Kiss Crush Collide (20 page)

“Like him,” I say, plunging forward, ignoring the signs pointing toward disaster.
Danger. Beyond here be dragons.

She breathes out and speaks slowly and clearly. “He’s the hired help, Leah. He’s a mistake.”

“Well, then,” I counter, “let me make my own mistakes.”

“You don’t know what you are asking.” She sighs, sounding weary and unexpectedly wise. “You don’t realize the mistakes you can make at your age.”

“Like Yorke?” I ask quietly, bringing up the forbidden topic, feeling suddenly daring and fearless here in the darkness with a broken heart.

“Yes, Leah,” she says heavily, rubbing her forehead, the bracelets making a slow, soft
shink, shink, shink
as she moves. “Like Yorke.”

“Where is the pink one?” the pinched-looking photographer mutters as he trips into the bright flower-filled dressing room, white socks peeking out from under his dark, wrinkled suit pants. He is moving at breakneck speed, trying to capture the multitude of candid shots that Yorke wants as a reminder of this blessed event.

“Where’s the pink one?” he says again, almost shouting this time, sounding frantic, adjusting the thick black camera strap around his neck as his eyes stop on each of my sisters, apparently unable to tell us apart.

You would think the fact that one of us is wearing a wedding dress would at least give him a place to start, but he looks lost and flustered, not up to the process of elimination. I hold up my pink bouquet to help him out.

The bouquets are a compromise that Yorke begrudgingly accepted, a way to include my mother’s favorite color scheme, somehow, in the all-pink wedding. My bouquet is a combo of light pink and white tea roses tied with a dangling satin pink ribbon. Freddie has yellow daisies and white tea roses with a yellow ribbon, and Yorke, a massive bunch of white lilies bound with a thick baby blue ribbon.

The photographer snaps his fingers above his head to get my attention, as if I am a dog or a small child. He clicks away, repeating the words
and soft smile, and soft smile,
a madman with his finger on the trigger as I pose with a strained smile on my lips, not feeling soft at all.

I turn back to the oval mirror on top of the dressing table. I want to curl up and let this day slip by, but every time I close my eyes I see Duffy walking away from me, fading into the distance until I can’t separate tan skin from dark sky.

Riding home late last night with my sisters, after everyone else had gone, after all the drinks were drunk and all the toasts toasted, I balled myself up tight in the backseat, Duffy’s voice crushing me.

Fog floated over the surface of the lake as our tires hummed along on the damp asphalt. Willowy branches brushed up against the car on the tight lake road. The piers and docks reached out into the dark water like wooden fingers. I hoped we would somehow lose our way or at least lose control and crash into the water, swamping Yorke’s secret and Freddie’s silence, so I could slip away from everything and everyone and slowly sink to the bottom, light as a feather, heavy as a rock, because it turned out he never did like me. I was right. That’s it. The spell is broken. No sparks, no heat, no rush.

Pressing my forehead against the cool dressing room mirror, I feel my skin wrinkling up, my bones turning to dust, my blood leeching right out of me. My life is over.

“It’s time,” the photographer announces, and I look up to see his snapping fingers hovering in the open doorway, his body already out in the vestibule, on the move.

I gather up my bouquet and take one last look in the mirror. I pinch my cheeks, then give up and follow Freddie out into the church entrance.

The candles have been lit, there are flowers everywhere, and the pink satin runner has been laid out along the length of the center aisle now that all the guests have been seated.

My mother, long ago escorted to her first-class seat at the front of the church by Shane in his tuxedo, waves to us over the sea of whispering cousins and family friends, any harsh feelings or retribution from the night before temporarily silenced by the emotion of the day.

I get a glimpse of Betty, our plump pipe organist, fanning herself and the stations of the cross with one of the custom-designed wedding programs. She will wobble along until the three harp players, who are playing softly and beautifully from the balcony above, break into the wedding march at the first sight of Yorke.

Freddie and I line up, yellow and pink bouquets at the ready. I am right in front of the closed double doors. First out of the gate, for once, my cue is the opening notes of Handel’s “Largo.”

My dad stops pacing out front on the church lawn and sweeps up the steps with a broad smile on his face. He wraps me and then Freddie in a tight, wistful hug that smells of fresh air and sweet cologne.

