The Life You've Imagined (36 page)

Maddie, in her flower girl dress, zooms past Anna on her way to make circles around the pews, followed closely by Samantha, who preferred not to be in the wedding party and is thus wearing a plain black dress. Behind his wife comes Beck, ambling along, and then he stops short in front of Anna. He looks quickly away and walks back out of the sanctuary.

“I need the bride to look this way!” calls the photographer.

I hope someone settles Maddie down soon before she falls and rips her dress.

“Okay.” The photographer claps his hands. “Let’s get the mother up here, please.”

My mother sits in a front pew, her hands folded in her lap. Her hair is too short to pull back, so the stylist just curled it all into little loops, the color of red rubber bands, thanks to her dye job.

She shakes her head at the photographer.

“C’mon, Mom!” the photographer wheedles. “Daylight’s burning! It’s now or never!” Then he starts to impersonate a crooner, using his flash as a mic. “
It’s now
or never . . .
”

My mother shoots him a look that interrupts his croon like someone yanked the needle off his record.

“Very well, then.” He blinks and proceeds as if nothing at all unusual happened. “How about some with your maid of honor?”

Sarah approaches, teetering a little on her heels. The girls already opened some champagne this morning. They poured some into my orange juice, but I dumped it out when they weren’t looking.

I sneak a look at my mother. She stares hard into the middle distance, chin lifted slightly.

Maddie is still tearing around the pews, and Sam has given up the chase, instead standing in the center, rotating to follow with her eyes as if she’s on a turntable. Kristi’s son, the ring bearer, is chasing, too, and he’s six, so he ought to know better.

I won’t let our kids get away with this kind of behavior. Assuming I can have some at my “advanced maternal age.”

“Stay with me, bride!”

I turn on my smile again.

After dozens of shots, I think they’re about to release me to go round up the groomsmen when the photographer consults his list of required photos. “Oops! Almost forgot. Flower girl!”

“Me! Me-me-me-me-me!” and Maddie comes running.

I notice that she’s carrying a cup. A cup of juice. A nearly full cup of purple grape juice.

“Maddie! NO!” I holler, and in doing so, I startle her. She stumbles to a halt from her dead-run, trips on the hem of her dress, and grape splashes down her white satin skirt.

I throw my bouquet down. “For God’s sake, who gave her grape juice when she’s wearing a white dress? And poured it to the top? Seriously? To the top?”

None of the adults respond. Their faces telegraph revulsion. They turn away from me to the little girl, who gazes up with her eyes round and huge, silent tears soaking her little face. The cup, still in her hand, quivers.

The ring bearer next to her is as white as his shirt. “I - I - I - . . . Miss Amy, I’m sorry, she was thirsty and she said her favorite flavor was grape . . .” He bites his lip, which trembles.

Samantha looks like she might tear my hair out. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.” She strokes Maddie’s hair and crouches down behind her. “You didn’t mean it, baby,” she coos. “It was an accident.”

I peer down at my own dress with its perfect satin surface, delicate beading, and lace and consider what all this has cost me. Everyone watches me intently; I can feel them wondering what kind of freak-out is coming next.

I take halting steps toward Madeline, and it pierces me to see her shrink away at my approach. I fold myself down and gently take the juice cup from her hands, which yet retain some of their toddler pudginess.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. Do you ever have those days when you think it’s supposed to be a really good day, only you don’t feel very good? You feel kinda grumpy and strange?”

She nods, but her body is angled slightly away from me, like she wants to bolt.

“Look. I want to show you something.”

I tip the grape juice cup, and a purple stream runs down the skirt from my knee to soak the lace at the hem.

Sarah actually shrieks out loud, as if I’ve snapped a kitten’s neck.

“Now we match,” I tell her, smiling my first real smile of the day. I chuck her chin with my thumb. Maddie then points a toe, in the manner of a dancer, and curtsies with her stained skirt. I rise and do the same.

My bridesmaids rush in with handkerchiefs dabbed in ice water and start clucking and admonishing me, but I pay them no mind. I share a wink with Maddie. Sarah hands me my bouquet, and I reach in to snag some baby’s breath, which I tuck into Maddie’s hair, behind her ear.

Samantha smiles softly at me and kisses the top of Maddie’s head.

In the midst of all this fussing, I hear my mother call out, “Mr. Photographer, sir! I’m ready for my close-up!”

Chapter 53

Anna

M
y head itches with all the hairspray and hairpins, this dress makes me look like I have the shoulders of a linebacker, and I’m about to stand up in a wedding where the groom has evicted my mother to bulldoze her business and I’ve screwed the groom’s married brother.

And now my mother hates me for giving her bad news about my father’s other family, the newer one, the one with twin boys, teenagers, which means he wasted no time replacing us.

“Showtime,” whispers some lady in a bouffant, waving her hands in a uselessly frantic gesture, which I think is supposed to mean hurry up and get situated.

Since I missed the rehearsal dinner—what with ambushing my father and the screaming fight with my mother, who banished me from the premises—I don’t know where I’m supposed to stand, so I hang back, waiting for an empty spot to form.

The last groomsman looks over his shoulder, searching for his counterpart.

It’s Beck.

I bite my lip to keep from gasping out loud. We share a panicked look. He starts to tap the shoulder of the groomsman in front of him, but the bouffant woman grabs my elbow and shoves me into place.

Beck sets his jaw and offers me his elbow, eyes forward.

I have this sudden need to apologize, though I’m not sure what for. The order must have gotten jumbled up somehow; these things happen. Amy would have warned me if I was supposed to walk down the aisle with my old boyfriend.

Though we are supposedly just friends, and what would be the harm in that?

