One Last Thing

by Rebecca St. James

  Seth shook his head. “I don’t know what else to say. But I’ll keep saying this as many times as you need to hear it: I’m through with porn. I saw what it did to us that fast.” He snapped his fingers. The sweat on his hands made it a dull sound. “Do you want me to say it again?”

  “No,” I said. “Just let me get my head together.”

  “Take all the time you need.”

  I didn’t need any. Something else spewed from my lips.

  “This feels sick to me,” I said.

  His face whitened again.

  “I think you should see somebody. Are there counselors for this?”

  “Done.”

  His fingers shook as he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an ivory business card, which he handed to me.

  “I’m seeing him tonight,” he said.

  Gavin Johnson, it read. My eyes blurred over the string of letters after the name.

  “He’s in Brunswick. I found him on the Internet—at work. This morning.”

  I felt my eyebrows rise. Seth rubbed at the perspiration on his forehead.

  “Come on, Tar, you don’t walk up to the guys in the break room and say, ‘Hey, anybody know a good shrink for a porn habit?’ ”

  “Not funny,” I said.

  “I wasn’t trying to be.”

  A palling silence fell between us. I could feel him wanting to break it with more promises, more reassurances. More begging. But he let me think and breathe. There was that at least.

  “Can I do this?” I said. “Can I get past this?”

  “We can,” Seth said.

  “Am I ever going to close my eyes and not see her? And you?”

  “I can take that away.” Seth’s voice was thick again. This time when he touched my cheek I didn’t turn from him. I didn’t turn toward him, but I didn’t turn away.

  “Just give me that chance.” His hand slid down my arm to my hand, which he pressed between both of his. “Look, I took the rest of the day off so we can talk, or not talk—whatever it takes for you to feel right about us again.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Tar—please—”

  “I have a fitting for my wedding dress,” I said.

  His face crumpled. And for the next five minutes I held him while he sobbed.

  Seth Grissom does not sob.

  Calla’s Bridal was on the ground floor of an 1800s Greek Revival brick sidewall house just off Calhoun Square. Mama and I—yes, like most Southern girls of genteel breeding, I called my mother Mama—walked to it with her doing an upbeat monologue the entire four blocks up Abercorn Street.

  It wasn’t that my mother wasn’t perceptive. She knew the minute I came down the stairs—re-showered, re-dressed, re-made-up, and re-coiffed—that something wasn’t right with me. I knew she knew because the I-will-keep-the-conversation-going-until-she-decides-to-talk-to-me approach kicked in. Usually it worked. Usually I would eventually break in with, “It’s okay, Mama. I’m better now, thanks,” and she would hug my neck—another piece of Southern breeding—and it would be over. Truth be told, I never had much angst worth talking about, and if I wanted to discuss something personal with somebody . . . I just got over the impulse and moved on.

  So as we headed for my final fitting, Mama crooned over subject matter I didn’t hear but pretended to. The occasional nod was all she needed.

  Let’s be clear: I have great respect for my mother. She was the milk-and-cookies-after-school mother none of my friends had, not because theirs were working but because they were off in Tahiti with their husbands or presiding over a charity event or sleeping off the overflow of sherry from said charity event. Mama never had a nanny for us, only Fritzie, the twentysomething-back-then hippie-esque woman who stayed with us when both Mama and Daddy had to travel. Seth’s parents used her, too, more often than mine did. I’d heard baby Evelyn call her Mommy, which Randi found hilarious. My mother would have smothered herself in shame.

  In spite of the fact that they were somehow friends, Randi Grissom and Madeline Faulkner were direct opposites. My mother wore her hair soft around her face and let a few strands of silver show through the beauty shop strawberry blonde. Her eyes were as round and blue and bubbly as a pair of spas, and her smile always filled her face with what could only be called mirth. Mama saw the good in everything, and if it wasn’t there, she became nothing more harsh than pensive until she found a way to cushion it in some kind of hope. For example, surely Osama bin Laden had had a “nasty childhood.” What did we know about his “people” (i.e., family of origin) that would explain his behavior? Couldn’t somebody take his children in now? Daddy always stopped her short of volunteering for such jobs.

