Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest (11 page)

•   •   •

D
uring all of this, friendships and even romantic relationships were being stoked. Lots of mild flirting was going on everywhere, thanks to potent quantities of translucent blue water, brightly colored daiquiris, vitamin D, and the overall vibe of honest, earnest emotion. At love camp, there’s a captive audience for the affections of anyone who might be feeling anything, and it’s hard not to
feel
at a wedding. That’s a big part of why you’re there.

Our time at the resort had saturated us in a new sort of
confidence, both in ourselves and in the sense that romance, despite what we might have known of it back at home, was possible and even likely. I remember hearing Caitlin’s dad mention his daughter’s friends to another of the wedding guests, an older man, and suddenly I realized he was talking about Emily and me. He described us as “beautiful and smart,” and I felt honored, eager to embody those words. Here at love camp, I thought I might
really
be
beautiful and smart, which were not two things I often felt so fully at the same time.

I was getting a refill at the bar, and Pickles sidled up next to me. “Hello, hello,” he said. This wedding wasn’t our first meeting. There had been a party thrown by Cash’s family up in New Hampshire to celebrate the upcoming big event, and there we’d bantered pleasantly, but we hadn’t spent any time alone together. He was older, Cash’s age, with red hair, plentiful freckles, and a big laugh. He had a job in sales and traveled extensively for work. Cash had told me Pickles was starting to feel the loneliness of “life on the road” and was seeking a “suitable lady” to make his world feel complete. We’d been amused by the corny drama of that sentiment, which seemed to indicate that Cash’s momentum to marry had made an impression on his friends. I was flattered, too, at any indication that a suitable lady could be me. Pickles didn’t live in my town and wasn’t the sort of guy I saw myself having a relationship with, partly because of the long distance, and partly because his nickname was Pickles. I hadn’t figured out what that meant, though I guessed it might not be good. But he was nice, and very funny, and he was paying me a lot of attention. Half the wedding-relationship battle—and this may be true of
any relationship regardless of weddings—is finding a person who gives you attention in the degrees you want and expect it (and, on the opposite side of that, learning to be okay with it when that occasionally does not happen).

He said, “Let me buy you a drink at the next bar.”

“Oh, are we going somewhere else after this?” I asked. We were at a destination high in the cliffs, with striking aerial views. It was off the resort, and we’d been bused there. This dinner, and our return to the resort, had been the only plan for the night on the itinerary. But there was always more that could be done.

“The after-party plan is to go to the discoteca,” he said. “Cobra and I drove our golf carts over here. Bets are being placed now for our race back.” He glanced at his friends, who were deep in their own conversations. “You should ride back with me.”

“I can’t believe you guys stole the golf carts from the resort,” I said. “Hotel security is probably looking for you as we speak.”

He grinned at me. “Bad boys are hot, right?”

“As for your offer of a beverage,” I said, “I think Cash’s dad has the guests’ drinks on his tab tonight. Which means that your kind gesture is suddenly somewhat less impressive.”

He let loose with his laugh, and it echoed out over the ravine, a message right back to us. “Do you think I’d offer otherwise?”

•   •   •

I
didn’t ride with him to the discoteca, but Emily and I watched them from the windows of the bus as we shuttled back to the hotel. They were a couple of idiots, racing on sandy roads as fast
as those little machines could take them, hooting and hollering the whole time, and though Cobra won, Pickles was never too far behind. We went to the discoteca, and if he didn’t buy me a drink, he at least delivered several to me, and that was enough. “Want to dance?” he asked, and I got up and we moved around to ridiculous songs like “Achy Breaky Heart” and “Mambo No. 5,” played with gusto by the resort DJ. There may have been a limbo, though it remains mercifully undocumented. When the bar closed, Cobra and Pickles drove Emily and me back to our room in the stolen golf carts. Both of us shared a private moment with our respective wedding liaisons before we reconvened. We collapsed on our beds, which had been decorated with towel swans, two on each with entwined necks forming the shape of a heart, romantic and silly, just like our evening.

“Do you like him?” we asked each other at the same time. “I don’t know,” came our in-sync answer.

“He’s nice!” I said.

“He’s funny!” said Emily.

“Caitlin will think it’s hilarious if we hook up with Cash’s friends at her wedding.” I was basing this on the rom-com and wedding-movie fare I’d seen in my lifetime, but it certainly seemed true. Emily agreed.

