Borrow-A-Bridesmaid (20 page)

“Inexplicably, a month later, I find out he and Holly are moving back east and getting hitched.” She pushes the Skinnygirl and Sierra Nevada back together, sending the empty shot glasses tumbling.

Chops appears again, clearing the glasses, wiping the counter with his plaid towel, and narrowing his eyes at Skinnygirl and Sierra Nevada.

“This girl.” Susan points at the girl on the vodka label. “Thisgirl in her pencil skirt, she's a destroyer of hearts.” She runs her finger across the label. “Ah! She's fucking LOW CARB. See! This is all wrong. Allwrong. I know she's probably hurting deep inside, but I can't let Charlie get sucked into that cycle again, not after he's escaped. I dunno, this is all so fast, it's like she has to be manipulating him again. I just don't know how.” She picks up the craft beer. “Charlie needs the space to explore his . . .” She squints at the bottle. “Hoppy flavor with unique piney aromas.”

I close my eyes. The room seems to have tilted on its axis. I think about Charlie being manipulated, hurt. I think about his creative energy, like light traveling through the universe. Beautiful, dazzling light that's being violently sucked into a black hole of batshit crazy.

Susan hiccups, then grabs my cheeks in her hands. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pay verycloseattention to Skinnygirl. You will look for lying, cheating, stealing, or manipulation of any kind. I want to know exactly what she's up to and if there's anything we can do to make Charlie see reason. I will pay you one million dollars. Wait, no. No, that's the booze talking. I will pay you—” She whistles at Chops, who appears instantaneously. “What's a reasonable fee for having someone potentially break up a wedding?”

He strokes his left chop in thought. “How abou' a thousand quid?”

Susan nods. “A thousand it is. Do you accept?”

I nod, my head feeling like a bowling ball about to be released at full speed. Once I start on this trajectory, it might not end until I've knocked down the entire ten-pin wedding party.

“Ineed a verbal,” Susan says, my cheeks still squished between her hands.

We take a long look at each other. I try to consider her offer rationally, given that the room is spinning and I'm feeling a sudden urge to “Do the Hustle!,” which has come on over the speakers. This is how my life is going to be. Confusing, all mixed up, and encouraging me to go both right and left in quick succession. But what do I have to lose? She hasn't asked me to de-pants anyone or start any forest fires. Just be observant. I can do that, right?

Susan's eyes are boring into mine.

“Yes,” I say. “I'll do it.”

Chops raises a glass to us. “Godspeed. I wish you well.”

“And I wish you happiness and many chocolate biscuits!” Susan says before collapsing in a fit of giggles.

Lin—it feels like
ages since I've seen Lin. When I get home, I find him under an enormous afghan, watching
Some Like It Hot
. My heart wants to explode. This is why everything has felt so wrong: I haven't had any BFF time.

Hi,
he mouths. I frown. He's gone mute? But he points to an extra lump under the afghan: a Steve-shaped lump, with a crop of blond curls emerging from one end of the blanket and a pair of tanned feet sticking out the other.

I smile because Lin looks so happy. Inwardly, the night janitor sweeps pieces of my now-exploded heart.

I blow Lin a kiss and make my way into my room. I forgot how messy I'd left it. A few discarded outfit options lie on the bed, like former versions of me, deflated. Handwritten loose-leaf brainstorming maps for my article cover the dresser. Cheer Bear presides over all from his perch atop my computer desk. Moonlight slips between the blinds and stripes the carpet. Walking across the light bars, I look like I've been jailed by moonbeams.

I watch the occasional car go by, the noise crescendoing and decrescendoing as the periphery of each set of headlights sweeps the lawn behind our complex. I open the window to let the cicadas' whirring into my room—a shiatsu massage for the eardrums. Fireflies create their own flea-circus traffic as they whirl by. In a documentary Lin and I watched weeks ago, we learned that fireflies in Thailand coordinate their light blips to make stunning displays, a natural Times Square luminance. In North America, each firefly flashes to the beat of its own drum.

On an impulse, I pick up Cheer Bear and squeeze him. His fur still smells like my parents' house—lavender air freshener—and for a second, I swear I smell homemade angel biscuits baking.

