by Ciara Smyth
“The dementia. It could happen to me too. There’s a good chance that it will.”
Ruby’s face changed from impassive to stricken, for just a second. Then she composed herself.
“Saoirse, that’s . . . I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK. And you don’t have to pretend that you’re not freaked out.”
“I’m a little freaked out.”
“Me too,” I said. I didn’t say anything else. I wanted to give her a second to let it sink in.
After a minute she turned, hitching one leg up onto the bench and facing me.
“If I thought the same thing would happen to me, maybe I wouldn’t want to be serious with someone either. Maybe everything would seem pointless.”
It was soothing to hear the words out loud that had been banging around in my head for so long, even if they didn’t tell the full story anymore.
“It scares the life out of me. Literally, I’m avoiding having a normal life because I’m afraid of it all being taken away. And I really have to work on that. But I was so wrong about love, about us. Just because something doesn’t last forever doesn’t mean it isn’t meaningful. I got it ass backwards,” I said.
Ruby smothered a smile.
“It’s the relationships without meaning that aren’t worth my time,” I said.
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, you’re right, I need to get over myself.”
Ruby laughed. “I didn’t have all the facts when I said that,” she protested.
“You were still right. I probably need some kind of therapy. I still have no idea what’s going to happen in the future,” I said. “I do know that right now we have about ten days left before you leave and I want to spend every one with you. I want you to come to my dad’s wedding. And I really want to cry and not shower and not sleep and not eat and be miserable when we break up. If that’s OK with you?”
Ruby leaned in and kissed me. A big movie kiss that should have had swelling music and soft lighting and a torrential downpour. But it happened in a garden, in broad daylight, and then Oliver turned the hose on us.
“Does that count as kissing in the rain?” Ruby asked.
“Let’s debate that after we murder him.”
36.
“Can you come in here?” Beth’s high-pitched voice called out as I passed by the room. I popped my head in and saw her face peeking out from behind a changing screen.
“I found the favors; they were at reception for some reason. I have to put them on the tables and I’m covered in feckin’ glitter,” I said, surveying the room with as nonjudgmental an expression as I could muster.
It had been elegant when we arrived that morning, white with gold accents and French furniture. It still had the gold accents and French furniture, but it now looked like the wreckage of a terrible bridal catastrophe. A flower girl’s dress was lying on the floor, an obvious chocolate stain rendering it useless; makeup littered every surface; a breakfast tray had toppled over on the bed and there were bright jammy smushes on the white linen. And yet Beth didn’t seem perturbed by any of this. Something else was wrong.
“Forget the favors. I need you. Close the door.”
Forget the favors? I’d spent an hour looking for those bloody little bags. Nevertheless, I stepped fully into the room and closed the door. Beth emerged from behind the screen. She was wearing sweatpants and a tank top that also had jam on it. Above the neck she was made up like a princess and she had a dozen tiny silver stars dotted through her curls.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” I asked, a note of panic finding its way into my voice too. Was she going to make a run for it? I mean, I know I hadn’t really been fully behind this marriage, nor had I really bet on it lasting, but I hadn’t even considered the possibility that they wouldn’t make it to the ceremony. Dad was going to be devastated.
Beth burst into tears.
“Uh . . . OK.” I scrambled over the debris to Beth. “Look, if you want to escape, I mean, I’m not saying it’s OK exactly, Dad will be really upset, but you shouldn’t marry someone unless you’re sure. Should I go find your aunt or do you want me to hoist you out the window?”
Beth’s aunt was downstairs in the bar, her tights balled up on the table beside her, and she was telling anyone who’d listen the most embarrassing stories about Beth. She had old-school hippie vibes and I liked her a lot even though I’d only met her a couple of days ago. I didn’t really think she’d be much help in this situation, though. Still, wedding panic seemed like a job for family. I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like if I got married. Who would talk me down off the ledge, or tie the sheets together so I could climb out the window? I shook myself, realizing I’d obviously just go through the door. I’d watched too many romantic comedies. It was affecting my brain.
Beth laughed through her tears.
“Whatever you do, do not get my aunt,” she said, one hand clutching her heart, the other stretched out in a firm stop sign, “and I’m not running away!”
“Thank God. I really did not want to have that conversation with Dad.” I plopped myself down on the bed. “Whatever it is it can’t be that bad.”
“I don’t fit into the dress.”
“Oh.” I stood up again.
Beth and I locked eyes and hers began to fill, threatening another tantrum. In that moment I realized I was the only grown-up right now. The stress of planning a wedding in under three months had made sensible Beth turn into some kind of useless woman-baby.
“Right.” I clapped my hands together. “We’re going to try it on again. Maybe something was just catching. It was made to measure, right?”
“Six weeks ago,” Beth wailed, flopping into a chair as I picked up the gown.
“Get up,” I said, adopting the kind of tone you use to corral children or puppies.
Dragging her heels, Beth shuffled over to me and stepped into the dress, holding her breath. She closed her eyes tight and hitched the straps over her shoulders. I buttoned the tiny buttons at the base of her back and shook my head.
