Toss the Bride

by Jennifer Manske Fenske

  “And?”

  I throw out my hands. “Here I am!”

  We both laugh, but I know I owe Gwen the truth. “Actually,” I say, “I always admired you among all our brides. You were funny, kind, and you seemed to love your husband-to-be more than a ceremony or expensive reception.”

  “Thank you, Macie. That is a really big compliment.”

  I place my tea on a glass coffee table. “So, if I follow Iris’s advice and figure out what I am afraid of, and if one of those things is becoming a mean ol’ bride, I figure a good place to start is with a bride who was different.”

  Reaching for a striped pillow, Gwen says, “If you asked Jake, he would tell you I have my bad days. Several of them in a row, he would argue helpfully.”

  “Avery would chime in there, too.”

  “I don’t know, Macie. I think Avery is getting quite a catch. The fact that you are trying so hard to really commit to him instead of just fantasizing about a wedding speaks volumes. If what you say about the brides you work with is true, then I would say you are miles above their level.”

  I let this sink in. Maybe I do have my heart in the right place. Avery has not run from me—yet—and my best friend still likes me. “I am just so scared all of the time. What did you think about before you were married?”

  “Mostly, how I could not wait to be married to Jake. I just wanted our life together to start. I knew the wedding planning was going to be hard, no offense, and I wanted to get through it unscathed. My mother, I’m sure you remember, was responsible for a lot of those feelings.”

  I nod. “But when I think of our happily-ever-after life, I panic. In my mind, it’s all about money or picking a house that suits us both or my strange mother-in-law to be. I want to dream about the future, I really do, but it just gets clouded over with all of this junk.”

  Gwen stands and walks back toward the front door. She takes down from the wall a small framed picture and brings it back to me. Placing it in my hands, she says, “This was taken the day I knew I wanted to marry Jake.”

  The photo shows the couple leaning jokingly over a body of water. Jake’s tanned arms are wrapped around Gwen’s back. She is safe; she’s not going anywhere. Their faces wear expressions of mock horror at the prospect of falling into the water. I wonder where they are. Tahiti? Costa Rica?

  Gwen smiles mischievously. “If you look closer, you might just recognize a famous Atlanta park.”

  I peer at the small photo. “Is that Lake Clara Meer?” The small lake in Piedmont Park is a tranquil spot to read a book or enjoy a picnic lunch.

  “The very one. We were sitting on the dock one afternoon, legs dangling just above the water, talking about what we wanted to do with our lives. We had been dating about a year.”

  I smile, picturing the scene. I love the dock. It is wide enough for several groups of people to watch the sun setting over the city, the tall buildings behind the park a scattered palette of lighted windows. Cicadas and crickets keep up a summertime chorus to compete with deep-throated bullfrog calls.

  “As we were sitting there,” Gwen says, “I thought about how we were going to get dinner and maybe dessert, and then the next day we were attending a brunch for something—I’ve forgotten what—but it just hit me all of a sudden that I was looking forward to all of these little events with Jake. I saw us going about our lives, together.”

  I nod. I’ve had that feeling about Avery. It occurs to me that a happy moment does not have to end, but can keep going in spite of an unknown future. “I know what you mean, I really do, Gwen. I have had the same moments with Avery.”

  Gwen takes the picture back to its place on the wall. “Then you have already answered the big questions. Is Avery the one? Can I see myself with him for the rest of my life? The rest of this stuff is all just sticks and stones that get in the way.”

  “Even my fears of becoming a bad, bad bride?”

  Gwen sits back down on the couch. “I think that’s just a side effect of your job. I’ll bet caterers worry endlessly about the food for their own weddings. Wedding gown designers kill themselves with last-minute redesigns. It’s all part of the gig.”

  I feel happy, almost giddy. “Did you really worry about your gown? It was beautiful.”

  “Whipping stitches into it until the night before, I confess.”

