by Cameron Lowe
It took Alicia eight minutes to read through the emails, her hand at her mouth. When she turned around to speak to Nic, he was kneeling on the ground next to her, a ring in his palm. She said yes, and like that, they were engaged.
Until they weren’t.
* * *
“I want a do-over,” Alicia said stubbornly.
Gwen tossed the People magazine she’d been reading back onto the hairdresser’s table. Despite the near-perfection of her hair, Alicia was getting it touched up for an engagement shoot later that afternoon. Malcolm was going to be the photographer and since they both had a rare day off, Gwen agreed to accompany Alicia and see her to the park later that day.
“You already know he’s willing. You’ve said yes. So why…?”
“Because no one saw! All I’ve got is a cute story and no one just likes that. I want pictures. I want a little glamour. I want something to show people.”
While Nic had never been one of Gwen’s favorite people, she almost felt sorry for him marrying this bridezilla. Malcolm told her though the guy wasn’t just willing to do this, but was even more happy about the chance to redo his proposal than Alicia was. The two of them were insane, but then again, they were insane together. That was kind of romantic, she supposed.
The hairdresser began to finish up and Gwen called Nic on Alicia’s phone. “We’re just about ready,” she told him.
“Good. We’ve just about got all the props we need.”
“Props?” Gwen asked.
“Don’t worry about it. We gotta make a stop at the Goodwill and then we’ll be ready.”
“The Goodwill?” Gwen shook her head. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Do you happen to have kendo sticks?” Nic asked. “You know what? Never mind. I’m sure they’ll have baseball bats.”
“I… what?”
“Talk soon. Malcolm says hi, by the way.”
“Can I talk-”
“Nope, gotta go, toodles.”
Gwen hung up, and stared at Alicia with growing confusion. “What the hell did we sign up for?”
Alicia grinned. “Oh, just wait. It’s going to be perfect.”
* * *
At the city park, Malcolm and Nic were hauling out the last of a trio of plastic totes from the back of Nic’s new Honda Element. Alicia made good money working as an outreach director for an online job placement and advertiser, and she took care of most of their housing and day-to-day needs. Nic mostly paid for groceries and his own vehicle, a system that worked well for them. She actually seemed to beam when he called her his sugar momma.
Most surprising was who stepped around the edge of the vehicle, smiling faintly as Gwen and Alicia pulled in – Hugh. He’d filled out since his suicide attempt, but it was healthy weight brought on by a newfound appreciation for the gym. There was a dingy old place on the south side of Rankin Flats Hugh liked. He found the rhythmic motions of working out to be a great stress reliever and the old pugilist who ran it was becoming something of a mentor to the troubled young man. Hugh mostly took to wearing long sleeved shirts these days, and that day was no different. He looked good in a turtleneck sweater, his eye-length hair casually tousled.
Gwen stepped out and frowned in Nic’s general direction, then turned her attention to her brother. “What are you doing here?”
“Before you get mad, I’m still clean. Nic has never once dealt to me.”
“What do you mean? What’s going on?”
Nic came over and slapped Hugh on the back. Her brother smiled at the other man. “After rehab, I ran into Nic coming out of your place one time. Maybe we shouldn’t have hung out, him being what he used to be and me being an addict, but we did. It’s the best, most honest talk I’ve had with anyone since Vanessa. Hell, even before her.”
Nic nodded. “For me too. There are things I can’t even tell Malcolm here. Things about prison. About what I did before I went in. Hugh’s helped me get some of that out of my system.”
“He’s a good man, Gwen. We’ve both made mistakes. But he’s helped me, and he’s a friend. So I’m helping him out today.”
Gwen sucked in a breath, and nodded. She turned to Nic, who looked away from her. “Nic.”
“I know, I shouldn’t have-”
She stepped forward and kissed his cheek softly. “Thank you.”
Nic cocked his head at her, and nodded seriously. “Of course.” Then, his grin reappearing, he asked Alicia, “Did you tell her what we’re doing yet?”
“Nope. She’s clueless.”
