Borrow-A-Bridesmaid (25 page)

A single tear sneaks down my face and curls up next to my nostril. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“Holly doesn't want anyone to know. At least not until after we're married. I guess I don't need to reinforce that this is complicated.”

“But do you love her?”

He presses his lips together. “I love our baby. Do you know it's about the size of a bean right now?”

A Charlie bean. The baby will have his dimples, I bet. “This is crazy.”

He nods. “I'm only getting an inkling of how crazy.” He gives me a long look. “Like I said before, Holly and I had broken up when I met you. I had no idea until after—that's why I had to rush back to L.A.”

I wave away his explanation. I don't want to think about how close I came to having Charlie possibly be a part of my life and not Holly's. I want to hug him so bad. My insides ache and ache. The empty space between us feels like a force field.

“Can I ask you something?”

He nods.

“I heard you and Holly arguing last night. I'm sorry, I was getting changed on the second floor, and— I mean, are you okay?”

“You heard that?” His cheeks flush. He looks like he's considering not telling me anything, and then his grip on the sock monkey releases ever so slightly. “Holly's mom wants me to be her campaign communications manager, and I said no. Lena's not happy with me right now. Actually, that's a massive understatement. I'm not exactly the person she had in mind for a son-in-law. I think if I weren't going to be the father of her grandchild, she'd probably have me scalped.”

Even though this entire situation is anything but funny, I burst out laughing. I forgot he had that effect on me. “That's intense,” I say when I've caught my breath.

“Yeah.” Charlie's adjusting the sock monkey's little bow tie, straightening it, and something in me gives way.

“Charlie . . .” I take a step into the force field. “What if—what if you didn't have to marry her? What if you could still be involved in your kid's life without . . . shackling your heart?” A tear escapes from my other eye.

His eyes look watery, too. “Piper, please. Don't.” He looks down at the pink-and-blue-checkered tile floor. When he meets my eyes again, he says, “Don't make this harder than it already is. I made a commitment for my kid, and I'm going to stick by it no matter what. It's something I need to do.”

“I just want you to be happy,” I whisper.

His cheeks flush again. “Thing is, it's not about me anymore. It's about—” He flails around, finally gesturing emphatically at the crib display. In the process, he inadvertently sends the sock monkey soaring. It lands in the RockStar 3000 automated rocking crib, which, sensing an occupant, begins slowly moving back and forth.

He starts to laugh, a crazed laugh. I'm laughing, too, because this is my life. If there is a God, he or she is as adept at master plans as Sock Monkey, who presides over our delirious hilarity with button eyes.

The laughter appears to have weakened the force field, because he broaches it.

Our eyes meet. I pretend I can unknow everything that's happened in the past month. I pretend we're not in Bebe de Luxe, that we're in a time and space vacuum where everything is perfect and we're together again. He moves closer to me, and I wrap my arms around his midsection. Hold him, smell him. He smells like cigarette smoke and manly soap. He folds around me. We rock back and forth like we're slow dancing to the elevator music playing over the speakers.

This is the inverse of our portrait gallery moment. The closing bracket of our time together.

Slowly, time and space return, filling in around us. A splotch of fluorescent light here, a sock monkey there.

“You're going to be a great dad, you know,” I say, forcing myself to break contact.

He smiles. “I'm glad you think so. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.”

“One thing at a time. What, for instance, do you find to be the primary advantages and disadvantages of the Go Bananas crib?”

He frowns, walking back over to the crib and picking up its plastic detail sheet. “Custom comfort, for one. Memory foam. I want her to be as comfortable as possible while she's shitting her pants.”

“She? I thought you didn't know—”

He smiles. “Just a feeling.”

“So what about the RockStar 3000?”

He shakes his head firmly. “I'll do the rocking, thanks. You know, my mom did a lot that damaged me permanently, but there's one tradition I want to keep. She used to always sing me ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' Every time I hear that song now, I get this warm feeling like there's sunshine in my gut. Like I'm safe, and everything's going to be okay.”

For a final beat, we stand there and smile at each other.

“You better get going,” I say finally.

“You're right.” He retrieves the sock monkey. The RockStar 3000 is instantly still. “I have a chore list the length of the Old Testament. I meant to ask you, what are you doing here, anyway?”

I hesitate. “You know, picking up a baby shower gift for a friend.”

