“Oh! Right! I just want a honeymoon we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. A real adventure. But Buckley never wants to go anywhere exciting,” Sonja complains as I swig my sangria.
“Don’t worry,” I say, suddenly feeling like I’ve discovered my long-lost soul sister. “Jack doesn’t, either.”
“Sure I do,” my fiancé says amiably.
“Where? Name one exciting place you want to go.”
“Home to bed,” he says, stretching and yawning.
“That’s not exciting.”
“Not lately.” He raises a suggestive eyebrow at me. “But you have the power to change all that.”
As I grin flirtatiously at him, I notice he’s a tad blurry.
“You guys can’t go home yet,” Sonja informs us, and darned if she isn’t slurring. Or maybe that’s just me.
Wait! I’m not talking!
It’s her: “Le’ss have dessert and after-dinner drinkssss.”
“If I drink any more I’m going to be trashed, like you,” I protest.
“Who caresss? Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“You’re right! Who caresss?”
We newfound soul sistahs order dessert wine and flan, then traipse off to the ladies’ room, where we both pee and I ask Sonja to be one of my bridesmaids.
Yes, that’s right.
Don’t ask me why or how it happens.
Just know that it does, right around the time that we both come out of separate stalls to wash our hands.
For a second, I’m sure I imagined I said it in the first place. I mean, I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was mainly wondering whether the flan will come in caramel sauce.
Maybe, I think hopefully, that’s the question I posed aloud.
“Yes!” Sonja squeals, hugging me, hard. “Definitely!”
Okay, are you thinking she loves caramel sauce as much as I do? Because that’s what I’m thinking.
“Oh, Tracey, that’s so sweet!”
Yes, yes, caramel is very sweet indeed.
She hugs me again, then cries out, “I can’t believe you want me to be in your wedding party!”
I can’t believe it, either!
“I wish I could have you in mine,” she goes on, accepting a paper towel from the smiling bathroom attendant, “but we’re only having Buckley’s brother and my sister. He just wants a best man and maid of honor. How many attendants are you and Jack having?”
Let’s see, so far, I’m having about twenty and he’s having none.
“We’re having quite a few,” is what I tell her as she leans into the mirror to apply more lipstick, “including you and Buckley.”
“Buckley’s in it, too?” She looks positively giddy with joy all over again. “I didn’t know that!”
Coincidentally, Jack doesn’t, either!
“Don’t say anything to him—Jack hasn’t asked him yet,” I tell her. “But he’s definitely going to.”
“Maybe he’s asking him right now!”
“Maybe he is!”
And maybe I’m a drunken lunatic who should go home to bed before I ask the smiling bathroom attendant to be my flower girl.
Saturday afternoon, I manage to pull myself together to keep my date with Kate.
I use the term
pull myself together
very loosely, because I’ve looked and felt like dog-doo ever since I rolled out of bed at eleven forty-five, even after scarfing down a huge brunch at the diner with Jack.
Wearing a huge hoodie sweatshirt of Jack’s, sneakers and jeans that are falling off my newly shrunken hips, I meet Kate at her brick town house on a leafy block of Thirty-eighth off Park, not far from the bridal boutique.
“Good gracious, sweetheart, what happened to you?” she drawls, giving me a once-over as she answers the door.
Under ordinary circumstances, I feel vaguely dowdy and unkempt in Kate’s company. Today, I’m definitely the ugly stepsister to her Cinderella-with-child; she’s fully made up and wearing one of her darling maternity ensembles: silk blouse, cardigan and pants, all in sherbet colors that complement each other and her fair coloring.
“Mojitos and sangria—that’s what happened to me. Do you have any ginger ale?”
“Hay-ell, yes. Come on in, as long as you think we have time.”
“If I don’t sit down and sip some ginger ale right now, I’m going to vomit.”
“Join the club.”
She leads the way through her elegant grown-up house, which is filled with real furniture. Whenever I return to our apartment after visiting Kate and Billy, I realize that Ikea and pressed wood lack a certain
je ne sais quoi
, and feel like Jack and I are merely playing house.
Kate is going with me for another dress fitting, and we’re going to order the navy velvet bridesmaids’ gowns.