“This fits fine,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yes. Who was doing it up before? They obviously did something wrong.”
“Sarah,” she said, her voice quaking slightly less than before.
“The flower girl? Honestly, Beth, you asked an eight—”
I was halfway through the row of buttons and the fabric was getting tighter. I pulled on both sides, stretching them to try to get them to fit together. Beth froze.
“No. Now don’t panic, hold on. It’s. Not. That. Tight.” I tugged on the fabric, determined to get the last six buttons to close.
Beth pulled away and launched herself face-first onto the bed, narrowly avoiding the breakfast tray. Into the pillow she let out a muffled cry of, “Why, God, why me?”
I gingerly extracted the tray and covered the jam stain on the bed with a towel while I made soothing noises about how it was all going to be OK. Although I had no idea what I was going to do to make it OK.
Then it came to me. Obviously.
“I’m going to go and call Barbara,” I said brightly. “I bet they delivered the wrong one. Someone else must have got this style too. Don’t worry.”
I patted myself down, searching for my phone, and my heart dropped into my stomach. I realized my ridiculous lavender dress didn’t have pockets so where on earth had I put my phone?
“Um, Beth? Bad news. I don’t know where my phone is.”
Beth wailed.
I had a panicked vision of myself searching all over the hotel or accosting some stranger in the hallway to use their phone. It’s an emergency, I’d scream. A bridal emergency.
“I’ll be right back, Beth, I promise.”
“Saoirse.” She lifted her mascara-stained face. I thought she was going to say something like Hurry back, or Get help, please.
“There’s a bloody phone on the desk.”
Right.
I m
ean I’d still lost my phone. Those things are expensive. I didn’t say anything, though. I didn’t think Beth would really see that as particularly important right in this moment.
I lifted the room phone and asked reception to get me the number for Pronuptuous.
“Would you like me to put you straight through?” the girl on reception asked calmly, like this wasn’t a DEFCON 1 situation.
“Pronuptuous. Barbara speaking.” Barbara answered the phone after one ring.
“Barbara, it’s Saoirse . . . from the Clarke wedding.”
“Ah, yes, the little lesbian.”
“Er, yeah. Look I’m not saying you did anything wrong but—”
“Let me stop you right there, missy. I don’t make mistakes. Not with dresses anyway. My third husband, on the other hand—”
“Yep, don’t have time for this, Barb. Beth’s dress doesn’t fit.”
“Did she lose weight? Brides these days. I told her not to lose any weight. Why do you need to be half your normal size because you’re getting married. Honestly—”
“No, look, it’s too small. In the . . . boob-al area.”
“Has she got the jelly tits in? She said she wasn’t going to wear them. I told her if she wanted jelly tits she should say so.”
“No, she isn’t wearing—” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words jelly tits to an elderly woman even if she’d said them first. “Barbara, it just won’t button up.”
“I’ll be right there,” she said seriously. I had a sudden image of Barbara clipping on her emergency sewing-kit belt and getting into some kind of Barbmobile. A VW Beetle with an outsize veil attached to the roof.
“Don’t worry, Beth, help is on its way.”
Beth lifted her head, her eyes dry but red and makeup smeared all over her face. She looked like less like the damsel in distress and more like a deranged bride-villain that Barbman would have to battle in the final showdown.
“Maybe let’s find some face wipes, hmm?”
Barbara burst through the door, smoke surrounding her and a swell of triumphant music in the background. And by that I mean she had a cigarette dangling out of her mouth and the violin quartet for the wedding were warming up outside. Barb stubbed the cigarette out in an increasingly stale croissant and swapped it for a needle, which hung between her lips like a cowboy’s toothpick. She charged across the room where Beth was standing, still in her dress, with her makeup restored to its former glory. She inspected the buttons, then whipped Beth around and squeezed her left boob.
“You’re pregnant,” she said accusingly.
“I don’t think so,” Beth scoffed, and in response Barb honked on her right boob.
“Three months. You’re not showing yet, of course, but there simply isn’t any extra room in this dress for pregnancy tits. Not even first-trimester tits.”
“I’m forty-four.” Beth shook her head vehemently, as though that said it all. “OK, I’ve missed some periods, but I thought maybe it was premenopause or wedding stress or—”
“You missed your period and you didn’t think you could be pregnant?” My voice came out high-pitched and strained as I repressed the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Do not think about the possibility of a sibling in six months.
“Stranger things have happened, love. If you don’t wrap it up, you gotta deal with the consequences.” Barb said this with the kind of gravity reserved for meaningful proverbs.
“Oh, gross.” I mimed puking into the wastebasket. Though there was a distinct possibility that I would actually puke if we dwelled on this conversation too long. Do not think about Dad and Beth doing it.
“OK,” I said, my fingers on my temples, “let’s put a pin in the baby. Figuratively,” I added when Beth winced. “Is there anything we can do about the dress?”
Barb looked witheringly at me over her thick-framed glasses.
“I’m a dressmaker, dear. I always come prepared.” She patted a utility belt around her waist. Barbman to the rescue.
