Not Quite A Bride

by Kirsten Sawyer

  Then the boys help me get dressed for the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner for my wedding—one of the many events in life I felt I was being robbed of by being the only girl placed on this earth without a soul mate. Now that mine has arrived I am feeling like perhaps I was being spared.

  I am hardly functioning, so Justin and Logan treat me like their personal Barbie doll and get me perfectly dressed in a stunning off-white silk slip dress that the three of us had chosen a few weeks before. I try to do the yoga relaxation breathing that Justin has been teaching me, and it works a little ... enough for me to put my own gold strappy sandals onto my blistered feet—thanks to Martha’s instruction to break the wedding shoes in around the house. I’m not sure her method for breaking them in includes as much frantic pacing as I’ve been doing lately.

  We are out the door and arrive at The Plaza only fifteen minutes late ... impressive, considering one member of our party (me) has to be cared for like a child. Jamie and Bryan, with an actual child, only arrived a few minutes before us. Of course, Mom and Marion were close to hysterical that we weren’t there at six o’clock on the dot. Oh well, I think they are lucky I made it at all.

  In a flurry, Marion ushers everyone to the room where the ceremony will take place and immediately starts pointing us in a hundred different directions—she’s like a pastel-clad drill sergeant. She starts the rehearsal with everyone standing where they will be for the ceremony. Justin and I are front and center, looking at each other. Jamie stands at my side and Logan is at Justin’s. Once Marion is convinced that everyone will be able to remember their positions twenty-four hours later, we practice the exit. Walking down the aisle on Justin’s arm only serves to rub my nose in the fact that tomorrow I will be at this alone ... my misery increases. After we exit, Jamie and Logan follow, and then Mom and Dad ... simple enough. Dad actually isn’t rehearsing because there is a game in the bar that he is interested in and he insists that since he didn’t mess up Jamie’s wedding he’ll be able to handle mine. I’m not bothered by his absence, because the truth is that none of us needs to practice any of this anyway because it won’t be happening.

  Marion makes us run through the whole walk-in, stand-in position, and walk out twice more before she is satisfied that we are prepared for the big day. After the wedding party has been dismissed, Mom and Marion take me upstairs to show me the room where I will be getting ready for the big day. When we arrive at the room, I’m surprised to see that it has double doors leading into it ... in my experience, only suites have double doors. I am certain we don’t have a suite and just chalk it up to how classy The Plaza is ... until Marion opens the doors to a room, actually rooms (plural), bigger than my apartment ... it’s not just a room, it is a suite. My breath is taken away. The room is amazing. Not only is it huge, it’s ... well ... grand. “Grand” is the only way to describe it.

  A knot instantly forms in my stomach. Reserving a regular room at The Plaza was a splurge, given the pittance left in my wedding fund, but I felt like it was crucial to the day. I mean, what feels splendid about getting dressed for your wedding in your own apartment? And then what would I do ... take a cab here in my gown?? It felt worth the money to be able to get ready in the very hotel where my (fake) wedding would be taking place. Now I am panicking because clearly there has been some sort of a miscommunication with Marion and I am going to have to pay for this suite, which is surely beyond my budget.

  I look to my mother, who is beaming at me, and I feel bad that I am going to have to let her down with the information that we are not going to be able to spend the morning in this amazing room. Don’t ask me why this riddles me with guilt and the rest of the fake wedding is okay. I am about to break the news when I hear my father’s voice behind me.

  “Surprise, baby! What d’ya think?”

  It takes me a second to catch on, but I finally piece together my mother’s beam and my father’s words. This suite is their gift to me ... on my wedding day. I whirl around and throw my arms around his neck. “Oh, Daddy! It’s so beautiful. It’s wonderful!” I exclaim as I start to cry and wrap my arms around my mother as well.

