Shadows and Lies

by Karen Reis

  Horrifyingly, I felt tears in my eyes as I watched Genny walk towards her future. I didn’t dare wipe my eyes – I was made up like a china doll – so I just blinked the tears away. I wished with all my heart that Sean could have been there in that moment, to see his friends, to see me, to experience this. I wanted to share it with him so badly. The pain of his absence made me want to double over like someone had punched me in the gut, but I didn’t want to ruin my friends’ wedding, so I forced myself to stop thinking of him and I just focused on the minister as he started to speak.

  Isaac and Genny looked from him to each other and then back again. I didn’t listen to what the minister was saying for long. My mind veered off on another tangent again, and I got lost in my own memories, remembering the first wedding I’d ever gone to.

  I was four years old when my dad married Nancy. I don’t remember much, but I do remember that I’d had on a new pink dress, new to me that is, and that Nancy’s dress was a pale, pale green. It had been warm and sunny outside and I was so happy to be getting a mommy. Nancy had looked happy. My dad and my sisters had looked happy, too. I don’t have any memory of when things began to become unhappy in our family.

  “Would the ring bearers please step forward?”

  I had no idea how long I’d been in la-la-land, but I snapped out of it efficiently and handed over Isaac’s ring to Genny without missing a beat. Or so I hoped. I refocused on the wedding of the present.

  “Isaac,” the minister said, “Repeat after me, please.”

  Isaac repeated his vows, enunciating every word carefully so all in the chapel could hear and understand him. “Before God and these witnesses…I, Isaac Gebremichael…take you, Genève Viola Carter…to be my lawfully wedded wife…and I vow to be your loving and faithful husband…in plenty and in want…in joy and in sorrow…in sickness and in health…as long as we both shall live.”

  Genny spoke her vows in a choked up voice, which made me want to cry because that’s just what I do when someone else cries. I call it sympathy weeping. Rings were slid onto the proper fingers, and the minister pronounced them husband and wife. Isaac kissed Genny passionately, and she gripped his shoulders and kissed him right back, heedless of their clapping and cheering audience. Genny’s mom was crying and clapping at the same time, smacking her hands together so hard that the fresh flowers on the brim of her hat flopped around enthusiastically as if they were happy too. Finally, Isaac and Genny came up for air and retreated down the aisle and out of the chapel. Paul and I and all the rest of the wedding party followed Genny and Isaac out to a private garden where posed pictures would be taken while the wedding guests began filing into the reception hall that adjoined the chapel.

  Genny’s photographer was an absolute Nazi. He also wore a toupee. He’d taken plenty of candid shots before and during the wedding without a fuss, but he was more than a little anal about poses, wanting us to smile just so and tilt our heads ‘just a little bit more to the left’. Just when I felt that my neck was going to snap off from being tilted so far, he declared himself satisfied, took the shots, and the wedding planner took over once more.

  I don’t think I’d ever been more delighted to see Fran. At least she didn’t make me pose.

  “Alright,” she said, clapping her hands together to get our attention as if we were five year olds out on our first field trip. “We’re going to enter the reception hall and form a receiving line on the south wall. From there you’ll head to your seats, where you’ll be served dinner. The formal dances come after that, and then the Cake Cutting. All of you in the wedding party,” and she looked pointedly, it seemed, at me, “Make sure that you make yourselves available for the photographer. After the cake cutting, you can relax and enjoy yourselves until it’s time for the bride and groom to leave.”

  “I think Fran hates me,” I grumbled softly to Paul as we all moved to do her bidding.

  Paul smiled. “I think she’s just trying to make sure everything is perfect for Genny and Isaac.”

  “She keeps giving me the dirtiest looks,” I insisted. “I think she thinks I’m an idiot or something.”

  Paul nodded amiably. “Maybe she knows something we don’t.”

  I gasped and laughed and gave Paul a playful slap on the arm. “That’s a horrible thing to say,” I said. But it felt so good to laugh, too.”

