, or at least do something. I’m so sorry.”
“Well, short of having a baby for us, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do.”
“Dani must be crushed by this.”
“Dani doesn’t know yet.”
“What do you mean she doesn’t know yet?” Amanda was astonished.
“Once I knew there was a potential problem, I didn’t tell her about all the tests. And then I didn’t tell her about the results either.”
“Oh, crap.”
“You said it.” Shannon sighed miserably. “You and Claire are the only ones who know right now. But I’m going to tell Dani soon. I know I have to. I just hate how badly this is going to hurt her, and I really didn’t want to have to tell her before the wedding.”
Another bond between her and Claire, being privy to Shannon’s secret. “I understand, but you need to help each other through this, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I know. Claire’s quite pissed at me for not telling Dani sooner. In fact, for not having Dani in on all this from the beginning. It’s just that she’s so damned excited about having a baby. She has her hopes up so high. I absolutely dread disappointing her.”
“Disappointing people is sometimes a sad fact of life, whether we want to or not.”
“Yes, I know. I keep hoping I’ll wake up in the morning and the news will be different.”
“You can always adopt or get a surrogate or something, can’t you?”
“Yes. There are options. Right now I just want to forget about all of it and maybe go back to work, take some time to get used to it all and figure out the next step.”
The scale of her aunt’s disclosure was only beginning to sink in. These were huge changes for Shannon and Dani’s relationship, a huge shift in their future, and she hoped with all her being that they would find a way to weather it. “Are you going to tell her before the wedding?”
Shannon was noncommittal. “I don’t know yet, but trust me, this is not something that’s going to put our wedding or our relationship in jeopardy. Dani and I love each other, and we’ll get through this test. I promise.”
Amanda simply nodded, not really comprehending. She’d not had enough relationships to know what they could withstand. She and Jennifer sure as hell hadn’t been able to stand any real tests, but then, their love had not been the real thing like Shannon and Dani. She gave Shannon’s hand a squeeze to show she believed in her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jordan
Jordan tried hard to get into the spirit of the bachelor party; after all, it was her baby and she’d planned it for weeks. Partying, however, wasn’t exactly what she felt like doing, not when Dez still permeated her every thought. If she closed her eyes, she could still smell Dez on her fingers, on her skin. Could still hear her rich, soulful voice singing, repeating her name in ecstasy. Could still feel Dez’s velvety touch on her face, on her neck, on every part of her body. She could not get Dez out of her heart, and most tormenting of all, didn’t want to. She was not ready to let her go, and the driving need to hold on to her scared her a little. She did not want to be a desperate, obsessed, crazed ex-lover. She’d had women do that to her—leave love notes on her car for weeks afterward, make hang-up phone calls, give her unwanted gifts. She hated that kind of obsessive behavior, and yet this morning she’d ordered a bouquet of flowers sent to Dez’s room with a note pleading to see her again. Dez had not responded, and while her silence didn’t surprise Jordan, it hurt. At least the bachelor party tonight would keep her from sneaking into the concert venue to watch Dez sing.
The party started in the lounge of their hotel’s biggest bar. Jordan had instructed the five other guests to wear comfortable clothes and to bring swimsuits. They’d start with a few drinks before a casual dinner at the Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill. Tonight was for fun, not for a classy time out. The wedding would be first rate in the class department, but the bachelor party was an opportunity to raunch things up a little. She was careful not to go overboard, though it was not easy restraining herself. Slyly, she thought of Claire dying a thousand deaths having a stripper force a lap dance on her. She chuckled to herself. Might almost be worth the deep shit she’d be in for arranging a little one-on-one show for Claire. That’d teach her to be such a prude.
“Ah, my little lambs,” she said to their eager faces. “Beer or wine or something stronger to start with?”
Shannon eyed her suspiciously. “I have a funny feeling there’s going to be a ton of alcohol tonight, so maybe we should ease into it with wine and beer.”
The others quickly agreed and Jordan complied with a pitcher of beer and a bottle of merlot. To start the proceedings, she ordered each of the bridal party members to take a turn offering a toast to the brides, with the toast based on a physical attribute. The answers were entertaining. Claire prudently chose to remark on their eyes, and they all drank to Shannon’s and Dani’s lovely eyes. Amanda, giving it some thought, suggested Shannon’s graceful hands and Dani’s strong shoulders were worth toasting. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Jordan smirked as she drank to the brides. Heather offered a toast to Dani’s charming smile and Shannon’s beautiful blond hair. Jordan grinned devilishly and suggested Shannon’s breasts and Dani’s ass, drawing good-natured protests from the brides and agreeable but shy chuckles from the others. The next round was reserved for the brides’ non-physical attributes, and this took more time. The beer and wine helped take the edge off.
