Authors: Emma McLaughlin
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Coming of Age, #Contemporary Women
“
How
can you be so gullible?” Dad’s voice is hushed.
“You’re standing here romanticizing this lunatic like some naive adolescent.” Mom’s head shakes in disbelief. “Have you learned
nothing
? I don’t know, Simon, I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. She’s clearly incapable of thinking rationally and with any shred of self-preservation when it comes to this boy.”
“He’s not a boy,” I manage. “And I’m
not
seventeen.”
“Really Kathryn?” Mom steps past him into my face. “Because you sound like some lovesick, simpering child, and a stupid one at that.”
I lean away from her contorted features. “You just hate Jake because he had the gall to write a song calling you a bad mother and a bad wife.”
“Katie, don’t,” Dad snaps.
“No, Simon, it’s fine. Fine, Kathryn, hate me. Hate your father. Feed that edge of disdain you always shroud yourself in around us.” Her voice stretches in desperation, “But
don’t
fall for this, not when you’ve made it this far—a note passed to you by a
publicist,
like he’s in grade school—”
“Oh, yes, so far!” I back from her, tripping down the steps. “I’m standing on the porch in your nightgown! But now I’m finally being given the chance to get out of here,
fully
out of here. Why can’t you give me that?”
“Because here’s what this looks like, Katie. You get in that car.” She extends her arm down the driveway, leaving it there as she continues, her eyes burrowing into me. “Go to him, sleep with him, share every intimate detail of your years of sanity and then, out of nowhere, he’s done again and dumps you off some concert tour. You’re left flat on your ass with nothing. On the tarmac in Beijing or Moscow. Only now he’s got a whole new host of material, so when you show up on our doorstep—” Her lips shake. “And we have to institutionalize our only child, we can still look forward to hearing about the lurid details of her sex life on the speakers of every mall in America!”
I cross my arms, shielding myself against her toxic prediction. “That’s what it looks like, huh, my life?
I’m
institutionalized?”
She drops her arm, hunching into herself. “If you go to him.”
“If I go to him I am taking a chance to talk to him. Talk to him, Mom, work through the pain and confusion and hurts. We’ll discuss it, we’ll heal it. We’ll move forward through this, not
over
it, which is what you do. So that when you get to Florida and find Dad crying on the floral couch on week whatever of no medication, because he claims he doesn’t need any—” I turn to him, looking recalcitrantly impotent in our raging midst. “And you do, Dad. I’m sorry, but you do. Even though she doesn’t have the guts to admit it. So,
instead,
she’ll solve it by going off and fucking someone, someone you know—maybe the pool guy, or a neighbor. But wait, I forgot, it doesn’t matter—it’s all good! We don’t even need to discuss it. So go ahead, Dad, wallow in depression. Mom, fuck someone, do it right in the condo—Dad can move out, move back in six months later, what does it matter? We’ll still sit around Christmas mornings like nothing ever happened. It’s all fine. We’re all fine. I’m glad Jake wrote that song. I’m grateful Jake wrote that song. Even if you never forgive me for it. Who are
either
of you to talk about learning from the past?” I glare up at her standing on the porch steps, the miserable porch steps. “You know what? It’s perfect that you didn’t bother to tell me about the house sale. Because as far as I’m concerned you can burn the motherfucking thing to the ground.” I turn to Jocelyn. “Take me to him.”
I grip the spray of flowers at their ribboned base and lick the tear that has slid down my cheek as it hits my lip.
Must not let makeup smear. Must be hottest have ever been.
I look past the seven French twists that separate me from Laura and over to Sam, whose face is flush with emotion as he repeats after the priest. They kiss, the organ swelling into the recessional and Laura turns to the applauding congregation, her eyes sparkling as I well up with joy for them—the surrealism of their grown-up-ness surpassing the surrealism of what will happen next. Deep breath, shoulders back, boobs lifting and…turn.
My eyes go directly to the empty seat next to Benjy.
Benjy meets my gaze and shakes his head flatly from side to side, lips puckered. I glance over to see Sam register the same and then to Laura, her expression faltering as their eyes meet. She takes Sam’s hand and they beam again, beginning to recess down the cheering aisle.
The wire stays of my dress hold me upright as I trail behind Laura’s sorority sisters and step down into the dusky light outside the church. Everyone veers to gather in front of the photographer, while I go directly to the curb, looking from one end of the street to the other—no limo, no entourage, no paparazzi.
