Borrow-A-Bridesmaid (6 page)

“Can I tell you something?” he says. The music from the courtyard is still audible, along with the white noise of a dehumidifier keeping the paintings cool. He steps closer to me.

“Sure.”

“This is the most fun I've had in a long time. An embarrassingly long time.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I have a feeling it has everything to do with you, Piper Brody.” And as the disapproving schoolmarm looks on, Charlie bends down and kisses me. Lightly at first, letting each new sensation sink in. (For the record, I was right about his athletic lips.)
Here we go
is all I can think. As I lean my head back to deepen the kiss, I tip my skis over the edge of a precipitously high cliff. And then I'm not thinking at all.

The sound of other partygoers walking our way brings us out of the moment. We pull apart dizzily, as if seeing each other for the first time.

Suddenly nervous, I start to fidget. “I guess we better get back soon, huh? Rest up for the wedding and whatnot.”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Do you need a ride home?”

He grins. “I wish. But I rented a car.”

We walk back through the Great Hall, hand in hand, toward the massive museum door, where Brick is still at his post. He tells us to have a wonderful evening and gives me a not so subtle wink when Charlie's not looking.

Though Charlie's car is closer to the Gallery, he insists on walking me back to the Elephant and Castle. Before I get into my car, he leans in and kisses me just to the left of my lips, then stands chivalrous guard to close my car door after I've climbed in. He nods in confusion at my half-rolled-down window. “You shouldn't leave that rolled down—someone might break in.”

I laugh. “Well, if anyone wants to steal this baby, God help them. Also, it got stuck last month and hasn't rolled all the way up since. I have a tarp in the backseat for inclement weather. Aren't you sad you don't get to ride home in this beauty?”

He leans against my car door. “Actually, I really am. Hey, thanks for showing me a good time tonight. See you tomorrow—I'll be waiting for my word of the day.”

With more than a little regret to drive away from him, and much more than a scintilla of fire in my nether regions, I wave good night.

Six

S
usan looks like a bridal statue: beautiful, pale, and unmoving. Or like one of those street entertainers who paint every inch of their skin the same color and do robot dances, à la my mime savior from the Metro. But Susan is far from robot dancing. The smoothness, the confidence, from the rehearsal dinner the night before has lapsed, and she looks like she might cry or perhaps vomit. T minus twenty minutes until the ceremony. If she were a close friend, I'd be on my bridesmaid A game. But being slightly hungover and not knowing quite what to say, I'm relieved when Lisa crouches down, grasps Susan's hands, and begins whispering to her.

I smile as I watch them, but I feel at any moment someone will expose me for a fraud, squeeze my flowers, and have them shoot water in my face. “Get this clown out of here,” some grandma from the groom's side will shout, shaking her cane in the air. I smooth the fabric of my midnight blue dress. I turned out to be the same size as Jessie, Susan's cousin. I'm a stand-in. A stunt double.

Someone has thoughtfully placed champagne and strawberries on a nearby table, and while Susan and Lisa are having their BFF time, I sneak over and drain the contents of a crystal glass. I close my eyes and feel the liquid settle into my stomach, feel the bubbles travel through my limbs, making them tingly. I'm counting on the surreality of this whole situation to carry me. As Susan begins whimpering, I fill and down a second glass in one swift, unbroken motion.

The church is the same one Susan has attended since childhood: a small church in Lorton, one of northern Virginia's exurbs. I study the stained glass windows to quell the awkwardness of my third-wheelness while Lisa pats Susan's hand and dabs at her eyes with a white handkerchief. Seeing another handkerchief sitting on the table with the champagne, I wrap it around the stem of my bouquet. At my cousin's wedding, an extra handkerchief came in handy when she erupted into PMS-induced blubbering during the ceremony.

