by Anne Wagener
“Crikey! I’m going in,” I say.
Alex steps aside and gestures up the stairs with the hammer. “Godspeed. I’ll be right behind you.”
I take the steps two at a time. Shove open the stairwell door. Dash across the lobby. The marble feels cool on my feet. The rest of me is hot, hot, hot, sweaty and panicked. In seconds, I’m at the sanctuary doors. They’re both closed. I can’t hear anything on the other side—weird. Can’t hear much over my heart, which is thrumming at avian speeds.
Grasping the nearest door handle, I yank it open.
The door issues an insidious creak. Hundreds of heads—and hats—whip toward me. I open my mouth, then shut it. I imagined dashing down the aisle screaming, “I object!” But the complete and utter silence in the sanctuary instantly disarms me. Oh God—is it over? It can’t be over. Unless Holly pulled a Humperdinck and told the minister to “skip to the end.”
My eyes fly to the altar. Holly is shooting flaming arrows of hatred in my general direction. I’m almost afraid to look at Charlie, but I can’t resist. He holds Holly’s right hand with his left, but when he sees me, his grip seems to loosen. A warmth comes back into his face that I haven’t seen since the night we met.
Holly jerks Charlie’s hand back toward her. “Go ahead,” she says sharply to the minister. But the minister’s lips are parted in shock, and for a moment, he lowers the binder balanced across his palm. “Go ahead” means it’s not over. But did they say their vows?
Lena half-rises out of her seat. Our eyes meet: An unspoken reprise of our earlier conversation flickers between us. My eyes say, Raise that butt one more centimeter out of your seat, and I’ll scream Holly’s secret to the whole congregation. Her butt lowers. Too much denial might indicate she has something to hide. I guess her strategy at this point is to let me make a fool out of myself.
A few of the congregation members smile hopefully at me, like I might burst into song or initiate a flash mob. A few iPhones are already trained on me. Sam beams in pure amusement, and Susan gives me a loopy smile and two thumbs-up from the front row. Uncle Rex bobs his head, apparently signaling me to start dancing down the aisle. Biff, the posh photographer, looks unsure. He holds his camera at shoulder height, at the ready.
Among the clearly not amused are Susan and Charlie’s parents, who eye me suspiciously. Kayak Hat and Tiny Grandmother scowl at my utter lack of decorum.
Holly clears her throat. Looking flummoxed, the minister raises his binder. “Repeat after me. ‘I, Charles Edward Bell’ . . .”
Oh thank God. He hasn’t sworn himself to her yet.
Now. I should definitely say something now, but my mouth doesn’t seem to work. Neither do my lungs. Can’t remember when I last breathed. My feet work, though—they start down the aisle. Liberated from their heels, they can’t be stopped.
I’m halfway down the aisle when the minister tries again. “ ‘I, Charles Edward Bell’ . . .” he prompts.
But Charles Edward Bell is looking at me. I sense a question in his gaze, and I nod once, not even sure which question I’m answering. Maybe I’m telling him I forgive him for what he said to me at his rehearsal dinner, because I do. Maybe I’m telling him he’s strong enough to trust his gut, because he is.
As our gazes hold, I send him the strength I used to stand up to Lena, send him the rush of water that had broken the levee inside me. I imagine it gathering momentum as it approaches the altar.
I transmit all kinds of ESP images to him, shapes that evolve into memories—us dancing at the Portrait Gallery. Ducking in front of the Elvis portrait to giggle as Peter and Marina commenced their epic romance. You deserve that, I tell him with my eyes. You deserve an epic romance. You deserve so much more than this. What’s in front of you is all a lie.
He nods, as if the complete transmission is received, but then he breaks eye contact with me to face Holly. My heart holds steady between beats.
Afraid he might be gearing up for his vows, I take several more tentative steps forward—ready to come down the aisle with the horrible secret—but hesitating, because I don’t want to be the one to deliver the news. The news that he’s not going to be singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at two a.m. If I’m going to tell him, I’m going to tell him up close. Tell him gently, let the news settle lightly on his shoulders. Not shout it from the aisle. My feet move again until a tug on my dress halts me. From the second row, one of Tiny Grandmother’s gnarled hands reaches out to grasp my navy hem. Her eyebrows are narrowed at me. Before she can verbally or physically berate me, a blur of movement at the altar distracts both of us.