“Isn’t that sort of, I don’t know, what we’re supposed to do?” she asked. “Half the point of a wedding is for the great stories you tell the bride afterward. And all brides and grooms want to think that their love inspires others. Making out with a friend of the groom when you’re friends with the bride is a rite of passage.”

“It’s the American dream,” I said. “So, did you kiss Cobra? Is there a great love welling up inside of you? Is this a monumental occasion, after which your whole life will be different?” I threw a towel swan at her. “Do you want to
marrrrry
him?”

“Yes, obviously,” said Emily. “I desperately want to marry him. In fact, it’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I’m only just figuring that out now. What about you? Can you find the inner strength to settle down with a man known publicly as Pickles?”

“We could have a double wedding,” I suggested. “But I’ll have you know that my future husband’s real name is Doug.”

“Of course it is. Should I even ask: Why
Pickles
?”

“Not unless you know, Why
Cobra
?”

“He’s saving that for our wedding night,” she said, and we both burst out laughing.

My head on my plush pillow, I closed my eyes and fell asleep, thinking about love and like and the many strange permutations of each that could exist in this fine world in which we lived.

•   •   •

T
he wedding day dawned fresh and sunny and gorgeous, scented with exotic flowers and coconut suntan lotion, just like all the rest. I was feeling more and more heartsick that we’d have to leave our happy little created society, and it wasn’t just about departing this place. I’d also have to leave the person I was here. I could barely remember life back home—pushing papers around in a cubicle, late to meetings again and getting scolded, the shadows of a bar and the glow of the cab ride home afterward
as I fumbled through my wallet for cash, and how the mornings could feel purposeless and bleak—but I’d have to return to it. I hoped some of the self I’d found here would come back with me and even stay a while.

We were hungover that morning, but in paradise a moment outside or a quick dip could cure such ills easily, as could eggs and sausage, so we sat in the open air and ate, immersed our bodies in the cool waters of the pool, and then began to get ready for the wedding. I put on a clingy dress of varying shades of pink, from pale to deep fuchsia, with flowers patterned across it and one thin strap over the shoulder. I slipped on sandals, though we’d be barefoot on the beach. We made our way to the appointed spot to wait for the bride and groom to arrive, like real royalty—each in a horse-drawn carriage—and when they did we took picture after picture before following them, Pied Piper–style, to the sand. There they stood before us, in front of the blue-green water, facing each other, their officiant off to the side. While he had a key role in this event, he was not who we were there to see.

The bride’s gown was white with an overlay of lace and beading, and her blond hair was slicked back and tucked into an elegant bun topped by her long veil, which fell below her waist. Pinned over one ear was a huge pink flower, an accompaniment to the yellow and pink blossoms she held in her bouquet. At the bottom edge of the veil, in red glitter puffy paint, she had written “I
Cash.” He had on a dark suit, a yellow boutonniere pinned to his lapel, and underneath his jacket and his white button-down,
he had her name tattooed on his arm in a heart. We’d seen it at the pool. That was love.

It was difficult to hear their vows over the crashing of the waves, but there was no question about the pronouncement of them as husband and wife, because right afterward, they shared one of those majestic cinematic kisses, him clasping her face in his hands. A photo of the moment remains on her Facebook page. Though it’s more than a decade old now, a glance at it takes me right back to the occasion, with its upswing of emotion and the transformative, palpable joy we felt for this new official duo. Though it might not arrive in this exact form or shape, I felt sure that the mutual love and attraction wrapped in a promise of forever we were there to witness was something I wanted, too. Just as it had at the wedding when I was eight, its appearance someday, somehow, in the far-distant future, seemed indisputable.

That night we celebrated, all of us together for one last party. Pickles was by my side as we made the most of our final day of love camp. At the end of the evening, when the bar shut down and the music stopped, Emily and Cobra disappeared, and Pickles and I went to my room. We were wedding-exhausted, and I wanted to lie down. Fully clothed and demure, we both got into my bed, and he gave me a back rub as I fell asleep. It felt less a feature of a new romance than something a husband might do, after a long, hard day, for a wife, or vice versa. When I woke the next morning, he was gone, and Emily was sleeping alone in the other bed. I threw a pillow at her and she groaned, opening one eye.

“Morning, sunshine,” she said.

“Morning,” I repeated. “Ready for one last breakfast?”

“Mmmm,” she said. “Always.”