Jordan led the group to Wolfgang Puck’s Bar & Grill on the far side of the casino and to a reserved table that would keep them well away from the other patrons. They ordered three wood oven pizzas and another round of beer and wine. Jordan tacked on half a dozen strawberry vodka shots to the order.
“New rule tonight,” Jordan announced. “Anyone who says the words Dani or Shannon, bride, wedding or married for the rest of the evening has to drink a shot. And that includes the guests of honor.”
“Oh, God,” Shannon groaned. “What am I supposed to call her?”
; They all had suggestions for Shannon: lover, wife, fianceé, darling, sweetheart, honey, love machine, stud. The list went on until Shannon surrendered, palms up. “All right, I have no excuses then, and lots of lovely substitutes.”
Over pizza the women tried to lure each other into stepping on the verbal land mine. Amanda nudged Claire and whispered, “I need the pepper way down there, would you be so kind?”
“Dani, can you please pass—”
The others guffawed and pointed accusing fingers at Claire. A shot was placed before her. “Oh, for God’s sake.” She gamely downed it, making a sour face before turning to Amanda. “Better watch your back after that one, young lady. I have a long memory.”
“It’s okay, you don’t scare me.”
It wasn’t long before Claire got her revenge. She got Amanda to talk about the time Shannon took her to see the movie The Wedding Singer when she was a teenager. “Fine,” Amanda said after drinking her punishment and reproachfully sticking her tongue out at Claire. “We’re even.”
Their playfulness reminded Jordan of what she was missing with Dez. She glanced at her watch. Dez would be getting ready for the show. The flowers had been a wasted effort. Time to up the pressure a little—show Dez that she was not yet ready to give up, that she wasn’t about to take it lying down. Well, actually, lying down and taking it from her would be perfect about now, but that wasn’t going to happen. She wondered what she could do to prove how much Dez meant to her and how serious she was about her.
She thought about the word serious and how it could possibly apply to her, after all the women she’d dated over the years. But it did apply to her. She was serious about Dez. She was in love with Dez, as strange as the words felt tumbling around in her mind. She had not seen it coming, had not expected it or even dreamed it was possible for her. And yet it had happened, just the same as if she’d been walking down her street minding her business and a bolt of lightning hit her. It was almost as though she were observing all of this happening to someone else, and yet the tickle in her stomach, the constant clenching in her chest, assured her that it really was happening to her.
Once dinner was leisurely consumed, Jordan told the group that their limo was waiting and that they should all bring their swimsuits. “Oh, and one more thing before we go to Old Town.” From a large paper bag she withdrew a pair of handcuffs lined in fuzzy pink fleece.
“Oh, no,” Dani protested, backing away. “Get away with those things!”
Claire quipped, “Did you pull those out of your collection, Jordan?”
“Yes, and you can borrow them after tonight if you’d like.”
Claire reddened and promptly clammed up. It was so easy to embarrass her. In fact, there was little challenge in it for Jordan, but that was okay. There were plenty of other targets to pick on. Briskly she grabbed Dani’s left wrist and locked a cuff around it, then secured it to Shannon’s right hand.
Shannon looked at Dani helplessly and shrugged. “Guess this means you’re stuck with me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Shannon
They piled into the limo and lost no time in opening a bottle of champagne. They toasted the sacrifice of the grapes, then toasted Vegas, toasted the chauffeur, toasted one another, until there was nothing left to toast and the bottle lay empty and rolling around on the carpeted floor. They were getting giggly, and what the hell, Shannon thought, why not? Why not act like a silly ass tonight? They could all pretend they were college freshmen let loose on the town. In fact, it might be rather liberating. And if nothing else it would go a long way toward making her forget the weight of childlessness, forget that she needed to tell Dani they wouldn’t be having any children. For just tonight maybe she could forget the one thing that had dominated her thoughts for weeks.
Oh God, she thought. Her stomach churned endlessly. We’re too late. We’re too late to have kids now. Maybe . . . maybe if we’d tried three or four years ago it would have been okay. It was still early in our relationship then but we should have done it, dammit, because now it’s too late. It’s too late, too late.
