Best Friend for Hire

by Mary Mary Carlomagno

  Such is the paradox of being Catholic in today’s society. Most of us know it’s not practical, but we try anyway. This combination of shame and acceptance seemed to work for Dr. Phil, but this crowd was a little harder to win over. I was holding my breath for the vow portion of the ceremony, but the priest had a surprise that only he and Brendan knew about. Surprises? Emily hates surprises. And since she hated them, I, by extension, really hated them. The priest turned to the congregation and cued the organist. And then, in the most unlikely scenario I could have ever imagined, he told a little story about two kids who met when they heard this song playing in the background. “This is a little gift from the groom to the bride on their special day,” and then he invited the congregation to join in singing “What is Love?” by Haddaway. The stripped down version of this techno-dance song did not translate with strictly an organ accompanist.

  It was as if the priest deemed this moment as his perfect opportunity to try out new material. After the priest had regained his composure, he invited everyone to take communion, followed by Ave Maria and then the vows. At that point, Emily had no idea that Brendan had no voice, so she was asked to say her vows, which she did with just the right combination of humility and sincerity, an Academy Award-wining performance based on her recent personality transplant. When Brendan was ready to read, the priest jumped in once again and Emily shot him a look of terror and disbelief, or was it just pure anger?

  “The groom is so choked up about the event, that he has asked me to read his vows, and he will agree by nodding his head.” Emily, so confused as to whom to look at, Brendan or the priest, had too little time to formulate an adequate angry response. And that is how Brendan entered marriage, by being told what to do, and not being able to say anything.

  Next was my favorite part of all weddings, when the priest asks if there are any objections to the joining of these two in holy matrimony and the immediate silence that follows. Unless of course, it’s a soap opera on a Friday afternoon, leaving an open-ended cliffhanger for viewers to ponder all weekend. But that would have been quicker; instead, a deafening, piercing noise stunned the crowd. Emily’s grandmother’s oxygen tank bleeped red alert as the tube became suddenly disconnected. Thankfully, the tube was reconnected quickly and we were able to move on. Momentarily.

  The priest repeated the question. Brendan’s mother, who was allergic to flowers, finally succumbed to the fragrance around her and had a coughing fit. Brendan tossed her a cough drop and the fit subsided. “Three times’s the charm,” the priest joked as he repeated the text for a third time. And then, without an ability to stand in waiting any longer, Rachel’s water broke, which caused alarm at the end of the bridesmaid line. The baby was on the way.

  “Is there a doctor in the house?” yelled Pierce from the altar. In minutes, Rachel was in labor, big labor, the kind of messy painful labor you see in the movies. She sat where she stood, simply unable to hold out any longer. The “baby daddy,” also known as Groomsman number 4, was quick to her side, holding her head as Deidre dialed 911 on her phone. Brendan, unable to hold it back any longer, ducked behind the lectern to vomit once again. In minutes, the rescue squad was outside with sirens blaring. Upon entering the church, they didn’t know who needed assistance, and immediately started to cart out the grandmother and her oxygen tank. Instead of thanking them for their help, she pelted them on top of the head with her purse. They turned and looked at the bride, who was hyperventilating to the point that she was red in the face, looking as if she were about to go into cardiac arrest.

  “Try again,” I said and motioned to the screaming woman sprawled in pink taffeta on the altar. In all the excitement and heavy breathing, Rachel’s dress finally gave way, the Pashmina inched its way out of the back of the dress, causing the skimpy bodice, which had been hanging on by a thread, to fall completely. The result was a half-naked woman trying desperately not to make a scene as she was awkwardly plunked on a stretcher. The stretcher was then rolled out the center aisle trampling flowers, rose petals, and the white carpet as well.

  The priest cued the organist once again, who could be heard asking Patrick what songs he knew. Patrick relished the unexpected stardom and landed on something familiar. “Cue Sondheim in D!” he instructed and then broke into highlights from West Side Story, beginning with a lovely rendition of “Tonight.” Amid the splendor of arguably Sondheim’s best musical, I asked the priest to make an announcement.