Lin walks in while my nose is still pressed into Cheer Bear's fur. He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking adorably ruffled from snuggling. The outer edge of one eyebrow lifts when he sees me doing my own bit of snuggling with an inanimate object. He says simply, “Honey.”

“Hey. Where's Steve?”

“He sleeps like the dead. He's still under the afghan.” Lin makes a face. “He makes this weird lip-smacking noise while he sleeps. Which, at this point in the relationship, is still a-fucking-dorable, thank God.”

I smile. “Ever the chef. Wonder if he's dreaming of dancing soufflés?”

“If dreaming is nature's way of preparing us to face life's challenges, maybe I'm the one who should be dreaming of soufflés. I couldn't make one if you shoved it up my ass and asked me to toot it back out.”

“That's . . . graphic.”

He puts his hands on his hips. “Back to you. What's all this about?” He motions to Cheer Bear. “You're regressing?”

I sigh. “It's been a weird day. Actually, ‘weird' doesn't even begin to cover it.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“Far be it from me to keep you from making a couch soufflé,” I say, waving him back toward the den. “Go get your man snuggle on.”

“I lied. The lip smacking does annoy me. Let's have some balcony time.”

And so we slip outside, where fireflies light up the balcony railing like miniature string lights. Lin extends his hand across the arm of his camp chair, and I take it. We sit in silence for several minutes. It's like sitting on the side of the pool, wanting to get nice and hot before diving in. I want to tell him everything, but the silence is warm and comforting.

Then I belly-flop in and share the whole story.

He listens, making the occasional sympathetic noise or gasp. When I finish, bringing him up to the minute, he squeezes my hand. “How's your sanity level? You don't have to do this. We can find you another gig.”

I squeeze his hand back. “I think I need to do this.”

Lin looks worried.

The fireflies make Morse-code signals at us. Their disjointed blips spur a thought. “You know, I think since graduation—and maybe even before—I've been paralyzed. Because I don't know what path is right, what job is right, what guy is right. I feel like it's time for me to start taking chances on things, on people. Maybe this is a crazy idea, but something is telling me to see where it goes.” I give him the reasons I laid out for myself at Alfred Angelo and later, at the pub, albeit in a boozy haze. How Susan's revelations about Charlie's past dissolved the bulk of my anger into confusion and concern. “And I need rent money. Plus, I'll be paying for Wulfie's new transmission for at least the rest of the year.”

“But this isn't just another job. These are people's lives.”

“I know.”

“And you believe Susan?”

I nod, thinking of the exasperated way Charlie looked at Holly. How their kiss seemed familiar but also—staged. “There's something off.”

He sighs, a smile passing across his face. “It's completely and utterly crazy. But that's what I told you at the beginning of this whole bridesmaid rental shebang, and you've surprised me at every turn. Made some new friends, seen some strangers' gazongas. An-y-way, if you're going with your gut, I'll go with your gut, too.”

“And I'll go with yours. You and Steve seem really happy.”

Lin closes his eyes. “Oh, Pipes—I think—” He grips my hand tighter. “I think I'm falling in love.”

I guess I could have surmised this; the clues have been everywhere: the coffee grinds he hasn't been cleaning up in the kitchen, the early-morning sleepy smiles the two of them exchange, the under-the-table texts at dinner.

Speaking of being in love, if I had to put a caption on Charlie and Holly's kiss earlier today, it wouldn't be “Nearlyweds Charlie Bell and Holly Garbo share an impulsive, passionate kiss.” It would be “Early-model humanoid robots imitate human emotion; scientists determine more tests, upgraded models needed.” Or “Bears in human suits create contrived portrayals of humanity.” My mental wheels try to spin, but I push the thoughts away, copy and paste them into tomorrow's schedule.

For now, I scoot my chair closer to Lin's. Because I know deep down there'll be fewer moments like this from here on out—fewer moments with just us. I lean my head on his shoulder as the fireflies dance and dance.

Twenty-Four

A
lex pushes her nonprescription glasses down her nose. “You have to do it.”