  Mama and Randi still played tennis once a week, and while Randi had that sinewy, every-morning-at-the-gym thing going on, Mama was just as fit in her more feminine way. Like every other woman brought up in the United States of America, my mother critiqued her hips and thighs, but they provided her with great curves I didn’t inherit. I had been dipped first in my father’s gene pool, but when it came time to dunk me in Mama’s, Kellen had already soaked up all the good stuff. At least I wasn’t going bald.

  “Tara, honey?”

  “Ma’am?” I said. The manners were automatic.

  “What should I tell her?”

  “Who?”

  Instead of answering, Mama laughed, a surprisingly husky sound. People who heard it for the first time often said it wasn’t what they were expecting, coming out of such a lady. Mama always responded with, “You’re so cute!” and wrinkled her nose and let the lines from perhaps too many tennis tans spread lightly under her eyes like the work of a silkworm.

  “You’re the only person I know who dreams more when she’s awake than she does when she’s sleeping,” she said.

  “Who are you telling what?” I said.

  “Never mind. Calla’s in there waiting on us.”

  Calla Albrecht greeted us as we took the two steps down into her posh—there is no other word for it—boutique. My kitten heels sank into the carpet, and I had to let my eyes adjust to the sudden plunge into lighting so dimmed and focused and arranged for ambience that the place was like a page from the American Express magazine.

  Calla herself worked hard at a look that fell just short of theatrical. She wore her ash-blonde hair in a perfect wedge I was sure she trimmed daily, and her green eyes were fringed with lashes that comprised only one precise part of a makeup regime I figured took her at least an hour in front of a well-lit mirror. I’d never seen her in anything but a flowing silk, skinny pants, trendy belt ensemble that revealed what she did with the money she made talking brides into loving the dress with the highest price tag and believing they couldn’t get married without her services as a wedding coordinator.

  But she was the best in town and we knew it. The first day Mama and I sat down with her and I started in on my vision, she stopped me, put a hand on my arm, and said, straight into my eyes, “You’ve been dreamin’ about this since you were a little girl. You want a royal wedding, and I am going to see that you have it.” That was the day I decided she could work at pulling off posh as much as she wanted to. She caught my vision. And she hadn’t let go of it since.

  She kissed me now, of course, and then pretended to wipe her lipstick off my cheek with her thumb even though we both knew she’d never wear a brand that came off that easily.

  “Look what I’ve done. Honestly.” She took my hand between hers, which were always cool. “Are you excited?”

  I nodded.

  “How many more days? I know you count them.” She looked at Mama for corroboration. “She counts them, doesn’t she?”

  “Twenty,” I said.

  “Fabulous.” Calla was pulling me toward a set of bamboo doors that swung into what she called the ooh-aah area. “If they’ve done what I told them to do, your gown should fit like it was sculpted right on you—and I’m sure it will because these people are fabulous. I wouldn’t have them if th
ey weren’t.”

  No, there would be nothing that wasn’t fabulous.

  “But just in case we need a little tuck somewhere, I want to check.” Calla stopped me outside the next set of doors that separated us from the dressing room. “You look like you’ve lost weight, sweetie, which is exactly why we’re doing this. Have you lost weight?”

  Probably ten pounds in the last eighteen hours.

  “That always happens to brides those last few weeks,” she said to Mama, while at the same time wafting her to the white leather couch. “I think I’ll get married again just so I can get rid of these thighs.”

  Calla had thighs like a praying mantis.

  While Calla and Mama discussed the woes of middle-age weight maintenance, I pushed through the dressing room doors and closed my eyes. What was wrong with me? I liked Calla. I loved coming here and letting her spin the fairy tale for me to step into. But today my thoughts sounded like the snarky barbs of a girl on her third maid-of-honor gig with no hope of ever wearing the white gown herself.