  “You’re right,” Paul agreed. “Besides, I was lying, so stop worrying about it.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  We walked into the reception hall arm in arm and we stood beside the south wall to accept well-wishers congratulations and messages of goodwill. I couldn’t quite figure out what people were supposed to say to us in the wedding party though, since we weren’t the guests of honor. We were window dressings, I decided, and nothing more important. What could they say to us besides how nice they thought we looked, and “gee, but we’re really having fun.”

  I glanced at the photographer, who was back taking candid shots of people hugging the bride and groom. I sighed and said to Paul, raising my voice to be heard over the din, “My only real consolation to the rest of this affair is the cake. It’s supposed to be a pumpkin cheesecake.”

  That was when Quinn, who was standing to my left, decided to open his mouth. “You might want to rethink that cheesecake, Carrie,” he said as more people moved past us. “It’s high in calories and fat and white women like yourself need to watch how much sugar they eat. You tend to gain weight easily and you don’t carry it as well as black women do. They look statuesque, like Genny. You’ll just get chunky cellulite.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said, turning to stare at him in horror. “What rock did you crawl out from? And how dare you say that about Genny?”

  “It’s a fact, plain and simple,” Quinn said.

  “You know, Quinn,” I said hotly, my ire rising rather more quickly than was usual. “Someday some woman is going to kick you in your balls. The sad thing is that you’ll probably just think she’s just PMSing and not learn one single thing from the experience.”

  “Humph,” Quinn replied haughtily. “Like I’d ever let a woman kick me in my balls.”

  I looked Quinn up and down. “It’s more likely a woman would never want to get that close to you, Mr. Giant Beer Gut. Looks like you’ll be missing out on the cake too.”

  “You shouldn’t get hysterical, Carrie,” Quinn said smugly. God, he was actually smirking at me, the twit. “It puts strain on you, and we all know that stress causes wrinkles – something else that white women don’t look good with.”

  I knew he was purposefully goading me, but I couldn’t help myself. Before I could think about what I was doing, I had raised my fist. Thankfully, before I could commit a crime that Quinn could sue me over, Paul grabbed my wrist and quickly switched places with me, putting me next to Genny.

  “Quinn, stop baiting her or I’ll shove my own fist down your throat,” he said sternly. I hadn’t ever pictured Paul as being menacing before, but he did a good job of it at that moment, and Quinn settled down.

  Finally, people stopped coming by to say hello and thank you, and we made our way over to the head table. I minced along, since by then my feet were starting to kill me in the high heels Genny had forced me to wear. “These shoes are horrible,” I complained once I was down in my chair at the dinner table, and I kicked them off.

  “That’s another thing that I don’t understand about women,” Quinn said as he sat down next to Paul. “Fashion. You women are always squeezing yourselves into impossible attire that ruins your bodies.”

  I tried to ignore him, but he just wouldn’t shut up. “For instance, I know for a fact that you’re wearing a body shaper under your dress because I’ve seen you in your everyday clothes and you’re not that – OW!”

  Paul was doing something painful to Quinn under the table. At that moment I hoped that he was breaking his fingers because my feelings were definitely hurt. I could feel my face get hot, and to make things worse, everyone at the table had h
eard what Quinn had said.

  Isaac turned to his friend and said mildly and clearly, “You may leave the table Quinn.”

  “Why would I do that?” he asked. Unbelievably, he seemed to be bewildered by that request.

  “Because you’re a prick,” Genny snapped. “Fran?” she signaled and the bossy wedding coordinator hustled over. “Quinn will be eating at the children’s table, okay?”

  Quinn sputtered as Fran removed his place setting and hustled away. “What the devil for?” he asked indignantly.

  Genny smiled at him. “Because the children’s table is where the juveniles sit.”

  Quinn didn’t look like he was going to move a muscle from the table, but Paul did something else to him under the table and Quinn yelped again. “Alright, I’m going. Geeze! I just made one little observation…”

  Quinn stomped off and Isaac apologized. “I’m sorr’ he say such thin’ t’ you. I’d d’mand he ‘pol’gize, bu’ it wou’ be mean’less. I’m ‘shamed tha’ a frien’ o’ mine ha’ treat’ you so badly.”