“Bridesmaids gather round the bride!” The photographer waves his free hand to me and I go stand where instructed as these strange girls fuss at her veil, laboriously laying the white netting out behind her.
“He didn’t come,” I murmur, unable to access restraint. Her smile hardens and hurt flickers in her heavily made-up eyes.
“Everyone look at me! Big smiles!”
As the next song starts on the backyard dance floor Dad says something in Mom’s ear. Nodding in agreement, she smiles and touches his lapel with her manicured fingers, part of the Day of Grooming I suggested to gird her for spending an evening with a hundred people who have probably deduced she’s the selfish floozy currently residing at the top of the
Billboard
chart. They make their way over to their table, where I’ve been holed up with my third slice of cake and seventh cocktail, knees up between two chairs I swiveled together into a hard-backed chaise. “I think these gave me a blister,” she says, slipping her heel out of the crimson pump to check.
“Right.” Dad pats the pockets of his seersucker blazer, “I’m going to say our good-byes. Pick you up in front?” he asks. We nod as he goes in search of the Hellers.
“But you were right, Katie,” she says, tipsily twirling her foot at the ankle, “Red shoes do give one a boost.”
“I didn’t say it, Sigourney Weaver did.” I run my finger over the gold-rimmed plate, swiping up the last trails of frosting. “I read she always wears red shoes when she has something to do that makes her nervous.”
“Well.” She drains the remainder of her flute. “Turns out I was in a state over nothing. Walk me to the car?” She picks the last cookie from the plate.
“Claire?” a fuller-figured blonde in a sea-foam evening dress shuffles into our path, a matching clutch held to her side with her upper arm. “Marjorie. Laura’s aunt—Jane’s sister,” she introduces herself, pumping Mom’s hand, petals from her wrist corsage fluttering to the grass. “From the Minnesota Hellers.”
“So nice to meet you,” Mom says as I stare at Laura’s teenage cousin from Dubuque dismembering a centerpiece. “Laura made an absolutely beautiful bride. It has been such a privilege to watch that girl grow up.”
She continues to clasp Mom’s hand, her avid expression not registering anything Mom just said. “I told myself, if I ever got the chance to meet you, I hope you don’t mind…It’s just that Jane’s told me all about your horrible situation and I just wanted to say how aghast I’ve been, how
awful
I think the whole thing is.”
Mom’s eyes widen. Better accustomed to these pinpricks in my privacy, I cut her off. “Thank you. So kind. We were just heading out.”
“That boy should just be taken out and shot. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through this last year. Every time I hear that song I think,
If you only knew,
if you only
knew
what a horrible
horrible
person that boy is you wouldn’t be calling in for it.” Out of steam she just nods at Mom, her speech of support trickling away.
“Thank you,” Mom says, withdrawing her clasped hand, dying through her glazed smile. They nod at each other, Marjorie looking expectant.
“Well…” I search my cocktail-soaked brain for a more pointed extraction.
“I apologize,” Mom fills in, “but my husband’s waiting with the car.”
“It is so great that you made it through all that—he must be a very understanding man.”
Mom’s smile finally collapses, as does my stomach. “He is.” Mom swipes her purse from the table.
“Nice to meet you!” she calls after us, and I wave.
I go to slide my arm through Mom’s, but she slips a step to the side. In the glow from the tea lights lining our path to the front of the house I see her face set in a grim line.
“Mom?” I ask as she glances up and down the car-filled street, unable to look at me. “Mom.”
She swivels around, her hand hitting my cheek in a swift stinging slap. I stagger back.
Dad pulls up and she folds into the car beside him. I stand motionless. Stunned. “Have fun!” he calls, pulling them out into the dark street.
“Fun,” I manage at their retreating taillights as I slowly extend my lower jaw. So done, so over it, all of it, I slip out of my strappy sandals and unceremoniously drop them into a curbside trash can before wandering back to the house. Taking in the dense June night, letting the sweet air cool my pulsing cheek, I weave along the neighbor’s hedge so as to keep soft lawn beneath my feet. Crickets chirp, infusing the humid air around me. My head thick with champagne, I feel my dress, designed to make him regret his entire existence, taut at my every curve, and want him more. Here in the lush heat of Vermont summer. Here on the hood of that parked car—
“Hollis.”