  “I’ll be right in to help you, Tara, sweetie,” Calla said through the door. “I’m going to get some sweet tea for your mama.” The rest of her words trailed off. Something about Betsy needing to have these things ready when her guests arrived.

  Paying guests, that is.

  I put my hands over my face. I had to stop this. The wedding was still going to happen. The carriage was still going to take us from the church to the Harper Fowlkes House in a blissful film of confetti and kisses and my six-foot train. We were still going to dance to “At Last” and toast with GrandMary’s heirloom silver goblets. None of that had changed. My vision was still as clear.

  As far as I had ever seen it.

  I sank into the armless white brocade chair and bent over into my lap. Seth and Tara lived happily ever after. That was the ending to the story I’d created.

  But what about the beginning? What about being married to Seth? The Seth with the side I didn’t know about. The side that could be pushed in by pressure—

  “You all right, sweetie?”

  I sat up and made a pretense of putting my hair up. If Calla noticed I didn’t have a hair tie, she didn’t point it out.

  “I was just having a moment,” I said.

  “I never knew a bride that didn’t need one. And if that’s as intense as it gets before your wedding day, you get the prize for composure. You have been the calmest bride I have ever had, so if you need to have a little meltdown at some point, nobody is going to fault you for that.” She tilted up my chin with her cool hand. “You are my favorite bride ever. You tell anybody that and I’ll back you up.”

  She gave me an appropriate laugh and slid open yet another wide door to reveal my gown.

  “Here it is,” she said in a reverent whisper. “Is it still as fabulous as you remember?”

  Fabulous, no. That wasn’t my word. Exquisite, that was my mother’s. The Dress—that was how my father described it. From the first sketch Calla showed me, I had simply thought of it as Seth-Perfect.

  The top was softly shimmering ivory satin, with a sweetheart neckline and off-the-shoulder straps. It was fitted down to a drop waist and ruched to create a wrap effect. The waist was accented with a rhinestone belt and an off-center Cherokee rose positioned above my left hip. From there, it went into a floor-length light organza skirt layered in asymmetrical ruffles.

  Still perfect? I couldn’t tell. It blurred before my tears like a Cézanne painting.

  “Let’s get you in it and show Mama,” Calla whispered.

  It doesn’t fit.

  That was my thought as I stood before the shining wall of mirrors and watched Calla fix the rose lace veil to my head by its silver tiara. The gown did look, as Calla said, as if it were part of me, but it felt like a plastic costume that snapped onto a Disney princess figure. I shouldn’t be wearing it. It belonged to someone else. Some other bride who knew she was doing the right thing.

  Take it off, I wanted to cry out to Calla. I’m not sure—please take it off of me. Before I scream.

  But I didn’t scream and I didn’t fumble for the zipper. I just breathed and breathed. And then I breathed some more. That was as far as I could get.

  “Sweetie, you are divine.” Calla stood back and clasped her hands to her negligible chest. “We’re only missing one thing.”

  “Mmm?” I said.

  “A smile. Let’s see that glow.”

  A switch to flip would’ve been a nice touch right then, because I could not walk out into the ooh-aah room and stand in front of my mother looking like the stand-in for the real bride. I couldn’t do that to her. I had to fake it somehow. Why didn’t I ever learn to fake?

  When had I ever had to?

  “Sorry,” I said to Calla. “Are you sure it’s—I mean, am I—is it—”

  “You are a vision,” she said.

  I tried on a smile. My reflection gave me something thin and wobbly. I pushed it further, forced a laugh. I looked like Mr. Potato Head.

  “Think about that handsome groom,” Calla whispered. “And he is gorgeous, I have to say.”

  No. Do not think about Seth.

  It was too late. He was already there. Begging. Sobbing. Pulling himself away from the image of a black-haired woman to turn his guilty eyes on me.

  “Okay!” I said.

  Calla startled.

  “Let’s go!” I said. “I’m ready!”

