Borrow-A-Bridesmaid

by Anne Wagener

  So if Professor Quillen were to lean on the edge of his desk and ask me what the theme is of my recent work, I’d say that’s a trick question. Life is disjointed, it’s messy, and it never seems to fit into the neatly packaged stories I spent so many years studying. That’s why we need stories—we’d like to think we have an arc, one that strides beautifully skyward like a kite, etches “happily ever after” into the clouds. My involvement in weddings gave me the same satisfaction I’d always gotten from stories. I wasn’t there when the couple had their first fight about who washed the blue monogrammed towels in with the whites. I just saw them off on their skyward arc.

  My recent job experiences have got me looking skyward. I don’t know if there’s a happily ever after for me, but there’s a happily ever now, a present moment I’m just beginning to tune in to.

  If I were to make a pithy poster out of my experiences, it might go something like this: Everything I learned in life I learned from being a bridesmaid.

  1) It’s important to have some good skills, but what’s most important is showing up.

  2) Walk with purpose. Stand up straight. Boobs out!

  3) ??? Something about there being a bridezilla in most life situations—work especially . . .

  The spinning frustration creates a tornado inside me, a wind tunnel of destruction. I snatch pages out of Cheer Bear’s lap, out from under mismatched pairs of socks, out of drawers they’ve been half closed into. One page rips right down the middle. I crumple them up one by one, push open the lip of the window, and hurl them toward the Beltway. They rain down across the weedy green strip behind the apartment building. Some are carried by a summer breeze almost to the highway, snared by the fence between the apartment complex lawn and the road. It looks like the antithesis of the Prayer Wall, like a place where prayers go to die. I slam the window closed, then press my back against the wall with my hands over my face.

  A small voice inside reminds me that Charlie isn’t the only guy I’m ever going to care about. But right now I care about him in a way that makes my heart feel three sizes too big. I care about him, and I have to sit back and watch him stand in front of a church filled with Lena’s socialite friends and promise his life away to someone who doesn’t love him. At least not in a way that allows him to follow his dreams.

  That’s what makes me the saddest. Charlie, with his big heart and shiny screenwriting dreams, deserves someone who’s going to care for him, who’s going to cheer for him with Lin-like enthusiasm.

  The only talent I’ve unearthed from the whole bridesmaid job disaster is that I’m halfway decent at caring for people. Comforting Alex during her breakup and feeding her pretzels. Holding Stacey’s hand when she thought her mom wasn’t going to show up to her Hindu wedding. Even moments as small as passing Susan a handkerchief—these experiences made the zombie-bride-apocalypse disasters fade into the background. And they made this job so much more meaningful than any of my “official” ones.

  But I’ve failed at caring for Charlie. I have to let him go. That makes me want to give up on everything. To go with my tail between my legs back to the airport and start over. Watching him walk down the aisle will feel like the culmination of watching all those 747s take off without me.

  And it’s not just Charlie. The thing is, Holly’s hurting, too. I saw in those brief glimpses of her—her vulnerable look at the shower, the little girl in the campaign video—that she’s not happy. Their marriage will drive them deeper into their destructive relationship cycle. Holly will seek love and validation at Charlie’s expense, from him and possibly other men, never to be satiated. She’ll keep trying to store love and validation in a leaky tank—a tank that leaks because Lena took a sledgehammer to it in Holly’s childhood. Charlie will keep giving and giving and never fill his own tank. Neither one of them will have the chance to heal.

  They’re both hurting, and I can’t fix it.

  Even though Lin’s not home, I get a vision of him sitting across from me on the floor. What would he do? I grab a tissue as I contemplate this, wiping the tears from my face and blowing my nose ardently. I take a few deep-ocean breaths. My sinus passages and my mind slowly begin to clear.

  Lin would pull my hands away from my face and hold them in his lap. He’d kiss them, and then he’d say, “Skipping out tomorrow isn’t going to make you feel one bit better. I think you should see this thing through.” He’d say, “You’re right: You can’t fix this. But you can show up. You can still be there for him even though, yes, he’s betrayed you. He said some horrible things. But that wasn’t Charlie talking. That was his stress and unhappiness talking.”