  It really is the perfect room to put on the perfect dress for the perfect wedding ... my tears of joy turn into sobs of sorrow when I remember that tomorrow will not end perfectly. It might end perfectly according to my plan, but that certainly is not a perfect storybook ending. Mom and Dad, and Marion, don’t realize my sobbing is anything more than happiness and excitement, so Mom and Marion cheerfully continue the tour of “your suite,” as they call it.

  It has a dining room with a large enough table that Mom has arranged for the seven of us (me, her, Dad, Jamie, Kate, Bryan, and Logan) to have a room-service breakfast. After that, I will be moving to the large dressing area in the huge bathroom, which includes a whirlpool tub, to have my hair and makeup done ... another surprise, the gang from Capella will be coming to me. The suite has a comfortable living room with a big TV and a view of Central Park for me to relax in and have friends come by, if I choose. The final room is a large master bedroom with an enormous king-sized bed where Mom drops another surprise on me ... Justin and I will be spending the night in this room! I’m going to vomit—without a doubt. The emotional cost this will have on my parents is bad enough, but now they are actually enduring monetary costs as well. My deceit sickens me.

  Of course, I’m not actually given time to go to the bathroom and heave up the nonexistent food in my traumatized stomach, because Mom and Marion whisk me out of the suite as quickly as they whisked me in; it’s time to get to the rehearsal dinner. These women are sticklers for their schedules.

  52

  The Rehearsal Dinner

  We hurry down to a private room in one of the hotel’s nicer restaurants where Justin and Logan are already warming up the bar. Justin rushes to my side, as a good fiancé would, and I joyfully—well, I try to make it joyfully—tell him about our amazing wedding night suite. I am impressed with his acting skills, because he puts on a reaction for Mom and Dad that seems like a normal amount of excitement for a man to have the night before his wedding. Once we are alone, though, he checks to make sure that I am holding up all right. So-so is the most positive answer I can give.

  Slowly, our ... okay, my closest friends and out-of-town guests arrive at the dinner and I put on my happy face to greet everyone. I am holding it together for old family friends and relatives. I’m even okay when Lauren and Alex run up to me, screeching with excitement. It’s when Brad walks in that my “okayness” is challenged, once again.

  Claire is clinging tightly to his side and I can tell right away that she is in one of her “moods.” Whenever I say “moods,” I mentally make little quotations with my fingers because “moods” are what Brad has referred to them as, even though I am convinced that they are actually just her personality. Needless to say, Brad and I haven’t spoken since the kiss and his completely freaked-out exit.

  They politely approach me as soon as they walk in, but there is something strange. Brad seems totally preoccupied and confused ... and he seems to be avoiding looking at me. When he says hello he looks at his feet; when he says good-bye he looks across the room. With my wedding one day away, his being eight days away and the obvious conclusion that his future wife and I will never get along, he has become utterly uncomfortable around me. He is polite, but I feel like the familiarity and warmth are gone. I feel like he wants it to be there, but he doesn’t know how to make it happen. Of course with Claire it was never there, so I’m not completely shocked when her greeting to me is:

  “So, you really are getting married at The Plaza. I figured I would just believe it when I saw it.”

  My jaw drops open and I stare at her for a second before shifting my gaze to Brad, who just laughs, stupidly, as though this were a funny joke, and stares intently at his shoes. Is he blind? Is he deaf? Does he still think I am the liar about Claire’s horribleness?!? I honestly don’t have the strength for this tonight, so I just turn and
walk away from them. As I make my way across the room I can hear Claire making a snotty remark and Brad not responding to it. My heart breaks in two that such a wonderful person will be vowing to stay with a complete bitch ’til death do them part.

  Except for the Brad/Claire run-in, the rehearsal dinner is lovely. Like the shower, it’s a good preparation for how the big day will be. I manage to put out of my head the knowledge that the next day will be one of the worst of my life, rather than one of the happiest, and end up enjoying the evening ... as much as I can.