“Ah. I highly recommend the Hiney Hydration Crème.”

“Noted.”

“Guess I'll see you at the rehearsal? I wish we could spend some more time together, but . . .”

“I understand.”

He takes a step back but doesn't turn away yet.

“Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“If you . . . need a friend . . . call me, okay?”

He holds up the sock monkey and makes it nod at me, its bow tie bopping along. And then he's gone.

My phone buzzes: a text from Susan.
Any word? Can we meet tonight?

Oh, I've got word. A four-letter one. B-A-B-Y.

Twenty-Eight

E
ven inanimate objects seem to be coupling up: Lin's and Steve's Audis are parked next to each other in the apartment lot. As I traipse up the steps, I stop to admire the sunset, which is trying its best to distract stressed Beltway drivers. Orange clouds point gnarled fingers toward the west, while surges of yellow and pink create soft waves of color. I wish an orange cloud finger would point me in the right direction. Charlie, a father. Lin introducing Steve to his parents. It's such a strange place to be, such a liminal (there's that word again—the new buzzword of my twenties) place. A favorite Shakespeare quote comes to mind: “Envy no man's happiness . . . glad of other men's good . . .”

But that's the thing: Charlie's not happy.

Carrying these thoughts like stacks of stones on my shoulders, I open the door to find Lin making a chocolate soufflé in the kitchen. Beside him, Steve waves his arms in gentle demonstrative motions, as if snake-charming the flour to rise. Bon Iver plays on the stereo. A few candles flicker on the counter. It's so soothing in here, I consider slipping onto the couch and enjoying the ambiance. But I need input.

Lin and Steve turn to me with giddy smiles.

“Chocolate,” Lin says, as if this explains everything in life that ever needed explaining. “Come, try.”

I hang my purse on the coat rack—newly installed on the wall by Steve, who couldn't believe we threw our coats just
anywhere
—and let my feet carry me toward the smell of chocolate. Using two oven mitts, Lin takes a fresh-from-the-oven ramekin and sets it on the high-top counter that separates the living room from the kitchen. Steve garnishes the soufflé's puff top with a pinch of powdered sugar and a dessert fork.

I take a moment to admire it. Until last week, we were ramekin-less. Steve threw open the cupboard to look for one and gasped. Lin seemed to think a ramekin was Russian currency (“Sure, I'll hand you one right after you give me a borsa full of rubles!”). “Target. Pronto,” Steve admonished, and the two of them dashed out of the apartment, giggling.

And now here's a tiny white ramekin, filled with warm soufflé. It's a bit lopsided but otherwise looks restaurant-quality.

I dig into the chocolate flesh, savoring each bite. During those few seconds, there's no trouble in the world. I exist alone on a planet of chocolate, spinning through a sugar-dusted Milky Way.

When I return from this intergalactic journey, I open my eyes to two expectant faces. “It's perfect, boys.”

Steve plants a kiss on Lin's cheek.

Lin frowns. “Then why are you making your I-know-something-big-but-I'm-trying-to-hide-it face?”

“What?”

“Hard to explain. You kind of twist your lips to one side and lift your eyebrows. Like you're making room inside your face for your secret—”

“But it's rising like a soufflé, and we can smell it from here,” Steve concludes.

I sigh. “Well, speaking of things in the oven—”

“You're pregnant!” Lin squeals. “Is it Kalil's?”

I wave my hand. “Oh, shush. No, listen, it's Charlie's. He's pregnant. I mean, Holly's pregnant. How— What do I do?”

“Oh, honey.” Lin unmitts and comes to me, arms outstretched. I lay my head on his shoulder and he strokes my hair.

We migrate to the living room. I sit on the camp chair, collapsing inward on myself like an inverted soufflé, and Lin and Steve sit across from me on the couch. They lie sideways with their legs outstretched, like a two-headed love-beast.

“So,” Lin says. “Hence the whole stampeding-toward-the-altar business.”

I nod. “Hence a lot of things. It all kind of makes sense. Except Holly's past infidelity, but even that's probably a moot point now.”

“Ehrmegerd. Susan is going to flip a shit pancake,” Lin says, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

“I know. I want to tell her, but in person. And I want to make sure she doesn't go crazy and throttle Charlie. He's in pretty deep already. Getting ready to be a father and all.”

