Borrow-A-Bridesmaid (22 page)

“In the raw what?”

Anna raises an eyebrow and grasps her bosom. “You know. The raw.”

“Oh!” I frown. “Was she with Charlie?”

“At first I thought,
Yes, it is Charlie,
so I went back to cleaning. Then I heard them on the back porch, and when they stood under the floodlight, I think it was another man. They stood out there for a long time, doing the making out, and then he left.”

My brain scans quickly through the information I've received from Susan. Supposedly, Holly and Charlie were together throughout most of college. “Maybe she and Charlie were on a break?” I wonder aloud.

Anna shakes her head. “Charlie came the next day to see her.”

I wince. “And you're sure the pond guy wasn't Charlie?”

Anna sighs again. “I do not think it was Charlie. It was a while ago. I try to mind my own business. I have enough drama in my life with a teenager at home.”

So Holly might have cheated on Charlie in college. Maybe Naked Pond Man is still in the picture. “So you don't know if she cheated on him other times?”

She shrugs. “I cannot confirm or deny.”

“Well, what's Holly like to be around on a daily basis?”

“I am not really around her—or she is not really around me, I guess, unless she is telling me to scrub the mirror harder, the better to see her face with.” Anna pauses to laugh at her joke. “Look, I'm not one to make judgments about other people. But she is . . . how can I describe? Something is wrong about her. Not that I blame her, having Medusa for a mother.” She gazes out at the pond. “Holly is like jack-in-the-box. The crank is always turning, and you never know when she is going to—” Anna holds her hands up in fists, then extends all her fingers at once. “POP!” This time she laughs so hard she makes herself cough. I reciprocate the back pat.

As she catches her breath, she gives me a long look. “If it was my son she was engaged to?” Anna shakes her head. “No way.”

She crushes a final cigarette under her shoe. “Back to work. Good luck to you and your unnamed third party,” she says before pulling open the sliding patio door and disappearing inside. A poof of air-conditioning sneaks onto the patio and dissipates instantly in the heat.

Holly returns to
the mansion as I'm wrapping up task 15, item 5.a.iii. She's sans makeup in a tight tank top and pink sporty shorts, but she looks just as amazing as she did on the lighted stage at Alfred Angelo. Her skin is glowing, her eyebrows are perfectly arched (though red underneath from a recent wax), and her nails are perfectly shaped and painted iridescent pink. She blows on them absently as she walks in.

“Piper, how are you?” she says, sounding almost, well, nice.

The niceness disarms me, as I've spent the past hour feeling angry on Charlie's behalf. I blink at her.
I'm thinking about you getting your jollies behind Charlie's back, you no-good cheating—
“I'm—I'm good. You?”

She flips her iron-straight hair over one shoulder. “I'm good. Really good.”

Jollies! She's been out jollying!

I swallow. “Hey, I was wondering, if you have a minute, there's something I was hoping to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” She smiles sweetly and perches her bum on the table next to the laptop. I edge the laptop away from her. Even though I've closed iPhoto and cleared the browser history, I'm terrified that my virtual evidence quest is somehow still visible. “What's up?” she asks, blowing on her nails.

“I don't know if Susan told you,” I continue, “but I always like to get to know my brides a little bit. I was hoping maybe you could tell me about how you met Charlie?”

She crosses one leg over the other and considers me, seemingly contemplating whether to upgrade my status from ribbon servant to bridesmaid.

“He asked you out in high school, right?” I persist.

“The prom.” She smiles again, and for a moment, I put myself in high school Charlie's shoes. No question, she was the prettiest girl in school. “He asked me out by reading me a poem in front of the entire English class.” We both swoon a little. “I knew back then he was the guy I'd marry.”

I fidget with a ribbon spool, poking my index finger through the center and winding it absently around its finger spoke with my other hand. “Wow, so you've been together for how many years now?”

She rolls her eyes up toward her tanned forehead. “Let's see, that would be almost six years.”

Being this close to her is making me physically uncomfortable: The ribbon wheel increases its speed. Even up close, she's immaculate. Her hair super-shiny, her skin nearly poreless. I think of that tiny pigtailed incarnation of her on Susan's phone screen. That hopeful missing-tooth smile. At the same time, I feel as if I'm being lured into a vision she's presenting of herself. Nibbling up the bread crumbs she's meted out along a glittering votive-candle-lined path. I'd almost forgotten Naked Pond Man.

“And—you always knew he was the one?” I say, trying to shake myself out of the Holly spell.

“Mmm.” She seems to have found something either fascinating or concerning about one of her cuticles. She worries at it with another finger.

“And how did he propose? Another poem?”

A pause. One corner of her mouth pulls downward. She hops off the table, moving around to examine my handiwork with the favors. My unanswered question hops off the table with her in a whoosh of pleasant girly smells. She sets her smartphone next to the laptop and begins scrutinizing the favors. I hold my breath as my work is graded in front of me.