  I’m still an emotional wreck, but that’s not anything completely new for me. I cry when my dad gives a toast, I cry when my mom gives a toast. I cry when Justin and I get up and give a toast to Mom, Dad, Jamie, and Logan. I cry so much that there is a chance I can get in a boat and row myself away from this awful situation I’ve created on a river of my own tears. Jeez, have I become melodramatic or what?!?

  Aside from me, the mood for the evening is festive. I take time to look around the room and see that everyone, except Brad and Claire, of course, is having a great time. In typical Harrigan fashion, the wine is free-flowing and the food is plenty. I’m exercising enormous amounts of self-control at the bar, although I am aware that getting smashed might be the best thing for me. I have to stay focused and keep my energy up because I have a ton of work to do tonight, plus tomorrow will be hideous enough without a hangover. After this rehearsal, Justin and I have a rehearsal of our own ... we have to rehearse how things are really gonna happen tomorrow.

  53

  The Real Rehearsal

  Justin, Logan, and I finally get home after about two more hours of roasting and toasting than I would be up for under the best conditions. We are all exhausted but we know how much work still lies ahead of us. We walk in the apartment and Justin immediately puts on a pot of coffee as I feed Tiffany some leftover salmon I’d swiped from The Plaza for her.

  We each fix ourselves a cup and sit down around the living room coffee table to plan things out. The morning—for me, at least—will go pretty much according to Marion’s schedule. I’ll arrive at The Plaza on time, with Logan, and we will have breakfast with the family in the amazingly beautiful suite. Then I will get ready as planned and be downstairs for the ceremony at the appointed time. Justin’s morning will be completely different.

  Justin will be free ... once he leaves my apartment tonight, our contract will have come to an end and he will no longer be indentured to me. It’s strange to think that he won’t “have” to hang out here anymore, because it always feels more like he wants to. Although we agreed in the beginning and all the way through that we want to remain friends, we’ve realized that Justin does need to get out of the picture for a little while to let the wedding fiasco blow over and to make it seem like he legitimately broke my heart.

  Once we have the outline of our game plan in order, it’s time to get to the trickier part. I need to learn how to act ... specifically, act shocked and shattered that Justin is abandoning me at the altar on our wedding day. We had originally thought that perhaps he should actually be there on the wedding day and announce that he has realized his homosexuality and can’t go through with the marriage ... but I changed my mind and decided that I don’t want him to show up at all. The ceremony is going to be difficult for me regardless, but I don’t want Justin to have to be a bad guy in front of all my friends and family since he is anything but. Obviously his “side” will be enormously confused about why he invited them to a play he isn’t in, but we both agree that chances are they will just leave when the “ceremony” doesn’t happen, and it will be my friends and family who stay at the reception to cheer me up.

  “So,” Justin starts, “you will be standing at the end of the aisle, and there will probably be uncomfortable rumblings that I haven’t shown up. You need to act confused.”

  “Okay, confused,” I repeat as I write down, step one: confused, on a little spiral notepad. “Like this: ‘What do you mean? Is he late?’” I rehearse.

  “Yeah! That’s perfect,” Justin coaches.

  “Logan, this is where you come in,” Justin snaps Logan to attention. “You will be the one to tell Molly and Larry that I’m not coming.”

  “Okay ... what should I say?”

  The story is simple: Justin cannot marry me because he has realized that he doesn’t want to be with a woman. Like always, we’re sticking as much to the truth as possible. Justin forges a little breakup note explaining his absence; Logan will “find” the note (he’ll find it inside his coat pocket, but nobody else will know this) and give to me.

  The note is simple and to the point. He simply writes, “Molly, I’m sorry I cannot go through with it. I’ve realized over the past year that I am gay. I love you, but I cannot marry you. Justin.” It’s completely true ... it just leaves out the whole part about me hiring him to pretend to want to marry me in the first place.

  “Molly,” Justin turns back to me, “after Logan hands you the note, read it slowly, two or three times, like you can’t understand it, then look up at your dad and hand it to him.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Logan cuts in. “What if Dad figures out it’s a fake?”