  “We will take a quick break to help the mother and pray for the child,” said the priest. The crowd chatted as the bridal party tried to tidy up the altar and comfort Emily. I guided the fragile Emily into the back so she could lose her mind in private, rather than in front of everyone. But that really didn’t matter; she was so inconsolable at that point, no one would be able to get through to her. By the time we returned to the altar, relative peace had returned. The screaming Rachel had been escorted out on a stretcher. The crowd had been treated to most of West Side Story. The grandmother’s oxygen bottle had been replaced. Emily’s father resumed his place between Emily’s mother and Deidre, who seemed to have come to a temporary truce. And the bagpiper was finally awake. It looked like everyone would be on their best behavior at least long enough to get through the “I dos,” which they did or, more accurately, Emily did. The priest had to do Brendan’s part, since all Brendan could do was mime a thumbs-up to show his consent.

  Once inside Roddy’s of Springfield there was much to check on pre-arrival of the bride and groom. First, the bagpiper needed to be propped up once again and led to the cocktail hour room, where he would do an encore presentation of the only two songs he knew. He was set. The shot glass wedding favor and the pixie dust were all in place. But Barbie, with her knowing smile, housed a deeper secret. Her station was precarious; if the centerpiece moved at all, her head would come off, and I feared that was not the only head that would roll today. I went to each table and made sure that the Barbie heads were secured, but many were beyond help. At some tables, she simply lay in Ken’s arms, her head propped up in his armpit as if she had taken ill. Even though the florist had put them on good footing, the unreasonable request to have the two dolls swimming in roses had the effect of making them sink into their pink flowery grave. As the guests entered, they picked up their table assignments. In keeping with the theme, Emily wanted every table to represent a Disney Princess: Mulan, Ariel, Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty were all natural choices. But it got a little harder to come up with 25 different princesses, so we extended the theme to all Disney movies, which included 101 Dalmatians/Wreck-It Ralph, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Daniel and Patrick were seated at the Dumbo table.

  The DJ arrived and he was not alone; he had company, and it was bad company. As part of the super wedding package, one that ensures everyone has fun, our DJ had hired additional professional staff to get everyone on the dance floor. The dancers in this case were hard-bodied blondes wearing small black cocktail dresses. They looked like professionals, all right. But there was something more to these working girls; they looked familiar. One of them in particular danced with the bride’s father, much to the encouragement of Emily’s mother and the disdain of wife number two, Deidre. Emily’s mother stood next to wife number two with a look of “now you know how it feels” as she watched the already inebriated father of the bride get his groove on to “We Are Family.” This was not my greatest concern, however. My concern was that this dancer looked more professional than the others, I knew her from somewhere, but before I could piece the two together, I was summoned to the bottom floor of the hall, where there was operating difficulty.

  One of the hallmarks of the Roddy’s of Springfield “Camelot Wedding Package” is the entrance of the bride and groom. Instead of traditional, and dare I say, classy or normal style, Roddy’s of Springfield had a state-of-the-art entry from the floor. The bride and groom would appear as if by magic on an elevated platform in a cloud of smoke and then
be raised above the wedding party. Emily, who had proven herself unable to rise to any occasion, had the floor operator pinned to the wall when I arrived downstairs to remedy the problem. The elevated platform was working, but “there is not enough smoke!” yelled Emily. As he turned to crank the smoke machine, the sleeve of his jacket got caught on the lever. He was so aggravated that he snapped his arm back, taking the on switch clean off the base. Without the switch, there was no way to turn the machine off or to stop the smoke from billowing upward. At that moment, only he knew the impact of what had happened. We exchanged a look and I ran up the stairs to the Camelot room to see how the entrance panned out.