“Invite her over,” Steve suggests. “Temper the news with the food of the gods.”

So this time, I'm the one sending an SOS. Susan appears at the apartment within twenty minutes, which seems vaguely miraculous given that she lives in downtown Alexandria. Brandon comes along, too. Today his T-shirt reads, “I Mustache You a Question.” Susan's wearing a spaghetti-strap paisley maxi-dress, her hair in its typical curly knot.

“Have a soufflé,” I say when they walk in, but she swats away the suggestion.

“Don't sugarcoat it. Just tell me.”

I guide her and Brandon to the couch. Lin and Steve busy themselves in the kitchen. When I give her the news, her face crumples, and I see her go through a couple of different emotions before a tear slides down one cheek. Brandon catches it with his thumb.

“Oh, Charlie,” she says, leaning her head on Brandon's shoulder. She just keeps repeating, “Oh, Charlie.”

We sit in silence, Bon Iver singing a lament in the background. Steve sets two soufflés and two glasses of cold milk in front of Susan and Brandon.

After it seems safe to talk again, I say, “I tried to ask him whether he'd considered supporting the baby without marrying her, but his mind is made up. He's trying to do the honorable thing.”

Susan nods. “He always does.” She puts both of her hands over her face for a long moment, then pulls them away. “I'm going to go home now.”

Brandon glances into the kitchen. “Do you have a soufflé for the road?”

After Steve has sent them away with the last of the dessert in a paper bag, the three of us stand at the counter. I look down at my hands. “I don't know what to do now. I mean, am I still on the job? Do I go to the rehearsal? Do I spontaneously combust?”

Lin takes my hand. “Here's what you're going to do, sweetie pie. You're going to go to the rehearsal and the wedding and be the best bridesmaid you can be. Be there for him and for Susan.”

I ponder this for a moment and nod stoically. “Gentlemen, we're going to need another round of soufflés.”

Twenty-Nine

W
hen Alex and I arrive for the rehearsal the following Friday, the church bells are tolling the hour in low, ominous tones. Not like I needed a reminder that we're counting down to the demise of Charlie's bachelordom.

On the way over, I told Alex every last detail about the current status of the mission. Her crowning comment as we get out of the Miata is “Huh.”

“Huh what?”

“Huh as in there's a missing piece.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. I just think there's more to the story.” She's wearing a cryptic smile. “Takes a diva to know— Oh! Who is that?” She stops, her face in an un-Alex-like expression: disarmed.

Charlie's best friend and best man, Sam, emerges from the church's front doors wearing a red blazer, hands shoved in his pockets. I wonder briefly how much he knows about his best friend's insta-marriage.

“I was just starting to think the whole thing was off,” he says, coming down the steps to meet us. He shrugs. “Oh well. One can hope.” He depockets his right hand to high-five me. “Hey, girlicious. Fancy seeing you here.”

He's tamed his spiky hair into a slicked-back do. The wind blows; his hair doesn't move. This feels ominous, too, as if his spikes have withdrawn for fear of Lena's wrath. His trademark aviators are perched on the bridge of his nose, but this time the sun warrants them: The day is clear and bright. A pathetic fallacy—a brewing storm, maybe—would feel more fitting. But nature is oblivious. As if to underscore this point, a lark begins singing in the tree overhead.

When Sam sees Alex, he pushes the sunglasses down his nose and raises both eyebrows. “Damn. You going to introduce?”

As usual, Alex looks runway-caliber. She's wearing a high-waisted pink dress cinched with a thin leather belt, her onyx hair drifting halfway down her back in beachy waves.

“Sam, meet my girlfriend Alex. Alex, this is Charlie's best man, Sam.”

“Best, brightest, sexiest—I welcome all superlatives,” Sam says, taking Alex's manicured hand and kissing her knuckles. A blush spreads and recedes across her cheekbones as she offers a halfheartedly sarcastic “Enchanted.”

“Now, now,” I say to Sam. “She's my date this evening.”

Holly insisted a dateless bridesmaid would look pathetic. Alex wanted in on the drama, and Lena thought inviting a “lesbian” couple would be a good campaign move (“Of course your people are welcome”). Wedding crasher, token lesbian—full-service bridesmaid hire, indeed.