•   •   •

T
he flight home that afternoon may have had some turbulence, but Emily and I, sitting next to each other, slept through most of it, suddenly so tired from the past days that we couldn’t keep our eyes open. In and out of consciousness I wasn’t scared at all, but even when I woke up and the plane experienced some “gravely road,” I didn’t worry. I thought of Leigh, and I smiled. Toward the end of the flight, just before we began our approach into Miami, I opened my eyes and there was Pickles, standing in the aisle. He was holding his business card, to which he’d added his personal e-mail address in a looping red scrawl. “I wanted to give you my contact information,” he said. “I really hope we’ll stay in touch.”

I took the card, perusing the AOL e-mail address he’d wanted me to have. I felt goofy and awkward and, at the same time, triumphant. I’d met a boy at a wedding, just like I’d always thought I would. The little girl dream had come true. These things did happen, even if they didn’t happen exactly the way they do in the movies.

“It gets lonely on the road,” he said, and I suppressed a giggle. “Seriously, e-mail me. I’ll be traveling to the East Coast again soon.”

“Okay,” I said, and I did, for a while. We sent messages back
and forth for a few months, and he sent me a bouquet of flowers, multicolored long-stemmed roses, but soon enough the spell of love camp was broken, and we went our separate ways. I kept the business card, though. It’s in a box full of photos and birthday greetings and notes from people I have cared for. These may be things no longer relevant in any current way to my life, but they are worth holding on to, nonetheless.

I Think I’m Having a Reaction

W
e’d been in the rental car for twenty minutes and we were already fighting. We were on the West Side Highway, and he was asking me to figure out the directions, to just look at the map and tell him which exit we had to take; he needed it now or we were going to miss it. I was searching and not finding it. I wasn’t so good with maps, I was explaining. I hadn’t driven a car in years; what did he expect? He was too busy freaking out to hear what I was saying. Of course, he knew everything I was telling him already. We’d been dating for a year.

The truth was, I’d been pretty sure he hadn’t wanted to go to this wedding at all. He was doing it to be a good guy, a good sport, and while I appreciated the effort, I would have appreciated it
more
if he’d truly been happy to be there with me. I’d packed my strapless J.Crew bridesmaid dress along with shoes, a pair of jeans, a couple of sundresses, and some layering sweaters—the
nights were bound to get cold in rural Vermont, even in the summertime—knowing that the glimmer of excitement, of going-to-a-weddingness, that I felt was not something he shared. But he’d come anyway. He really didn’t have a choice. He was my boyfriend.

Three years after Caitlin married Cash came the wedding of Emily, the second in our college roommate threesome to head down the aisle. Emily and I were still close, though we lived in different states now. We talked at least monthly on the phone, we e-mailed regularly, and we’d even traveled to our respective towns to visit each other. I’d met her soon-to-be husband, Mark, and I liked him. Their wedding made for a reunion of sorts: Caitlin and Cash would be there, and I’d bring Jason, my boyfriend, and the now-coupled college friends would be back together again, like old times but better.

There was more to it than that, though. At weddings, feelings are amplified beyond the norm, good or bad. When you add someone you’re dating to the mix, especially someone who’s not exactly new but who hasn’t been around long enough to be considered “old,” either, questions and concerns about your relationship are thrown into high relief as you compare yourselves with other couples present and, of course, with the bride and groom.

After the initial car drama, the right roads were taken and we calmed down and found a kind of symbiosis. The anticipatory wedding vibe I’d initially felt slowly seeped into the car and us both, I think, helped along by the sunny summer day and near-empty highways, the rhythmic turning of the rental car’s wheels, and the music on our favorite CDs. It was just the two of us, with
no decisions to make, driving. We arrived at our destination in the early afternoon, pulling onto a dirt road surrounded by trees that led to a colonial-looking inn set on rolling green hills. Emily ran out to meet us, wearing a floral shift with a sweater over it, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her skin lightly tanned and makeup-free. She looked just like the eighteen-year-old girl I’d introduced myself to that first day of freshman year in college. “I’m so excited you’re here,” she said, hugging us both. “We’re going to have the best time!”

•   •   •

E
mily had met Mark in their post-graduate premed program. She had a personal connection to medicine, having been diagnosed with a severe peanut allergy as a child. “I touched a peanut as a baby,” she had told me, “and I broke out in hives.” Since then, peanuts were the enemy, to be avoided at all costs. There had inevitably been incidents, when she accidentally bit into a peanut granola bar in high school and had to be rushed to the ER, for instance. Nearly everyone knows at least one person with a food allergy today (check your labels carefully!), but she was the first I’d met who had such an extreme reaction to the otherwise banal nut. She’d shown me how to administer an EpiPen: You pressed it into her outer thigh and, I inferred from her instructions, hoped for the best. I prayed I’d never be in the position of having to ham-fistedly attempt to save my friend’s life.

