Borrow-A-Bridesmaid (27 page)

They're both hurting, and I can't fix it.

Even though Lin's not home, I get a vision of him sitting across from me on the floor. What would he do? I grab a tissue as I contemplate this, wiping the tears from my face and blowing my nose ardently. I take a few deep-ocean breaths. My sinus passages and my mind slowly begin to clear.

Lin would pull my hands away from my face and hold them in his lap. He'd kiss them, and then he'd say, “Skipping out tomorrow isn't going to make you feel one bit better. I think you should see this thing through.” He'd say, “You're right: You can't fix this. But you can show up. You can still be there for him even though, yes, he's betrayed you. He said some horrible things. But that wasn't Charlie talking. That was his stress and unhappiness talking.”

I nod to the imaginary Lin and crawl under my purple comforter with Cheer Bear. A final tear slips out and rolls over my nose, making a silent drip onto the sheet below.

After the Stoic thing fell through, I got a bit into New Age Buddhism. One book included the mantra “All unhappiness comes from resisting the present moment.”

However, I resist it with all my might, past midnight and into the darkest part of the night, until the present moment is lit with a sleepy but irrepressible dawn.

W Day.

Thirty

I
n the basement nursery turned dressing room, my stomach has turned into a kettle cooker full of popcorn kernels. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, but it doesn't help.
Pop!
One eye opens back up.
Pop!
The other eye. My heart is thumping in my chest.
Pop pop pop!

I pull on my navy bridesmaid dress and smooth the fabric over my hips, turning to admire the lack of VPL. With one hour until the ceremony starts, I have nothing to do but wait. And observe Holly, who doesn't appear to need my services. She watches herself in the mirror: the finished product. The face in the glass that looks back at her isn't one of joy, not the rapturous look of a person who is about to marry her soul mate or best friend. Clipped from this scene and pasted elsewhere, her face might be the iStock photo selected for a magazine article about the norovirus.

I rub my arms—the air-conditioning is blasting, presumably to keep our lovely bride and guests body-odor-free in the August heat. I bide my time looking at finger paintings on the nursery walls. A kangaroo hops aboard Noah's ark; the smiling baby in its pocket holds a lollypop. Jesus hands out chocolate bars to the five thousand.

Two floor-to-ceiling mirrors, expressly ordered by Lena, are propped against the adjacent wall. Rachel stands at the second mirror, holding an eye shadow palette that could have come from Picasso's Blue Period. To warm up, I walk to the opposite wall, craning my neck to look up at the tiny block window above my head. It looks out toward the parking lot. Since we're a level below ground, I can see various sets of feet migrating into the sanctuary.

Inside, Holly's gaze falls away from the mirror and down to her French-tipped nails. This morning, Lena treated us to manicures, which in any other setting would have been a delicious luxury. But as I sat next to Holly in matching massage chairs, my emotions were on a spin cycle. Watching her get her toenails sculpted, I felt disgusted. But looking down the row of chairs and seeing the emotionless faces, I felt rocked by sadness for Holly. No one talked; no one smiled. Lena studied a stack of regional newspapers for campaign research. Rachel perused the latest
Glamour
and, when she noted a particularly interesting accessory or cosmetic, gave an occasional soft
hmph.
Holly stared straight ahead at the opposite mirror, as if the Holly reflected there would give her a sign of what to do next.

I tried reading girly magazines, but my eyes kept landing on ominous words: split ends, breakup, colon cleansing.
After all that pampering, my cuticles are groomed, excess eyebrow hairs have been unceremoniously ripped from my face, my pores are minimized, and my nails are polished, but inside, I'm a buttery, salty mess. I feel like I'm an electron, spinning frantically around the periphery of this scene. And popping. My pinkie twitches.

A knock on the wooden door of the little room startles all of us. Rachel doesn't move from her spot at the mirror. I make for the door, patting the back of my dress to ensure that I'm fully zipped.

It's Susan. “Can I talk to you?” she asks me.

I can tell from her tone that she got her mojo back. The weepy Susan of soufflé night has been ejected. In her place is the Susan who shouts, “Two, four, six, eight, send Holly to the Bering Strait!” I turn to tell Holly and Rachel I'll be right back, but they're immersed in their reflections. And won't miss me, it seems.

Susan leads me up the dark stairwell, insisting she needs to talk to me outside of Holly's hearing range. In the lobby, she pulls me behind a floor-to-ceiling string-lighted plant and grips my shoulder. “What's the game plan?”