On an impulse, I begin fanning my face rapidly with one of the unassembled favor boxes. “Jeez, it's hot today, right? I could really just—rip off my clothes and go for a dip in that pond.”

If she heard me, it doesn't register. She's plucking a favor from my neat rows and examining it. I was assembling navy-and-silver-striped boxes, stamping them with the “Holly and Charlie, August 1
st
” custom-made insignia stamp, filling the box with silk rose petals, tying a shiny ribbon bow around the votive candle, securing the bow with a rose-tipped pin, then nestling the candle into its bed of petals.

She frowns as she looks at one of my ribbon bows. “What is this?” She holds it up for my examination.

“A bow?” Is this a trick question?

She makes a
harrumph
. “No, no,
no
,” she says. “This is a fucking mess, is what it is. Look at that—it's way off center! You're going to need to redo these. This reflects on me, do you get that?”

I was hoping to meet Lin and Steve for dinner at six, but according to a sly glance at Big Ben, it's already half past five. “I actually need to—”

She sets down the candle and stares at me. Her eyelids expand to reveal more of the white around her irises before retracting again: an ocular flare. “I'm sorry, did you think you were here for your own enjoyment and pleasure?”

My heart begins doing the Hustle. “I meant that—I don't—”

An electronic sound makes me jump: Her phone is making a bird noise. Saved by the tweet. I'm just able to decipher “
Call from: BVH
” on the screen before she scoops it up.

I dig back into the rows of boxes and begin examining ribbons while trying to hear what BVH is saying.

“I can't really talk right now, can I call you back later?” She presses the “end call” button with a manicured fingertip, then examines said fingertip to make sure the polish is still smooth.

“Anything important?” I ask, pretending my real focus lies on my negligent ribbon tying.

Once again, my question goes unanswered. Instead I get: “Finish these, and let yourself out.”

As she retreats deeper into the mansion, I want to shout:
What about Naked Pond Man? WHAT ABOUT NAKED POND MAN?
But she disappears, and a few minutes later the robot woman announces, “Powder. Room. Door. Open. Powder. Room. Door. Closed.”

I gaze out the bay window for several minutes, my heart still hopping. I project a Charlie montage onto the surface of the pond: I envision him getting measured for his suit, standing with his arms extended. Maybe the measuring tape glances his waist and he's ticklish there. Oh, Charlie.

What does Anna's tidbit mean? If it's true, maybe Charlie already knows about it. At Alfred Angelo, he said, “There's a lot you don't know.” I consider running naked into the backyard and belly-flopping into the pond. Just giving up on this. There are too many unknowns. But my own internal jack-in-the-box has started cranking, and my gut tells me I'm working up to a pop. Happy people don't bitch about ribbons. I shake my head. There's more to the story, I know it. As my English professor would say,
What's the subtext?

I turn back to the rows of favor boxes and text Lin:
Sorry, love, going to miss dinner. Stuck in votive candle hell.

He writes back:
Is it garlic or holy water that repels bridezillas?

Hrm. Not sure.

Maybe a zombie horde would work?

After 200+ votive candle favors, I think I qualify. As a zombie.

I've been telling you all along to trust your own powers. Steve says zombies totally beat vampires. Go get 'em.

Braaaaains!

That's the spirit! Keep calm and eat brains.

Twenty-Six

B
laine V. Harrison is timelessly attractive, with close-cropped blond hair, fifties-style thick-rimmed glasses, and a V-neck T-shirt revealing tanned, hairless man cleavage. The kind of “T-shirt” that costs seventy-five dollars. He's lean but fit; you could probably play Parcheesi on his abs.

Susan corkscrews a curl around one finger. “Who uses a middle initial on a Facebook profile? Seems a little over the top. What does the V stand for, do you reckon?”

“Vernon?”

“Vermilion.”

“Vincent.”

“Vendetta!”

We read his Facebook profile to the soundtrack of Susan's husband, Brandon, practicing trumpet in the next room. With a symphony concert the next evening, Susan should be practicing, too, but after hearing what I found out at the mansion, she insisted I come to her apartment pronto for a quick confab. She almost instantly identified BVH as Blaine V. Harrison, Holly's adoring neighbor. And the interweb stalking commenced.

Interests: Future Politicians of America, Blues Traveler, Avett Brothers, Republicans for Sustainable Farming, Cross
Fit

We exchange looks. He doesn't
seem
like a covert skinny-dipper or girlfriend-stealer. I imagine putting on super-spy glasses that will reveal the real Blaine underneath the profile, like a painting hidden underneath another painting. Scratch away at that chiseled chin and find a devil's beard.