This allergy was her only health issue, though, and she didn’t let it get in the way of her physical or mental ambitions. She ran marathons and did a stint on the crew team, along with serving
as a member of the group of student EMTs. She came to college wanting to be a doctor, but transferred to the business school after wrestling with organic chemistry. We graduated, and she worked for several years in finance in New York City before deciding to return to her first love and go to med school. She had to finish her premed classes before applying, and that’s how she met Mark. As the older members of their program, they studied together and became friends outside of class, too. That connection led to more.

While I’d seen her date in college, and I’d heard much about her high school boyfriend, the guy she for a time thought she’d end up with, she sounded different talking about Mark. He was the smartest person she knew, she said, as if worried she couldn’t match his intellect. His other qualities ran like a list of all the right check boxes in a man: He was handsome, athletic, a book lover, intelligent and easygoing, close to his family but not
too
close, and something of a do-gooder, like she was. He was also a vegetarian, though this part was concerning. He was someone for whom peanut butter was a staple. She was anxious, but not just about the peanuts. I detected the early fear that comes from meeting someone great, someone different from all those who have come before, and feeling afraid he might not return the affection. That was not a concern I’d seen in her previously. “Of course he likes you,” I’d say. “How could he not?”

Soon it became clear that her worries were foundless, and anxiety gave way to planning. For med school, they applied to and got into Dartmouth together. They moved into a big, drafty house near campus that had more rooms than furniture, but
their minds were on far more important matters than interior design or even heat, and both of them were happy that way, tossing another quilt on the bed, focusing on the future. After med school would come residencies; that they would be married at some point between those two stages became a foregone conclusion.

The invitation came. The wedding would take place at a quaint old inn in Vermont the summer after they graduated, the ceremony to be held outside in the afternoon sun, the reception under a tent just steps away. Wedge sandals were suggested, as heels would puncture the thin skin of the lawn and push through the soil. As a bridesmaid, along with Caitlin and Emily’s younger sister, Rachel, I would don a reasonably priced pale blue dress with a seersucker pattern from J.Crew that seemed ripe for rewearing. I was twenty-eight, and, for the first time in my wedding-going career, I had a date, an actual boyfriend to be my plus-one. This would be our first—of, if all went well, many—together.

He and I had met in Pleasantville, New York, at Reader’s Digest, where we’d both been hired to work on a test magazine for an online auction site. Like many such endeavors, the project never really got off the ground. After a few months of work, for which we first commuted from Manhattan to Westchester by train and later hitched rides with a semi-narcoleptic colleague who had borrowed a purple Dodge Neon dubbed “the Grape Ape” from a friend, the whole idea was killed. At least we’d been paid, which was more than some of our friends, toiling in other publishing pursuits, could say. But the most important thing that came out of that job was meeting Jason.

At first, I didn’t think much about him. He was tall and very
thin, with pale blond hair that he kept closely shaved, all the better as I still harbored a vague grudge against blond men on account of my mother’s first husband. He had vivid blue eyes, which he considered his best feature, and usually wore periwinkle shirts and sweaters to highlight them. He was from the Midwest and had just moved to New York, to an apartment in the East Village, after completing a graduate program in journalism. Smart and industrious, he was, like many a twentysomething transplant to the city, eager to launch a successful professional career for himself.

I had been freelancing for Reader’s Digest prior to this assignment, on projects that required taking the company’s previously published book content and refurbishing it into magazine form. It was by no means scintillating work, but I’d just moved back from Boston and was happy to have a job related to words, even if it did involve a weird backward Metro-North commute, and a lot of cutting and pasting text about, say, vitamins. Quickly, I learned how things worked in that strange, cavernous place, which looked more like a college campus than the office of a global publishing company and often felt eerily vacant. Once the team was amassed for the test magazine, I’d see Jason on my train, and sometimes we’d sit together and talk, or not talk and just listen to our respective music. One day someone took Jason’s spot in the long row next to me, and as he waved and walked past in search of an open seat, I acknowledged I was just a little bit disappointed. I decided I’d do my best to get to know him better, this quiet, funny guy who shared my interests in stories and writing and producing good content. He had at least one vice that I knew of:
He was an unabashed smoker, which helped boost his cred from “your average nice guy” into “ever so slightly bad,” and that was appealing, too.