Her thoughts often went in the same lamenting circles since she’d been told her ovaries were no longer producing eggs and could not be coaxed into doing so, regardless of medical advances. The news had come about from routine testing before attempting artificial insemination, and it had come as a shock. She spent days afterward in disbelief, quite sure her doctor had made a mistake. She confided in Claire, asked her to go over the results with her, had her take a second blood test and a second ultrasound to confirm things. The news, unfortunately, didn’t improve. She was infertile, and the truth was, she wasn’t so much heartbroken for herself as she was for Dani. It had never been her overwhelming dream to have children. If it happened, she was good with that, knew she would be a good mom and would love whatever little being came into her life. But for Dani, having a child meant everything. Dani saw herself as a mom, saw it as one of the great roles she was meant for. There was no doubt her childhood was a major motivator. Shannon knew Dani’s childhood had not been idyllic, that she’d not been blessed with involved, supportive parents and very early on had been cast as the outsider, the failure. Dani was a survivor, a fixer, and she wanted to atone for her parents’ mistakes, perhaps even reset her childhood button. If she’d not needed a hysterectomy from severe endometriosis by the time she was thirty-three, Dani would have most likely given birth by now, perhaps even years ago.
What shitty luck that neither of us can give birth. Sure there were other options, like adoption and a surrogate mom, but she couldn’t think of those right now. Her own failure was all-consuming, as was the thought of giving the devastating news to Dani. How do you tell someone their dream is over? How do you tell your loved one that she can’t share the miracle of childbirth, that you can’t give her the one thing she wants most in this world?
After the limo deposited them on the doorstep of Old Town, Jordan cheerily handed out cigars. They were little ones, thankfully, about as big around as a pencil. Jordan systematically went around with a lighter, lighting them all, encouraging them to smoke the celebratory cigars. “Yes, even you,” she said to Claire, who was frowning like it was pot she was being asked to smoke.
Shannon sucked at her cigar before exhaling smoothly. The tobacco was rich, giving off a pleasing scent. A few mild stares were directed their way as they walked and talked boisterously and smoked their expensive cigars, the pink fur-lined handcuffs announcing that it was a special night. Their behavior was not at all unusual for Vegas. The thousands upon thousands of neon lights blinked and raced overhead in signs and displays. Noise spilled from the open doors of the casinos—people having fun, slot machines dinging and clanging. A girl danced suggestively in a large plate glass window, her eyes set on nothing, her body moving for everyone and no one. Vendors of trinkets called out from kiosks in the street that was closed to vehicular traffic. Street performers dressed like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Ozzy Osborne and Cher tried to engage the tourists.
Claire sidled up to Shannon and whispered in her ear, “You doing okay? You look a little down.”
Dani, attached to her wrist, was busy gabbing with Heather. Shannon stared straight ahead and said, “I’m okay Claire. I’m going to have fun tonight.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“It’s going to be okay, you know.”
She wanted to believe her. “Yes, it is.” There was no conviction in the statement, and yet it had to be okay, one way or another. Life would go on.
She looked at Claire. Claire’s life had gone on after Ann’s death. Perhaps not in the happiest of ways and certainly not in the most fulfilling, but Claire had somehow found a way to soldier on. Amanda too, who was happily puffing on a cigar and looking surprisingly pleased with herself, had moved forward. She had survived the untimely death of her mother—Shannon’s only sister—from a rare form of leukemia, a life-altering event for Amanda that had happened right befo
re she went off to college.
And then there was news of the marriage she’d shockingly divulged. Marriage and divorce! Part of her wished she’d been able to save Amanda from all of that. Wished Amanda had listened to her misgivings about Jennifer. But she couldn’t protect Amanda and certainly couldn’t govern her life. Amanda was her own woman, it was just that she’d had no idea she was capable of going off and legally marrying her girlfriend so impulsively. But as she thought more about it, she realized that if gay marriage had been an option when she was young, who knows, she might have gone off and married her first serious girlfriend too. Marriage was about hope and optimism, and being hopeful and optimistic was a hallmark of the young. Marriage certainly wasn’t reserved for the wise and aged, and she realized that binding herself in matrimony to Dani was the most hopeful and optimistic thing she had done in her life to this point.
She hoped Dani felt the same way. She’d told Amanda that Dani would still love her, that they would work things out over the baby issue. It seemed to be the thing to say, but was it really true? Maybe Dani wouldn’t want a future with her if it meant no baby. Maybe a vessel for delivering a baby was more important to her than the love they shared. How was she to know until it was put to the test? How much did Dani truly love her for who she was?
A drag queen dressed as a Vegas showgirl stopped them on the street and fluttered his hands wildly in the direction of their handcuffs. “Oh, sister girls, what’s up with those lovely handcuffs? Don’t tell me you’ve been having a little fun with those?”
“They’re getting married this weekend,” Jordan answered. “Tonight’s a test. If they can stand being handcuffed together all evening, then they were meant to be together.”
He batted long, fake eyelashes. “Honey, take it from me, it all comes down to good sex. If you can be married and still have good sex, you’ll be just fine.” He leaned closer and whispered loudly, “But those little handcuffs will help spice things up, if you know what I mean.”
The Wedding Party Page 15