by Zoey Parker
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
Roger is the only one who makes an insolent attempt to smile.
“We wanted to congratulate you on your wedding, Toni.”
He holds out his hand, and I step back.
“You should go. If you don’t go, I’ll have you escorted out.”
Roger’s ironic smile falls.
“C’mon Toni, you don’t have to be like that. We’re all friends here. No need to make a scene.”
He rubs at his cheek with the back of his hand, showing an angry red circle on his palm. The angry red circle from the bullet I shot.
“I mean it,” I snap, and he scowls.
“Bitch,” he mutters under his breath before turning and leaving through the door they came in.
I exhale in relief, but the tightness in my chest is still there.
They’re gone, but what if they come back? Should I tell Gabriel?
I grab a passing lobster taco, pop it in my mouth.
No, they won't be back. And if they do come back, then I’ll get Gabe to deal with it. This place is basically packed with mafia and gang members after all; Roger and Antonio would have to be idiots to try anything.
When I turn around the room is half-empty and Patricia is bounding toward me.
I look around for some nearby hors d’oeuvres, some person, anything to use as an excuse to escape our psychotic wedding planner.
But by the time I see Gabe in the far corner talking with another Rebel Saint, it’s too late.
“Toni, we have to get all the bridegrooms and bridesmaids together ASAP, your entrance is in less than 15 minutes!”
I tear my eyes away from her neon orange nails and nod, trying to make myself look half as concerned as Patricia so clearly is.
When I glance back at her, Patricia’s mouth is still a beet red sulk that indicates nothing less than my immediate departure to search for bridal party members will be accepted.
So, I make the rounds.
Maria Fernanda and Hannah are the first I find, sitting at the bridal party table, chatting amiably. Jaws and Pip are fairly easy to find and collect too, I just take their shot glasses and they’re forced to follow me to the entrance, where we’re all waiting for our cue.
Pulse, however, is nowhere to be found.
I do another lap of the dining area, hit up both bars and, finally, when Patricia starts breathing down my neck with periodic mentions of “Five minutes left, everyone better be here,” I enlist Gabriel’s help.
“Can you call him, check the bathroom, find him?” I ask, and he sweeps away.
He returns with no Pulse and a somber expression.
“He’s vomiting in the bathroom.”
Patricia makes a face like she’s going to vomit, too.
“You’ll have to just not announce him,” I say, “Jaws can come in with Hannah instead.”
Patricia makes another face like I’ve suggested she salt, pepper, then eat her own foot, before she gives a terse nod and storms off.
Next thing I know she’s back with a microphone, declaring, “It’s go time, get in line!”
As we shuffle into our assigned order, her voice booms out over the loudspeaker, “Ok everyone! Almost time to eat but first we have to introduce those ladies and gents in the bridal party. Are you ready for this?”
The crowd inside whoops.
“Ok, first we have Maria Fernanda and Pip!”
The crowd roars and, arm in arm, they stride into the dining room.
After another minute, she says, “Next we have Hannah and Pulse!”
The crowd roars, and Jaws doesn’t move.
“My name is Jaws,” he tells her, and she throws up her orange-taloned hands.
“Jaws, Pulse, how can anyone keep track with all these freaky names – you have to go, it’s your cue.”
She flings out one orange nail in a point while Jaws stares her down. Finally, Hannah walks into the dining room alone.
“You’re ruining the wedding!” Patricia shrills.
To which Jaws grabs the microphone out of her hand and yells into it, “And next we have… JAWS!”
He tosses it behind him as he runs out, the crowd roaring its approval.
Gabriel, who thankfully caught the microphone, hands it back to Patricia with a warning glare, as if daring her to complain.
Instead, however, into the mic she shrills, “And now for the beautiful bride and groom – Toni and Gabriel!!”
Gabe and I pause, grin at each other, then go. We stride into the dining room to applause so loud I can barely hear, and lights so bright I can barely see.
Somehow, we make it to our table, where we can finally sit down in peace.
Moments after we’re seated, servers flock over, hands laden with meat-heaped plates.
And so, the feasting begins. First comes the steak, then it’s the salmon, then the chicken. I eat and eat until the pastry dish comes out. Then I pause, take a moment to absorb the scene before me.
Jaws, Gabe and I are at our own table, overlooking the gorgeous scene before us. The whole wedding planning was such a last-minute harried mess that I never really considered how the venue would look like in the end
And now, faced with it, in it, I can only smile in gratitude.
