Days That End in Y

by Vikki VanSickle

  I take three pancakes and three slices of bacon and cover the whole thing in maple syrup, making Mom groan.

  “How can you eat that? I think I’m going to be sick,” she scolds.

  Denise ignores her, helping herself to the syrup. “It’s important to eat a big breakfast the day of a wedding. I can’t tell you how many brides run around all day not eating, and then feel faint by the time the dancing starts.”

  “First of all, this is a quiet, simple, backyard affair, and second of all, there probably won’t be any dancing.”

  Denise looks hurt. “No dancing at a wedding? Impossible!”

  “It’s not that kind of wedding.”

  “We’ll see, won’t we, Clarissa?” Denise looks slyly at me over a forkful of eggs. “Maybe you’ll want to dance with your man?”

  Now Mom is looking at me, too. “Michael?”

  I nod, strategically stuffing my face with pancakes so I don’t have to answer.

  After we eat, we go to the Hair Emporium to beautify. Denise pulls out her arsenal of makeup products, and Mom picks out three hairstyles for me to choose from. All three are complicated up-dos that are far more elegant than anything I’ve ever had done to my hair. On the counter, Mom has laid out a silver chain with a single pearl strung on it and a matching pair of pearl earrings.

  “Any one of those styles will look great with the jewellery,” she says. “And your dress, of course.”

  Despite the heat, the pearls feel cool and solid under my fingers, as if they’ve kept a little bit of that deep-sea chill of the ocean inside them. They’re beautiful but not fussy. Maybe I’ll start wearing earrings more often.

  Mom does Denise’s hair first, wrapping it in hot rollers, and then sitting her under the dryer so the curls can set. That’s how dedicated Denise is to beauty: she’s willing to sit under a hot dryer for twenty minutes in the sticky, soggy heat of August. She flips through a magazine while she waits, occasionally sharing the interesting bits with us. She has to yell over the drone of the dryer.

  Mom pats the seat of the styling chair. “Your turn, baby.”

  I hold my own magazine in my lap, featuring my sophisticated-yet-simple hairdo of choice. Mom peers over my shoulder, memorizing the style.

  “Perfect. Now head down, eyes closed.”

  I do as she says, and she works her fingers into my hair, kneading my scalp and the muscles at the back of my neck, until everything feels loose and tingly. Her fingers never get tangled in my hair, and her nails never once dig too sharply into my skin. Ten minutes or a whole day passes, I have no idea. Time gets wonky when you’re in Annie Delaney’s magic hands.

  “All done. Head up, please.”

  I open my eyes to see Mom smiling at me in the mirror. I smile back.

  “Hello, beautiful,” she says. I could say the same to her. She is, and will probably always be, the most beautiful person I know. But now when I look at her, I don’t just see the Dairy Queen or a stylist, or even my mom. I see a person with a past and secrets and feelings and thoughts that I will never know. She’s not perfect or untouchable; she’s just a person, like me. But she is the most important person in the whole world. I smile back at her.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  ***

  Eighteen people turn up ready for a barbeque, bringing homemade salads, extra beer, chips and dip, even a whole watermelon. My job is to make sure that all the food makes its way to the card tables Doug set up side by side and draped in a tablecloth we never use. People laugh and talk, happy to be out in the sun socializing on a Sunday afternoon.

  Everyone wants to know where Mom is.

  “She’ll be out soon,” I promise.

  When Mattie arrives, she takes one look at my dress and her eyes grow three sizes. “Oh my gosh,” she says. “Look at you! Are those pearls real?”

  I’m so relieved to see her that I break with our tradition — this time, I’m the one that hugs her.

  “I missed you,” I say. She’s wearing a cute sundress that is surprisingly lacking in bows, ruffles or lace. It’s yellow, which makes her tan look even more impressive.

  “What happened with you-know-who?” Mattie whispers. “I’m dying to know!”

  “It’s a long story,” I say.

  “A good one?” she asks hopefully.