“Ah! Good!”
Gwen’s gaze flicked between them suspiciously, then she turned to Malcolm. “Uh, honey?”
“Oh, just wait. It’s gonna be… well, something.”
Nic and Alicia hung up some towels in his SUV to give them some privacy while they changed. He went in first and came out minutes later in a pair of slightly ratty slacks and a button-down smudged with ink that hung a little loosely around his frame. Gwen pointed out the stains but he was well aware of them. “We don’t want anything nice to get ruined,” Nic said vaguely. It took Alicia a while longer, but she eventually emerged in a flattering dress that nonetheless seemed as ill-fitting as Nic’s outfit.
“Okay,” Malcolm said, hefting Alicia’s digital camera. “Let’s get the nice shots out of the way first.
At his instruction, Nic and Alicia struck a variety of simple happy poses. The day was just starting to get cold and dreary, but they didn’t seem to mind. First they started with some shots of the couple walking away from the camera hand in hand, and Malcolm had them freeze at several points so he could circle around and grab some pictures at different angles. Then he had them sit on an old tattered throw, a half-empty bottle of wine between them while they stared at each other lovingly. Neither of them could hold the serious poses for long and Malcolm grabbed a few great shots of them laughing together, the wind blowing Alicia’s newly trimmed hair all over the place.
Then came the staged proposal. Nic pointed at some imaginary object in the distance, and Alicia pretended to stare at it while Malcolm caught Nic in a few poses as he settled onto one knee to hold out the ring again. Alicia turned, pretended to be surprised, shed a few real tears, and said “yes” again. Gwen got a little teary-eyed despite knowing all this was fake – or at least a cheesy reenactment – but then Nic bolted to his feet, grinning.
“Okay, now onto the fun part.”
Hugh opened one of the plastic totes and dug out, of all things, two Halloween makeup kits. He set those aside on the lid of one of the other totes, and dug out a big bottle of fake blood.
“Uh,” Gwen said, staring. “What, uh, what are we doing?”
“I brought your pair of holey sweats, the ones you keep talking about getting rid of,” Malcolm said. “And there’s a flannel shirt from Goodwill. Mind putting them on really quick?”
“Why?”
“Because,” Hugh said, grinning ear-to-ear as he dug out a fake plastic machete from one of the other totes. “You’re going to eat our brains.”
* * *
Zombies.
That was what they had in mind. Frigging zombies.
Gwen loved it.
Alicia helped her with the gore makeup. They applied a touch of gray around her face and hands, and added a few splotches of mottled green along with a liberal spattering of fake blood. Around her lips, they added some darker black and brown makeup, and stained her teeth with a bit of red lipstick.
After that came the real fun. Nic posed in a few different places with Alicia, lifting her up in the air, hugging her, kissing her, while in the far background, Gwen did a stop-motion chase scene with Hugh. As she pretended to shamble after him, he glanced backwards, his eyes huge, his jaw wide. A few pictures later and he pretended to stumble so Gwen could catch up to him and begin to “devour” him. For that part, Nic and Malcolm had bought some rope sausages. It looked cheesy and super cheap, but that was entirely the point.
After that, they hustle
d to get Hugh in his own zombie getup, spattering his shirt liberally in fake blood, tearing it open in a few places, and adding some makeup to hopefully mask their inability to make it look like he’d been chewed on. With his eyes ringed in black and his own greenish-gray complexion, he looked even sillier than Gwen, and in at least half the shots, it was obvious Gwen and Hugh were laughing.
As the “zombies” rose to their feet, Alicia pointed them out to a shocked Nic, and they ran out of frame of the camera as Gwen and Hugh shambled towards them. From the rest of the totes came a variety of kids’ plastic weapons, including a trident that looked more like a big fork in Nic’s hands. Alicia liked a whiffle bat and grabbed that. They “ran” back into the frame, and hands held with the camera focused on their engagement rings, they proceeded to beat down the brain-chomping scum, coming back for more silly weapons to strike more poses.
