Always the Bridesmaid

by Whitney Lyles

  Meanwhile, the horse grazed on the Marriott lawn, his tail swishing back and forth.

  After the ceremony, Cate was still dying for a snack and a moment of privacy in the bathroom to fix her hair. Drastic as it may seem, she was ready to submerge her head in the bathroom sink. Something had to be done. She was heading to the bathroom at the Marriott when two of the other bridesmaids stopped her.

  “Where are you going?” Bethany asked. “We have to go to the receiving line.”

  “Receiving line?”

  “Yeah.”

  What was this? A fund-raiser for a senate election? She needed to eat. It was nearing five o’clock, and she still hadn’t eaten a thing. How could she be the only hungry one? Where was the rest of the wedding party getting their fuel from?

  She ended up sandwiched in between George and Sarah. She was starting to feel hostile as she introduced herself to each and every guest at the wedding. After nearly two hundred handshakes, Cate looked to her left. The line of guests was still wrapped around the tent, the end nowhere in sight. She wondered where Paul was and could hardly fathom the thought of coming face-to-face with him under such harsh lighting, the glow highlighting her bad hair and outfit. As she waited for Paul, she shook hands with the freaky relative and the wedding drunk.

  The wedding drunk was a toss-up between Mr. Lyons, whose voice had grown louder with each drink, and the uninvited girlfriend of one of Russ’s friends. She had frosted hair with teased and sprayed bangs that should’ve been outlawed after the eighties. In her early thirties, she wasn’t fat but also not designed for her black leather miniskirt and backless sequined top. She wore the same kind of stiletto platform shoes that strippers fancied. The heels had long, skinny straps that wrapped up her calves. They looked brand spanking new, the red paten shiny and tight. Cate could also tell the shoes were new by the way Mia walked in them. Each step she took was the equivalent of walking on stilts. She could hardly move in them. Or maybe it was just because she’d had too much to drink. She draped herself over Russ and the groomsmen, making neighing noises as she proceeded down the receiving line. Neither Leslie nor Russ found her impression of the horse to be as funny as she did.

  Freaky relative: Leslie’s skinhead cousin from Arkansas, who actually wore red knee-high combat boots to the wedding.

  Sarah turned to her at one point. “Two-second rule for each guest. Limit conversation and keep ’em going. I’m sick of this,” she said between gritted teeth.

  “Me, too.” Cate kept the guests moving, barely giving them a “How are you.” She felt light-headed and weak from food deprivation. Even worse, the guests smelled of garlic and wore crumbs on their clothes. They had been enjoying a cocktail and hors d’oeuvre reception while Leslie had kept the wedding party at her mercy for a series of hellish postwedding photos.

  Although no one had mentioned the mayhem with the horse, the incident hung in the air like an embarrassing secret that everyone knew. It would almost be better if Leslie and Russ would crack a few jokes about the mishap, lighten things up a bit. Leslie still limped, and after the ceremony she had instructed all of her bridesmaids to let the incident pass and proceed with the evening as planned. She was clearly in denial.

  After an hour of hell, the receiving line ended. Cate turned to Sarah. “I guess Paul didn’t come to the wedding.”

  “No. He’s definitely here. I saw him.”

  She wondered why he hadn’t gone through the receiving line.

  She entered the reception hall as a pair with George. He held Cate’s hand and would not let go, even after the DJ had introduced them. Apparently he had fallen under the impression that escorting a bridesmaid down the aisle meant he was dating her. Sure, it was sweet when he pulled out her chair and stood when she needed to use the rest room, but he was not her date.

  The sight of a bread basket on their table was the best thing she had seen all day. She shoved a roll into her mouth, taking huge bites and chewing like Cujo. She didn’t care if George thought she was a pig. She slathered enough butter to grease a car with on her second roll.

  Then she noticed the custom-made table linens. She had to admit, they were definitely exquisite with beadwork and hand stitching. But come tomorrow, who the hell was going to remember the table linens? Leslie could’ve covered the tables with newspaper, and the only thing people were going to remember from this wedding was Russ stumbling around with her gown over his head.

