Authors: Emma McLaughlin
Shannon tugged on the chain around her neck and a small enamel locket emerged from her tee-shirt. “I miss her every day,” she said touching it. “Every day.” From this angle I could see the faded web of scars on her forehead.
“It’s a pretty necklace,” I said, pushing the chair back in.
“It was Ashleigh’s. She loved pink roses.”
“She did?” I asked, seeing the tiny flower.
“Did you ever see her room?”
“Not really, no.”
Shannon shook her head, a sad smile breaking. “It was so beautiful. It was like being inside a conch shell.”
Answering this question about Tom’s cheating should have cemented my enthusiasm about this wedding. I had done the grown-up version of the superstitious habit that got me through my childhood.
If the next car that pulls into the gas station is silver everything is going to be okay. If I turn on the radio and it’s a song, not a commercial, everything is going to be okay.
If I find out that it’s just Tom missing his daughter it’s all going to be okay.
But I knew in my gut I still wasn’t like the other girls in the stores Lindsay took me to, who were giddy over gravy boats and place settings, and the idea of a hoodie with Mrs. Westerbrook bedazzled on the back. Who seemed to know, with terrifying certainty, what their lives would look like and who believed that they had the skills to make it all happen.
I didn’t know the first thing about being a wife. And I was scared that sitting on that incongruously freezing stretch of sand Pax had proposed on the rebound—from Cricket—from his childhood. That I wasn’t what he wanted—I was just enough not what he didn’t.
So as Lindsay handed me checklists I kept telling myself it wasn’t a wedding. It was two hundred rental chairs. Three vegetarian plates. One shellfish allergy. A block of hotel rooms. Transportation. It was any other fundraiser.
The night before the wedding I arrived by myself to the lobby of the Amelia Island Ritz Carlton where the Westerbrooks were staying and hosting the rehearsal dinner—although Cricket insisted on skipping the actual rehearsal. Pax’s flight had been massively delayed out of Dulles so I ended up walking down the aisle with Tom to Lindsay, who stood, leaning on a chair back for support, pretending to be Pax, trailed by Charlie, who stood in for Pym, while Becky mimed being Ray Lynne dropping rose petals.
It went great.
Grammy was standing in the middle of the Aubusson carpet with Billy and Ray Lynne, looking apprehensive in their luxe surroundings. “Did you guys get checked in alright?” I asked, hugging everyone tightly. They were staying at the Days Inn across the highway. “Mom getting changed?” Everyone avoided my eyes.
“Now don’t get upset,” Grammy said.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked again.
“We didn’t want to spoil nothin’.” Ray Lynne twisted away to bury her face in Grammy’s waist like a much younger child. “This place is beautiful!” With a hand pressed against Ray Lynne’s back she glanced around. “My God, look at those flowers.”
“Fine, you know what, I don’t even want to know right now,” I said, finding a smile. “Have you guys ever had lobster?” I put my arm around Billy’s shoulder. In my mind I unscrewed a mason jar, stuffed in the disgustingly wriggling feeling of my mother skipping my own wedding, and twisted the lid back on tight. “Cricket wanted lobster. If you hate it just leave it on your plate and we’ll hit a drive through after, okay?” I suddenly wondered if I could do that with the whole wedding—just leave it on the side of my plate and hit a drive through later.
In subsequent years I’ve overheard women—in locker rooms, in pedicure chairs—discuss the mornings of their weddings—breakfast with their parents, yoga with their bridemaids, a farewell jog with their dads—rituals designed to formalize the transition to couple-dom. Mine kicked off at about three am when, ruminating on Delilah’s latest insult, I finally heard Pax’s key in the lock. “So nice of you to join us.”
“Don’t start, Amanda.” He dropped his suitcase on the tile floor. “I’ve been having a panic attack for eight hours.”
I sat up in bed and turned on the lamp. “Why the fuck did you decide to fly down the day of the rehearsal? What if it wasn’t just weather delays? What if they couldn’t get you re-booked? Seriously, marrying me wasn’t worth taking one extra day of work off?”