  The bride and groom began their slow ascent. At first the trapdoors opened halfway, shut and then opened again. The happy couple peered out at eye level, viewing their wedding party’s feet. Finally, smoke billowed out, causing the woozy groom to begin a hack and then a gag, followed by a hack and a gag. Emily, in full panic mode, decided to scare Brendan into sobriety by pinching him on the ear so hard that he lost his breath and the ability to cough as well. The crowd, some unfamiliar with the smoky trapdoor entrance, misinterpreted the peek-a-boo effect of the doors opening and closing. Many thought it was supposed to be that way and applauded. But those in the know understood that Roddy’s of Springfield could do better than that. I heard one woman say to her husband, “They should ask for their money back, those doors are supposed to open, period, end of story.” As the bride and groom continued to pop up and down, the billowing pink smoke made the room so cloudy that it was hard to see anything but pink. Finally, the trapdoors clanked open fully and the platform began to rise as the DJ announced, “For the first time anywhere—Mr. and Mrs. Brendan Connolly!” The crowd cheered as they watched the platform rise and rise. At some point, it was supposed to stop. But it didn’t. It went higher and higher, until it finally stopped right below the ceiling and then so abruptly that both the bride and groom were knocked on their bottoms.

  They were sitting on top of the world, or the Camelot room, to be more accurate. But instead of feeling the effects of a grand entrance, they feared for their own safety. The fast-thinking staff reacted immediately with a ladder, but it was not tall enough to reach the couple. Without any other option, the Scotch Plains Fire Department was summoned with an inflatable cushion like the ones stunt men use. The couple would blindly leap, hand in hand and land safely on the soft mat. All of this was recorded on video to be viewed for a later lawsuit or, better yet, to be sold to America’s Funniest Videos, the wedding edition. This installment no doubt to be entitled, “Leap of Faith Weddings.”

  The DJ played Lionel Ritchie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” in an effort to provide some levity to the disaster. But no song was going to provide relief. The entire wedding needed to be moved to another room. I grabbed the microphone from the DJ and instructed the wedding party to stay calm and, though we were experiencing operating difficulties, we were still here to celebrate the happy couple.

  “If you don’t mind taking your place setting and moving down to the Sherwood Forest room, we can all get back to the fun,” I enthusiastically told them. The DJ continued the crowd control efforts.

  “You heard the lady, grab your Barbie and Ken and head back to fairy tale village, just down the hallway, past the clam bar,” he said. And as if to add insult to injury, the DJ repeated his instructions, but all I heard was “past the clam bar, on your left,” being said over and over again. I was unsure if the real-life Barbie or the centerpiece Barbie would be able to make it through this transition. The centerpiece Barbie had more of a chance. The real-life Barbie had come completely unglued. She searched the room to find me. Instead of going to her side, I opted for a diversion and had the DJ cue up the first portion of the video presentation early to quiet the impending riot.

  “Cue Paul Anka,” I whispered into my headset.

  “The Times of Our Life” came blaring from the DJ booth as the backdrop to a photomontage of the happy couple, which took them from birth to present day and every rite of passage in between—the baby years, Emily at a dance recital, Brendan at tee ball, and, finally, the awkward teens, the high school graduation, and then the college years. As Emily stalked me from across the room, she was swarmed with well-wishers, which gave me a brief reprieve before the next problem arose.

  Over my headset, Maggie radioed in that there was “a buzz kill at Lake Placid, I repeat, buzz kill at Lake Placid.” It took me a minute to figure out that Maggie’s code words meant the ice shot block. “What now?” I said out loud within ear shot of Emily’s grandmother, who took her finger and circled it around the outside of her ear and pointed to Emily as if to indicate, this child is crazy. Disturbed by that motion, I turned around and backed right into one of the hired dancers, and then it clicked.

  “Hey, you look a little better than last night,” she said. I took her by the arm and pretended that I knew her. It was Candy Stripper. I recognized her face immediately after trying to coax her off Brendan’s lap last night.

  “Listen, can you just keep your recent involvement with the groom a bit of secret? I would hate for the bride to put two and two together.” But it was a little late for that as Pierce and another fraternity brother swooped her up arm and arm and led her to the vodka ice bar.