  “Your hair is so curly,” George said while she stuffed her face. “It’s just so curly.”

  Couldn’t he see she was eating? “Thanks for pointing that out, George. I really needed you to remind me.”

  “Sure.” He did not sense her sarcasm.

  She needed an escape from George and remembered her cell phone in her handbag. She’d turned it off for the ceremony, but now she wondered if she had any messages. She pulled the phone from her purse.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said to George. “But I really need to check my messages.”

  She honestly didn’t expect to have any messages and was pleasantly surprised to find one. Ethan chuckled before he spoke. “Hey, drunk one. I got your message last night. Thank you for all the kind words. You’re not such a shabby friend, either. Anyway, I hope you’re having fun. Throw a few cocktails back for me, will ya? I have to cater a wedding tonight, so I won’t be drinking. I can’t wait to hear all about your night. Gimme a call when you get a chance.”

  Hearing his voice made her feel homesick. It was like getting a message from her mother the first week of college. She felt as if she were surrounded by strangers. She had George to her left. Sarah and Miles were seated somewhere in the vicinity, but they were in Newlywed Land and couldn’t be bothered with Cate. Leslie had become the Antichrist and had taken the meaning of demanding to a new level. Cate hardly knew her anymore.

  Her eyes found Paul seated at a table with some friends they both knew from college. Relief settled over her when she realized that he was dateless. Seeing him with another woman would’ve been brutal when the wounds from their breakup were still fresh. He looked sharp in his gray suit and crisp blue tie. She felt a flicker of longing to nestle her head against his chest, to feel his arms around her shoulders. For a moment she debated going to him, saying hello. But her nerves ached at the thought of facing him for the first time since their breakup. Furthermore, she wasn’t going anywhere near him until she did something with her hair. Instead, she called Ethan back. He didn’t answer, so she left a brief message.

  After dinner, a great number of the guests formed a ring around Leslie and Russ and began to dance in a circle around them. Cate skipped around with the ring of guests, watching as several of the groomsmen hoisted the newlyweds up over their heads on chairs. It was obvious that Leslie wasn’t comfortable with this Jewish dance custom, as she clung for dear life to the corners of her seat, the ridges of her knuckles turning white. The upbeat, traditional Jewish music actually put Cate in a good mood, and she didn’t care that she was holding hands with George on one side and the skinhead cousin on the other as they skipped around in circles. Then she remembered her hair and outfit and hoped to God Paul wasn’t watching. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her with an afro.

  She returned to her seat to avoid making a spectacle of herself. The people-watching at this wedding was much better than dancing anyway. The swing classic “In the Mood” played. Except for one couple who had obviously taken swing dancing lessons, no one else knew how to do it.

  Mia stood on her stiltlike shoes, legs positioned like tree trunks against the dance floor. She could barely dance in her stripper sandals. She held her feet in place as her knees bent back and forth to the burst of trumpets. Her arms, the only part of her body that could safely move without causing her to fall, gyrated to the beat of the music. Occasionally she completed a safe and steady rotation on her feet. She reminded Cate of the plastic hula dancers that people sometimes stuck on their dashboards.

  Cate noticed the skinh
ead dipping Russ’s Jewish cousin. Maybe he’d been reformed tonight. Something good had to come out of this wedding.

  And then there was Leslie with her wounded foot, limping to the music, acting as if she knew swing moves. “I paid for this band! I’m not going to let it go to waste!”

  “Single ladies! Calling all you lovely single ladies!” the band leader announced over the microphone. He sounded like the man who did voice-overs for movie previews. “Single ladies, make your way to the dance floor. It’s time for the bouquet toss!”

  Sarah squeezed her arm. “Get out there. This is your bouquet, Cate. I can feel it.”

  Cate joined approximately fifty other single girls on the dance floor, half of them under the age of eighteen. She felt a twinge of humiliation when she noticed Leslie’s seven-year-old niece joining the fray. At the rate Cate was going, Leslie’s niece would beat her to the altar.