When her face appears in my cube the next morning, we don't get much past “Good morning” before I've told her everything. Our coffees sit unsipped as I sum up. “I've been hired de jure as a bridesmaid but de facto as a wedding Terminator.” (Can I put that on a business card? Professional Life Ruiner?)

I pick up one of Billy's binders and flip through it without looking at any of the contents. “I don't know if I can sit around making favors for Charlie's nuptials, covert as the intention may be. Anyway, what if I do find out she's manipulating him or cheating on him or lying to him? I don't know if I could break that to him.”

Truth is, in the ragged Wednesday-morning light, I'm mildly horrified at what I've agreed to. Getting dressed this morning, I caught a reflected glimpse of myself, halfway clothed in my teal cardigan and dragonfly undies. I imagined superimposing a pair of aviators on my face and talking into my wrist, then laughed out loud. Is someone who has laughing fits in her underwear cut out for espionage? Doubtful.

The thought of spying on Charlie's fiancée makes my stomach do a monkey backflip. On the other hand, I started writing again because of Charlie. If he marries Holly, will his own writing days be over? It feels as if he's sitting on a dunk-tank platform and Holly's aiming her next throw right at the bull's-eye. But if he doesn't have enough self-respect to rescue himself, what is it I'm supposed to do?

Alex snaps her fingers in front of my face. “You're thinking too much. You know what I think? You don't take risks because you're scared of the unknown. You take crappy jobs even though you hate them, because they're predictable. You take those jobs so you don't have to challenge yourself, because you're scared you'll come up short.”

My lips part. It feels like a well-deserved hit to the solar plexus.

She softens, perching on the desk and squeezing my shoulder. “Thing is, you're worthy of a good challenge. And so is Charlie.”

I take a long drink of coffee. The lukewarm liquid settles in my gut along with her words.

“Oh, just do it.” She snatches the binder from me. “You know you want to. Oh my God—can I help you? I'll help you.”

“All I have to do at this moment is color-code fifty-seven of Billy's binder dividers.”

“Fuck these with a disco stick. I have a plan to get us both out of here.”

As if he can smell mutiny with his electronically trimmed nose hairs,
BILLY!
pops his head around the cube wall.

Alex instantly turns her concentrating-friend face into a seductive pursed-lips face, Kabuki-like. “The man of the hour. I was looking for you to tell you I've pulled Piper onto a new project, just for today. You don't mind, I trust?”

Billy beams at her—I've never seen him beam! “You always take exactly what you want, don't you?” He steps closer to her but stumbles on an errant binder. He grabs the edge of my desk to steady himself, clearing his throat to cover the blunder.

Alex doesn't miss a beat. The glasses are back down the bridge of her nose, the better to seductionize him with. “Could be.”

“Well, then. Who am I to stand in your way?” He looks like he's thinking,
God, woman, take me RIGHT HERE AND NOW.
Before slipping away, he glares at me, his manscaped eyebrows communicating a very specific message:
Even though you're currently working for God's most succulent creation, you're still a waggling piece of shit sticking to the bottom of my designer shoe.

Alex holds up the binder for me. “See this?”

I nod.

She tosses it into the metal can under my desk. “Put it in your mental trash bin.”

I take a deep breath. I think about the humanoid kiss at Alfred Angelo. How a certain quiet desperation lurked in Charlie's eyes. How my gut suddenly felt like it was the burrow hole of a particularly rotund land beaver. And not because of Lin's and my late-night Mexican food binge.

Alex shakes her head. “Hellooo! Let's get this done in real time, not geologic time. When's the wedding?”

“Three weeks.”

“Right. Off your ass, Brody.”

“Where are we going?”

“To get some mojo.”

Twenty minutes later, I'm standing under unflattering fluorescent light at Alex's gym. As a first-time visitor, I've received a promotional pair of hot pants and a T-shirt depicting Rosie the Riveter wielding a pink barbell. The back reads, “We can pump it! GirlPower Gym, Fairfax, VA.” Alex wears a pink sports bra and black hot pants. Both of our hot pants are made of the clingy material that wicks moisture away from you while showcasing perky asscheeks. My ass is nowhere near Alex's on the perk-o-meter; I've always had a pancake ass. I feel like a bad infomercial.
Is your ass flat and uninviting? Do your hot pants look like they
've deflated?