  Gwen and I hug good-bye. She is going to take lunch over to Jake at his studio and I do not want to keep her any longer. When I ride the elevator down to Peachtree Street, I feel as if I am leaving a heavy burden up in the sky, or at the very least, up on the eighth floor of a glass-and-metal tower in Midtown.

  * * *

  Avery has a funny thing about parking his car. If we parallel park on the street, the car has to be placed with mathematical precision between the other two vehicles. All parking signs must be clearly marked. No rusty or deformed signs can be trusted. If he has even a foggy notion that the car might be towed, we lurch the car out of the space and try again somewhere else. Valet parking is a nightmare with Avery. “Is it just me, or are they letting eighth-graders park cars these days?” he grumbles when we arrive at Tang for an early dinner.

  Once we are seated on the outdoor patio, Avery bubbles over with excitement about the lessons with the boys. He and the two fathers sketched out some rough ideas about the tennis academy, including gathering community support. Avery thinks he could get Ted at Chattahoochee Chocolates to help sponsor a junior tournament right in the neighborhood.

  “And with my father’s connections, just think, I could raise some serious money,” Avery says, twisting his napkin in his lap. The air on the patio is heavy as the day’s heat falls away.

  “I am really excited for you. A lot of things are going your way lately.”

  Avery looks up. His green eyes are sad. “Not everything.”

  “Listen, Avery, there’s something I need to know.” Brushing a fly away from the bread basket, I try to line up everything I want to say in my head.

  “I can guess what you are about to say. That we’re not ready for marriage. That we should take it slowly,” Avery says through tight lips. “Well, I think you’re not giving us a fair chance. After all, we’ve made it this far, and we are happy. At least we were until I put that stupid ring on your finger.”

  Self-consciously, I look down at the engagement ring. “It’s not stupid, it’s a beautiful ring.”

  “Nothing has been the same since you put it on,” Avery says, tossing back a piece of bread.

  “Okay, Mr. Romance, how about your little legal paper? Nothing’s been the same since I heard about that.”

  Our waitress stops by to tell us the specials in a singsongy voice. Avery asks for a few more minutes. We have not even opened our menus. My stomach growls, but probably more from nervousness than hunger.

  “What are you talking about, Macie?”

  “Remember I told you that I spoke with your mother? She called and asked me to come by the house.”

  Avery leans forward. His eyes look into mine. “She told you about the prenuptial agreement, didn’t she?”

  I nod slowly. Avery reaches for my hand, but I pull it away.

  Speaking quietly so the other diners cannot hear him, Avery says, “I have an insane uncle. I’ve told you about him. Remember Uncle Len? He’s my dad’s uncle, so he’s more like a great uncle to me, but that’s not really the point.”

  Avery continues, his voice low. I have to strain to hear his words.

  “Uncle Len is obsessed with the family money. There is loads to go around, but he has appointed himself sort of an unofficial guardian of the gold, so to speak. I really think the man counts his money all day long. It must be very lonely. When I was a kid, I never liked visiting him up in Virginia.”

  “What does Uncle Len have to do with your mother and me?” I am getting angry and the heat is making me cranky.

  “I’m getting to that. About three months ago, Uncle Len showed up at the house for a dinner party or something. I
made the mistake of telling him I was getting serious with a girl and that I was thinking about making it official.”

  “Three months ago? I thought our trip was a spur-of-the-moment thing. You’ve been sitting on my proposal for three months?”

  Avery waves the waitress away. She shoots us a bored look and goes back to refilling water pitchers. “Anyway, right after we get back from our trip, I’m visited by one of Uncle Len’s lawyers. The man had a prenuptial agreement a mile long.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I hit the roof. I practically tossed the guy into those prize rosebushes my mother is always fawning over near the porch. My father was pretty upset, too. He called Uncle Len and told him to stay out of my business. Len said it was my father’s job to stick his nose into family affairs and protect our assets.”

  “Why is he so scared of a wedding planner from Cutter?” I was starting to feel compassion for Avery. I would have never heard about the prenup if it hadn’t been for Babs.