  I nod to the imaginary Lin and crawl under my purple comforter with Cheer Bear. A final tear slips out and rolls over my nose, making a silent drip onto the sheet below.

  After the Stoic thing fell through, I got a bit into New Age Buddhism. One book included the mantra “All unhappiness comes from resisting the present moment.”

  However, I resist it with all my might, past midnight and into the darkest part of the night, until the present moment is lit with a sleepy but irrepressible dawn.

  W Day.

  Thirty

  In the basement nursery turned dressing room, my stomach has turned into a kettle cooker full of popcorn kernels. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, but it doesn’t help. Pop! One eye opens back up. Pop! The other eye. My heart is thumping in my chest. Pop pop pop!

  I pull on my navy bridesmaid dress and smooth the fabric over my hips, turning to admire the lack of VPL. With one hour until the ceremony starts, I have nothing to do but wait. And observe Holly, who doesn’t appear to need my services. She watches herself in the mirror: the finished product. The face in the glass that looks back at her isn’t one of joy, not the rapturous look of a person who is about to marry her soul mate or best friend. Clipped from this scene and pasted elsewhere, her face might be the iStock photo selected for a magazine article about the norovirus.

  I rub my arms—the air-conditioning is blasting, presumably to keep our lovely bride and guests body-odor-free in the August heat. I bide my time looking at finger paintings on the nursery walls. A kangaroo hops aboard Noah’s ark; the smiling baby in its pocket holds a lollypop. Jesus hands out chocolate bars to the five thousand.

  Two floor-to-ceiling mirrors, expressly ordered by Lena, are propped against the adjacent wall. Rachel stands at the second mirror, holding an eye shadow palette that could have come from Picasso’s Blue Period. To warm up, I walk to the opposite wall, craning my neck to look up at the tiny block window above my head. It looks out toward the parking lot. Since we’re a level below ground, I can see various sets of feet migrating into the sanctuary.

  Inside, Holly’s gaze falls away from the mirror and down to her French-tipped nails. This morning, Lena treated us to manicures, which in any other setting would have been a delicious luxury. But as I sat next to Holly in matching massage chairs, my emotions were on a spin cycle. Watching her get her toenails sculpted, I felt disgusted. But looking down the row of chairs and seeing the emotionless faces, I felt rocked by sadness for Holly. No one talked; no one smiled. Lena studied a stack of regional newspapers for campaign research. Rachel perused the latest Glamour and, when she noted a particularly interesting accessory or cosmetic, gave an occasional soft hmph. Holly stared straight ahead at the opposite mirror, as if the Holly reflected there would give her a sign of what to do next.

  I tried reading girly magazines, but my eyes kept landing on ominous words: split ends, breakup, colon cleansing. After all that pampering, my cuticles are groomed, excess eyebrow hairs have been unceremoniously ripped from my face, my pores are minimized, and my nails are polished, but inside, I’m a buttery, salty mess. I feel like I’m an electron, spinning frantically around the periphery of this scene. And popping. My pinkie twitches.

  A knock on the wooden door of the little room startles all of us. Rachel doesn’t
move from her spot at the mirror. I make for the door, patting the back of my dress to ensure that I’m fully zipped.

  It’s Susan. “Can I talk to you?” she asks me.

  I can tell from her tone that she got her mojo back. The weepy Susan of soufflé night has been ejected. In her place is the Susan who shouts, “Two, four, six, eight, send Holly to the Bering Strait!” I turn to tell Holly and Rachel I’ll be right back, but they’re immersed in their reflections. And won’t miss me, it seems.

  Susan leads me up the dark stairwell, insisting she needs to talk to me outside of Holly’s hearing range. In the lobby, she pulls me behind a floor-to-ceiling string-lighted plant and grips my shoulder. “What’s the game plan?”