  That was more exclamation points than I’d used since the eighth grade, when I peppered my school papers with them. But they gave my face an expectant look, and it was apparently glowy enough for Calla. She pushed the doors open and said, “Here she is, Mama.”

  I moved through the doorway and stepped up onto the raised circle, a princess about to twirl on a music box. It hadn’t felt like this the last time. Standing here felt like magic then. Someone close this box so I don’t have to dance.

  “Oh, Tara.”

  I looked at my mother. Her fingers were pressed to her lips and her blue spa-eyes shimmered and I had never seen her look so beautiful. Mama still had the magic, because she didn’t know.

  “Oh, Tara,” she said again. “I don’t even have the words. That’s saying something, isn’t it?” She laughed, even more huskily than usual in the thickness of tears. “How about perfect? Does that do it?”

  Calla was enough of a pro not to answer. She let Mama savor the moment. She probably thought I was savoring it, too, and in a way maybe I was, because for the first time since I left Seth at the park, I knew I had to put this dress on again in twenty days. I had to walk down that aisle the way everyone expected me to. I had to believe Seth was going to fix this thing.

  I had to, because I couldn’t steal that magic from my mother’s eyes.

  FIVE

  In case I haven’t mentioned it, I was in the habit of looking at my life as scenes in a feature film.

  That started when I was fifteen and Lexi’s parents left the four younger kids with her grandmother and took the two of us to see Finding Neverland. I liked it. Johnny Depp was handsome and whimsical, and I wanted to be Kate Winslet’s character, except when she died of course.

  Afterwards the four of us went to the Waffle House way down Abercorn Street, far from my neighborhood, and over hot waffles and hash browns scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, diced, capped, and every other thing you could do to cut-up potatoes, we discussed the movie. I didn’t know people did that.

  Was it okay that the James Barrie portrayed in the movie probably wasn’t identical to the real author of Peter Pan?

  Why did it make us cry—even Lexi’s low-key dad?

  Did it make us want to go do something truly authentic?

  That night was a turning point because two things happened. One, I began my deep relationship with film, and two, I started to watch my life as if it were one.

  The six days after my gown fitting and my decision to go ahead with the wedding were like a montage. You know—where a John William
s score plays in the background and scenes meld from one to another without dialogue, showing the passage of time, the development of a relationship, the transforming of a character. Think “Gonna Fly Now” being played while Rocky trains.

  My montage for the next six days was scored with Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. That wasn’t terribly original of me—it’s been in a dozen movies, from Platoon to The Scarlet Letter—but it worked for my series of Scenes of Suspicion. Everything Seth did made me look for the dark side.

  When he was late coming over for dinner Tuesday, I wondered what kept him. Was he reloading his computer with the Dark-Maned Vixen? I feigned an attack of food poisoning and left him at the table with my parents.

  Wednesday he sent a dozen white roses with a note saying one whole room in the townhouse could be my study and library. Was that a guilt thing?

  Thursday night he had to go to Dallas on business. He left me a long letter, describing our honeymoon, outlining a plan for our first year together, predicting our children. I scrutinized the thing for what might be between the lines: I’m taking my laptop, Tara. I never said I cleaned that off. I’ll have a TV in my hotel room. I can order pay-per-view. I can take DVDs you’ve never heard of. The pressure, Tara, you don’t understand the pressure.

  By the time he left Savannah, I’d montaged myself to the brink of a raging meltdown. But my continuing role was to act like none of that was roiling in my head.

  Tuesday I had lunch with Alyssa and Jacqueline at the Distillery—Lexi had to work—ostensibly to discuss the schedule for the wedding day: what time we were meeting at the salon for hair and nails, when we were piling into the limo to go to the church to put on our gowns, when we could make our last possible trip to the bathroom. They knew all that. Jacqueline had been taking notes for months. I guessed they just wanted to find out what happened Sunday night.

  Alyssa barely waited for us to order our salads before she was leaning across the table, scarf dipping in her iced tea, fingernails tapping on the table.