The series of shots wrapped up after Malcolm spattered both Nic and Alicia with specks of the fake blood and some brown paint, making it look like they’d just finished a serious fight with the undead. The last dozen or so shots were pictures of them holding their weapons and kissing over Hugh and Gwen’s “bodies,” Alicia’s hand held high so the ring was visible.
It was a riot. The pictures turned out great and spectacularly ludicrous. Malcolm had a good eye for angles and had taken enough shots of each frame of action to make sure that any of his blurred or bad photos were equaled out by two or three more the couple could actually use.
“My grandmother’s going to have a heart attack,” Alicia said happily.
“Best idea ever,” Nic said, and kissed her cheek.
They offered to take everybody out for a late lunch as thanks, and decided to go in full makeup. At a sandwich-and-pie place not far away from the park, the waitress who seated them barely batted an eye as she filled their coffee mugs.
“I was hoping we’d at least get told to leave or something,” Gwen grumbled. “That’s no fuh-fuh-”
As she scrunched up her nose and closed her eyes, Malcolm asked, “You all right?”
Gwen held up a finger, jerked her head back, and sneezed so hard her belly hit the table and rattled the silverware. “Jeez,” she muttered. “Sorry about that.”
As the meal wore on, her sneezes intensified until it became clear she was either coming down sick or had suddenly developed an intense reaction to the smell of BLTs and beef minestrone. Several times she excused herself to go to the bathroom and blow her nose until finally they gave her the seat on the end of the booth, the rest of them, Malcolm included, pulling as far away from her as they could manage.
“Just allergies,” she muttered, “or… or something.”
But that night, when she and Malcolm picked up Winnie, their daughter had a runny nose and a bad cough too. Gwen took the next day off from work and cuddled with her daughter as they fought through their mutual misery, but whereas Winnie’s cold seemed to peak and then lessen, Gwen’s only got worse. In a few days, Malcolm came home to her coughing up great big wads of greenish phlegm. She tried to convince him she was feeling better, but her forehead was hot to the touch and she kept shaking involuntarily from the chills.
At first, she refused to go to the hospital. “We can’t afford to go into debt like that again,” she said. Her voice sounded thick and wet. Her nose was beet red from blowing it so often and she’d developed sores on her nostrils.
“We can’t afford for you not to go. If this gets worse…”
It took another day to get her to go get checked out. The nurse took her vitals, the doctor spoke to her for a few minutes, listened to her breathe through a stethoscope, and then she was ushered to get x-rays. Another hour of waiting, and she found out what she already suspected – pneumonia. The doctor gave her a prescription for antibiotics and steroids, told her to take acetaminophen for the fever, and ordered her to get some bed rest.
Alicia, feeling guilty about the whole thing, stopped by with canned soup and a couple word searches and sudoku puzzles, but it was Malcolm who she relied on to take care of her, who brought her food on a makeshift tray made out of the lid to a big Christmas tin, who took care of the day-to-day drudgery. He cared for Winnie, keeping her entertained and occupied while he was home from work to help his wife sleep. He kept her bedding clean, swapped out her pillowcases every day, and did the laundry. It sucked to be sick, but if she had to be ill, at least she had him to rely on.
Same went for the next time she caught ill. And the time after that. And the time when she broke her wrist tripping over a curb. Malcolm cared for her, drove her to appointments, kept her company.
Husband. Nurse. Caretaker. It became harder and harder every time her sweet husband approached her with soup and a grilled cheese to not want to shout at him, to make him get angry, to make him be anything but good to her.
But that wasn’t Malcolm, and it drove her crazy.
Chapter 34
Nic and Alicia married that fall.
Whereas the proposal might have been silly, the wedding was anything but. They held it in a gorgeous church in the heart of a revamped downtown district. Hugh and Malcolm were Nic’s co-best men, and Alicia picked Gwen as one of her two maid-of-honors. The ceremony was prolonged by frequent readings from the Bible, an elaborate speech by the priest about redemption and second chances, and a couple hymns. Gwen thought maybe it was all some sort of elaborate joke on Alicia and Nic’s part, but they seemed genuinely enthralled by the pomp.