  Avery sighs. “Who knows? I just think that Uncle Len sees life as a game to accumulate as much money as you can and not share a penny of it. I’m sorry to have to tell you this. Please don’t judge my family on this one incident—my father had nothing to do with it.”

  “Why was your mother pushing me to sign it?”

  Avery rubs his hands together and leans back. “That is a more troubling question. I never told her I was going to show it to you, let alone ask you to sign something like that.”

  Nibbling on a piece of bread, I ask Avery, “What do you think of our chances? People sign things like that prenup because they want to hold something back, I suppose.”

  To my surprise, Avery stands up and walks around to my chair. He squats and puts his arm around me. A woman next to us whispers to her companion, “Oh look, he’s going to propose.”

  Avery smiles up at me. “Macie, when I asked for your hand, it was because I had already thought of the what if’s and maybe’s and all that other junk. I was ready—and I still am—to be with you forever. I’m just not sure you feel the same way. Do you?”

  Taking a deep breath, I feel my answer with every quiet and joyful part of my heart, my mind. “Yes, Avery, I do. I really, really do.”

  At this moment, our dim-witted waitress makes her third attempt to wring an order from us. Avery stands, takes my hand, and tells her that our plans have changed for dinner. He tosses a five on the table and we walk out of Tang hand in hand as the woman seated next to us remarks to her friend, “Oh, that didn’t go well at all, poor dear.”

  We find ourselves strolling down Piedmont Avenue, walking with traffic on its one-way approach to Piedmont Park. Avery takes the outside of the cracked and broken sidewalks fronting million-dollar homes. I lean slightly on his shoulder, feeling a deep and soft part of me return to happiness.

  As we walk, I tell Avery my fears. I retrace my steps to the moment I said “yes” and then into the few weeks of confusion and worry. I fill him in on my attempts at figuring things out with the help of Iris and Gwen.

  “Iris sent me the best cake today, or did I already tell you? And I got the prettiest bouquet of daisies but with a weird, unsigned message.”

  “Did you say ‘cake’?”

  “It’s amazing. You’ll have to see it.”

  Avery pulls me closer. “I don’t have any dessert plans. How about you?”

  Thinking of dessert reminds me of Gwen and her breakthrough moment with Jake by the dock when she realized she wanted to marry him. I am having that moment with Avery again, and it is right. I know it with everything that is good and pure.

  We return to the car, and as we get settled, I tell Avery about the house for sale near my apartment. He looks surprised but does not say anything.

  “Do you want to? I mean, we could just drive by. We don’t have to stop or anything,” I add. Maybe it is too early to talk houses. I don’t want to push him.

  Avery’s smile is my answer. He slips the car into traffic and instructs me to reach into the glove box. My fingers find a stack of house flyers wadded up next to an old bottle of sunscreen. I reach into my pocket and pull out the flyer for the house with the blue door. Avery glances at the flyer and then back to my face. He leans over and gives me a fleeting kiss while keeping one eye on the road.

  “There’s a great bungalow on Argonne Avenue, and you should see the Tudor on Morningside. You’ll love it,” Avery says, driving a little too fast. “And this house you’ve found looks really nice, too.”

  As we speed down the street toward a parade of homes, I have to laugh. It is good to have a stack of house flyers on my lap and my fiancé in the seat beside me. The air has turned a bit cooler, thankfully, and I reach for Avery’s hand. If I snapped our picture at this very moment, the image would be of eyes and mouths, our faces lifting toward the sky and the space between us blurring as we race to fill it.

  14

  The Happy Bride

  An audible hum lingers in the air wherever a bride walks on her wedding day. I have heard it with my own ears and even contributed to it as I buzzed past the bride du jour, peppering her with this question or that. Florists, hairdressers, makeup people zoom in and out of her field of vision, offering their wares. Studied closely, this last-minute activity either terrifies the bride as her natural habitat is disturbed or it excites her and she adapts, even thrives.

  It is my wedding day, and I am falling solidly in the middle.