I look out the window at the small graveyard behind the church and the converted barn beyond, where the reception will take place. My reflection looks back at me—a reflection that's a bit more makeupped than usual. I wasn't able to sleep, so I got up with the dawn and cranked up my hair straightener. For the next hour, I battled my hair into submission until it was something resembling sleek. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I struck a pose. “Hey there, cowboy.” Nope, no good. I tried demure instead. “Oh, hi there!” But my eyelash-batting looked more spastic than alluring. I tried again, determined to pull off sex kitten. “Want to go to the Portrait Gallery tonight? The Naked Portrait Gallery?”

I froze as I heard Lin walk by the bathroom door. “What in the Sam Hill are you doing in there? Are you overtweezing your brows again?”

After casting a concerned look at my brows in the mirror, I opened the door, and the story from the night before spilled out.

Lin sighed. “Oh, honey. Charlie sounds like a total hottie. Charlie with the Chucks.”

“Charming Charlie!”

“Check-out-that-ass Charlie.”

“Chipotle-hot-and-spicy Charlie.”

We went on like this for a whole minute until the alliteration train ran out of steam.

A soft knock on the dressing room door jars me back to the present. I stand up, relieved to have something to do.

Leaning my face close to the door, I whisper, “Who is it?”

“Brother of the bride. Is there a secret password to see her?”

My heart beats faster. “No secret password, but I'm afraid you're not exactly going to help the waterworks.”

“We'll see about that. I have superpowers. Anyway, why are we whispering?”

“Dunno.”

A pause. “Can I come in yet?”

“Oh! Sure.” I open the door to find Charlie on the other side, suited up.

His eyes take me in, too. “You're looking good enough for a portrait, Mary Alberton,” he says.

Do NOT, under any circumstances, use the naked-portrait line!
Lin explicitly vetoed it, admonishing me to be myself. But right now, “myself” is a bridesmaid-shaped bundle of nerves.

“You look grice,” I say, as “great” and “nice” trip over themselves on my lips.

“Thanks,” he says, graciously ignoring my gaffe. He lingers in the doorway. “Before I attend to the bride, what's your word?”

“Bloviate.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“To speak in a boastful or empty way,” I clarify.

“Nice one.” He squeezes my hand before striding across the room to crouch by Susan's feet. “Hey, sis.”

“Charlie!” Her shoulders begin to shake again.

“Hey, hey.” He takes the handkerchief from Lisa and presses it under Susan's right eye, then her left. “I want to tell you something.” Her shoulders shudder again. He grabs her hand. “Remember the time I thought I was going to be a stand-up comic?”

She sniffles. “Yeah.”

“I went to that open-mike night, my head full of dreams and my pockets full of chicken-scratch on index cards. I thought I was such a champion.” He turns to me. “I go up to the mike, right, so confident, making eye contact with the audience, with tunnel vision to the Comedy Central special.”

Susan smiles. The tears are momentarily stymied.

“Anyway, I start telling jokes, and I fall completely flat. Seriously, I can see the manager coming up to pull my act when, in a stunning display of vagary, a table of people in the back begins cracking up at my last joke. Then the table next to that. The next jokes are even worse, but my reluctant audience came through for the rest of the act.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, I'll bite. What happened?”

“My sis here.” Charlie puts a hand on her shoulder. “She promised to buy a round of drinks for everyone at those tables if they'd ham it up, give her little brother a good reception. She spent her whole weekly paycheck that night on total strangers. Saved my dignity.” He turns back to Susan. “You were there for me that night. And I'm here for you now. This is your day; you've worked so, so hard to make it perfect, and it will be. I promise.” He squeezes her hand. “Better get back to usher duty. Deep breaths, okay? I'll see you in there.” He cocks his head toward the sanctuary.

“Thanks.” Susan smiles at Charlie as Lisa takes over dabbing the remaining tears with the handkerchief.

On his way out, Charlie pauses again in the doorway. “Am I good or am I good?” he says to me.

“Vagary, huh?”

“From the Latin
vagari
, to wander.”

“That one I knew. I prefer its close relative, whimsy.”

He leans against the doorframe. “I've got another word for you. Two, actually.”

“Two in one day? Can it be done?”

“Crepuscular. Your dress. And you in it? Sirenic.”

“I think you're bloviating.”