  “Might be a little late for that, don’t ya think?” she said as she “electric slided” her way off the dance floor.

  At the vodka ice bar, guests were encouraged to squat down in their formal wear, with their mouths open at the bottom of an ice block to meet vodka shots that were propelled from the top by the ice block bartender.

  “What flavor would you like sir? Madam?” The ice tender was uber-polite as he rolled the flavored vodka down the ice luge. An elegant request for something more suited for a fraternity party. Apparently, Emily’s Uncle Bob was stuck to the bottom of the ice luge and needed assistance. He had a wicked ice burn after lingering too long on a Pomegranate martini shot. His overreaching tongue had stuck to a part of the mechanism. In ice block shots, you are not really supposed to touch the ice at all with your tongue for this very reason. But he didn’t know that. By the time Candy Stripper and her merry men were at the ice block, I had already shut it down.

  “You really don’t know how to have a good time, do you?” Candy said as she danced off.

  In the meantime, I took Pierce by the arm.

  “Do me a favor, keep Candy away from Brendan. And another thing, you need to powder your nose.” I left him adjusting his makeup in the reflection of the now unusable ice block.

  To say that Emily was outraged was putting it mildly. No sooner did I turn around then she was in my face, grabbing me by the arm and displaying superhuman strength to drag me into her private dressing room.

  “This wedding is a disaster,” she cried.

  “Well, some things have gone wrong, but I think the crowd is handling it well.”

  “I wanted it to be perfect and it sucks, the whole thing sucks. The floor almost ate us, my bridesmaid went into labor, the ice luge injured my uncle Bob, Brendan is mute, and some trampy lady is stalking my husband!” I had to admit that was a pretty impressive list of problems, but I couldn’t let her know that.

  “Hey it’s not over, it can still be great, let’s get out there and see that video presentation, cut that cake, have a wedding.”

  “Do you think it sucks?” she asked, adopting a bit of the girl that I once knew and liked.

  “Not at all, now let’s get out there and maybe even have some fun.”

  “If I don’t have fun soon, I am never talking to you again,” she said and stormed off. That notion was okay by me. We entered the room and I softly cued the video presentation through my Madonna headset. “Cue the video and 3…2…1…”

  “Through the Years” by Kenny Rogers played for Part Two, a photojournalism- style interview where an off-camera voice asked the white buttondown-shirte
d and jean- clad couple searing questions like, “When did you first know that you loved each other?” The camera went in tight on the happy fiancée with the ring on her finger, brushing away her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. “I just always knew that I would marry my best friend and that is what Brendan is. He has always been there for me and now we are beginning a new life together, just like I dreamed about when I was a little girl.” Brendan, when asked the same question, was less philosophical. “I knew she was the one when she walked into my frat house and was able to hold her own. A partner should be there for me. I mean us. You know each other.” The 40-minute video recounted the proposal story and a short stroll through Times Square before wrapping up in a heart-shaped graphic reminiscent of Love American Style. With that, the bride and groom went to the center of the dance floor to the “oohs” and “aaahs” from the crowd. Things looked like they might work out after all. And just as we were about to have a nice moment of wedding bliss, over my headphone came the final nail in the coffin. “Jessie, we have a dead horse in the parking lot.”

  I have always hated roller coasters, even as a child. The unpredictable ups and downs always made me feel nervous and unsafe. I could never anticipate all the turns and sudden drops, which is why I have always chosen the safer routes in life, like book publishing, where things have remained the same for more than 100 years, despite whatever is happening in the rest of the world. I had come to rely on certain things being constant, like my employment. But these last few months of career-searching had eroded my confidence and made me wonder if I was really any good at anything. All of my recent attempts had been epic failures. It might have been a different scenario had the wedding gone well, or if the relationship with Dave made any sense at all, but I was batting zero on both fronts. The fundraiser was my last chance at redemption. And I was not the only one fixated on its success.