When it’s our turn, we begin the halting step-pause walk between the pews.

I can see Samantha’s pert, brunette bob near the front, but she doesn’t turn to face us. Beck doesn’t even look at me when we part to stand on our respective sides.

Doesn’t he realize that such obvious coldness makes the whole situation look even worse?

The ceremony is blessedly brief. I don’t have the stomach for promises to love and cherish, and when I hear “as long as we both shall live,” it’s all I can do to keep from laughing out loud.

Is this what my mother expects from my father? That he’s going to promise
again
to stay until death do they part?

I couldn’t think of anything to say to her after she threw a glass in the sink and screamed at me like her hair was on fire. So I abused my credit card, got a motel room, and drank cheap merlot out of a plastic cup all night, flipping channels and staring at my phone, hoping Beck could sneak away to send me a note.

I almost bailed on this wedding completely, but none of this is Amy’s fault.

The recessional music cranks up, and I paste on a smile, steeling myself for taking Beck’s arm again, this time facing the crowd. At least they’ll be paying attention to Amy, not me.

Beck looks past me at the opposite wall when he offers his arm and holds out his elbow, frozen in place like a mannequin. I give his biceps a light squeeze; surely that’s a gesture no one would notice. I glance up at his face. His eyes remain forward with military discipline.

I grin through excruciating pictures, and then the photographer claps his hands at last, announcing we’re all set, and I practically sprint toward the restroom to find my purse and keys, my obligation fulfilled.

But Amy, more fleet than I could have imagined in that heavy dress, catches my arm.

“Thank you,” she says, squeezing my hand hard. “I know that was strange for you. You’re such a good soul.”

At this I swallow hard. “Hardly.”

“Can I ask you one more thing, please? Could you just stay through the bridal party dance? Just so Dave has someone to dance with?”

“Is that who I’m supposed to be paired up with? Dave?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about the mix-up. I think Sarah has a crush on Dave, so she messed up the order.” Amy rolls her eyes and pantomimes shooting Sarah with her finger. Across the room, Sarah laughs extravagantly, bending herself nearly in half at something this Dave fellow has said.

I watch Amy skip lightly across the room to kiss her husband. Her veil is on crooked, her updo is coming down in spots, and I swear I saw a purple stain on the hem of her dress. But she looks more at peace than I’ve seen her all summer. She glows like a bride should, and because her joy is contagious—and because I don’t want to go home just yet—I decide I can stay for one dance. No harm in that.

F
or the next hour I sip white wine and skirt all the little knots of conversation, ducking and weaving to escape acquaintances, doing several laps around the room in the process. I wish Cami were here, but she wasn’t feeling well and I’d already asked her to do enough. She said she was going to stay at the store to keep Mom and Sally company, in case my mother decided to unburden herself about my dad or take off for Cadillac again. Cami had stayed discreetly away for my first talk with my mother and my banishment. Her advice had been to keep calm and that my mother would eventually come to her senses.

Considering her twenty-year track record on that score, I’m not optimistic.

I stop my reception hall loops long enough to watch Paul and Amy sway to “Unforgettable.”

The bridal party then starts to filter to the dance floor, and I search out Dave.

Only Sarah has already hung herself around Dave’s neck like a lariat, and he’s apparently in no hurry to let go.

This leaves Beck alone again, and I stare at him across the dance floor. His face is motionless, with all the warmth of an upright corpse. I’m suddenly aware that every moment I hesitate only draws out the agony.

The wedding singer begins the opening lines of “Someone to Watch Over Me,” as I step into Beck’s arms. He holds me at a distance, his hand barely touching my back, his hand not clasping mine so much as supporting it.

“Finally, we can talk for a minute.” I pat his shoulder gently “Relax a little. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

He finally looks directly at me. “She knows.”

At this, I stumble. He nudges me back to standing and continues to lead me in the dance. “How?”

“She was looking over my shoulder when I answered your e-mail.”

I close my eyes, and then I remember I’m supposed to be dancing with an old friend and open them again. I conjure up my cool, professional calm and stare at Beck’s shirt buttons instead of his face. “But the e-mail wasn’t that bad,” I say, trying to remember precisely what I’d written.

He continues, “I told her. She seemed to know already, and she’s been hurt before. I couldn’t hold on to the lie.”

I feel the stares of everyone at the wedding like dagger points on my back. Their faces are dark to me, outside the whirling colored lights on the dance floor.

“Well, then. Now what?”

He clears his throat and meets my eyes. “Well, you see, we talked, and she thinks maybe . . .”

I don’t even hear the rest for a loud buzzing that starts up in my ears. But I don’t have to hear it. I should have known from the beginning.

“Keep dancing,” Beck urges. “They’re watching us.”

I back away from him, shaking my head, and recede into the shadowy, candlelit room.

I
go home to the Nee Nance because the motel room seems even more dire and pathetic.

The lights are out, though, and I’m hopeful that Mom went to bed early. For all I know, she’s driven back to Cadillac.

I step out of my shoes just inside the door and carry them dangling from my hand, feeling my way along the shelves in the dark, knowing this place so well I could walk through it with my eyes closed.

I notice someone has left on the kitchen light, so I stop in there to switch it off, only I jump at the sight of someone at the table.

“Sally!”

“Hey, doll. Don’t you look pretty.”

She’s at the table wearing a T-shirt, cut-off shorts, and no wig. Her hair is growing in patchy, in the color of fog. She sees me notice this and says, “My head itched. Don’t worry, I’m not crazy. Not right now, anyway.”

“I never said you were crazy.”

Sally waves me into a seat. “Take a load off and talk to your auntie. I’ve got coffee.”