The Less Than Perfect Wedding (5 page)

"I didn't ask for their help! And what was up with your brother? Why was he always staring at me like that?"

"Look, Danny has always had a bit of a crush on you," Alex explained. "It's nothing - I'm actually a little flattered by it. He totally looks up to me because I'm dating someone as amazing as you." With those words, he leaned in across the center column of the car for a kiss.

I returned the kiss, but for the whole ride home, I couldn't quite lose the slightly dirty feeling from Danny's eyes on me, or shake the hint of guilt I felt because I wasn't diving head-over-heels into this wedding planning as much as Alex's folks were. It hadn't even been a month since Alex had engaged, but I already felt as though this new aspect of our relationship was beginning to lose its shine.

Susan's Discovery

*

In all of the messages and conversations about my parents' divorce, the one person whom I never heard mention of was my younger sister. Susan, ever since taking off on winter vacation for parts unknown, had apparently dropped off the map completely. Calls to her phone went straight to voicemail, and she hadn't contacted any of her roommates recently - or given any indication of whether she would be paying her next month's share of the rent.

This wasn't the first time that my sister had decided to pull a disappearing act, and she was often surprisingly good at taking care of herself, as long as I didn't question her methods too closely. I figured that I would hear from her sooner or later, and would likely need to fill her in on what had happened. When she did finally contact me, however, it was nothing like how I expected.

About two weeks later, I was finishing up work, and had just climbed into my car to head back to my apartment when my phone rang. Digging it out of my pocket, I glanced at the screen - the number didn't look familiar. Despite not recognizing the number, I pressed 'answer', and then cursed and tugged off one of my gloves with my teeth so that my fingers could activate the touch screen. Sometimes, the future didn't think about dealing with January cold, I thought to myself. I lifted the phone up to my ear. "Hello?"

"How dare you!?" came an impassioned scream from the other end of the line, so loud that, wincing, I had to hold the phone six inches away from my ear.

As the scream faded slightly, I moved the receiver of my phone close enough to pick up my voice. "Um, who is this?" I asked.

"Ugh," came a loud groan from the phone. "God, Danielle, don't you recognize your own sister? It's really like you don't care at all any more."

"Suzy? That's you? Why aren't you calling me with your phone?" I exclaimed. I hadn't heard a single word from my sister in months; it had felt as though, even before Christmas, she had dropped off the face of the earth.

This question was met by another groan. "Look, it's a long story," my sister grumbled. "I was seeing this guy, and things were great, but I just wasn't feeling things, so I called it off."

I nodded as I listened to this. Stories like this were pretty standard fare for my sister. I fished out my keys as I held the phone to my ear, starting the ignition so that the heater would keep me from freezing in the car. "You're still not explaining why you're not calling with your usual number," I cut in, as soon as my sister paused for breath.

"Oh, my ex-boyfriend kept on trying to get in contact with me, so I had to change my phone number," my sister said offhandedly. "Haven't you been listening?"

I sighed with frustration. "Suzy, why are you calling me?" I asked.

"I heard about what happened to you on Christmas," Suzy said.

"Oh, and you want to congratulate me? Thank-"

"And I can't believe that you would dare upstage me like that!" my sister continued, cutting in over my words. "How dare you try and steal all the limelight from me by making up all this drama!"

My jaw dropped open. "Sis, what are you talking about?"

"You, and your stupid proposal!" Suzy huffed. "Just because I wasn't there, you had to go and steal all of the credit, and now, whenever Mom calls me, all she can talk about is how amazing you are, and how you've managed to find love, and why haven't I done the same? It's so annoying!"

"She isn't complaining to you about the divorce?" I asked, astounded. "That's all she yells at me about."

"Oh, no, she whines about that too, how unfair it is that our dad is getting away with all this. I pretty much ignore that stuff," my sister replied. I couldn't believe how uncaring she sounded. Wait a minute - yes, I could. My sister always tended to brush off anything that wasn't directly about her. "But now, thanks to you, all I hear about is how I need to find a man for the rest of my life! My boyfriend was just as good as yours - just because my boyfriend ended up being married to somebody else doesn't mean that you're better than me!"

For a moment, I couldn't muster up any words to respond. "Wait a minute, Susan," I said. I was definitely angry now; I never used my sister's full name unless I was furious. "I didn't choose to get proposed to! It was all Alex's idea, and I would have said yes, no matter when he had asked me. Besides, you weren't even there! Our parents are getting divorced, and you weren't even around to be present!"

"I still can't believe you would do this to me," my sister went on after a moment, clearly not hearing a single word that I'd said. "Just you wait, Danielle. I'll have my revenge on you!"