“Am not.” He reaches out to take a strand of my hair that's slipped out of place. He holds it to his lips for a moment—during which I don't move or breathe, don't even bat my “Maximum Intensity” mascaraed lashes—before tucking it back into place. Then he disappears through the door and closes it softly behind him.

When the music starts, Lisa and I help Susan onto her feet, lifting up her long off-white train and fluffing it out. It's a simple but elegant dress, a sweeping A-line with a neckline that's modest but low enough to showcase her delicate collarbone. Her hair has been swept away from her neck and secured into an artful French twist. She's still wearing her silver treble clef necklace, perhaps her “something old.” The tiny charm is trembling, but that's the only clue she's nervous. Her cheeks are smooth, her eyes dry.

As we line up in the foyer, Charlie holds out his arm and I slip my hand into the crook of his elbow. Crikey, he smells good. I want to be alone with him so badly it hurts—wait, maybe that particular pain is the two-inch silver heels.

“What are you doing later?” he whispers as the organist spreads out her sheet music. “I'm going to this wedding reception. I don't know if it can match up to Chuck's shindig, but will you be my date?”

“You bet.”

The organist starts playing “Jesu”—our cue. I force my legs to move and remind myself of my self-imposed Bridesmaid Commandments.

I will not sneeze.

I will not trip.

I will stand up straight. (“Boobs out,” as Lisa put it.)

I will not shift my weight too much.

I will not lock my knees.

I will not melt.

I will keep my eyes on the bride at all times.

I will angle my body toward the bride as she walks in. (“Follow the action,” the minister said.)

I will smile/weep as the situation dictates.

I will not be paralyzed by dimpliciousness.

Susan enters the church: Everyone rises. Focusing on Susan helps me forget I'm in front of a bunch of strangers. She traverses the aisle as if she's floating, the treble clef collecting the lights from above and miniaturizing them into tiny stars on its curved surface.

When Susan and Brandon step forward together toward the minister, my line of sight to the groom's side opens up, and I watch Charlie smile as his sister places her hand in Brandon's. For a few seconds, I forget my commandments, my self-consciousness, and the way the tendons in my feet are tightropes. I imagine kissing him on those dimples. Holding his chin in my hand and gently turning his face to kiss one cheek, then the other.

I will keep my eyes on the bride at all times.
I turn back toward the pair as they begin their vows. Susan starts off confident but stops in the middle of “for better or for worse,” her voice slipping into a tearful glissando. She's stuck at the “for better” part, leaving an eyebrow-raised congregation wondering if she's in it “for worse.” Lisa looks like she wants to reach out to Susan, but she has Susan's bouquet in one hand and her own bouquet in the other. Edward Bouquet Hands!

My fingers begin to move before I even have time to think. My thumb and index finger slide the handkerchief from around the bouquet stem. I step around Lisa and press the handkerchief against Susan's arm, after giving her shoulder what I hope is a reassuring squeeze. “Deep breaths,” I whisper.

She takes one hand out of Brandon's and reaches up to take the handkerchief, mouthing “thank you” as she turns back to Brandon, whose eyes are red-rimmed and bleary. She dabs right, then left, and I can see her chest rise with a prolonged inhale, then deflate with an exhale.

I step back and am rewarded with a grateful smile from Lisa on the way.

“For better or for worse,” Susan continues, her voice stronger now.

Feeling like I've finally earned my keep, I settle back and watch the rest of the ceremony unfold without event.

When the pastor pronounces them husband and wife, I feel my own eyes getting a little teary. As we parade out and I take Charlie's arm, I'm relieved at first to be off the altar. But Angry Achilles is back when I become very aware of every inch of me that is touching every inch of him, our arms locked together as the photographer snaps a shot.

“Smooth moves, bridesmaid,” Charlie says, pulling my arm in closer to his body. My nerve endings are doing the electric slide.

He feels warm against my arm. As we reach the foyer and he releases me, he lets my arm slide all the way down his, and his palm lingers against mine.

“See you at the reception,” he says. “I'm plotting to monopolize your dance card.”