  The entire two months we were putting this day together, I never had a sense of a clock in my head. Of course, I had my files and Maurice’s steady hand. But it was not until last night’s rehearsal dinner at Tang that it hit me: Go to sleep tonight, and tomorrow you’ll get married.

  I was up until midnight, packing for the surprise honeymoon. I was tempted to stay up all night, to welcome the sunrise on this most special of days. But sleep eventually came for me and I went to bed, arms wrapped around the pillow. When I awoke, it took me a few moments to realize the day—Avery and me! Our wedding!—and then I flopped back into bed and smiled just because I felt so wonderful.

  My parents are staying at the Lelands’ house in one of their luscious guest suites. Avery has been living at our new home for the past three weeks, so he spent last night there, surrounded by mounds of wedding presents. He seems bewildered by all of the silver-and-white boxes dropped at his door daily, but I tell him that’s what he gets for letting his mother have too much control over the guest list. “Think of it this way,” I said the other day, “We’ll never have to buy a crystal vase again in our lives.”

  “That’s a huge relief,” Avery said, rolling his eyes.

  Iris will be stopping by soon to take me to the salon. Babs wanted to spring for a hairdresser and makeup person to come to the house, but the cost of something like that is ridiculous. Even though the Lelands are footing most of the wedding bill—my parents paid for flowers and the dress—I still do not want to spend money frivolously. Besides, it gives me a chance to be with my maid of honor.

  Iris spent the past few days working on our wedding cake. I cannot wait to see it. The four-tier cake will be delivered to the reception by her staff so that Iris can be with me today and not worry about setting up. Avery’s mother sniffed at this plan, and wondered out loud if we should have gone with the pastry chef from their club. I sweetly told her that Iris was our choice. I have never spoken with her about the things she said that awful day, and Babs has been fairly nice through this entire wedding planning event, so I have decided to let it go. I am learning how to be a daughter-in-law already, and the first lesson is: Some people do things differently. I am rolling with it.

  Surveying my messy bedroom, I take stock of everything I will need today. Honeymoon bag, packed. Personal bag, packed. I wear a button-up shirt so I can take it off without messing up my styled hair. The veil hangs on a hook, covered in plastic. My shoes are in the personal bag, along with the strapless bra and pretty underwear Babs insisted on buying. I have to admit
it is beautiful, but the price was crazy for what amounts to a few inches of white lace. I do not think I will ever feel comfortable spending money like she does.

  Lastly, I gaze at my dress that waits patiently, hanging from the door frame. Slipping a hand inside the garment bag, I once again feel the supple fabric. It gives me goose bumps. I cannot wait to wear this dress. It’s funny, but I already miss it. You only get to wear these things once, and that makes them all the more special.

  The phone rings. Maurice sounds completely in control and I realize for the first time that today will be a little strange for him. Even though he is cool, calm Maurice, it will be sort of strange to toss a bride he cares for—even if it is an employee.

  Leaning forward into the mirror, I apply a little moisturizer and correct myself. “Partner” is the new word I must get used to saying. I am Maurice’s business partner. Last week, after we wrapped up some last-minute shopping, Maurice asked me to dinner. Over a tasty plate of souvlaki, he told me he had been impressed by how I handled myself in all sorts of tough situations. Would I be interested in taking on a share of the business and working as the “special weddings” coordinator?

  “We’ll toss all the weirdos your way, it will be fun,” he said.

  “Maurice, they are not weirdos—these women just have different styles,” I started to protest.

  “Kidding! I’m kidding. Some people just can’t take a joke around here.” Maurice examined his fingernails. “You know I secretly admire freewheeling souls like you and Avery. I realize I’m not the best person to dispense advice, given my recent behavior, but I do have one thing to say: be generous with each other.”

  I stared at Maurice. “You’re the one who sent the flowers a couple of months ago! I could not figure it out. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Things were so bad with Evelyn, I didn’t think you would listen to me. But I could tell you and Avery were going through something tough. I figured it might make you think.”

  “It did. Thanks. I want to always be generous with Avery, in everything I do.”