  “I’ll tell you later. You look really sophisticated,” I say. Then I catch sight of the seven or eight friendship bracelets she has on her right arm. “Well, except for those.”

  “One of these is for you.” Mattie unknots a bracelet made with black and hot pink thread and ties it around my wrist. It feels soft and a bit warm from her skin.

  “Thanks!”

  Mattie beams and hugs me again. “You’re welcome!”

  I wonder how things would have turned out if Mattie had been here this week. Maybe she would have stopped me from heading to the Lilac Motel, or maybe she would have come with me and given Bill a piece of her mind. Whatever the outcome, I know she always has my back. Anyway, there isn’t much point thinking about it. You can’t change the past.

  “Where’s Benji? What has he been up to all summer? He said he was going to write, but I never got a single letter!”

  Benji hasn’t arrived yet. It’s the one soft spot in a perfect apple of a day. I don’t understand where he could be. There is no way he forgot, and even if he did, he lives right next door. Surely he can hear all the people milling about in our backyard.

  “He’s not here yet.”

  “And Michael?”

  “He’s filling a plate.”

  We both turn to look at the food table, where Michael is struggling to balance his already full plate with one hand and scoop potato salad with the other. The tips of his ears are bright red. I guess he didn’t listen to his mother’s lecture on sunburned ears.

  “Are you guys official?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s not very convincing. If you were official, you wouldn’t have to think about it.”

  I’m not in the mood to dissect Michael’s behaviour, so I excuse myself to go check in with Doug. I have to stand around and pretend to laugh with his gym buddies until he can step away for a second. We haven’t spoken about the time he gave me heck for letting his dog pee on the floor. But after yesterday’s heart-to-heart, if he’s okay with letting it go, then so am I.

  “How do I look?” Doug asks. He’s wearing khaki pants and a white shirt and smells like aftershave — but the nice kind, not the horrible cheap stuff that teenagers wear. I had no idea he owned such nice things. I only ever see him in gym clothes and jeans.

  “Handsome,” I say.

  Doug smiles. “And you look gorgeous.”

  “Are you ready?” I ask.

  Doug pats his breast pocket, where he’s stashed the ring.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “I’ll go get her.”

  By 3:15 everyone but Benji has arrived. I can’t believe that whatever is happening between Benji and me is so bad that he would miss my mother’s wedding, but I can’t stall any longer. When I get a chance, I slip inside and go get Mom and Denise, who are waiting patiently in the Hair Emporium.

  Even though I spent hours with them getting ready this morning, the sight of them dressed up still catches me off guard.

  “Everyone’s here,” I say.

  Denise squeals a little and fusses over the chain of Mom’s necklace. “This is it.”

  They both giggle, and I feel like I’m looking back through time, catching a glimpse of them as giddy teenagers. Denise attempts to fluff out Mom’s skirt, even though there is no bustle and it’s pretty tapered, so there isn’t much to fluff.

  Denise does a little bow. “After you, Annie.”

  After they both check their lip gloss one final time, we walk up the stairs, single file, me in the lead. I tell them to wait in the kitchen, out of sight, while I go let the officiant know we’re ready. It’s actually my mom’s client Jen, who is licensed to marry people. I fin
d her loitering on the porch, close to the screen door, waiting for my signal.

  I wait for her to turn and see me, then I give her two thumbs up.

  She returns the signal, gives me a wink and then taps a fork against her wineglass.

  “Excuse me, excuse me. If I could grab your attention for a minute.”

  Gradually people stop talking and turn to look at her.

  “Annie and Doug have asked me here today to join them in marriage.”

  Everyone cheers, and Doug’s friends turn to him in shock, one of them roughing his hair up. Cripes. Didn’t he hear the part about the wedding? Maybe now is not the best time to muss up your friend’s — the groom’s — hair.

  “If I could ask you all to move to the side and clear a path, our bride and groom will join us.”