“Alex,” I hiss as we approach the mirror-lined classroom where she's convinced I'm going to have a conversion experience. “What are we doing?”

She puts her hands on my shoulders. “This is the first place I came after Greg broke up with me. You have to trust me on this. Maddie will sort you right out.” She nods to the instructor, a five-foot-tall woman with a high ponytail, a scrunchie the size of a fist, and calves that could crush whole stacks of binders.

“If you survive this class,” Alex continues, giving me a pointed look, “you can do anything. You can break up a wedding.”

When I hesitate at the door, Alex pushes me through as the stereo starts playing Sir Mix-a-Lot—some pimped-out techno mix, anyway. We squeeze into a middle row on the left, and Alex sets a step platform in front of me, stacking two rungs underneath. One rung—nay, zero rungs—would be dandy, but there's no arguing. Under her own platform, she deftly stacks four.

“Basic!” Maddie yells from the front, bobbing up and down on her platform. Her curly ponytail bounces away, swinging back and forth as if conducting an ensemble of rapidly toning buttcheeks. Just when I think I've got the rhythm, she begins galloping across the platform, shouting, “Mambo!” And then “High step!” The entire class proceeds to do jumping jacks on their platforms. Broken clavicle waiting to happen.

After many moments of physical dyslexia, I begin catching on. Maddie must sense this, because she starts a new routine. “Let's transition to some kickboxing, ladies. Basic with punch!”

Step with right, punch with left. Step with left, punch with right. I can do this. This is easy! I punch right and almost teeter off the platform. I have visions of knocking over the entire class, domino-style. One hawkeyed glance from Alex sends me skittering back in synch.

If the pain of my quads and hams could be distilled into an audible sound, it would be a screech high-pitched enough to spontaneously combust any hearing aids in the vicinity. Each step feels like I'm fetching my feet out of drying cement.

Must. Survive. Shit just got primal: I'm out of my head and into my body.

If I tone my gut, maybe I'll be better equipped to receive the messages it's transmitting. Maybe that's why I've ended up in so many horrible job situations and relationships. My gut's signals got lodged in the stripe of squishy across my midsection. I imagine working out so hard the fat melts away, releasing fossilized transmissions from ages past.
Scott's a doofus!
Don't trust Sal! Keep writing!
I wonder what it'll tell me about Charlie—and his wedding.

“Kick hard, ladies!” Maddie shouts from the front. She tucks right, punches left. It takes me a few moves, but then I'm into it, and when I punch left, I envision punching away all the stress from the past twenty-four hours—or the past year. As Alex's fist pops into my peripheral vision, I'm aware of the entire room moving in tandem: a badass woman army.

“HIT! HIT! HIT! C'mon, girls! You got this!” Maddie shouts from the front. I catch Alex's eye, and for a split second, we beam at each other before following Maddie's directive to jab left, then hook right. It's as if we're the inner workings of a prolific typewriter, an invisible hand instructing us to issue one exclamation point after another.

HIT! HIT!
Typewriters—I've got to make some progress on the article. This latest assignment would really be the icing on the fondant. Or the fondant on the cake. Whatever! My words will leap off the page and knock those
City Paper
staffers with a right hook.

HIT! HIT!
I can do this. I'm going to get to the bottom of this Holly/Charlie scenario.

“Squats!” Maddie shouts, changing gears. We drop our glutes to the floor, holding our interlocked fingers at chest level in a karate bow. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look ridiculous, trying to drop my pancake butt like it's hot. Alex and I lock eyes via our reflections. She offers me a proud smile, reminding me,
If you survive this, you can do anything.

The next time we HIT! HIT!, I picture Sal's face, then
BILLY
's. I picture Holly dangling a piñata of devious secrets in front of me, then demolish the piñata with my fist.

As the entire class moves like one feisty organism, I suddenly feel invincible, like I'm punching a question-mark block to reveal a star power-up. Bowser, beware! I am part of a woman army, dedicated to truth! To justice! To asscheeks that crush binders!

HIT!