As the three of us walk up the church steps, Sam tugs on a lock of my hair and whispers, “Can you believe this shit? Of course he'd knock
this
chick up.”

“He told you?”

“He didn't have to. I've known him for too long. He can't be constipated without me knowing he's keeping something in. Did he tell you?”

“Not . . . exactly. Have you talked to him about it?”

“If by ‘talked to him,' you mean I got doused with a
moral code
stream of bullshit, then yes. Here's what I told him: If your morals mean that your kid has the right to be loved and happy, how does that not apply to you, too?”

“Well said.” I stop on the top step to catch my breath. I can't help but envision before-and-after wedding mug shots of Charlie.

Pre-wedding: He wears a T-shirt under a blazer, writing at an outdoor café while blowing a stream of smoke up to the stars.

Post-wedding: He wears a blue Snuggle Baby receiving cloth over his shoulder, cleaning chunks of spit-up off his chin while Holly gets her hair highlighted.

“Telling him my two cents didn't get me anywhere,” Sam is saying, “so I'm here to have his back the best I can. I don't agree with his decision, but I love the guy in a way that pushes the boundaries of heterosexuality.” He eyes Alex. “Just to clarify, there's only one team I play for.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Noted.”

We emerge into the lobby and pause while our eyes adjust to the dim lighting. The sanctuary is beautiful and capacious, with a huge stained glass wall behind the pulpit. As the sun waxes and wanes behind a cloud outside, rays of color undulate across the pews—red, orange, yellow, and blue. Such a beautiful place for such a tragic event.

The quiet dissipates as a cavalcade of car doors closes in the parking lot. Moments later, Lena, a tiny grandmother, and more of their entourage enter. Tiny Grandmother is without question Lena's mother: She has the same intense gray eyes and high cheekbones. She also looks like she could take on a zombie horde using only her baby-blue handbag and a hatpin.

Other additions to the rehearsal cast: Charlie's teenage cousin Josh, my escort for the aisle-walk; Holly's older sister, Rachel, who looks like Holly Photoshopped as a slightly taller brunette; Susan; Uncle Rex; Charlie and Susan's parents, who are both wearing custom-tailored power suits; and the Virginia senate chaplain, who'll be officiating.

The motley crew thus assembled, we move into the sanctuary with the chaplain presiding. His voice has a massaging calm about it. But those pulses of calm are futile in the charged-up emotional atmosphere. Like trying to blow-dry a tsunami.

Holly arrives late, looking flustered but gorgeous. She comes down the aisle mumbling about traffic and not making eye contact with anyone. She's wearing a light blue dress that makes her look surprisingly soft. Her hair has been released from its usual hair-spray lockdown; it could be described as mussed, but only relative to its usual helmet o'perfection.

I watch Charlie as she approaches. He has a different smile for her, a smile he struggles to hold—one corner of his mouth twitches down ever so slightly. A smile that seems to strain with the weight of their past and the uncertainty of their future.

After we walk through the ceremony a few times, the minister calls the family up front to go over a few final arrangements. He holds a clipboard with an official-looking form on it: the marriage license.

I join Alex in the purse-holding-zone pew. As I fish my bag out from underneath a frothy veil, Holly's sleek black bag topples to the floor. An
eep
tweets from its depths.

Alex is on the case, cocking an eyebrow and bending over to retrieve the bag. It makes another
eep!
Alex undoes the zipper. Her eyes never stray from Holly, who's confabbing with Biff, the bowler-hat-wearing photographer.

I catch Alex's wrist before it dips below Holly's purse zipper. She's about to cross a moral Rubicon. A Rubicon I've been trying to retreat from ever since I binged on Holly's iPhoto album and Facebook account. “Don't. I'm being a grown-up here. Or trying to.”

“Yes, yes,” Alex whispers. “Very valiant. But the reason you invited me, sweetie, is because part of you isn't resigned to this.”

“Huh?”

“Exactly. The ‘huh' factor.”

Alex perches daintily on the pew, reaches into the bag, and pulls out Holly's iPhone as casually is if she's checking her Facebook status or the current barometric pressure. I glance at Holly, but she's blocking out photos with three generations of Collinsworth women. Tiny Grandmother shakes her finger at Biff, telling him precisely where to stand.