I texted her last night about what Alex and I found, but she didn't write back; presumably, she drank herself into a tizzy. But she doesn't look the least bit hungover. Quite the opposite: She looks just about ready to hang someone else.

Though wait—when I lean closer to her, I swear I smell booze. “You've been drinking?”

Her cheeks flush, and she clutches my shoulder for support. “I may have taken some of the communion wine.”

“You what?”

She burps. Wine in church? Baptists never keep wine on the premises. Those saucy Episcopalians.

“So you've been drinking communion wine, and you had a divine revelation?”

“Yes! You know the part where they say, ‘What God has joined together, let no man put asunder'? It doesn't say anything about women. So I'm allowed. To put it asunder.” She smirks. “ ‘Asunder,' that's my new favorite word.”

“Oh dear. Is Brandon here?”

“Nope. He's on concert duty.” She mimes playing a trumpet, buzzing her lips.

“You're not well. Do you want to sit down? Let's sit down.”

She shakes her head, and the hawkish determination returns. “Look, I was funky last night. Er, in a funk. I did see your message, I just couldn't get off the couch. It's not like me. But now I can feel it. It's time to act. It's not too late.”

I glance across the lobby, as if I can see through the large wooden door to the chapel, where Charlie and the groomsmen are getting ready. “You can try talking to him, but—”

“What about Holly? Did you confront her about Blaine?”

I sigh. “Right. Because she'll suddenly break down and admit her wrongs.”

“Fine, then, talk to Charlie! We've been over this. I hired
you
. You have to try again. Do whatever you have to. Please! Please, please,
please
. I can help you get him alone.”

Something in her “please, please,
please
” reminds me of Holly's (and Billy's) condescending triplet of nos. I frown at her. “What do you mean, whatever?”

“You know. Rip his clothes off. Stick your tongue down his throat. Object in front of everyone. Whatever!” Her curls vibrate as she talks. She belches, louder this time.

I get a flash of my original Craigslist near-diversion into “Escort Services.” We're not far off, here. But I can't say I'm not tempted by her plan. If I could, I'd mount a stallion, take out the chapel door with the front hooves, pull Charlie into the saddle, and ride into the sunset with his hands around my waist.

When we were kids, my best friend, Lonnie, and I were convinced we had ESP. We'd sit at a round table in the library, index fingers pressed to our temples, “communicating.” “What shape am I thinking of?” I'd ask her, and she'd squeeze her eyes shut, glitter-covered lids squinching down over brown eyes. After a moment of serious deliberation, she'd announce: “Triangle!” I'd grab her wrists and nod slowly. “Oh my God. It was totally triangle.”

Hovering behind plant leaves now, I close my eyes and send a shape to Charlie, a blaring red octagon. STOP.

Charlie. Those nights we kissed, it felt like someone crept through all my internal rooms, turning the light switches on. A surge of electricity, a surge of desire. It felt like waking up.

I shake my head. If anything gets put asunder today, it's not going to be my doing. I take a deep breath. “No.” Though Susan gapes at me, I continue, “He's made his decision. I'm here now to be a friend to you and to him.”

She grabs my hand and pulls it in the direction of the chapel door. “You have to help me! You don't understand. I love him so much, and he's throwing his life away. Please talk to him. Please!” Her cheeks have turned the color of communion wine.

“It's not up to us. I know this is hard.” I reach out to her for a hug, but she grabs my wrist and starts pulling me across the lobby. She's surprisingly strong for such a skinny person; her volume is all in the curls, and the rest of her is slim and strappy. Like a stick of broccoli. A very strong stick of broccoli.

Sam pauses in his usher duty to give us a questioning look. I mouth
Help!
and he deserts the old lady currently on his elbow. She turns and glares at him with an expression that laments,
Youth these days . . .

“Hey, hey, hey, what is going on here?” Sam pops in front of Susan and puts his hands out to slow her tipsy momentum.

“We're putting shit asunder!” she says in a loud whisper. A few guests turn to look. Lena's internal seismometer has sensed a rumbling, and she's barreling toward us, leaving behind her would-be conversation partner, Beach Ball Hat. Today Beach Ball Hat has downgraded to a slightly smaller chapeau that looks like a purple kayak sailing down her forehead.

“Is there a problem here, ladies?”

“No—” I start.

“Yes!” Susan says at the same time. She looks ready for a showdown. Sam and I exchange glances.

“You haven't signed the guest book, have you, dear?” Lena puts her hands on Susan's shoulders and steers her toward the corner of the lobby. Even drunk, angry Susan is no match for Lena's death grip. Lena whispers something into Susan's ear, and after a final moment of resistance, Susan's shoulders buckle and she lets herself be herded away.