  Leslie winked at Cate before she turned her back and hurled the bouquet over her left shoulder. Women screamed. Arms flew in the air. A herd of females darted toward the flowers like vampires after fresh blood. It moved fast, rushing over their heads like a missile. Cate wanted to beat the kid. But the bouquet had gone too far.

  It came down, the pointed plastic handle facing toward its destination, like a spear targeting a buffalo for the kill. She froze, her mouth dropping, as she saw Paul lift his hand to block it, his face contorted in horror. He released a throaty, agonizing scream right before it pegged him square in the left eye.

  The single women tore through one another, tackling the bouquet at his feet, knocking him to the ground as if he were merely an orange cone marking an out-of-bounds perimeter on a football field. Once they finally peeled themselves off one another, a teenager emerged the victor. She held the now practically ruined flowers over her head.

  Except for a few guests who had been standing nearby, no one seemed to care about Paul as they applauded the girl. A cocktail had spilled down the front of his tie and jacket. An elderly woman dabbed napkins on his chest. Cate ran to him.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just kind of shocked. That’s all.” She noticed that his eye had started to swell, forming a goose egg.

  “You should put some ice on your eye.”

  Miles slapped him on the back. “Here’s some ice,” he said as he pressed a cocktail to Paul’s face.

  A waiter approached with a bag of ice and a few other concerned guests offered their help. Cate returned to her table once she realized he was going to be okay.

  She spent the rest of the reception fighting off George, who clearly could not handle more than three drinks. She wished he’d leave her alone so she could watch the wedding drunk and Leslie limping in peace.

  She was on her way to the bathroom to hide from him when she ran into Ms. Van der Berke. Her gentleman friend stood off to the side. Cate found it strange that they never touched or came within a couple feet of each other. “I can’t believe that tramp had the nerve to bring her little bastard to the wedding. Who brings an infant to a wedding? And did you see what she was wearing, Cate?”

  Cate had noticed that Kim was wearing a stylish cocktail dress. She knew it had to be hard enough that Mr. Lyons had left her for another woman. It was even worse that the other woman was younger and prettier. Her pain must be torturous. But couldn’t she handle it with grace and dignity? Eventually Mr. Lyons might get bored with his trophy bride and suffer with regret over losing his gracious, kind wife.

  “Can you believe how inappropriate that outfit is for a wedding?” Ms. Van der Berke went on.

  “I don’t really remember,” she said, avoiding further drama.

  “The nerve of that bitch. For months she was sending me death threats, and she has the nerve to show up at my baby’s wedding. They put dog poop in my mailbox and even smeared it all over the handle, too.” Cate thought that sounded more like the work of bored teenagers than a gold-digging aerobics teacher, but she let Ms. Van der Berke continue to lament over her misfortune.

  Tears welled in her eyes. “You know I had to get a restraining order? Don’t you? Didn’t Leslie tell you that they wanted to kill me?”

  Actually, Leslie had not shared this with Cate. “Uh . . . no, I wasn’t really aware.”

  “That bitch steals my husband and tries to take everything. When I put up a fight, she sends me death threats. For eight months I’ve been afraid to leave my house, and I have to make the cat sample all my food before I eat it, just to make sure it isn’t poisoned.” She glanced at her gentleman friend. “That’s my bodyguard, Cate.”

  “Oh. Hi, nice to meet you.” Cate waved.

  The bodyguard nodded.

  Then she looked over her shoulder, fearing that George was going to come rolling around the corner at any given second.

  She began to inch away from them. “Well, I should get to the ladies’ room.”

  “You go ahead, darling. We’ll talk more later!”

  No. Let’s not.

  She’d barely excused herself from the role of Ms. VDB’s therapist when she was captured again.

  “Cate, c’mere.” She heard a slurred voice from behind her. Then he tugged on her arm. “I’m tired, Geor—” She turned to face him. “Paul.”