I don’t think he even thought about liking me, though, until the project was over. One night I invited him to come along with a group of my friends to a bar in the East Village. It was near his apartment, so he couldn’t say no. The hours passed and the evening turned into just the two of us. It became too late for me to go home, or so I said (a total lie: It’s never too late to go home in New York City), and he offered his couch. Sleeping in his apartment that night felt right, even if I was on the couch. The next day, realizing I’d forgotten something, I went back, and that’s when we finally kissed. “Was this supposed to happen last night?” he asked. Finally, he was catching on.

By the time we went to Emily’s wedding we were an established couple. We’d told each other “I love you” and meant it. That said, we still lacked a certain confidence in our collaborative decision-making skills. We’d attempt to go out to eat, and no restaurant would be good enough. We lived in New York City, land of one million options, but I think both of us were deeply afraid of deciding on something the other didn’t like. The burden of that—the possibility of making the wrong choice and then having to deal with the repercussions—was paralyzing, so we’d stay in and eat grilled cheese instead. He was, it must be said, very good at making grilled cheese. For a while that seemed perfectly fine, even desirable: a guy who would cook the most delicious grilled cheese sandwiches, and the feeling of comfort and safety and togetherness that brought.

We both knew that a cozy relationship confined to the walls of an apartment was not enough, though, cheese or no cheese. What did it mean if we seemed, when out in the world, so glaringly incompatible? A couple should be able to adapt in different situations and, I thought, have fun doing so. Yet we disagreed on such basics as what we even considered fun. He preferred to stay in and enjoy the creature comforts of home; when socializing, he tended to keep to a small group of friends. I liked to dress up and throw myself into the city, to go out and let whatever would transpire do so—the more, the merrier. But opposites attract! Or not. We’d find out. This wedding meant, possibly perilously, that we were taking our show on the road.

•   •   •

W
e headed to our room, complete with its gift basket of Vermont-inspired items, homemade jam and honey and (peanut-free) granola bars. Across the hall from us were Caitlin and Cash, no longer newlyweds but full-fledged happily marrieds, who, I feared, put us to shame with their vibrant show of love. We were quieter and less overt about how we felt about each other. Did we love each other less than they did? This wasn’t a competition, I kept reminding myself. Jason was someone I could trust, my best friend, the person I turned to if things were good or if they were bad. He was my ally. Relationships were work, that’s what everyone said. Annoyingly, what no one explained was how much work was the right amount.

We unpacked, hanging things that needed to unwrinkle, and then went downstairs to sit on the pretty white porch and look
out onto the lush grass and talk with our friends, who, of course, were really my friends, not his. But they welcomed him, and he made an effort in return.

“Oh, so, you guys,” said Emily. “The big thing is, we’re going to have pie at the wedding, instead of cake.”

“Pie?” asked Caitlin. “Really? Why pie?”

“I love pie! The wedding planner did not understand
at all
, but she got on board, eventually. Pecan and strawberry rhubarb. Doesn’t that seem more Vermont?” Emily looked at us expectantly. Who here was an unimaginative cake person, and who appreciated the beauty and simplicity of pie?

“Pie is better,” I agreed, and Jason nodded.

“We love pie,” he said, putting his arm around me. It was the most coupled I felt that day, and it felt good.

•   •   •

E
mily had a wedding planner. Caitlin had used one, too. Neither of theirs had been high-strung, reality-TV types, bustling around with clipboards and cell phones, yelling about bling and making bouquets pop, though. Instead they were unassuming women who stood at the edge of things, or completely hidden from view, and directed the setup of tents and chairs, told the bridesmaids to walk when it was time to walk, and subtly tried to ensure that things would run on time. The wedding planner was supposed to make things easy, so Emily could focus on her friends and family and not on the nitty-gritty details of the wedding itself. Emily didn’t care much about the nitty-gritty, anyway. She wanted the day to be enjoyable for everyone, but she and Mark
were both too pragmatic and easygoing to devote much time to worrying about the color of the napkins or whether there was a salad fork in the proper place at each table setting. Their casualness worked out well for us bridesmaids. I had only to wear the dress (which I would, in fact, wear again), to walk down the aisle with the bouquet in my hands, and to have the requisite number of photos taken as part of the bridal party. Oh, and to smile. Easy as pie.