Sam shakes his head as we watch them head for the guest book. “I feel her pain, but it's a lost cause. I tried talking to him last night. And again this morning. He's set on this.”

I nod. “I figured as much.” I give him an approving look. “You clean up nice.” He's sans aviators, hair slicked back, looking crisply handsome in his suit. Something about Sam in dress shoes cinches the finality of this for me, and another
pop
jerks one of my shoulders upward.

“You, too. A little nervy, are we? Hey, where's your foxy friend?”

Lena is personally escorting a blotchy-faced Susan into the sanctuary. I peer past them and point to Alex's beachy waves in the third row on the bride's side. “Don't worry, she'll be at the reception.”

He winks at me. “Think I can charm her into a dance or three?”

I squeeze his hand. “I have no doubt.”

The lobby door opens, and Sam bows gallantly. “Back to ushering duties, milady.”

He pulls open the door for a man who's instantly discernible from the other wedding guests. My eyes pass over him, scanner-style. A worn brown suit. A flower in his lapel that looks suspiciously like the ones in the church garden. A pair of stained work boots. His features look eerily familiar.

Sam beams, happy to play the sarcastic usher. “Welcome to the celebration of the oh-so-joyous union of Charlie Bell and Holly Garbo. Do you reckon that in these modern times they should combine their surnames? Do you prefer Bellbo or Garbell?”

The man presses his hands against his lapels and attempts to smooth them while looking past Sam into the lobby.

Sam motions him through the door. “Well, don't just stand there! Show's starting soon.”

“I'm looking for the bride.” The stranger has a slight drawl—a southern Virginia drawl. I remember the Blacksburg addresses in Untitled.txt and realize this was one invitation Holly mailed personally.

“You silly man!” Sam says. “You'll have to wait, like everyone else. She's putting on her garter now, and in a few minutes she'll be cruising down that aisle there, just like a dream.” He gestures with a flourish to the sanctuary and its flower-studded, crimson-carpeted bride runway.

The stranger doesn't smile. He smooths his lapels again. “Son, she won't be doing any aisle-walking without me.”
He straightens his shoulders. “I'm her father.”

Thirty-One

I
nstinctively, I guide Mr. Garbo through the lobby, wishing I'd followed Susan's example and taken a swill of the communion wine myself. His first name is Mark, if I'm remembering Susan's history lesson, though my first instinct is to call him Bud. I feel an instant affinity with him for two reasons: 1) When he said, “I'm her father,” his drawl got noticeably thicker; and 2) confronted with a purple kayak hat, I imagine he'd be appropriately flabbergasted, as no one else has the sense to be (“What in the Sam Hill is
that
?” he'd say).

And sure, I'd love to see Lena spontaneously combust. But she can't see him yet. Maybe he can talk some sense into his daughter.

A quick survey reveals Lena advancing up the aisle, appraising the guests as if they're decorations. I can see the pride in her empress-of-all-I-survey expression as she casts a look across the sanctuary. There's no room in this scene for a man in an outdated suit with a stolen flower on his lapel. It would be like drawing a stick figure in scented Magic Marker across Renoir's
Luncheon of the Boating Party.

It won't be long before Lena's drama seismometer picks up on Mark's arrival. She's almost finished with her reverse aisle walk, giving regal waves and doling out bite-size bits of schmooze. Gaining on us. Her heels hit the marble floor of the lobby. She spots Sam and gives him the signal to seat Tiny Grandmother, who's emerging from the bathroom and fiddling with a flower arrangement secured to her pearlized silver walker.

“Lena, three o'clock,” I say to Mark. “We've got to
move.
”

We slip through the door that leads to the basement—I close it silently behind me—and bolt down the basement stairs in seconds. He joins me on the small landing as I tap on the nursery door, pressing my lips to the crack between the door and the jamb. “Holly! Open up! Are you decent?”

She rustles to the door, the folds of her fabric whispering with each step. “Who's that?”

“Piper—and—” I pause. Am I supposed to announce him?
May I present . . . your long-lost father!

But Mark takes the lead, gently nudging me aside. “Hollypop?” He puts a callused hand against the door, right on top of a finger painting of the infant Moses in a basket. “Baby, it's me.”

Her dress stops whispering.

The doorknob gives a little shudder, but she doesn't turn it. As if she's feeling for the warmth of a fire on the other side.