“Um, did you take yesterday off?”
“No,” I admitted. “Is that what this is about?”
“There is no ‘this’.” He waved his arms. “I have been sitting around waiting for takeoff eating peanuts.”
“Wow, I was so not sitting around. Pax, do you even know the first thing about what’s going down today?”
“You said you had it covered.” He tugged off his shoes. “What did I miss at the dinner? Did Taggart welcome you to the family?”
“We skipped the toasts and went straight to your mom finishing off a bottle of Cote de blah blah blah and coming after all your male relatives like she was trying to get them into the champagne room. I don’t know where she gets off thinking she’s better than me—better than Lindsay even—she’s just Delilah with a charge account.”
“Whoah.” He held his hands up. “Let’s not do this now.”
“Do what? Tell each other how we really feel?” I was suddenly completely overwhelmed by everything I’d been avoiding like releasing an overstuffed closet door. “Pax, where are we going to live? Do you want kids? A dog?” It all came spewing out, hitting me in the head. “Who
are
you?”
“We can’t decide any of that until after the election. I don’t know about kids. It’s only fair to get a dog if we have the space. See my first answer. And I’m still figuring that out.”
I put my face in my hands. “This is so much more than spending Christmas together.” I was about to lie in front of two hundred people. Forget richer or poorer, I didn’t know if we took each other for anything. Anything real. Could I love him in sickness? I thought of Lindsay’s marred chest. Could I do what Tom had done? Stand by someone through unimaginable loss, unimaginable suffering?
Did I love him? Love him enough to sustain us the rest of our lives?
“Hey, hey.” Pax sat on the bed and lifted my chin. “Look, we’re jumping off a cliff together.”
I looked in his eyes, the eyes I knew I loved. The way he looked at me, I loved. “I never imagined marriage as a joint suicide pact, but okay.”
“Okay, so, you clearly just decided that the cliff was over a parking lot. I was picturing water.”
I smiled. “See, just one more reason we shouldn’t get married.”
He laughed. Then I laughed. We were laughing.
Then he wrapped his arms around me and we found that silent place between us and at some point we tipped over onto the bed and fell asleep.
That afternoon, as I lifted the shutters of Lindsay’s finished sun room to look out at the guests starting to take their seats in the backyard, I realized I had never seen—or, really, unlike most brides, I had never taken the time to
picture
what all these various things I had agreed to would look like together. As my eyes grazed the petals and ribbons I knew I had said yes to each one, just like I had agreed to the dress that now felt like I was wearing a cowbell. Every time I moved the boning at my hips made it sweep into my legs—ding! Dong! I had started with tear-outs of long silk columns, and ended up looking like I was welcoming visitors to the Magic Kingdom.
“Mandy? Can I come in?” I turned to see Grammy peering around the door.
I put down the glass of champagne that was steadying my nerves. “Yes, please!”
“Oh, you look beautiful. You look like a real princess.”
“Yes, I’ve just realized.”
She came in and sat down on one of the parrot-patterned tufted ottomans. “I brought you something.”
“Is it a Mars bar?”
She smiled and opened her crocheted clutch. “Here.” It was a hatpin with little Sapphire chips, making a flower with blue petals. “This was my mother’s. I always thought Delilah was going to wear it.” She shook her head. “But if you like it could be your something blue.”
“Oh, Grammy, thank you, I love it. Can we pin it to my bouquet?” I pointed to the pink roses sitting on the side table. “Where is she?” I asked as I watched her arthritic fingers deftly weave the pin into the ribbon.
“She ran off with that Daryl.”
“What?” My mouth went dry. I’d assumed she was so jealous she’d just decided not to put in for time off or something. She was gone?
“Okay, well, I guess ran off is a bit unfair. He has a job prospect on a new rig on the coast and he asked her to go with him. They don’t know about schools and whatnot yet so she decided to leave the kids behind for a bit.”
“What’s a bit?”
Grammy shrugged, avoiding my eyes.
“Okay, so, in fact, ‘ran off’ might be completely fair.”