Interests: Stealing girlfriends from honest men, eating other people's hearts, dancing naked under the moon, skinny-dipping and letting the water drip seductively off my Parcheesi-board abs. *Cue evil laughter*

What I see instead is:

Favorite Quotes: “Don't judge each day by the harvest that you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” —Robert Louis Stevenson

Susan shakes her head. “I bet I know what seed he'd like to plant. Huh, Blaine? All I know is, Charlie's always had his eye on this guy. He used to complain how Blaine was always around, finding excuses to be at Holly's, sucking up to her mom. Bet you anything he's the skinny-dipping culprit. And that's definitely who was calling her. The middle initial's a dead giveaway. Probably calling to schedule another naked water rendezvous.”

I rub my eyes. “Why would she cheat on Charlie now, though? Right before their wedding?”

Susan shrugs. “She has an insatiable appetite for attention.”

We turn back to the profile as Susan scrolls through Blaine's friends. “Nora Fillmore,” she says, pointing to a blonde whose profile photo looks like a glamour shot. “I remember her. She used to help Lena with campaigns. Holly hated Nora, probably because Nora had the hots for BVH. What is that, a love rhombus? Anyway, we used to call her Nora the Nose, because she had such a nasally voice. Not my best hour.”

“Um, that's— Yeah, so what do we do now?” I lean back in her desk chair and almost tip over onto a pile of sheet music stacked several feet high. Susan catches me with glissando-speed reflex.

The trumpet goes silent. Brandon pops in, frowning. He's wearing plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt that says, “Can You Handel It?” A teddy-bear gut pushes the T-shirt outward. Brandon has a lovable but mischievous Seth Rogen look. Susan informed me when I arrived that he's unofficially on Team Wedding Terminator.

“Now, here are two ladies who are up to no good,” he says, reclining against the doorframe. As he folds his arms across his chest, his gut winks at us from under the T-shirt. “All this scheming got you parched? You gals need a refreshing beverage?”

“No, thanks,” I say.

Brandon turns to his wife. “Honey? When's the last time you had something to eat?”

She shakes her head again. “Shh! I'm trying to figure something out.”

I turn to Brandon, who's making a
Well, excuuuuuuse me!
face at Susan. “There's a possibility Holly might have cheated—might
be
cheating, I guess—on Charlie. With her irritatingly perfect neighbor.”

Brandon thumps into the room, setting his trumpet on a crooked bookcase, and begins reading the profile, making various indignant sniffing noises. “Look at
this
guy. What a fancy motherlover.”

Meanwhile, Susan is making the kind of face that begs to be accompanied by the
Chariots of Fire
theme song. “I've got it!”

“What?” Brandon and I ask in unison.

“We invite Blaine to Holly and Charlie's co-ed shower without telling him it's a shower. We tell him, ‘Hey, it would be a fun surprise if you showed up at this party Holly's having.' ”

My intestinal groundhog perks up in his burrow. He gives a nose wriggle that says, “Me no likey.”

Husband and wife discuss the mechanics of a Facebook invite, nodding like bobbleheads. They look a bit disturbed—more like evil twins than husband and wife.

I stand up from the broken chair and creep toward the door. “Shouldn't you be rehearsing?” I peep.

Susan looks up at me. “You don't think we should invite him.” Stating, not asking.

I shove my hands in my pockets and give a half-shrug. “I mean, if you want to—”

“You have an opinion. Say it.”

Brandon stands up and slips out of the room, returning a moment later to exchange a tray of milk and cookies for his trumpet. Only because they look like they're going to slide off the lopsided bookcase, I take a glass of milk and four cookies.

“I'll leave you ladies to it,” Brandon says. The trumpet music resumes in the next room.

“Piper?” Susan crosses her arms, looking matronly.

“Okay. No. I don't think we should invite him.”

“Why not? If they've got nothing to hide, there'll be no harm in it.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It just feels too . . . invasive. I can try and find out more at the shower, maybe talk to Holly and Charlie about Blaine. Maybe you could ask Charlie, too?”

“I told you before, if I try to get him to open up, he only shuts me out more. Big Sister Polarity. It's a law of, like, physics.”

She spins around in her desk chair, apparently the only functional piece of furniture in the room. I feel like I'm in a funhouse. Or a madhouse.

I take a deep breath. “I don't think we should invite him.” I look at the floor. My toes always point toward each other, as if bashful.

Susan buries both of her hands in her hair, as though searching for something lost, and then pulls them both out. “I'm just freaking out. Why don't you go home and get some rest? I've got to practice anyway. I'll text you tomorrow.”

“So you're not going to invite him, right?”

Either she doesn't hear me or she ignores me. She's already lost again in Facebook land.