  I texted her last night about what Alex and I found, but she didn’t write back; presumably, she drank herself into a tizzy. But she doesn’t look the least bit hungover. Quite the opposite: She looks just about ready to hang someone else.

  Though wait—when I lean closer to her, I swear I smell booze. “You’ve been drinking?”

  Her cheeks flush, and she clutches my shoulder for support. “I may have taken some of the communion wine.”

  “You what?”

  She burps. Wine in church? Baptists never keep wine on the premises. Those saucy Episcopalians.

  “So you’ve been drinking communion wine, and you had a divine revelation?”

  “Yes! You know the part where they say, ‘What God has joined together, let no man put asunder’? It doesn’t say anything about women. So I’m allowed. To put it asunder.” She smirks. “ ‘Asunder,’ that’s my new favorite word.”

  “Oh dear. Is Brandon here?”

  “Nope. He’s on concert duty.” She mimes playing a trumpet, buzzing her lips.

  “You’re not well. Do you want to sit down? Let’s sit down.”

  She shakes her head, and the hawkish determination returns. “Look, I was funky last night. Er, in a funk. I did see your message, I just couldn’t get off the couch. It’s not like me. But now I can feel it. It’s time to act. It’s not too late.”

  I glance across the lobby, as if I can see through the large wooden door to the chapel, where Charlie and the groomsmen are getting ready. “You can try talking to him, but—”

  “What about Holly? Did you confront her about Blaine?”

  I sigh. “Right. Because she’ll suddenly break down and admit her wrongs.”

  “Fine, then, talk to Charlie! We’ve been over this. I hired you. You have to try again. Do whatever you have to. Please! Please, please, please. I can help you get him alone.”

  Something in her “please, please, please” reminds me of Holly’s (and Billy’s) condescending triplet of nos. I frown at her. “What do you mean, whatever?”

  “You know. Rip his clothes off. Stick your tongue down his throat. Object in front of everyone. Whatever!” Her curls vibrate as she talks. She belches, louder this time.

  I get a flash of my original Craigslist near-diversion into “Escort Services.” We’re not far off, here. But I can’t say I’m not tempted by her plan. If I could, I’d mount a stallion, take out the chapel door with the front hooves, pull Charlie into the saddle, and ride into the sunset with his hands around my waist.

  When we were kids, my best friend, Lonnie, and I were convinced we had ESP. We’d sit at a round table in the library, index fingers pressed to our temples, “communicating.” “What shape am I thinking of?” I’d ask her, and she’d squeeze her eyes shut, glitter-covered lids squinching down over brown eyes. After a moment of serious deliberation, she’d announce: “Triangle!” I’d grab her wrists and nod slowly. “Oh my God. It was totally triangle.”

  Hovering behind plant leaves now, I close my eyes and send a shape to Charlie, a blaring red octagon. STOP.

  Charlie. Those nights we kissed, it felt like someone crept through all my internal rooms, turning the light switches on. A surge of electricity, a surge of desire. It felt like waking up.

  I shake my head. If anything gets put asunder today, it’s not going to be my doing. I take a deep breath. “No.” Though Susan gapes at me, I continue, “He’s made his decision. I’m here now to be a friend to you and to him.”

  She grabs my hand and pulls it in the direction of the chapel door. “You have to help me! You don’t understand. I love him so much, and he’s throwing his life away. Please talk to him. Please!” Her cheeks have turned the color of communion wine.

  “It’s not up to us. I know this is hard.” I reach out to her for a hug, but she grabs my wrist and starts pulling me across the lobby. She’s surprisingly strong for such a skinny person; her volume is all in the curls, and the rest of her is slim and strappy. Like a stick of broccoli. A very strong stick of broccoli.

  Sam pauses in his usher duty to give us a questioning look. I mouth Help! and he deserts the old lady currently on his elbow. She turns and glares at him with an expression that laments, Youth these days . . .

  “Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?” Sam pops in front of Susan and puts his hands out to slow her tipsy momentum.