I was allowed approximately thirty seconds of relieved slumping against the wall in the hallway after the Beth crisis had been addressed before Oliver strode down the hallway toward me with the unmistakable air of someone on a mission. He was wearing a pretty snazzy suit that probably cost ten times more than the one Dad had on.
“Your dad is looking for you,” he said.
“Seriously? The wedding is supposed to start in ten minutes and I just got the bawling bride sewn into her dress.”
“Can I interest you in a refreshing beverage to help you through the afternoon?” He took a flask from inside his jacket pocket and unscrewed it, and a forty-year oak-matured aroma wafted under my nose.
“No, thanks. I think I’m going to need my wits about me today. Don’t classes start tomorrow? Also there’s a bar in the tent? You don’t need a hip flask.”
“Well, I don’t need it, but it makes me look cool. Besides, Trinity has freshers’ week the first week so I’m getting a head start.”
“I do need a second before I’m ready, though.” I sighed.
“Want some motivational music?” he offered.
“What?” I eyed him warily.
“To pump you up. Like when we did the running scene.”
“That was for dramatic background music.”
“I have the perfect tune,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket. No, wait, it was my phone.
“Hey, where’d you get that?!”
“You left it downstairs. You’re welcome.”
“You better not have changed your name again.”
“Would I violate your privacy like that?” He frowned, feigning hurt.
I narrowed my eyes and snatched my phone away, but he’d already pressed play and the opening bars to “Eye of the Tiger” started playing. I couldn’t help but laugh. It actually kind of helped. I stopped it halfway through, sufficiently pumped, and then with some trepidation I went to Uncle Vince’s room, where Dad was supposed to be getting dressed.
He was sitting on a tufted ottoman at the foot of the bed when I walked in.
“Oh God. What’s wrong?” I groaned. He lifted his head with a snap and I saw that his expression, although tired, was cheerful.
“No, no, nothing. I have something for you.”
“Is that it?” Praise Jesus. That was an easy one. No wardrobe malfunctions or surprise babies. Then I realized that I knew Beth was pregnant and he didn’t.
“Yeah, I didn’t want to walk around out there looking for you in case I got stuck talking to Beth’s aunt again, and no offense, but I didn’t trust your friend Oliver with it.”
“I could see why you might get that impression. He has a certain je ne sais quoi of general iniquity.”
He got up and unzipped a sports bag. From my vantage point I saw a pair of fancy shoes, a spare pair of socks, and the best man’s gift, a watch, from Dad to Uncle Vince. He rummaged into the corners and pulled out a pink gift bag with a unicorn on it.
“It was the only one they had.”
I looked in the bag and saw a mint-green camera. The kind that spits out instant photos. I’d asked him to get one for my birthday.
“It’s not my birthday for a couple of weeks,” I said, but I was grinning when I took it out of the box.
“It’s not for your birthday. It’s a thank-you. For . . . for not making my life as miserable as you could have over this wedding.”
“Wow, I really thought I had.”
“No, I think you had a lot more in you that you could have pulled out if you wanted to.”
After a quiet second of me considering what I could have done better (or worse, depending on your perspective), I agreed and hugged him.
“Why did you want one of these anyway?”
I debated not telling the truth. But I tried to think of what Mum would say in her therapist-y wisdom. It was hard to channel that version of her after so long. But I thought it might be something like, if you hide your feelings from the people
you love, then you aren’t giving them a chance to really know you. I thought of what Ruby would say. She’d say, be honest, life’s too short to pretend.
“I wanted to take more pictures. Not the kind on your phone that you delete or lose or upload to the cloud. I wanted the kind you keep. In case someday I need them.”
A silent understanding passed between us, and I wondered if he would acknowledge it. But instead he smiled widely.
“That sounds lovely,” he said.
Disappointed, but not surprised, I set my jaw slightly and I turned to leave. As I did I caught the second where his smile faded into something sad. Part of me wanted to walk out the door and get the shoes and pretend I hadn’t seen anything. Instead I turned around again.
“Dad, is everything OK?”
He pasted the smile, which I could see now was flimsy and empty, back on his face.
“Of course.” He waved away my concern.
I hesitated.
“Look, I know we aren’t really that good about talking about feelings. Unless you count me shouting at you. Do you need to climb out the window?”
“What? No, of course not.”
Thank goodness. I didn’t think I could really help my dad climb out the window now that I knew about the baby.
He looked at me, fine lines collecting around his eyes.
“This reminds me of my wedding,” he said. I could tell he was having to force out the words because it was exactly how I sounded when I was trying to talk to Ruby about my feelings. “To Liz, I mean.”
I wasn’t sure I was ready for this conversation.
“I know you think I don’t love her—”
“I don’t think that. I know you love her still,” I said, thinking of the anniversary presents and the way he visited every time she was upset. “In your own way,” I added uneasily, thinking of how he was getting remarried less than a year after she moved out.
He closed his eyes in a pained expression.
“Saoirse, you really know how to say the things that hurt the most.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m being honest. I know you loved Mum. I watched the video. I could see it.”