  Everyone is happy to oblige, and Jen walks down the porch stairs and across the backyard to the maple tree, the one I planted as a scrawny seedling when I was five. Not so long ago, it was barely a twig, thinner than a pencil with one tiny shoot. It’s still not very big, but it’s definitely a tree now, with branches and leaves and everything. It seems right that the wedding will take place under that tree, which is just as much a part of the Delaney women’s history as anything else.

  Once Jen takes her place by the tree, Doug follows, to many cheers and whistles. He turns and looks at the screen door expectantly.

  “And now, the bride,” says Jen.

  Mom and I argued about music ever since she set the date. I know she wanted to be relaxed and non-traditional, but if you’re going to walk down an aisle, even an imaginary one in your backyard, shouldn’t there be music? I even made her a playlist of all the songs she could use, nothing too sappy or formal, just pretty songs by bands that she and Doug liked. And every time she said no.

  So you can imagine how surprised I am when Benji steps out from the crowd, walks to the maple tree and starts to sing.

  The song is “In My Life,” by the Beatles, which was totally on my list. I’m not what you call an oldies fan, but I know both Doug and my mom like the Beatles. Plus the song is about remembering the past but looking forward to the future — perfect for a wedding, if I do say so myself.

  Just before she leaves the kitchen, Mom turns to me, winks and mouths, “Surprise!” Then she heads out into the backyard.

  Denise and I follow a few steps behind, Denise smiling away and waving, like she’s on the back of a float, and me staring at Benji, trying to swallow the great lump in my throat. As he sings, any lingering hurt or anger is washed away by a great wave of love. Maybe we don’t spend every minute together anymore, and maybe we will disagree on things like coolers, but those mean nothing in the long run. I wish I could apologize right now, but instead I just smile at him and hope he can read my mind.

  Once we get to the tree, Mom turns to hug us, as does Doug, then Denise and I both stand off to the side. “In My Life” ends, and Benji disappears into the crowd, Mom blowing him a kiss and Doug giving him a salute.

  The ceremony is quick, maybe ten minutes. When Jen asks Doug to repeat after her, and then launches into “I, Douglas, take you, Annette,” I get a weird urge to laugh. Watching my mom and Doug go through the steps of getting married, a ritual I’ve seen a hundred times on TV or in the movies, feels unreal.

  When it’s over, Jen turns the music back on, and everyone springs to life. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the guests all seem brighter, more energetic, as if the wedding recharged them. The couples are standing closer together, stealing wistful glances at each other, and even the people who aren’t paired off are more relaxed, laughing, helping themselves to more food.

  I feel lighter than I have all week, as if the wedding flipped a big switch and light flooded my whole body, blasting away all the weird shadows, cobwebs and creepy things of the past few days. It’s so easy to dwell on the bad stuff that sometimes you forget how good it feels to let it all go and move on.

  It is in this supremely calm and wise state that I approach Michael, who is balancing two paper plates of food near the picnic tables.

  “One of these is for you,” he says. “The one with the plain hotdog.”

  “You remembered I don’t like condiments.”

  “Except mayo. But there wasn’t any, so it’s plain. Sorry.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  Any uncertainty about whether or not Michael and I should be official is gone. He knows how I like my hotdogs! That has to mean something.

  “Michael, we’re about to start high school.”

  “I know, in a week. Crazy!”

  “And there is something I want to be sure about, you know, before we start.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are we … together?”

  Michael’s face turns pink, matching the tops of his ears, and my perfect mood wavers a little. Part of me wants to take it back, laugh and shout, “Just kidding,” before things get even more awkward. Then we could go back to the way we were, which was fine. But a bigger part of me — the part that has learned that even if it hurts, the truth is better — forges on. “I know you said you weren’t looking to date anyone for a while, and after The Dairy Bar Incident, I won’t blame you if you say no. But I like you, and I thought you should know.”

  My cheeks may be burning, and I’m pretty sure my voice is higher than normal, but I feel great. Like an adult.

  “Um, yeah, okay. I mean, if you want to.”

  That sounds positive, but I need to be absolutely sure. “Yes?”

  Michael smiles his crooked smile that I love so much. “Yes. I mean, I sort of figured we were dating already …”

  “Hey there, party people, am I interrupting?”

