by Kyanna Skye
Two groups of seats had been arranged along the long grassy field of the front yard. There were ten seats in each row and twenty rows on each side that she counted. Obviously Susie was expecting a big crowd. Each chair was a brilliant white and made from elaborately carved wood. The chairs were decorated with white streamers and faux flowers. Running along the center of isle of the chairs, where she knew the bride would eventually walk, was a long white silken fabric that was protected by a plastic cover that would keep the material safe from rain and sunlight.
At the head of the assembled seats was an arch that had been crafted to look as though it were made from twisted vines and branches. That too was covered in the same fake flowers and white streamers, capped in a decorative figurehead of two wooden doves.
Elaborate as this all seemed, workers still moved about the grounds tending to more preparations. The air was thick with the scent of freshly mown grass, hedges and trees were being trimmed, strange garden gnomes that looked as if they too were wedding guests were being situated across the grounds, fountains were being cleaned, and dead leaves and grass were being raked and bagged by hard working laborers.
Ahead she saw the house.
It looked as though it was being decorated for some kind of a festival, which Kelly supposed it was in a way. The windows, the doors, the iron bannisters of the outside balconies had all been draped in matching fabrics like those hanging in the yard. The front doors were open and a stream of workers moved to and fro, taking things from out of waiting trucks and vans and moving along tirelessly as if the wedding were taking place today.
Kelly felt nervous as she came to the front door and stepped inside. She had never been to the house before and stepping into the massive foyer beyond she felt like she had stepped onto another planet. The floors beneath her feet were marble, there was a grand staircase on her left and right leading up to the next level and its rails were made of highly polished mahogany. Up above her on the landing there was a massive stain-glass window depicting some medieval scene of knights and ladies that she didn’t recognize.
Susie’s parents always liked the medieval look of things, she recalled. She remembered Susie’s old house, a veritable dump compared to this place. But she recalled that Susie’s mom and dad had a fondness for medievalism. Apparently their son’s money hadn’t changed that, though it seemed to have changed him.
“Kelly!” cried Susie’s voice.
She looked to her right and emerging from a wing door she saw Susie come rushing out. Susie, like herself, was dressed to accommodate the heat. She wore a pair of jean shorts and a white tank top, her skin was also beaded with sweat where her skin was exposed. And much to Kelly’s surprise, Susie didn’t look at all angry at her. She looked rather excited, actually.
“You came!” her old friend said, rushing to her much the same way she had when they had first seen each other the other day. She gave her a small but sweaty hug. “I’m so glad you could come.”
“I didn’t expect to be invited,” Kelly said, sensing that something was off.
“Why not?” Susie asked, pulling away lightly.
“Well…” she panicked, her mind at a loss for words. It took only a moment to gauge that Susie was genuinely curious. Susie was many things, but she wasn’t all that great at masking her emotions; a thing she would have thought a Hollywood personality greatly required. She cast about quickly for something to say, “I figured you’d be busy here, with all of this,” she said, swirling her finger around in the air to encompass the whole of the house.
Susie waved that off. “Oh, hell… I needed some time off. And my mom thought it would be best if I took a break. You know, ‘if a bride worries too much she’ll get wrinkles’… or whatever.”
Kelly nodded, a little relieved. “Okay… if she says so.”
“Fuck, it’s hot,” Susie said, pinching her shirt between her fingers and lightly tugging on the fabric to create a soft breeze to cool herself.
“Yeah, I noticed. You guys don’t have air conditioning here?”
“We do,” Susie replied, a little irritated, “but with the doors open so people can move in and out easier, there’s no point to have it on in here. But, it’s on upstairs in the west wing; let’s go, before we melt.”
Kelly followed Susie up the stairs and around several turns before she was led to a massive den. When she opened the doors that admitted them a rush of refreshingly cool air greeted them, kissing at the beads of sweat on the skin. She and Susie both let out a relieved sigh as Susie closed the doors, sealing them in.