I’m armed with nine checks from the girls for a hundred dollars each and a spreadsheet I compiled containing wedding-party info, including the bridesmaids’ sizes. I apparently got Sonja’s last night in my drunken stupor because this morning in my purse I found a cocktail napkin that’s scribbled:
Sonja size 2
. I also found a wad of five twenties Jack said she handed me as her deposit for the dress.
“You asked Sonja to be a bridesmaid?” Kate shouts incredulously as I plop down on her leather couch in utter misery.
“Oh my God, Kate. Shhh!”
“Oh, don’t worry. Billy’s at Chelsea Piers golfing.”
“No, I mean
shhh,
you’re screaming and my head is killing me,” I tell her, rubbing my throbbing temples. “Not
shhh,
I don’t want Billy to know I’ve asked everyone and their mother to be in our wedding party. He’ll think I’m certifiable.”
That’s what Jack thought when he found out I’d asked Sonja to be in our wedding.
Well, he didn’t say it when he first found out…which was pretty much the second we returned to the table after the bathroom, holding hands.
“Tracey asked me to be in the wedding!” Sonja announced.
“
Our
wedding?” Jack asked, gaping. At least he didn’t say, “Why?”
Not then, anyway.
But as I recall—mind you, my memory is a bit spotty—he asked it a few times during the cab ride home. He also told me that I was out of my mind. He also told me, a little later, I think, to roll down the window and stick my head out. Later still, back at home, he advised me to put one foot on the floor so the bed would stop spinning.
It didn’t.
God, I feel lousy.
And I must say, Jack could have been more sympathetic today.
Okay, he did bring me a really strong cup of coffee in bed.
He also said he’d consider having Buckley in the wedding party—which he claims I begged him to do in my last burst of coherence before the spinning bed got the better of me.
So at least something good came out of the evening.
“You’re talking about Buckley’s Sonja, right?” Kate clarifies, lowering herself into a Stickley chair as if she’s nine months pregnant and huge instead of five and barely showing. “Big-boobed Sonja with the hair?”
“What other Sonja is there?”
“I know a few.”
“Well, I don’t, so what other Sonja would I possibly be asking to be in my wedding party?”
“Hay-ell, Tracey, I can’t imagine that you’d ask
this
one.”
“That makes two of us.” I sip the ginger ale Kate poured for me—she’s got an entire fridge full—and say, “It’s just…I mean, I was drunk.”
“Being drunk is no excuse to go around asking random people to stand in your wedding.”
“I didn’t go around asking random people, Kate.”
“Sonja is random, wouldn’t you say?”
“She’s just one person, though—I wouldn’t say
people
. I didn’t go around asking everyone in sight.” Thank God. It could have been so much worse.
Still, you have to admit, this is pretty bad. “What am I going to do?”
“Uninvite her,” Kate says with a shrug. “What else
can
you do?”
“I can have her as a bridesmaid. I’ve got her size and her dress deposit.”
“Tracey, you
cannot
do that. You don’t even like her!”
“I like her.” Last night I did, anyway. Last night we were soul sistahs.
And we’re going to be moving to the suburbs together, buying houses next door to each other, babysitting each other’s kids and playing bridge—or something like that. I have a vague recollection of that conversation happening over flan.
Flan.
Creamy. Rich.
Sweet, sticky caramel sauce.
Oh, ick.
“Come on, you only hang out with her because she and Buckley are a package deal,” Kate says.
I open my mouth to protest but it’s swept by a wave of bile before I can say a word.
Sangria hangovers are the worst.
“Seriously,” Kate goes on as I try really really hard not to vomit on her heirloom rug, “if they broke up tomorrow, would you care if you never saw Sonja again?”
It’s purely a rhetorical question, I know.
Which is why it’s so damn ironic that the very next afternoon, I get a call from Buckley who says, “Tracey? Listen, I thought you should know…Sonja and I just broke up.”
“What?” I immediately aim the TiVo remote and freeze the television screen, where a young-looking Billy Crystal is in the midst of explaining to a younger-looking Meg Ryan that men and women cannot be friends unless they’re both involved with other people.
“We broke up,” Buckley repeats somewhat glumly—but not as glumly as one might expect.
“But…how can you break up? You’re getting married.”
“Not anymore.”
“You called off the wedding?” I am now off the couch, pacing around the living room in my bare feet. “Why?”