I glance behind us, terrified that Lena might be in pursuit. I'd love nothing more than to let this father-daughter reunion unfold naturally, but if Lena sees Mark, I can imagine it ending only one way: Lena sinking her teeth into his neck and sucking out his soul. “Holly, Lena's coming—”

Holly turns the doorknob, and Mark steps back so she can push open the door. I creep around him to catch her reaction; when she sees him, the line of her mouth contracts into a little O of shock.

“Daddy?” Holly freezes, a makeupped icicle. I resist the urge to steamroll them both into the room.

“Holly.” A note of warmth in his voice seems to melt her, and in one fluid motion she's taking his hand and pulling him into the nursery.

A skeleton key rests in the lock on the outside of the door—I pluck it out, slip into the nursery behind Mark, and pull the door closed with an exasperated but quiet
thwomp
. Once inside, I look for a latch to secure the door but find only another keyhole. I turn the skeleton key until the lock snaps into place, and set the key on the counter next to a gargantuan box of Goldfish. Only then do I exhale. I'm sure Lena can smell mutiny, but she can't materialize through a locked door—can she?

Father and daughter evaluate each other.

Unsure what to do, I hover by the door and watch them gaze at each other from across a distance years wide.

“Daddy.”

He nods. His arms stay unmoving, sort of twitchy, like he badly wants but doesn't expect a hug.

Rachel finally catches on. She swivels from the mirror and gapes at him. One of her eyelids is layered with the navy and silver wedding colors; the other eyelid is nude. “Dad? What the flying f—”

“Girls,” Mark starts, then stops again, rubbing the fingers of his left hand across his brow. “I know it's—”

Holly flies into him, pressing her face into his suit lapels. He looks stunned, then wraps his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head and closing his eyes.

Rachel glares at him. “Two graduations. Five boyfriends. Three new jobs. And you only come back because of Holly. Figures.” She squints at him. “Is that flower from the church garden? You always were a cheap bastard.”

Holly seems oblivious. Her eyes are closed and leaking as she wraps her arms around her father.

Rachel tosses the eye shadow palette aside. The little ovals of various colors look like so many painted eyelids closed against the scene taking place above them. “Where the hell have you been?” Each word is an entity in and of itself and duly punctuated: Where. The. Hell! Have. You. Been?

“I wanted to come back when I had my sh—when I got myself straightened out.”

“Is that supposed to be some sort of excuse?” Rachel starts, but Holly pulls away and stares Rachel down, silencing her with the sort of look only a sister can give.

The creaking of footsteps in the stairwell freezes all of us.

The handle rattles. Lena. It has to be Lena.

It rattles again, as if she's in utter disbelief that any doors would be barred against her august personage. Or maybe she senses people are having an emotional moment in here. She's like a zombie that feeds on feelings.

I crouch down and put my lips to the keyhole. “Lena?”

A gray eye appears on the other side.

“We have half an hour until the ceremony,” she says, her voice at six-inch volume. “I need to make sure Holly's ready.”

Photo-ready.

I swallow, trying to improvise but failing under the intensity of Lena's gaze. Her eye casts out a hook that fishes in my organs for weakness. “You can't come in right now” is all I can come up with.

“Excuse me?” Her voice is bullet-train monotone.

“If you come in, I'll—”

Lena cocks an eyebrow.

“I'll scream.”

The eyebrow cocks higher.

“At the top of my lungs. I'll scream. I'll poop. I'll make a scene.”

The gray eye hovers. God bless him, Sam has caught on. I hear the door at the top of the steps open, and then Sam's voice echoes down the stairwell. “Senator Collinsworth, there's someone from the media you'll want to meet.”

The gray eye disappears, and I exhale. When I turn around, three pairs of eyes stare at me.

“Is that Mom?” Rachel starts toward the door. “I bet she'd like to know we have an unexpected guest.” I position myself in front of the door, guarding it.

“Stop! Wait!” Holly catches Rachel's wrist. “I invited him,” she says, the phrase a key that locks Rachel's lips.

Rachel crosses her arms over her chest and clenches her jaw. Obscenities are implied in her widening pupils, but she's silent.

Holly turns back to her father. “I want you to walk me down the aisle. I've always wanted you to.” Her voice starts out firm and begins to waver. “I want to show you something.” She holds her right hand toward Mark. I didn't notice before, but a gold chain-link bracelet encircles her tiny wrist. Well, “gold” is a stretch. The links have tarnished, leaving a few green smudges on her skin. A single charm dangles from the bracelet: a gold unicorn, its horn twisted with coral pink and white. Holly looks at the charm the way you'd look at a newborn puppy or a teacup pig. Rachel hovers nearby, silent and pale. “My something old,” Holly says, her voice breaking.