Alex's eyelined eyes widen. She motions me closer. “Be cool,” she says, handing me the phone. Guilt and curiosity do a quick joust; guilt topples, and I take the phone, holding it behind the pew. Guilt gives one last gasp, then collapses entirely.
Alea iacta est.

The screen is locked, but the text preview bubble displays:
BVH Miss you already. come bk tonight, my place 9ish. He doesn't appreciate u

The vegan!

Alex leans in. “Take a picture with your phone. Now!”

I fumble in my purse, but my phone is playing hide-and-seek.

“Fine, I'll do it!” Alex delves into her purse, but just as she extricates her phone with a victorious “Ha!,” we both glance up to find ourselves in the headlights of Holly's gaze.

“Bring me my purse,” Holly says. “I need to show Biff something.” Eek! Does she suspect?

Keeping her hands below the pew-line, Alex slips Holly's phone back into the sleek bag. For a moment, I'm frozen, but Alex gives me a peremptory and very Alex-like shove. As I approach Holly, it appears she's more impatient than suspicious. After I hand her the bag, I linger to see if I can catch a reaction to the text message, but she gives me a glance that says,
That will be all.
I'm relegated to my lady-in-waiting post in the purse pew.

The rehearsal continues, but I'm present only in snatches. In high school, I had this horrible car accident. The experience felt like a series of slow-motion snapshots: the grille of the truck at eye level. My car in the opposite ditch, facing traffic. My hands shaking. A kind, bald policeman giving me a ride home. A cup of steaming tea on my parents' dining room table. My mom's face peering into mine. “Earth to Piper! Sweetheart?” All the in-between bits were grayed out like TV static.

That's how I feel after reading the text from Blaine. I catch snapshots of what's going on around me. The rest is grayed out in static.

“Let's run through everything one more time,” Lena is saying. Then we're blocking for group photos, the minister is saying, “This is where the vows go,” Charlie is giving me a look that says,
What's wrong?,
Holly is saying, “My mom is going to give me away,” Uncle Rex is saying, “Daddy didn't come after all? Aww, too bad,” and suddenly, I'm in the parking lot of Molto Bene, a five-star Italian restaurant, for the rehearsal dinner.

At dinner, Alex
keeps prompting me with gentle motions. Edging my salad fork toward me with her pinkie finger. Pressing my foot with hers under the table when I've been asked a question.

Everyone blurs together. Susan picks at her food, her parents make polite conversation about Lena's campaign and whether she's going to need any custom power suits, Uncle Rex asks Holly and Charlie whether their honeymoon cruise will have unlimited drinks, Uncle Rex tells Alex he never knew lesbians could be so attractive.

I feel like I'm going to vomit.

I want to enlist Susan and Brandon's help, but Susan seems uncharacteristically nondevious. Halfway through the salad, she pleads a sour stomach and slips out, Brandon in tow. Charlie looks after them, his face inscrutable, until Tiny Grandmother makes him fetch the waiter to bring her a fork without water spots.

Between the salad and the minestrone, Alex leans over and whispers to me behind her napkin, “You should tell him.”

I feel as if I'm watching Charlie speed into that intersection on yellow; I know disaster's coming, but I'm not able to slam on the brakes for him. People just keep moving their utensils up to their lips, talking, a huge clock on the wall by the window keeps ticking, and Sam keeps trying to chat up Alex. She pretends she isn't into him, but she obviously is. So much so that she doesn't notice me pulling back from the table.

The bathrooms are on the opposite side of the restaurant, through a passageway crowned by an ivy-covered arbor. When I emerge from a good five minutes of rocking back and forth in the ladies' room, I almost run into Sam. He stops me under the arbor's arch. “Hey, two very important questions for you, chica. Is your friend single, and how does she feel about acid jazz?” When I don't respond immediately, he frowns at me. “What's with you? You look like you've seen the Ghost of Christmas Past. Acid jazz isn't so bad.”

“It's not that. I saw the Ghost of Charlie's Future.”

“Oooh, a poopy-diaper ghost? That
is
scary.”

“Dirty, yes, but not that kind. Holly— She got . . . a text message. A
love
message.”

“From Charlie? Ugh. Say no more.” He puts his hand over my mouth. “I know they
have
sex—I mean, obviously, how else do you spawn a childlet—but I like to pretend they don't. Like they're Barbie and Ken and they just have these sort of bland gender-nonspecific crotches—”