“I can’t do this,” Charlie says.
At first I don’t think I’ve heard right. I grip my hands together. Still not breathing.
A wave of tittering and speculation sweeps through the congregation as Charlie tries to pull his hand away. Holly grips it. Hard.
“I’m sorry I let it get this far.” He swallows. His eyebrows are drawn together, but the rest of him is unwinding, pulling away from her. His shoulders drop. Jaw unclenches. “Things haven’t been right between us for a long time. I think you know that, Hols.” There’s a pinch of softness when he says “Hols,” but it sounds like a goodbye. He successfully extricates his hand, and at last I’m able to breathe—it’s as if hands were clasped over my mouth.
The minister inhales, too, the sound of his breath amplified through his lapel mike. “Why don’t you two join me in the chapel and we can talk this through?” he says.
But Charlie starts backing away, shaking his head. “I’ll be a father,” he says, lowering his voice. “I don’t have any hesitations about that. I never did. But I can’t—I can’t commit to you, too. I’m sorry, Holly. It’s over.” He looks relieved and confused, like he can’t believe what he’s said.
An echoing clatter punctuates his words as a ring falls to the marble floor in front of the altar. Instinctively, my eyes seek out Rachel, who has a self-satisfied smirk on her face. Next to me, Tiny Grandmother huffs and shifts in her seat like a warming teakettle. Decorum is being trumped left and right.
At the front, Holly ignores the ring and reaches for Charlie. Seeing her hand casting out into empty space conjures my own past rejections, and for a moment, despite everything, I ache for her.
Charlie doesn’t see her reach for him because he’s already walking away. He pauses briefly to give me a searching glance. Across the aisle, Susan and her parents rise out of their seats as if to follow him, but he holds out a palm to them. When Susan raises her eyebrows, he nods once, firmly. I’ll be okay. Then he’s heading up the aisle. Swimming upstream. Alex, who’s standing at the back of the sanctuary, moves aside to let him pass.
“Charlie—it’s our wedding!”
My head whips to the front, where Holly looks like she wants to go after him, too. The weight of all the congregational stares seems to be holding her at bay.
A few seconds later, the front lobby door creaks open, and he’s gone.
Everyone else at the altar is frozen. Rachel smiles derisively at Holly. Sam’s eyes are wide, and Josh is staring at his shoes. None of the guests moves. I’m terrified there’s been some sort of apocalyptic disaster, and this is the afterlife. Paused, forever, in the midst of this emotionally wrenching scene.
Holly begins to shake. Anna’s words intertwine with my thoughts: Holly is like jack-in-the-box. The crank is always turning, and you never know when she is going to—POP! I want to follow Charlie out of here, but I can’t seem to look away. Like I’m watching a slow-motion train wreck.
Mark quietly moves to stand beside his daughter, putting his hand on the small of her back. Caught off guard by the sudden kindness, her head tilts onto his shoulder and she heaves out a sob. “It’s okay, sweetie,” he says. “Maybe he just needs some time.”
She shakes her head, brushing tears from her cheeks. The minister takes a step down to stan
d on the other side of Holly and tries to hand her a tissue, but she refuses. He looks genuinely heartbroken for her.
A snort issues from the bride’s side, jump-starting another wave of congregational whispers. My eyes sweep the altar and land on Rachel, who’s watching her sister with sadistic glee. Her body is shaking with silent laughter.
“Hollypop.” Mark wraps his arm around Holly’s waist, seeming to sense the impending POP, but Holly escapes his grip and whirls on Rachel, brandishing her bouquet.
“You. Get. Out!”
The mother of the bride sits quietly in the front pew, pretending she isn’t related to any of them. Tiny Grandmother, on the other hand, has reached boiling temperature. She stands up, grasping the edge of the pew to support herself. She ignores my proffered hand, so I step aside and out of her way as she clonk-clonks toward the commotion at the altar. When she reaches the base of the altar steps, she stamps her walker on the ground.
“Enough.” Her voice is surprisingly clear and strong.