Her father blinks, reaches into his suit-coat pocket, and extends a closed palm toward her. She takes his rough hand and begins peeling back the fingers one by one, starting with his pinkie and working her way toward his index finger. I get the feeling his palm was closed around Holly's heart all this time.

Several more charms in various stages of tarnish are revealed on the surface of his cracked hand. A wise owl looks with unblinking eyes at a smiling starfish. One of the starfish's arms brushes against a graduation cap tasseled with tiny pearls. “One for each year,” he says.

“You remembered.” She picks up each charm in turn, holding one longer than the others. “The dancing princess—”

“For your sweet sixteen.” He attaches the princess charm to her bracelet.

Rachel lets out a huff. “Nothing for me, huh? What a steaming load of bullshit.”

His palm closes around the rest of the charms. “I owe you girls an explanation, but now isn't the time. I'm here to walk your sister down the aisle.”

Rachel turns to Holly. “Give me one good reason I shouldn't have him kicked out.” She slides her fingers under Holly's bracelet, pulling it closer to her eyes. A bit of green tarnish rubs off on Rachel's skin, and she looks up at Holly as if to say,
See, it's all a sham.

“I want him here! It's my wedding!” Holly wipes her cheeks. “And he's our father.” Her voice sharpens into the voice I recognize. Fierce.

Rachel steps back, her eyes boring into her father's. “You want to stay?
Now
you want to stay. Why not then?”

Holly blinks up at him, fingering her bracelet, her eyelashes beaded with droplets.

He looks from one daughter to the other, clears his throat. His eyes seem to be asking,
You're really gonna make me do this? Now?
Holly nods.

“Look, baby—look at me. I was never gonna be a politician's husband. Your mother wanted a cardboard cutout, not a partner. I tried to be what she wanted, but it was never gonna work. Not in the long run. I got . . . tired.”

“Among other things.” Rachel rolls her eyes.

Mark ignores Rachel, speaking now to Holly alone. “Even on my wedding day, my gut was trying to tell me.” He takes her tiny hand in his. “Part of why I came is to hear from you that this is right. That this man's gonna treat you right. That you can picture yourself having a family together and all that.”

I hold my breath. It looks like Holly is holding hers, too.

“That's why we got engaged. Because we thought we'd be . . . starting a family,” she says, so quietly I can barely hear her from a few feet away. Her eyes close. Mascara tributaries make their way down her cheeks.

Mark's lips part. “You're—”

“Oh, Daddy. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing.”

“Hollypop.” He puts his arm around her shoulders.

Rachel gapes at her sister. “Holy shit, Hol, a shotgun wedding? When were you planning to let me in on your little secret? Holy shit,” she says again, but it comes out as a sardonic laugh. “This is priceless. Does Mom know?”

Holly looks down at her hands and nods.

Rachel snorts. “Of course. No wonder she approved of you marrying that freak. A grandchild out of wedlock isn't exactly a campaign endorsement.” She smiles to herself, then begins applying eye shadow to her other lid. “Classic.”

I turn to glare at Rachel as the picture of Holly's childhood fills out more completely: a cruel sister. A narcissistic, manipulative mother. I still don't plan to forgive Holly for cheating. But her quest for male attention—any attention, really—is beginning to make a lot of sense. If there were a glass of mango lassi here, I'd pour it over Rachel's chignon.

Holly erupts, her mouth downturned like a wilting flower. She slips out of her father's grip and collapses in on herself, her skirt billowing around her as she weeps. A melting ice-cream cake of a girl. She hugs herself, rocking back and forth. Her father hovers nearby, looking lost. After a moment, he crouches down and pats her shoulder.

Rachel pauses her makeup application to glare at his reflection. “First day back on father duty, and it's a doozy. Tough stuff. Thirsty yet?”

Mark focuses on Holly, peeling saturated strands of hair off her cheeks.

Susan's words come back to me. There's still a chance to stop this. I crouch in front of Holly, wincing in case she lashes out. But she only seems to be folding farther in on herself, trying to hold herself together as her emotional fissure deepens and widens.

“Holly,” I whisper.

She doesn't seem to hear.

“I know you haven't been completely honest with Charlie. I think you should tell him the truth.”

This gets her attention.

“You can't start this marriage off with a lie.”

Her face has gone as white as her dress. “What?”

I raise an eyebrow. I think of her and Blaine saying hi to each other over and over again at the shower. “I don't think you hid it as well as you thought.”

Her mouth drops open. “How could you know that?”