It’s beautiful. The whole room has been cast in a purple glow, while the most beautiful chandeliers I’ve ever seen in my life hang from the ceiling. They’re a collection of crystals that are in constant twirling motion, reflecting and being reflected off each other. And then there’s the flower arrangement on each table: the purple and blue perfection of roses. And yet it’s the people that are the most impressive of all, the mismatched, funnily-dressed people who, mid-meal, are talking, smiling, laughing. Happy.
I grasp Gabe’s hand, squeeze it.
This wedding is a success. We are a success.
When Gabe lifts a tiger brownie to my lips, I oblige, eat it in one gulp. Suddenly, I’m hungry again. Which is good, considering the impressive array of desserts before us: rice krispies, double chocolate brownies, butter tarts, apple tarts, donuts.
I’m halfway through my second tart, when Gabe places a cautioning hand on mine.
“Still need room for the cake, babe.”
I respond by taking another tart and declaring, “There’s always room for cake.”
He takes my hand, squeezes it.
“I love you, but be careful.”
“I’m always careful,” I say, and, when I turn to smile at him, a bullet whizzes between us.
It embeds itself into the edge of his seat. I twist back around to the dining hall entrance, where Roger and Antonio are standing, guns raised, pointed at us.
Most incredible of all is that the wedding guests are still chatting, notice nothing. Even Jaws is lost in his cream puff.
Gabriel and I dive to the floor, and more shots explode.
Now the room goes silent.
“Do you have your gun?” I hiss to Gabriel.
He shakes his head.
“Left it in the bridal party room, you?”
I shake my head, curse myself.
That’s where mine is too.
How could I have been so stupid?
The room is eerily quiet now, except for the clear tap-tap of footsteps on the floor. Nearing us.
I reach up and snatch a knife off the table. Waiting at the edge of the table, knife raised and ready, I listen to the footsteps grow closer, then closer, then stop.
“Hey, did you guys save me a meal?” Pulse asks, and looking up and seeing his tattooed face, I practically faint with relief.
“Pulse get over here,” I hiss, gesturing to him frantically, “Carlos’ men are shooting at us!”
“Huh,” he says, his only movement a rubbing of his temple, “Right. Were those the goofs I just took out now?”
I leap up and hug him, then race over to the entrance, where Roger and Antonio’s still forms are slumped, bullets in their heads.
At this very inopport
une time, who comes racing over but Patricia, her mascara-caked eyes standing out of her head, her voice a nauseating shrill, “What happened! The wedding is ruined! People can’t be killed at a wedding – the wedding is ruined! Ruined!”
“Shut-up,” I say smoothly, “Clearly you don’t know my family. You grab this guy’s legs and I’ll grab his arms.”
She gawks at me, and, gesturing to Roger’s body, I snap, “Do it.”
So, the two of us carry Roger to the bridal party room, while Gabriel and Pulse do the same to Antonio.
As we leave the bridal party room, I get face to face with Patricia.
“You wait until the wedding is over before you report this to the police. Or else.”
She responds with a quivering “Okay,” before she flees to the bathroom.
As we walk back into the dining room, Gabe pats Pulse on the back.
“Really saved the day man.”
Pulse shrugs.
“Right, I’m still pissed about that yogurt though. Shit gave me food poisoning.”
Outside the entrance, Gabriel grabs the microphone.
“Sorry about that folks. Had some problems with the entertainers, was supposed to be a murder mystery, but ended up being a murder mix-up, so just continue enjoying your meals as Toni and I cut the cake.
As we stride toward the corner where our goliath of a cake stands, I squeeze Gabriel’s hand.
“You really know how to give a convincing speech.”
We pause, listen as the murmur in the dining room slowly builds to conversation.
He shrugs, smiles.
“I’ve had a bit of practice.”
Now at the 10-layer pink and white frosted cake, Gabriel cuts me an insanely big piece.
He dismisses my protests with the explanation that, “It’s for both of us.”
Once we’re back at our table, however, Gabriel is only too happy to feed me pretty much all of it, until I’m so stuffed I can barely move.
“You know what that means,” he says with an evil smile after I flop back in my chair with a low moan.
“No, what?” I say.
I close my eyes, not really wanting to know the answer.
“That means that it’s time to dance!” he says.
A second later, music is pounding out on the dance floor and a disco ball is lowering itself overhead.
I shake my head, but now a voice is saying, “Ok, everyone, the bride and groom specifically said they wanted everyone out there for the first song, alright? So, you get on out there.”