Holly’s eyes blaze in response, but Tiny Grandmother wins. Holly’s chin droops toward her chest in defeat. Rachel swallows her laughter, her eyes still lit with glee. A few seconds more of Tiny Grandmother’s matriarchal glare reset Rachel’s face back to its sour default.
“I raised both of you better than this. You girls are coming home with me.” Tiny Grandmother shepherds the two head-hanging sisters up the aisle. Mark hesitates, then follows a safe distance behind.
When she reaches Lena’s pew, Tiny Grandmother stops to address her. “You knew. You knew from the start she wasn’t fit for a wedding. That girl needs a good talking-to. She needs a real flesh-and-blood mother. But you couldn’t resist the chance to put on another show. My respect for you is long gone, but today—” She sighs as if suddenly exhausted. “Today you finally lost my vote.” With that, she continues clonk-clonking up the aisle.
A tense silence settles over the congregation. Lena rises from her seat to watch her family going up the aisle. I have this horrible image of Lena leaping through the air to wrestle Tiny Grandmother to the ground. Instead, she turns toward me, and my body launches into fight-or-flight mode. I’m trembling a little, but I stand my ground as she takes a few steps toward me.
She holds her gaze on me and lifts her hands. I brace myself and close my eyes. When I open them, Lena is smiling as if nothing has happened.
“One thing I’ve learned from politics is that it’s like a marriage. It involves arguments.” She gestures to the altar as if Holly and Charlie had a minor disagreement about hors d’oeuvres. “And sometimes, yes, fights. Let’s give our lovers time to recoup. In the meantime, I invite you all to join me in the reception hall for some refreshments. You’ll just walk through those doors there and one building over.” She nods at the organist, who shrugs in bewilderment but begins the recessional. Lena breezes past me up the aisle and into the lobby, and the wedding begins disassembling itself. The discordance of the happy music with the confused shuffling of guests is completely surreal.
Charlie—where would he have gone? Maybe he’ll be at Rocket Bar, drinking beer and having a heart-to-heart with the bartender, or letting his angst roll down the Skee-Ball chute. Maybe he’ll be at a coffee shop, guzzling caffeine and scribbling his thoughts on a napkin. A line from The Lift pops into my mind: the scene after John and Elena break up (before their winning reunion). John’s aimless ramblings lead him past an animal shelter, and he stops to look through the window.
JOHN (voice-over)
Sometimes a man needs to be alone with his thoughts. And a kitten.
Maybe I should let Charlie have this moment alone. And a bit later, bring him a calico.
As the guests spill out of the sanctuary and into the lobby I collapse into a nearby pew, flanked soon after by Sam and Alex. Sam stretches his arm across the back of the pew, letting his hand make quite deliberate contact with Alex’s shoulder. Susan ambles over from the groom’s side to settle into the pew in front of us.
“What a show,” Sam says. “I always knew Holly was a quarter past crazy.”
“That did happen, right? The room’s still spinning a bit. Where were you at the beginning, Piper?” Susan asks me, hiccupping.
I look down at the budding bruises on my arm as I realize that Susan and Sam don’t know yet about Holly’s secret. It comes tumbling out, but I can hardly focus on what I’m saying. All I can think about is Charlie.
Susan almost falls out of the pew when I tell her.
Sam ruffles my hair. “I think seeing you gave him the courage to stand up to Holatile on his own.”
“Alex is the one who rescued me.” I finish the story as Alex mock-bows.
“Holy mother of Moses.” Susan leans her head back against the pew, examining the stained glass window at the peak of the sanctuary ceiling. “I should have known. The whole family’s a hot mess.”
“Whose isn’t?” Sam turns to Alex. “Anything I should know about you? Any botched weddings?”
Alex and I exchange a look before she beams at him. “Nothing you can’t handle.”
“Ooh. I do like a challenge.”
I stand up, tired of being the meat in their flirtation sandwich. “Why don’t you two grab a drink and debrief? I’ll catch up.”
Alex stands up, too, and hands me my purse. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
I nod at her and manage a wink. She’s definitely earned a drink and a shag. They each give me the same hungrily grateful look before heading through the front door to disappear into the sunset in her Miata. At least the day brought one set of lovers together. Only one: how un-Shakespearean. No joint weddings and no deaths by sword. Leaves me wondering if I’m in a comedy or a tragedy. More likely it’s a problem play: something not neatly classified.