I opened my mouth to reply, but Susan's voice was replaced by a dial tone before I could get out the words. Lowering the phone from my ear, I stared at it for a minute before tucking it away, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Sadly, this was pretty common for my sister. She tended to fly off the handle whenever she wasn't the center of attention, and would throw minor temper tantrums until people started paying attention to her again. Over the years, as I watched my parents and an ever-rotating series of boyfriends try and deal with these outbursts, I had grown adept at simply ignoring her. She would inevitably calm down, or be distracted by the next shiny object or cute boy that happened to pass her way, and would move on like the temper tantrum had never happened. I excelled at waiting her out.

With a shrug, I tucked the phone back into my jacket pocket. By this point, the car's heaters had raised the temperature up from below freezing to a level where I could shed my gloves and drive with my bare hands on the steering wheel. Putting the call from my sister out of my mind, I began to make my way back home to my apartment. I had a wedding to plan!

Bryan

*

That same evening, after Alex and I had enjoyed a lovely dinner of chicken breasts roasted and served over a bed of wilted spinach, prepared by yours truly, we retired to the couch and turned on the television. We were both avid watchers of several culinary competition programs, and one of them was about to air the new episode in a few minutes.

"So," Alex asked, his arm around me on the couch, "How was work today? Anything exciting happen in the world of non-profit construction for the homeless and the needy?"

I shifted back and forth slightly, getting into a more comfortable position nestled against him on the couch. Alex somehow always managed to stay thin and trim, no matter what he ate, and this meant that I occasionally found myself being poked by his ribs. "Work was pretty dull," I began. "But I did get an interesting call after work today, from my sister."

"Susan?" Alex asked. "Your sister? What did she want?"

My response was a shrug. "To be honest, I have no idea," I confessed, thinking back to our unusual talk. "It was really weird. I guess that she just heard about us getting engaged."

"Ah, so she was offering congratulations?"

"Not quite," I said. "As far as I could tell, she was upset at us, because apparently we were 'showing her up' and embarrassing her by getting engaged when she had just broken up with whatever guy she has been dating recently." I tried to remember whether there had been any real thread of sense to the conversation, but drew a blank. "She even called from a number that I didn't recognize, because she had changed phone numbers to dodge this guy. My sister really is crazy, I think."

"She didn't seem that bad when I met her," Alex protested, his eyes briefly darting to the ceiling as he thought back.

The last time I could remember Alex and my sister being in the same room was at least six months ago, possibly at her birthday party. "That's because it was my sister's birthday, and she didn't have to act out to make sure that she had everyone's attention," I pointed out. "Look, I know that you want to not offend me by bad-mouthing my family, but it's okay - I realize that they're all crazy!"

Alex nodded, but still didn't say anything bad about Suzy. "Actually, I received a pretty strange call this afternoon as well," he commented, changing the topic instead.

I turned to look at him, waiting for him to elaborate. "I think it might have been from one of the vendors for the wedding - he wanted to confirm some date that he'd heard, and was demanding money for the deposit," he continued. "Did you give them my phone number? I didn't realize you had begun making reservations, but he was telling me that I needed to give him money for - and I remember this quote - 'the wedding and shit.' He actually didn't sound like that reputable of a vendor, so I told him that I would have to check with you. Did you already pick out a date and a place?"

The confused explanation must have been clear on my face. "Alex, I haven't even started planning the wedding," I told him. "We don't even have a date picked yet! I certainly haven't even started looking up vendors for catering or anything, much less putting down any deposits."

Now Alex looked confused as well. "So you don't know this guy?" He paused, and then scrabbled at his pocket for his phone. "Wait a minute. I jotted down his name, after the conversation, so I could ask you about this. Here it is. Do you know a Bryan? He didn't give a last name."

"Bryan?" For a moment, the name meant nothing, and then, like a post-traumatic stress flashback, I suddenly saw the emails from my high school acquaintance living in the apartment building where my father now resided with his new girlfriend. "Wait a minute, I think I know who that was! What was the area code from the phone call?"

Scrolling through his phone, Alex read off the three-digit number, and my suspicions were confirmed - the call came from my parents' hometown. Blossom might not have a phone, it seemed, but her deadbeat son somehow managed to afford one. "That Bryan that you talked to is my soon-to-be stepbrother," I informed Alex. "Not even officially part of our family, yet, and he's already trying to scam money out of us. This makes me so happy with my dad's personal choices."

Alex was still looking at me, confused; I hadn't been keeping him fully up-to-date with the woes that my parents were going through, preferring instead to put that part of my life out of my mind as soon as possible after reading the messages from friends and past neighbors. Sighing, I gave my fiance a quick overview of what had transpired with my parents since we had last seen them a month before. By the end of my recap, Alex's jaw was hanging open.

"I told you that my family was crazy," I said, shaking my head back and forth. "And I'm pretty sure that things will end up just getting worse, especially when they are all forced together into close proximity for our wedding." I raised my eyebrows at him. "Still time to elope to Las Vegas and get married there without telling anyone?" I offered, keeping my voice light but only half-joking.