  I nodded, and looked away. Everyone started talking then, about Quinn, about the wedding, and most importantly, about when the food would come.

  “You okay?” Paul asked me.

  I nodded. “What were you doing to him under the tablecloth?”

  Paul shrugged diffidently. “Just being persuasive.”

  “How mysterious,” I said, making myself make a joke.

  “You probably won’t believe this, but he’s usually not such a huge prick. I don’t know why he tends to act this way when you’re around, but don’t pay any attention to him. He’s a blind fool. You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I said, touched. “I am wearing a body shaper though, a corset. It came with the dress, and Genny insisted. She thinks that all women should wear them at least once in their lives just to know what women’s suffrage was really all about.”

  That made Paul laugh. “She would think that. My Debbie is just the opposite. We got married on a beach in Hawaii. I wore cotton pants and a polo shirt, and she wore a flowing white sun dress with no bra,” he said and smiled at the memory. “She had flowers in her hair and a golden tan. She looked like a sea goddess.” His eyes focused back on me. “She’s still not too keen on wearing bras, and you’d never in a million years get her into a corset. Oh, look, they’re coming with the food.”

  “Finally,” I said, my stomach growling. After weeks of eating little and sleeping lots, I was ready to chow down. I didn’t realize it then, but getting out of the house and around people who were my friends, and doing something happy like attending a wedding, was lifting my spirits and putting me on the path to mental wellbeing.

  We were served an eight course meal, the first of my life, and probably my last. Everything was delicious, except for the cheese course. My stomach didn’t appreciate the Brie, and it took me several moments of deep breathing with my face away from the cheese to get my stomach under control. The last thing I wanted to do at my friend’s wedding was puke all over the table. Actually, that was the last thing I wanted to do anywhere. Paul of course asked me if I was alright, and I waved him away, telling him it was alright, I just didn’t like Brie. The main course featured a small piece of smoked haddock with mushrooms. I hate mushrooms, at least cooked ones. I felt horrible about leaving them on my plate, but I was afraid that if I did try to eat them, I really would hurl.

  After dinner there was the requisite Bride and Groom dance; Genny and Isaac looked so in love and happy as they glided across the dance floor. Then we did the Wedding Party waltz. I had had to dance with the new guy Todd for the last class we’d had with Senora Valdez. Todd had two left feet and had left mine bruised. I danced with Paul at the wedding though, and he was smooth and my feet remained un-stepped upon during the entire waltz. I felt bad for Todd’s partner, but I wouldn’t have traded Paul for the world.

  Unless I could have traded him for Sean.

  The waltz ended and Paul went to go find Debbie. I sat down gratefully in a chair at some random table and just watched as other couples filled the floor and danced to Elvis’ Fools Rush In. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had been a fool, falling in love with Sean so quickly and telling him that I would be okay living his life. I thought about that hard, my hands under my chin as I stared off into space. I didn’t know the answer though. Part of me screamed YES! Carrie you are a HUGE fool. But another part said no, and the rest of me was just confused.

  Sean had wanted me, and I had wanted to be wanted. His life was unpredictable and he was in a certain amount of danger. Someone older and wiser, if I had bothered to tell such a person about what was going on, would have likely told me that yes, I had been a fool. On top of all that, I had only known him for a month. Can you truly learn to love a person enough in the space of one month that you could responsibly say that yes, he is worth leaving everything in your life behind for? At the time I had thought yes, but now I was pregnant and alone. I had jumped in bed with Sean without being really prepared for that eventuality. I hadn’t protected myself with anything besides a condom that had sat in Sean’s bathroom drawer for who knows how long.

  I rubbed my forehead and sighed. I was a big fat fool, I decided. I shouldn’t have slept with him, I thought. I should have just left him alone. I should have never have gotten to know him. I should have just continued to eye him from across the parking lot like he was some sort of criminal. It was really all Genny’s fault. I wouldn’t have accepted Sean into my life and heart so readily if Genny hadn’t encouraged me, if she hadn’t painted him in such a good light. But then, I thought, it hadn’t helped that at the engagement party he had treated me with such interest and kindness. And he had been dressed so handsomely.