A hand grabs me as I trip over big black shoes. I readjust my focus to the lawn, where Benjy sticks his cigarette in his lips and squints up, steadying me with his other hand.
“Woo,” I murmur, sliding down next to him at the base of the elm.
“Smoke?” He reaches into his blazer abandoned on the grass. I nod, taking the burning cigarette from his lips and inhaling deeply. He grins.
“Thanks,” I exhale, feeling the earth’s dampness sinking into the sateen. “Happy wedding.” I return his cigarette.
“Yeah.” He props his wrists on his knees and, for a moment, looks enough like the memory of Jake that I find myself leaning in, eyes drifting closed. Our lips meet, the taste of tobacco traveling between us as we move apart.
Nothing.
He stares at the sidewalk in front of us. “I should go find my date. Jen’ll be looking for me.”
I nod, pushing off this humiliation into the cattle car of humiliation that is this weekend. “I’m…” I search through words. “I thought tonight I’d finally get—”
“Yeah.” Benjy rocks to a stand, lifting up his blazer and flipping it over his shoulder. “Thought I’d get a ticket out of my dad’s shop—pay for school. Should’ve known he’d chicken out. Fucking wuss. Always was.” He looks toward the house glowing over the hedge. “Walk back with me. You don’t want to pass out here.”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “It’d top the whole experience off quite nicely.”
He lifts me up and I sink into his side as we walk around to the backyard, crossing a pair of waiters balancing trays of emptied glasses. Arm around my waist, he stops us by the poles of the tent to watch as the flower girl, white Mary Janes abandoned, spins like a dervish on the burnished parquet.
“Nice lipstick.” Jen comes into view. My fingers go to my mouth. “Not you, bitch.”
I pull away from Benjy, refocusing on the smear of MAC’s Film Noir across his lips.
“Katie.” We spin to see Laura standing in the doorway. Jen pushes past her, running inside and up the darkened staircase. Benjy’s shoulders slump as he follows. “Were you hooking up with him?” Laura’s face twists in disgusted disbelief.
I stumble, trying to regain my footing now that I have to ballast myself. “We just kissed, it was nothing.”
“I can’t believe you—” She is cut off by an amp crackling with loud guitar. We both turn to where a bunch of the groomsmen lounge around a table as Sam strokes his old Fender, Jake’s chords breaking through the lingering conversations. Laura’s eyes harden as she looks from them to me, her face flushed. “I don’t get it.”
“What?”
“How you could
still…
after
everything
—” She stops herself, straightening her pearl combs.
“Want him?”
“Yes!”
she exclaims as if just getting through to a recalcitrant child.
“I’m sure you don’t,” I sneer, the disappointment of the last forty-eight hours spiking in my chest.
“You’re sure I don’t?!” she shouts, lunging forward. “I have listened to every last
word, hope, dream
and
fantasy
of Jake Sharpe.”
“You don’t!” Rage breaks open at her and her chilly posse of engaged Phi Mu sisters.
“What
have you
ever
had to want?! You’ve had the utter devotion of your soul mate since
eleventh grade!
He just
married
you! I’m the one in the bridesmaid’s dress.”
“The bridesmaid’s dress I had to force four busty friends of mine into so that you could look unforgettable for the return of the rockstar who’s
not coming.
You hear that, Sam?” she yells across the tented lawn,
“Not coming!”
The guests quiet. “I can’t wait to tell our children about the wedding theme Mommy and Daddy chose, ‘Jake’s Not Coming’! And we’ll have to tell them something, won’t we, while we’re using the money for their college tuition still paying off this event because the royalties sure-as-fuck won’t.” Her hands go to her temples and she scrunches her eyes.
“Laura.” I murmur.
“What’s it going to take, Katie?”
“I’m not proud of this,” I say, shrinking.
“But you’d still give yourself to him, if you could. If he’d showed up tonight. With or
without
the papers for everyone to sign and the checks for everyone to cash. You would have—tonight—forgiven everything to be back in-the-presence-of. And so would you.” She shakes her thin arm out at Sam as he stands, the McClellan’s blush drained from his face. “This was my day. Just one. And that’s what you have to say to me after all these years, my best friend who never comes home—he’s not coming? You break my heart. Both of you.” I step toward her as she crumples into her dress, but Sam pushes past me, wrapping her in his arms and, against her protests, guiding her gently into the house.