  With his good eye, he looked at her as if he were admiring a painting that he liked. The other eye was nearly swollen shut. For a moment she stared at him. She could tell he was drunk by the way his shoulders hung and the loose smile that was perched on his face. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  Then George interrupted. “There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  She didn’t know whether she was grateful or irritated.

  Paul gave him a once-over.

  “George, can you give me a minute, please? I’m on my way to the bathroom.”

  “All right. Meet me on the dance floor.”

  “Is that the stockbroker?” Paul asked when George was out of earshot.

  Stockbroker? What the hell is he talking about? Then she remembered that Beth had told him she was dating a stockbroker. “No. That is not the stockbroker.”

  “I want to talk to you. Come back to my room with me. I miss you, Cate.”

  This was the moment everyone dreamt about after being dumped. The begging. The regretting. The last word.

  He touched her arm. “Please, can we talk?” He rubbed the side of her elbow. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”

  He was wearing beer goggles. How could he possibly be attracted to her when her hair looked worse than a high school science project? “Paul, c’mon. What is going to change now? You’ve been drinking. You made your feelings clear at the La Jolla cove. Let’s not do this.”

  “Sometimes I think I made a mistake. I drive myself crazy thinking about you, Cate.”

  Gently, she pulled her arm away. “Es desafortunado, Paul.” She left him watching her back as she walked away.

  “What does that mean?” he called as she walked off.

  Without turning around she said, “It’s Spanish. You should know.”

  “What?”

  “It’s unfortunate,” she said, having no idea if he had heard her or not.

  Beth’s Wedding •

  26 • Finding It

  “I can give youuu . . .” The cashier at PB Thrift and Resale surveyed each piece of the royal blue pantsuit, the silk falling in folds over his hands. “Well . . . hmmm . . .” He flicked his tongue ring in his mouth. “Two dollars.”

  “How ’bout three?” she shot back. All the hassle she’d been through with that ensemble. She was at least going to get a cocktail out of it.

  He flicked his tongue ring again. Then he nodded. “Three? All right. We usually only take donations, but this . . . well. The eighties is huge for theme parties right now. I need stuff like this.”

  He pulled three dollars from the cash register. He leaned over the counter and counted out the bills, revealing more
tattoos than Mötley Crüe and Blink 182 combined. She probably would’ve gotten more cash if she had brought the belt.

  “Thank you,” she said, before searching for Ethan.

  PB Thrift was one of her favorite places to shop. Clothes from nearly every decade of the twentieth century were represented in the secondhand store. Sometimes she purchased things, even though she never planned on wearing them. She loved old clothes, the way they represented history.

  She and Ethan—and about half of Pacific Beach—were all scouring the racks of the thrift store for Halloween costumes. Ethan had no plans to dress up, but he was helping Cate pick out a good Marilyn dress.

  After they found the right dress, they planned to go back to Cate’s for cocktails and then to The Casbah for another King Mother show. Beth and Jill were going to meet them there.

  She found him standing next to a rack of dresses in a far corner of the store. “Here you go,” he said, handing her a pile of gowns. “Why don’t you get started in a room? And I’ll pass more along as I find them.”

  “Thanks.” She took the stack of clothes and caught a whiff of mothballs. Despite the crowd, she managed to snag a room.

  After she yanked the curtain closed, she pulled a silver, fifties-style dress over her head. She faced her reflection in the mirror. The platinum dress sagged like a rag over her chest and knees. God no.

  “Cate!” Ethan called as he approached the dressing rooms.

  “Yeah! I’m in the second one.”

  “I think this one’s a winner.” He pushed a red halter-top dress over the curtain. She reached for the new find.

  “Oh I like this one,” she said. “It looks a little big, though.”

  “Well, try it on. Do you have one on right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How does it look?”

  “Awful.”

  “Lemme see.”

  “No.” No way was she stepping out of that dressing room looking like a weathered Christmas tree ornament for Ethan or anyone else to see.