  Charity flounces up beside us, wearing something black, pink and polka-dotted that looks more like a costume than a dress.

  “What is that?” I ask, trying to sound more curious and less disgusted.

  She does a twirl and poses. “You like? It’s an old prom dress I found in the costume department at the theatre. So vintage, right?”

  I laugh. “Only you could pull that off.”

  Charity leans forward and kisses the air beside my cheeks, one at a time. “Thank you, daaaahling. It’s sweet of you to say.”

  “Michael, this is Charity. You might remember her from the play Benji was in. She was Dorothy.”

  “Wasn’t your hair brown then?” Michael asks.

  “It was a wig,” Charity explains.

  “You look like the girl from the Tim Hortons commercials, the—”

  Charity cuts in, “The ‘Roll up the Rim’ ones? Yes, I am that same girl.” She looks a little sheepish, but she covers it up by doing an exaggerated curtsy. I used to think she was stuck-up and full of herself, but it turns out Charity finds those commercials just as lame as everyone else does. For her, commercials are just a means to an end, cheesy but necessary pit-stops on the way to her goal of being a serious actress.

  “And who might you be? Are you the famous baseball player Clarissa was telling me about?”

  Now Michael is the one blushing, but in a pleased way.

  “Yes, this is Michael,” I hesitate, then add, “my boyfriend.”

  Michael sticks his hand out, and Charity shakes it, looking amused. “Why so formal? This is a wedding; give me a hug!” she cries, and pulls him into her arms. Over his shoulder, Charity winks.

  As Michael and Charity chat, I scan the crowd for Benji. I want to apologize and tell him how wonderful his singing was.

  “Dean! Over here!”

  Charity has jumped up and is waving at the driveway, where Dean is peering over the fence, wearing enormous sunglasses, looking a little lost.

  “I invited him to come. I didn’t know it would be a private wedding. Is that okay?”

  “Sure,” I say. “So, you and Dean?”

  Charity smiles, as satisfied as a cat. “Yeah. At least until he has to go back to school. Long distance never really works.”

  As Dean makes his way o
ver, I spot someone darting through the kitchen door and into the house, quick and sneaky, like he doesn’t want to be seen.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say.

  Then I follow Benji into the house.

  DAY OF TRUTH

  I find him downstairs in the Hair Emporium, lights off, fan on low, sitting in a stylist’s chair with his knees pulled up and his face wedged between them.

  “Benji?”

  When he looks up, his face is blotchy red and wet with tears. “Please leave me alone.” His voice is hot and tight, like a slap. I’m not used to hearing anything other than sweetness in his voice. Part of me wants to turn on my heel and do just as he says: leave him alone. But that’s not what friends do. It’s definitely not what Benji would do, so I force myself to stay.

  “I don’t want to. You’re upset, and besides, this is my house, you can’t kick me out.”

  Even that little bit of humour doesn’t work. Benji buries his head back between his knees and moans, “Please, please just leave me alone.”

  I creep toward him and sit on the chair next to him, not making any sudden movements, as if Benji is a cat about to dart. “You were really good today, Benji. So, so good.” I raise my hand, as if to pat his shoulder, but part of me knows he doesn’t want to be touched, so I hover there for a bit before I’m able to say, “I think I know what this is about.”

  Benji’s head snaps up so quickly that I’m taken aback. “You do?”

  I say the next bit as gently as I can, knowing firsthand how much words can sting, “Charity and Dean.”

  Benji doesn’t say anything, just keeps himself as still as possible, as if he is physically holding himself together. So I continue, “You know I like Charity and everything, but if you ask me, she’d be a high-maintenance girlfriend. Maybe she’s better as just a friend.”

  Benji is still mute. I’m not good at consoling people. I feel all the right things, but I just can’t translate them into the words that make things better.

  “Besides, I thought you liked Dean.”

  “I do.”

  “And you like Charity.”

  “She’s one of my best friends,” Benji sniffs. “After you, of course.”