I groan, look over at Jaws, who somehow has the microphone now, is the one responsible for this latest announcement.
“Oh noooo….” I moan.
“Oh yess…” Gabriel says, rising and extending his hand.
I have no choice but to accept his hand, and clamber onto the dance floor, where Uptown Funk is playing again.
I start out bobbing noncommittally, as my cousins sway alongside me, Opa wags his cane to the tune, and Rhonda circles around, snapping photos when she isn’t grooving herself.
But soon the music is inhabiting me once more and I’m swaying along with Gabe, shaking my hips like Hannah, throwing my hands up like Jaws and his girlfriend Tinsley, grinning like Pulse.
And soon the song and I are one, and I’m twirling through Piccolos and Rebel Saints alike and it’s all the same to me, they’re smiling and I’m smiling, they’re enjoying themselves and I’m enjoying myself, and we’re all just people having a ball.
And who would’ve thought that one song could be playing during the three greatest moments of my life and yet, here we are, Uptown Funk is booming on, and Gabe is picking me up and spinning me, and I never want him to stop – not ever- because I’m here with my friends, family and the love of my life and I can never be happier, it can never get better than this – never.
Epilogue
Gabriel
Three Months Later
I’m losing her already. We’ve only been married three months, and already she’s pulling away.
I sit here on the bottom step of our staircase and wait for my wife, like her dog.
That’s what I’ve been as good as these past few days, trotting after her with my tongue hanging out, desperate for her to dole out an explanation, the reason why she won’t tell me where’s she’s been, what she’s been holding back from me.
Toni’s been denying everything.
But not today. Today, she left the house again without explanation, still hasn’t replied to my texts, and I’m not going to take it anymore.
I sit here on my steps and stare at the door.
If things are falling apart, I want to hear it from her own lips.
The longer I sit here, however, the more restless I become.
Toni left only 20 minutes ago, am I really about to sit here for another few hours if need be?
I glare at Jane as she trots up and tilts her head at me, at the man who’s doing a better job at being a dog than she is.
I stand up.
I know where to go.
My legs take me outside. I turn to give one last admiring look at our house. Our mansion, really. Its white walls are just as Toni requested, white with rosewood doors, all the arches rounded Italian-style. Just as Toni requested. Hell, our whole life is as Toni requested: she has her own motorcycle now, we go on trips around the world every weekend – how could she be unhappy?
The answer comes back as an insidious voice in my head: Because of what you said to her a few weeks ago.
I stride to my bike, get on, start driving.
As mansions and acres of lawn flash past, I shake my head, dismiss the thought.
Just because I don’t want to have kids right away, doesn’t mean she’ll dump me on the spot.
If you’re so sure, the voice returns, then why are you heading where you’re heading?
Shut-up, I tell the voice, and it does. It burrows into a churning into my stomach, that only worsens when I pull up to Babylon, our old bar.
I stop in front of it, a weird twist of nostalgia in my chest as I stare at it. Where I met her. Where it all began. Where I have to go to find out.
Toni wouldn’t have done… that, would she?
I stride in before the answer can come.
The place is just as I remembered: black floor and walls, a strange Christmas-tree shaped light fixture on the wall, a handful of hip, chill-looking people.
It’s fitting that it’s Jake behind the bar. He smiles as I come up.
“It’s been a while.”
I nod.
“Has Toni been here lately?”
The easy smile on his face slides off.
“You’re not still on about that one, man, right? I told you…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, just – has she?”
He won’t meet my gaze, says “Yes,” and I collapse onto a bar stool.
“When?” I ask.
“Yesterday,” he says.
“Two Jack Daniel’s,” I say.
“Ok,” he says.
The first one is a gulp, the second merely an inhalation.
“Another whiskey,” I tell him.
When he slides the cup of brown deliverance over to me, I don’t take it, I ask, “Did she leave with anyone?”
Jake shakes his head, turns away.
“I’m not doing this, man.”
I stand up.
“Please, this is important.”
I down the whiskey, but when I lower the glass, he’s over at the other end of the bar, talking to a big-bearded customer.
Already I’m feeling it, the effects of the whiskey. My gaze slides around this beloved hated bar once more, stops on the blonde sitting on the stool beside me. She’s eyeing me like she’d like to help take my mind off my Toni problem.
I head to the other side of the bar, to Jake.
“Another Jack Daniel’s,” I say.
When he returns, I grab his hand, say, “Please man, it’s important.”
/> He rips his hand away, and, before he turns away, says, “Yes. She left with a tall man.”