  So maybe it was nobody’s fault. Or maybe we were all just a bunch of fools. Either way, Sean was gone, I was pregnant, and I was going to have to decide what to do about it soon. That thought send a freezing chill down my spine. Should I have an abortion? Or should I keep it?

  The thought of making that kind of decision made me want to cry in desperation, but it was time to cut the cake and I was needed for a photograph, so I stood up, put a smile on my face, and then at the first opportunity buried my face in a big piece of cheesecake.

  As soon as Genny and Isaac left for their hotel room, I left for home. I wasn’t prepared to make a decision about what to do with my pregnancy, so I went home and dug into my secret stash of fancy chocolates and had a binge. I felt horrible about myself afterwards and fell asleep in my dress. I woke up to the sound of my blaring alarm clock feeling even more horrible than when I’d gone to sleep, but this time in body more than in spirit. I sat up and found out fast that I hadn’t taken my corset off, and let me tell that they were never, in any century, meant to be slept in. I pried myself out of my dress and went into work – I had not been in for the last two weeks on the excuse that I had PTSD and needed a vacation. Now I needed to be distracted from my life.

  While there, I checked my email for the first time in two weeks. There was a bunch of spam mostly from some travel agency telling me that I needed to visit Seattle and see the sights. A picture of the Pike Place Market looked mildly interesting, but I wasn’t even tempted. I deleted every ad.

  There were a couple of emails from Barbara too, whom I hadn’t even thought about in two weeks. Her first email was in reply to my own. She was very understanding of my position and said that even though she knew that Nancy had raised me and had been there for me, she would at the very least like to be my friend too. Ironically, she signed off with Love, Your Mom, but I didn’t take offense. In her second email, which she sent the next day, she wrote about herself, telling me her likes, her dislikes, her hobbies, and what her job was like. She hadn’t sent me anything else; apparently she was waiting for me to get back to her. I was grateful that she hadn’t inundated my email like a stalker, but I also felt bad for not getting back to her sooner.

  Hello Barbara, I wrote immediately.

&
nbsp; Sorry I haven’t written back. I’ve been dealing with some bad news that hit me soon after I sent you my first email. There’s nothing you should worry about – it wasn’t life or death kind of bad news – just personal stuff, you know. I have some big decisions to make, the kind that can weigh on your soul and affect the rest of your life. I’m only 21, and I think I’m growing up. I can imagine that you know what I’m feeling. You made some decisions that affected you – that will continue to affect you – for the rest of your life. I think I can sympathize though. Sometimes in life we make bad choices, and sometimes we think that there is no choice when there really is, and sometimes we make choices despite our better judgment, or the better judgment of others. Sometimes we do things that we know aren’t smart or wise, but we do them because we want to feel, and we want to love, and we want to feel loved in return.

  I would like to know what went on between you and dad. I want to know why you broke up, why you got a divorce, and why you cheated on him. I want to know, not to condemn you, but because I think we might have a lot in common.

  Carrie Vitagliano

  I sent the email, and then instantly regretted it. I had said too much to a stranger, and I didn’t want Barbara getting involved in my life too quickly. But what was done was done, and even though a part of me said, “stupid, stupid, you shouldn’t have said those things to her”, another part of me felt like she was only one who could possibly help me through my dilemma now, because like I said, she had made life altering decisions before. Maybe she could give me some sort of guidance, or wisdom, or anything. The fact that she was a virtual stranger I found, after I thought about it for a while, could be a bonus. I thought that perhaps she would judge me less, that I would disappoint her less, than I would Judy or Nancy or my father, as I surely would when the truth of my situation finally came into public light.

  Dear Dad,

  Do you know that when I thought about the hypothetical man that I would eventually marry, I wanted him to be the opposite of you? I wanted him to have a steady job, I wanted him to be able to communicate as a man, and I wanted him to spend time with me, to show me that he loved me by taking care of me. I wanted a man who didn’t just want someone to cook and clean for him and raise his children for him, but I wanted a friend and a partner. I wanted someone I could I respect.