The reception, thrown by Alicia’s parents, was lovely. Gwen and Malcolm rarely had opportunities to dance, and despite neither one of them being particularly good at it, they hardly left the dance floor together for the first hour. Malcolm drank in his wife that day. Couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her blue dress showed off the figure she fought to get back these last few months, and more than once he whispered into Gwen’s ear just how beautiful and sexy he thought she looked that night.
Hugh came with a soulful-eyed fifth grade teacher a couple years older than him, and seemed happy, if distracted. He and his date danced a few times, but she flittered away to talk to a small group of people and they never really hooked back up afterwards. At one point, he danced the Hokey Pokey with his sister and a line of children and adults. By the end of the dance, Gwen was sure something was the matter and pulled him away to their table where Malcolm was just returning with plates of appetizers.
“Talk to me,” Gwen encouraged her brother.
Hugh watched his date across the room line up for a square dance, smiling faintly. “It’s okay. I’m not… you know… unbalanced.”
“Then what is it?” Gwen asked.
Malcolm stopped chewing a bacon-wrapped date long enough to say, “I can go if you two need a few minutes.”
“No, stick around,” Hugh said. “I’ve kinda come to think of you as… well, my brother, yes, but maybe my… ah, this sounds stupid. My guardian angel. Cheesy as that might be.”
“Aw, man…” Malcolm said, and got up to cross around the table and hug him.
When he’d settled back into his chair, Hugh leaned forward and stole a stuffed mushroom. He used the food as a means to take a minute and collect his thoughts. “It’s actually about Charlie. Mom and Dad don’t know yet, but-”
“Is he okay? What happened?” Gwen asked sharply.
“It’s all right, Gwen. He’s fine. He just decided not to enlist again.”
“Oh,” she said, relieved. Then it really hit her what he was saying. “Oh! That’s great news!”
Hugh nodded, smiling. “He’s already got a job lined up as a mechanic. All the way out in Ogunquit.”
“That’s not so surprising, considering Denise and all.” Denise was Charlie’s girlfriend going on two years, and she knew he’d been feeling some pressure to settle down with her.
“Mm hm. Here’s the thing, though. They’re buying a nice two-story house out there. Until they have kids, it’s too much house for them. Or that’s the bullshit line Charlie’s trying
to feed me.” Hugh shook his head slightly. “But I don’t really care what the reason is. Charlie invited me to come live with them for a while. Test the waters out away from the Flats. And I think I’m going to take him up on it.”
“Oh. Oh Hugh…” Gwen whispered.
“I know a large part of why you two stuck around here was because of my… troubles. And I’m sorry about that. You’ll never know how much. I owe you both my life, and my soul, I suppose. I’ve been a little reluctant to tell you about this because it feels like I’m cutting and running on this. Us.”
“No, Hugh, no,” Gwen said, and reached out to fold his hand into hers. “Don’t ever think that. I think a fresh start with Charlie is perfect for you. Plus, the beach air, and Denise seems so nice, and…”
She choked up, and Malcolm took over. “It’s a good opportunity for you.”
“It really is. Charlie’s told me he’s going to kick my ass into shape. He won’t tolerate drugs and he expects me to work out with him and help him out around the house. I think I need that kind of discipline. I don’t know how long this is going to be for, but I’m tired of this city’s poison. I just want to go somewhere peaceful.”
Gwen leaned over and brushed her brother’s cheek with a kiss. She smiled at him fondly. “You’re going to do wonderful out there.”
* * *
Understandably, Elliot and Daphne were scared for their son, but agreed a stay with Charlie might be precisely what he needed. The oldest Caplan child came home for a couple weeks after his service ended months after Alicia and Nic’s wedding, with his newly-minted fiancé in tow. Denise was as lovely a person as she sounded on the phone and online, and the whole family loved her immediately. Charlie was nervous about starting the next chapter of his life, but he seemed eager to have Hugh out there.