“Or she might call tomorrow that she’s wiring me their bus fare.”
I blew out at the ceiling.
“Don’t let this ruin your beautiful day.”
“I asked.” I put my fingers around my compressed waist, trying to lift my ribs up and out of the boning to breathe. Run off? Abandoned the kids? Abandoned? I could hear the string quartet start the song that was supposed to cue me. Oh God, where was the person to stick their head in and ask if I was ready so I could say I wasn’t. I needed someone to come back with that buttonhook so I could take one real breath. Just one. And I could do this. I could.
“Amanda, you okay?” Grammy asked. “I did. I ruined your big day,” she said with dismay.
“Oh, no, no,” I reflexively rushed to reassure her.
“Amanda, can I talk to you?” Tom knocked on the door.
“Come to get my granddaughter for her walk down the aisle?”
“I was actually hoping to have a quick word.”
“Going to spill all your secrets?” I asked, smiling my hostess smile.
He coughed.
“You know, to a successful marriage.”
He didn’t answer. I quickly downed the remainder of my champagne.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Grammy smiled. “Mr. Next President,” she added as she left.
Tom walked over to the shutters and peered out. “I’ve just been talking to some Westerbrook cousins about wine collecting. I wanted to say, you know the funny thing about you? From across the room you look like people who might want to talk about wine-collecting. But, of course, then you’d turn out to be secret crunk dancers or something. But no. You are exactly what you seem to be.”
“Should we head out?” I asked, suddenly just wanting nothing more than to dissapear into being the Bride. Music and cake and perfection. I wanted to dive in. “I need to talk to you,” he said seriously, the smile that always played around his mouth gone. He was giving me a family heirloom. He was promoting me. He was firing me. Lindsay was dying.
“Yes,” I said.
“This is very important.”
“Okay.”
“I need to talk to you.” He had said that already. He was repeating himself.
“Yes.” Were we going to do this all night?
“I have fucked up.”
Even as he said it my mind tried to skid over it. He got me the wrong sized watch! He didn’t check our registry!
“We should get out there—”
He grabbed my bare arms. “I have fucked up and I need your help. I’m sorry to do this now. Today, on your day. But this is urgent and by Monday . . .”
I shook my head like a baby trying to avoid a spoon. I did not want whatever was about to get crammed in me.
“You know how hard everything has been since Lindsay’s been sick.”
He wanted me to nod. But I couldn’t. Nodding would mean I was starting to understand whatever it was he was about to tell me.
“And you know how much I love her.”
I was blank. His hands felt hotter and hotter against my skin as all the blood shrank away from him.
“It was one night. Just one stupid night.”
I wanted to vomit champagne and tiny lobster rolls all over him.
“Back when we went to New York, when we found out about the cancer. The night we went to that awful dinner and I did the power point Lindsay hated. I went in the hotel lobby. Lindsay went to get God-knows-what.”
“Pinkberry.”
“What?”
“She went to get yogurt.” I was stalling him.
“I went inside and there she was in the lobby. It was like she was waiting for me.”
“Shannon?” I didn’t understand what was happening.
“Cheyenne.”
The way he said the name made me crumple into my dress, the skirt billowing as I pulled Tom down to the carpet with me.
“Lindsay can never know about this.”
“Why are you telling me?” Even as I asked I knew.
“She says it’s mine, but it can’t be. She’s crazy. How could it be mine from that one time? I used protection—”
I turned away, I couldn’t look at him anymore.
“Amanda, I need you to take her off the grid until she delivers and we can do a paternity test and shut her up. It wouldn’t be for long.” I stared into the carpet—he still held my elbows. “
Please.
We’re so close to winning this thing. Don’t let my one stupid hour ruin everything we’ve been working for. Don’t let it ruin everything Lindsay’s been working so hard for,” he spoke through clenched teeth. “I will die before I hurt her.” His grip hurt my arms.
There was a knock and the wedding planner pushed in. “The song has looped three times—everyone’s waiting—are you okay?” she asked.