“Much better,” Susie said. “Want something to drink?”
“Uh, sure,” Kelly said, hoping that a little alcohol would make this whole thing easier. Part of her could sense that she was still on the hook for something. And even if Susie wasn’t angry – why wouldn’t she be? – She would at least have found a way to discuss her anger in a Hollywood-kind-of-way. Although from her treatment thus far, she began to suspect that Susie wasn’t upset with her… for anything. Even so, the thought of alcohol was a welcome one.
“Brandy okay? I don’t have much else to offer.”
“That’s fine,” she said, looking around the den. The room was large enough to fit her entire apartment with room to spare. It was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a quartet of leather sofas rested in the center, framing a marble coffee table. On one side of the room there was a fireplace and on the other was a small liquor cart where Susie prepared two glasses. She filled both with ice and poured a generous amount of amber-colored liquor into each.
Susie brought them over and passed one to her. “Cheers,” she said and they clinked their glasses and sipped the brandy. It was actually quite good, Kelly noticed. Normally a glass of wine – cheap wine at that – was the best that Kelly could hope for, but this brandy went down nice and smooth.
Susie smirked, swallowing a mouthful of the delicious beverage. “You remember that time we stole that half-finished bottle of wine my mom had?”
Kelly recalled the incident and though she didn’t much care to, she became swept up in the memory of it. Memories of simpler and happier times often had that effect. “That bottle of red wine… she’d had it in the fridge for a month and neither of us knew that that red wine turned to vinegar after it had breathed for too long.” She chuckled. “We thought that was what wine was supposed to taste like and we drank the whole thing.”
Susie laughed aloud and planted herself on one of leather couches. “We got so damn sick… my mom was furious. What was it she said us after that?”
Kelly settled onto the sofa opposite Susie and in her best voice that imitated Susie’s mom she said, “Betcha won’t do that shit again, will ya?”
Susie chortled and fell back on the sofa with a wide grin on her face. “Oh my god… those were the days, weren’t they?”
Kelly nodded reminiscently. “Yeah… I miss those days.”
“Me, too.” There was silence between them for a moment and they enjoyed a few more sips of the brandy. “So… how’s Julliard treating you? You should be about done, aren’t you? It’s been four years.”
Kelly felt her stomach knot and bought a few more seconds of silence by sipping her drink. “More or less,” she said quickly.
“Has anything exciting happened while you’ve been there?” Susie prodded.
“Exciting?”
“Yeah… you know,” Susie asked, winking, an old sign to indicate that she was talking about sex but didn’t want to acknowledge it outright.
Kelly shook her head. “No… nothing like that.”
“Oh, come on!” Susie half-cried, exasperated. “There has to have been someone! Another rising star… a classmate… oh! A professor maybe?”
Kelly wanted to laugh, feeling like she was slipping back into her old teenage tendencies when all that had been on her mind was music and her occasional crush, but she held herself in check. “No, no, no.”
Susie shook her head this time. “All wo
rk and no play, huh?”
Kelly felt a small pit forming in her stomach. “Well… it wasn’t for a lack of wanting, I’ll tell you that.” That was true enough, but there were reasons for it.
Susie seemed to accept that easily enough. “There’ll be plenty of bachelors here soon enough. You can have your pick of the litter, but… I want details if you do.”
“Susie…”
“I’m serious,” Susie reiterated. “I’ll want every last detail, down to the dirtiest bits. I don’t care how revolting you might think it is.”
“Why is that so important to you?”
Susie grew a fiendish grin. “Sweetie, do you know what it’s like in Hollywood? Everyone is either screwing each other or screwing each other over. Either way, the details always come to light… news of a deal gone sour… a sex tape… this person or that gets fired… a pair of eavesdropping eyes… a wall that’s just hollow enough to hear through… some loose-lipped aide… a ten-dollar snitch… there’s no end to it. Some of them do it on purpose, thinking it’ll heighten their career or some shit. Some people don’t do it on purpose and generally they’re just careless.” She leaned forward and looked at Kelly intently. “You know what the rarest kind of scandal is in Hollywood?”