  “How’s he gonna figure that out?” I ask.

  Logan accepts the good point and we keep on going.

  “Okay,” Justin continues, “after your dad looks at the note, you are going to be shocked and hurt.”

  “Should I cry?”

  “You can start a little,” he advises. “You really have to almost play it dumb here ... this has to be a complete shock to you.”

  “Okay, like ‘Daddy, I don’t understand?’”

  “Yes! Exactly.”

  “How long do I do that for?”

  “A little while, and it’s okay to get really upset.”

  “Okay, so I’m confused, shocked, hurt ... got it. Then I put on my strong face, right?” I ask as I practice the “strong face” that Justin had shown me a few days before. My bottom lip should be quivering, my chin up and my eyes wet, but without falling tears.

  “You got it.”

  The three of us run through the plan a few more times, with Justin playing the part of Dad, before we feel comfortable with my performance. After that, we move on to what will probably be the hardest moment of the day ... when I address my guests. Justin was kind enough to write out my monologue, as he calls it, this week since I’ve been so swamped with last-minute wedding stuff. The monologue is the moment when I am really going to need strength.

  The plan is for me to compose myself at the back of the room, and then walk to the front and announce to our guests that the wedding will not be taking place. I will say that I am not sure what happened to Justin or to “us,” because, as Justin has emphasized many times, it is crucial for me to maintain my complete shock and surprise. Then I need to put on my strongest strong face and invite the guests to please join me at the reception that my family and I have worked so hard to plan. If I can get through the monologue as planned, I think I will be home free.

  I rehearse it a few times with Justin and Logan critiquing me as I go. Finally, they are satisfied and the coffee is all gone, which means our work is done. Justin collects the few items left around the apartment ... he has been taking stuff with him for the past two weeks. Once he has all his stuff, he starts toward the door.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay over just one more night?” I ask, hopeful that he will because I am sad to see him go.

  “It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride the day of the wedding,” he reminds me playfully.

  I look at my watch, it’s almost 2:00 A.M... . it is the day of the wedding. I show him this as I remind him that the wedding is doomed anyway.

  “No, I’ve gotta go. What if your family comes to surprise you in the morning?”

  I know he’s right ... it sounds like something my parents would do, but there is still something awful about watching him sneak off in the still of the night.


  Before Justin steps out of my apartment for good, he gives me a huge hug, then one for Logan, and then another one for me. Nobody really says anything; I guess because it’s all been said or we know it all already. Logan and I embrace each other as we watch Justin walk down the hall.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, secretly, and tell you how it all goes!” I quietly yell after him just before he reaches the stairs.

  “I’m counting on it,” he says as he turns down the stairwell.

  We close the door and I cry in Logan’s arms for a few minutes before I ask him what I have done. He promises that it will all work out, which only makes me feel slightly better.

  “Hey, what is it you always say? Eyes on the prize?”

  I nod wearily. My vision is blurry from exhaustion and tears ... I don’t think I can see the “prize” right now, I tell him.

  “This is the finish line, Molly ... look around this apartment and think ... your dream is going to come true tomorrow.”

  I look around the apartment at all the beloved registry gifts that have been pouring in. Thinking back, going through with all this for gifts and attention seems so ridiculous. I know what I wanted was the experience of being a bride, and I must admit that some things have been completely wonderful ... but I am really coming face-to-face with the fact that having a wedding without having a real groom really isn’t much of the experience at all.

  I’m exhausted ... exhausted by all of the planning, but more by all of the lying and covering. Part of me is relieved that tomorrow it will finally be over. Logan and I climb in our respective beds but sleep doesn’t exactly come easily. I toss and turn, a bundle of nerves, until sometime around sunrise when I finally doze off. What feels like minutes later, Logan is shaking me gently, telling me that it’s time to wake up.

  “Good Golly Miss Molly, it’s your wedding day.”

  54

  The Very Much Anticipated Wedding Day