Susan and I sit for a while and watch the dappled colors from the stained glass migrate across the pews. A few guests linger to conspire or gossip, filing out in groups. Mr. and Mrs. Bell pass by our pew, motioning for Susan to follow. They nod tentatively at me, and I nod back. Maybe they don’t completely support Charlie’s screenwriting dreams, but they seem to support the decision he made today; they look almost as relieved as Susan.
“I’ll catch up in a sec,” Susan tells her parents, then turns back to me. “That’s my ride. Hey, are you sure you’re going to be okay? I’m sorry for putting you through all this.”
“I think so. You?”
She nods. “Is it—is it horrible that I’m relieved not to be an aunt?”
“No. You knew this was wrong from the start. I’m relieved, too. It’s just—”
I can’t stop thinking about the courage it took Charlie to walk away. And the fact that he still thinks he’s going to be a father.
Susan seems to read my mind. “I’ll tell him,” she says softly.
After she’s gone, I sit for a few more minutes in the deserted sanctuary until the constant movement of the dappled colors across the pews inspires me to move. I walk out to the parking lot, where I retrieve my phone and text Lin.
Wedding’s off. Looooong story. Could you give me a lift home?
My phone beeps almost instantly. ZOMG. Be there in five.
I sit on the front church steps to wait, pulling off my pearl earrings and necklace (a bridesmaid “gift” from Holly) and depositing them in the church mailbox—I never want to see them again. Then I close my eyes and turn my chin up to the sun. The brick steps warm the soles of my feet.
The events of the past hour play on repeat in my mind. Rewinding. Pausing. Playing again. To make sense of everything that’s happened, I’ve got to write about it. I can only hope Charlie does the same.
Lin pulls up in his red Audi, rolls down his window. “Hey, sexy lady. Wanna get out of here?”
I collapse into the passenger seat, throwing my arms around him. I hold him for at least a minute, letting the las
t of the day’s tears land on his shoulders. Then I pull back and fasten my seat belt.
“I’m trying to be sensitive and patient here,” he says as he pulls out of the parking lot, “but I’m dying to know every last detail.” He examines me as he stops at a red light. “Dear Lord. You lost your shoes? I hope it’s from a raucous round of booty-kicking.”
I kiss his cheek. “I’ll tell you everything. Promise. But first I need to crank up the jams.”
I plug in his iPod and we turn the volume up. I roll my window down and let my hair loose, closing my eyes and inviting the summer wind into my lungs.
Thirty-Four
One month later
Lin hums Fleetwood Mac as he sets a few grocery bags on the counter. He pulls out leafy greens, apples, cherry tomatoes. He doesn’t seem to notice the kitchen is cleaner than usual—immaculate, actually. Errant coffee grounds have been swept from the floor. Liquor and wine bottles line the countertop in order of lightest to darkest: whipped cream vodka to Kahlúa.
This is how I know Lin is seriously in love. He’s usually the one reminding me to pick up my socks, shaking his head at the Butterfinger wrappers I let fall into the buttcrack of the couch while entranced in a DVRed episode of The Bold and the Beautiful. But this time I’ve picked up every last sock, every last wrapper. And I didn’t even cheat and stuff them in the storage ottoman.
Lin doesn’t see any of this. He hums away, holding the avocado like a baby and singing “Rhiannon” to it as he nestles it in the fruit basket between the welcoming bosom of two pomegranates.
He’s flicked on the kitchen light, but the rest of the apartment is dark—even darker behind the sofa, where Steve, Brick, and I crouch, biting our lips to keep from giggling.
“On my count,” Steve whispers. “One, two, three—”
“Surprise!”
We bolt up from behind the sofa. Across the apartment, several heads pop up from behind chairs and the breakfast bar that divides the living room from the kitchen. Lights snap on and faces beam at the birthday boy, who stands, slack-jawed, clutching a tub of chipotle hummus. I run to him and wrap my arms around him. He drops the hummus on the counter and reciprocates the embrace, his cheek resting on the top of my head.