“I had to. It would’ve been a mistake to go through with it.”
“But…I mean, Buckley, you guys have broken up and gotten back together before. I’m sure you can—”
“Sonja burned the invitations.”
“Oh.”
“And every picture of us she could find. It’s over, Tracey.”
It can’t be! Sonja’s in my wedding, dammit! I just ordered her a nonreturnable size two navy velvet sheath!
I’m dying to say it, but that would come across as selfish. Wouldn’t it?
Yeah, it pretty much would.
And here I am, fresh from Sunday mass, where this week’s sermon was about how we should all strive to be more like Jesus; how we should stop ourselves whenever we’re in doubt and ask,
What would the Lord do?
(Yes, I’ve been going to mass weekly ever since that confrontation—I mean, conversation—with Father Stefan. What, did you think I wasn’t following through on at least part of my promise to him?)
Anyway, Jesus wouldn’t be worrying about dealing with a random buxom bridesmaid, would he? He’d be concerned with his dear friend’s well being.
I am anxious to prove that I’m a Christlike friend to Buckley; a friend who isn’t the least bit worried about herself.
So rather than condemn his sucky timing, I nobly and calmly ask Buckley if he’s okay.
“Yeah, I’m hanging in there. I just had to get out of the apartment—she’s upstairs packing her stuff right now. She’s going to go stay out in Jersey with Mae and Jay—remember them?”
Of course. Mae is Sonja’s old roommate, an investment banker, and Jay is her psychiatrist husband. Mae and I were both there when Buckley met Sonja; she and I were both involved in long-distance relationships at the time. Obviously, hers ended happily ever after; mine was already over and everyone knew it but me.
“How’s Sonja holding up?” I ask Buckley, remembering my own heartache when Will dumped me.
“She’s pretty upset.”
Yeah, well, who isn’t?
My mind is spinning faster than the bed did last night. You know, a mere forty-eight hours earlier, I’d have heralded this news. We all know I wasn’t wholeheartedly rooting for Buckley and Sonja’s man-and-wifedom.
“So what happened, exactly?” I ask. “Did you guys have a fight?”
“It started over the guest list and escalated from there.”
“The guest list for the wedding?”
“Yeah. I told her she was being a bitch about it. She didn’t want to invite Raphael and Donatello and they just had us at their wedding. But she said that was different.”
Different
. Yeah, that certainly describes Raphael and Donatello’s wedding, all right.
“She actually said it wasn’t a legal marriage so it doesn’t count—can you believe that?”
Yes, but it’s pretty wenchy, even for her.
“She said Raphael is known for inviting hundreds of people to every party he throws, so of course we’d be invited. I told her Raphael is my friend and I want him at my wedding, and she wouldn’t budge.”
“So you called off the wedding over Raphael?” I ask incredulously, thinking our good friend’s ego is going to love this.
“No, it wasn’t just because of Raphael. It was—” Buckley hesitates. “That was just the tip of the iceberg. There were a lot of other…issues.”
“Like…?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. But trust me, this has been a long time coming, Tracey.”
Yeah? Then why, why, why couldn’t you have broken up with Sonja before Friday night?
Better yet, why couldn’t I have waited to ask her to be a bridesmaid?
Waited? Ha!
Here’s a thought: how about if I hadn’t asked her at all?
Damn those mojitos, and damn my big fat bridesmaid-inviting mouth.
“Where are you right now?” I ask Buckley, trying to focus unselfishly on my dear friend in need.
“In the Starbucks across the street from my building.”
“Do you want me to come down there?” I offer. Jack is over at Mitch’s apartment watching the game with a bunch of guys, and I’m on my own for the rest of the afternoon. I figured some serious Couch Time—sweatpants, chick flicks and Choc-Chewy-O’s eaten straight from the box—would be the order of the day, but if Buckley needs me…
“No,” he says. “I’m good, actually.”
He does sound good, actually.
Much better than I do as I ask a bit desperately, “By any chance are you guys still going to be…you know, a couple? Even though you’re not getting married or living together?”
“Nope, we’re definitely through.” Buckley sounds—dare I suggest it?—almost cheerful. “We were all wrong for each other. I guess deep down I always knew it.”
“So did I,” I admit without thinking first. Oops.