“No. What?”
“It’s people who actually fall in love… but gain nothing.” She leaned back on the couch. “I deal with the prior scandals all the time, it goes with the territory. But I’ll tell you what, honey, never before have I had to deal with the steamy details of someone I actually care about. That’s where I’m hoping you’ll come in and save me from my usual boredoms.”
Kelly scoffed amusedly, though deep inside she felt some sense of relief. “Is that why you called me here today? You want me to have a sex-capade and tell you all the steamy details?”
Susie smirked. “No… that’s not why I called you here.”
The humor and relief that she’d felt a moment before evaporated, but Kelly waited and listened to her friend.
Susie sipped her drink, as if she was bracing herself. “I want you to be my maid of honor.”
Kelly paused. She had been expecting a bomb to drop, but certainly not that one. She’d been prepared to endure a blockbuster bomb, but this felt more like a firecracker compared to what she had been expecting. “Me?”
“There’s no one else I’d rather have there. You are my best friend, you know.”
Kelly sat, a little dumbfounded. On some level she had thought that she had been lucky. She had imagined Susie becoming upset over being lied to for all this time, but it seemed that an ass-chewing for past deceits wasn’t really what was on her mind. Her intentions were far more pure… and innocent.
“Uh…”
“Oh, come on!” Susie pleaded. “Do you really expect Trista, Lannie, or Margo to be my maid of honor? They were ass kissers in school and not much has changed, I hear. I least I can count on you.” She folded her hands around her icy glass, “You’re like family.”
Kelly was about to respond – with gibberish more than likely – when the doors opened with a small clatter. She and Susie both looked up to the same doors that they had entered through and for the second time today, Kelly’s stomach did a backflip.
Chad stood in the doorway.
“I thought I heard you laughing,” he said, entering into the room and closing the doors behind him. “I thought I should come and check on you.”
“Oh, my hero,” Susie said mockingly. “I thought you and Francis were hanging out in the weight room?”
“We were,” Chad said, crossing the small distance from the doors to the couches where his sister and Kelly sat. Kelly watched him cross the whole way, his strides making her think of some ancient Greek hero bent on an impossible task. “But then dad came in… he wanted to spend some time with his future son-in-law. He told me to get lost.”
Susie’s face soured. “And you let him? You left them alone together?”
“Relax,” Chad said, coming to stand at the edge of the couch. “I made him promise not to do anything that would piss you off. ‘Honest man-to-man talk’ he said.”
Susie seemed to relax.
Kelly was a complete wreck.
She couldn’t take her eyes off of Chad. He was dressed in a black tank top that showed off nearly as much muscle as the white shirt he’d been wearing yesterday. It was lightly darkened in a wet “V” shape down the front of his torso from sweat and the veins in his arms bulged, showing the stress that they had been under. His hair was lightly messy and though she was torn between anger and fear of him, there was something undeniably appealing in seeing him a little sweaty.
When his eyes turned to her all she felt was the fear.
“Hi,” he said simply.
“Oh!” Susie said, perking up at once. “You remember Kelly, right?”
He turned his head sideways as if he were trying to pour a memory into the right side of his brain. His eyes narrowed and he pointed at her, his voice sounding deliberately but vaguely familiar. “Yes… the little blonde-haired girl that tutored me in history. I haven’t seen you since… when? Ah! That’s right, the night of Susie’s graduation party.”
Kelly was unsure if she was going to be sick or cheer with joy. The words had flowed so easily from Chad’s mouth that even she had found herself believing them. It had been the night of Susie’s graduation party that their history had become – as he had put it – complicated. But she didn’t want the silence to linger between them. In the span of a second she counted herself lucky that he was playing it off as though he hadn’t been to see her yet and she realized that she had to do the same.
“Yeah… I think so,” she said, her voice barely sounding on the edge of believability.