  “We’re putting shit asunder!” she says in a loud whisper. A few guests turn to look. Lena’s internal seismometer has sensed a rumbling, and she’s barreling toward us, leaving behind her would-be conversation partner, Beach Ball Hat. Today Beach Ball Hat has downgraded to a slightly smaller chapeau that looks like a purple kayak sailing down her forehead.

  “Is there a problem here, ladies?”

  “No—” I start.

  “Yes!” Susan says at the same time. She looks ready for a showdown. Sam and I exchange glances.

  “You haven’t signed the guest book, have you, dear?” Lena puts her hands on Susan’s shoulders and steers her toward the corner of the lobby. Even drunk, angry Susan is no match for Lena’s death grip. Lena whispers something into Susan’s ear, and after a final moment of resistance, Susan’s shoulders buckle and she lets herself be herded away.

  Sam shakes his head as we watch them head for the guest book. “I feel her pain, but it’s a lost cause. I tried talking to him last night. And again this morning. He’s set on this.”

  I nod. “I figured as much.” I give him an approving look. “You clean up nice.” He’s sans aviators, hair slicked back, looking crisply handsome in his suit. Something about Sam in dress shoes cinches the finality of this for me, and another pop jerks one of my shoulders upward.

  “You, too. A little nervy, are we? Hey, where’s your foxy friend?”

  Lena is personally escorting a blotchy-faced Susan into the sanctuary. I peer past them and point to Alex’s beachy waves in the third row on the bride’s side. “Don’t worry, she’ll be at the reception.”

  He winks at me. “Think I can charm her into a dance or three?”

  I squeeze his hand. “I have no doubt.”

  The lobby door opens, and Sam bows gallantly. “Back to ushering duties, milady.”

  He pulls open the door for a man who’s instantly discernible from the other wedding guests. My eyes pass over him, scanner-style. A worn brown suit. A flower in his lapel that looks suspiciously like the ones in the church garden. A pair of stained work boots. His features look eerily familiar.

  Sam beams, happy to play the sarcastic usher. “Welcome to the celebration of the oh-so-joyous union of Charlie Bell and Holly Garbo. Do you reckon that in these modern times they should combine their surnames? Do you prefer Bellbo or Garbell?”

  The man presses his hands against his lapels and attempts to smooth them while looking past Sam into the lobby.

  Sam motions him through the door. “Well, don’t just stand there! Show’s starting soon.”

  “I’m looking for the bride.” The stranger has a slight drawl—a southern Virginia drawl. I remember the Blacksburg addresses in Untitled.txt and realize this was one invitation Holly mailed personally.

  �
�You silly man!” Sam says. “You’ll have to wait, like everyone else. She’s putting on her garter now, and in a few minutes she’ll be cruising down that aisle there, just like a dream.” He gestures with a flourish to the sanctuary and its flower-studded, crimson-carpeted bride runway.

  The stranger doesn’t smile. He smooths his lapels again. “Son, she won’t be doing any aisle-walking without me.” He straightens his shoulders. “I’m her father.”

  Thirty-One

  Instinctively, I guide Mr. Garbo through the lobby, wishing I’d followed Susan’s example and taken a swill of the communion wine myself. His first name is Mark, if I’m remembering Susan’s history lesson, though my first instinct is to call him Bud. I feel an instant affinity with him for two reasons: 1) When he said, “I’m her father,” his drawl got noticeably thicker; and 2) confronted with a purple kayak hat, I imagine he’d be appropriately flabbergasted, as no one else has the sense to be (“What in the Sam Hill is that?” he’d say).

  And sure, I’d love to see Lena spontaneously combust. But she can’t see him yet. Maybe he can talk some sense into his daughter.

  A quick survey reveals Lena advancing up the aisle, appraising the guests as if they’re decorations. I can see the pride in her empress-of-all-I-survey expression as she casts a look across the sanctuary. There’s no room in this scene for a man in an outdated suit with a stolen flower on his lapel. It would be like drawing a stick figure in scented Magic Marker across Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party.