Bridal showers are a cycle of revenge. Why else would you make a friend receive a completely impersonal gift (“H
ope you'll think of me every time you use this citrus juicer—or not, that would be awkward”) and wrap herself in toilet paper while pretending it's a wedding gown? Are we in an insane asylum? No, this is life in your twenties. Buckle up and don that oversize foam engagement ring, ladies, it's going to be a wild ride.

Maybe I'm soulless, but I believe that wishing someone happiness has nothing to do with stuff. Or maybe I'm bitter right now because my budget only allows for r
amen and peanut butter. I'm one glass of OJ ahead of scurvy.

I shove my notebook back in the glove compartment, grateful to have a few minutes of writing time before the crazy begins. Wulfie and I are parked in Lena's driveway for the co-ed shower. That's what all the kids are doing these days: co-ed showers. Sounds more fun and scandalous than it is.

The past week has been a whirlwind of planning: collecting RSVPs, purchasing decorations, calling all over town to find available vendors on short notice. Mentioning Lena's name seemed to help significantly. There won't be a theme—according to Lena, themes are trashy. But, as she told me with thinly veiled condescension, “For you, dear, you might say the theme is ‘classy.' ” She said this while giving my thrift-store outfit an arctic once-over.

Lin helped me find my dress for the shower in an evening of Goodwill-scouring. It's a simple, slinky cut with a scoop neck and beaded fringe. He stood outside the dressing room and thumbs-upped or thumbs-downed each choice. It was just the two of us—Steve was cheffing—and I relished the BFF time. I wish he were here now, but I couldn't figure out how to finagle it. We agreed the bringing-a-gay-man-to-make-the-love-interest-jealous thing was so nineties. “Plus,” he said, “Charlie would probably fall for me, and that would be hella awkward.”

Lin suggested I invite Brick instead—“Imagine Charlie's expression when you appear on the scene with that hunk of man!”—but he was on Smithsonian duty. Brick was, however, devastated to hear that my man friend from the Portrait Gallery was involved with someone else. He offered to kick any ass necessary when he wasn't busy guarding the nation's treasures.

So here I am, going stag to the shower. I sigh and pop the trunk; it looks as if Wulfie looted and pillaged every craft store in town. Which is pretty much what happened. I unload the decorations and begin traipsing toward the house with my quarry.

Anna greets me at the door with a smile. “You came back for more.”

“God help me, yes.”

She holds out her arms to take on part of my pastel-colored burden, and we begin our trek through the house. I momentarily wish I could turn to stone and lounge here in the lobby with the marble Adonises.

“How are you?” I ask Anna.

She shrugs. “I am here.”

“I know what you mean.”

We reach the kitchen and begin setting down the bags and organizing their contents.

“I wish I could shovel more dirt to you,” Anna says, “but I have not seen or heard anything. She has her panties on straight for now.”

“Eh?”

“Panties are not in a twist, so to speak.”

“Ah. I think mine are, actually.” At Lin's urging, I've attempted a thong. “You can't let Charlie see your VPL!” he said as, fresh out of the Goodwill dressing room, I sported a granny-panty outline. He explained that “VPL” stood for “visible panty line,” and I had one that was visible to any satellites currently orbiting the Eastern Hemisphere.

“Who knows how the night will go,” Anna says, winking at me as we pull piles of paper lanterns from the plastic bags. “Maybe you will steal the groom away—problem solved.”

Just thinking of Charlie sends an unexpected jolt of desire through me. I wonder fleetingly if my feelings will be visible to all involved, an emotional VPL.

In the second-floor bathroom, I hang my dress on the back of the door, where it looks like a second skin. I pretend I'm a superhero, pausing for an outfit change so I can suit up my secret powers. Once into the dress, I get out my makeup bag and styling iron and set to work, first taming my hair and then adding some flapper-inspired waves. I line my eyes and apply a coat of bright red lipstick. When I'm finished, I blow myself a kiss in the mirror and let my hand fall back by my side. The false enthusiasm quickly melts into a sense of dread. At least the fact that Susan has a concert and can't make the shower lets me feel like I have space to breathe, to do this my way.

The last piece of my outfit—the glittery heels—wait dutifully for me by the door, but I'm not quite ready. Instead, I slip over to the bathroom window and push the sheer curtain aside with a pointer finger to admire my handiwork. The porch has morphed into a cocktail lounge with high-top tables spread throughout, each glittering with a glass-shrouded candle. As I was setting up, Holly and her mother took turns appearing on the upper porch and hollering down that I should move this or that five centimeters to the right.

With the darkening sky, the lanterns and candles add a soft glow, creating a dizzily romantic atmosphere. The pond shimmers below, obscured by the occasional waterside tree that, in the fading light, looks like the silhouette of a pensive water-gazer. Fireflies wink above the water's surface, creating circles of sporadic light. I look out for a moment more, taking in the scene.