“She’s grown up nice, don’t you think?” Susie asked, elbowing her brother.
“Yes, very nice,” he said. That tone of honesty was again in his words and it seemed that only Kelly was able to detect it. It made her feel miserable inside.
“Chad came into town for the wedding,” Susie added simply. It was no secret that her brother was successful at what he did and Kelly knew that her best friend would have no need or desire to play up her brother’s career.
“Welcome home,” Kelly said, trying to sound sincere.
“And you, too,” he countered. “Susie tells me you were off in New York somewhere?” He settled onto the couch next to his sister.
She could see what he was doing and realized that it was all for Susie’s benefit. “Yeah… I’ve been at Julliard.”
“That’s that fancy music school, right?” he asked, furrowing his brow as if he were uncertain of this.
Susie elbowed him again. “You know it is. Don’t play stupid… you do that on the field almost every game.”
“Oh!” he half-cried and nudged his sister, who laughed at him. “Hundreds of professional comedians are begging for work and here you are making bad jokes… I should report you to someone.”
Susie shrugged. “Good luck with that.”
Chad looked back to her. “Sorry about my sister, Kelly. She’s become accustomed to living in Hollywood and thinking that everything is about her. I blame our parents for that… they got her started thinking that way.”
“Brat,” Susie berated him. “That’s big talk coming from the one that mom and dad put every penny into making sure you went to school for football. Now look at you. Who’s spoiled?”
He played thoughtful for a moment. “Mom and dad? Look at the house they live in now.”
Susie was pensive for a moment. Flatly she replied, “Good point. It’s bigger than my apartment.”
“The west wing is bigger than my house in L.A.”
“The one you barely live in?”
“Yeah… that one.” He looked back to Kelly. “So… what brings you here?”
Susie sat forward eagerly before Kelly could respond. “Oh! I was just asking Kelly to be my maid of honor.”
Chad’s eyes brightened. “Did
you?” To Kelly he said, “Are you?”
Kelly felt like an ant put under a focused magnifying lens. She felt like she could burst into flame from so much focused attention. It was obvious that Chad had kept his promise and not told his sister anything that they had shared – yesterday or from years before – and she felt gratitude towards him for that. And here he was, playing the dumb jock and not for the sake of his sister, she knew… but for her.
A small twist of appreciation was wrenched from her heart for him for that.
She sighed, trying to make it look comical and resigned, “Yeah… ok.”
Susie squealed and tapped her feet on the floor excitedly. She planted her nearly-empty glass of brandy on the marble coffee table and rounded it to pull Kelly to her feet and hugged her tightly. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…”
“Ok, ease up, ease up,” Kelly said, feeling genuine honor and pride. “If you thank me too much I might decide to take it back.”
Susie made no reply to that except to say, “This is going to be a fucking treat!”
“I’m already terrified,” Chad said, standing up. “And not to nitpick, sissy, but isn’t it kind of late to be choosing a maid of honor?”
Susie rolled her eyes at her brother. “No, it’s not… half the shit we need to do still isn’t done. Putting the bridal party together will be a cinch.”
“Pun intended?” Chad asked.
“Ha ha, so funny,” Susie shot back.
“Oh!” Chad said, getting to his feet. “In the way of needing things, maybe you can help me, Kelly.”
She felt a shard of ice form in her belly. “Me?”
He nodded. “I don’t have a date for the rehearsal dinner… or the wedding come to think of it. Would you be willing to be on my arm for both?”
For the third time today, Kelly’s belly did a backflip, but this time it added an extra two somersaults to its routine and failed miserably to stick the landing. Chad’s face wasn’t filled with a smug or sneaky look of any kind. Something like this reminded her of a mischievous child that had just lulled an inattentive adult into some kind of a trick. It was genuine… honest… even hopeful. He reminded her of the boy she had known years before… when he hadn’t been like he was now. It was like seeing a fleshy shadow of the past. And she didn’t mind looking at it.