Wiping at his eyes, he says to us, “I’ve got something to show you,” and he reaches into the hidden chest pocket of his black tuxedo jacket and takes out an overstuffed silver money clip and a small wallet-size photograph that is frayed at the edges.

Leaning in, I see my parents, in miniature, on their wedding day. My dad’s hair is so dark. The smile lines that I love around his eyes are not smiled into yet. My mother looks so young, younger than Yorke does right this minute as she dawdles in the bride’s dressing room, determined to keep the world waiting for as long as possible.

“Yorke looks just like your mother did on our big day,” my dad says, beaming.

It is amazing. They look like twins, or at least like sisters, except my mother had an eighties-looking beaded headpiece and some dark Madonna-ish eyeliner that Yorke would never stomach.

Freddie’s eyes flicker from the photograph onto mine. I look again. I recognize the thickness of my mother’s shape and the slight swell straining the empire waist of her dress. Freddie steps back behind me, taking her place in line.

“Just last week it was twenty-two years,” my dad remarks with a note of awe in his voice. He slips the photo back into his suit coat and tugs at the hem, smoothing everything out, readying himself for his trip down the aisle. “Can you believe it?” he asks me before he retreats into the dressing room to get Yorke.

I can’t. They were married in August. Yorke was born in January. I’m subtracting, quickly doing the math in my head as the first few notes of “Largo” drift under the door.

I twist, my pink flowers bobbing out in front of me at an awkward angle, as I ask Freddie frantically, “So, Mom—”

“God,” Freddie interrupts with a nonchalant roll of her eyes as the doors swing open and I turn myself back toward the swelling music, “you always did suck at math.”

The photographer’s huge flash sears my eyes with a bright pop, scorching me to the spot. I hesitate, blinded. Freddie nudges me with her pee-yellow bouquet, and I take my first couple of step-togethers down the pink satin aisle on shaky legs. I am nothing but swimming spots and a fake smile.

I keep blinking, trying to bring things into focus. Like the little anniversary celebration my parents had last week around the kitchen table. Blowing out the candles on my dad’s favorite three-tiered chocolate cake, 22 written across the top in thick buttercream frosting. My mother had joked, as she sliced the cake, that Yorke should be glad. Roger would always have a reminder of his wedding anniversary since it was so close to theirs. “And,” my mother had laughed, frosting clinging to the tips of her fingers as she showed off her new sapphire anniversary band, “your father is well trained.”

Or the wedding photo on the mantel in the sitting area of my parents’ bedroom. It’s the only one that I know of in our entire house. It’s a glossy eight-by-ten in a curved silver frame, a close-up of their smiling young faces and nothing else.

I guess I always thought that Yorke just popped out early, eager to crash the party as always. It’s one of those things you know in the back of your mind, but you don’t want to believe, like there are bits of bug in every bite of your peanut butter, that Christopher Columbus could have cared less if the world was round, or that your mother was a little loose and had to get married.

Somehow I make it to the altar, not sure that I even once touched the ground on the way, and take my place, turning toward the crowd. As Freddie takes her last few measured steps, I glance out over our assembled friends and family who are shifting impatiently in their seats, waiting for Yorke’s imminent appearance.

I focus on the halo dancing around the candle burning next to me and breathe small, shallow breaths, amazed at how a huge space like this, filled with almost everyone you love, can feel so tight and narrow. I wonder how many of them were here to witness the last time this same dress took the trip down this same aisle under almost the exact same circumstances.

I am dizzy with disappointment. With my parents, my sisters, and myself for thinking and believing that their way was the only way. I know now that this isn’t true love or perfection or happily ever after. It’s not even meant to be. This is a broken condom at the end of a drunken night. This is a generational walk of shame with two hundred spectators.

The wedding march floods the church, and Yorke appears at the door—the perfect bride. Her tan is monumental. She spent all summer parked on a chaise by our pool, barking out orders and slathering on Coppertone 8. Her skin is a stark brown contrast to the clean white of her gown. Roger waits for her at the altar in his dark tux and starched white shirt, his hair at attention, eyes misty. The music soars up to the painted ceiling, swelling to fill the room. The notes are loud and clear, resonating in my head. This is not what I want.

The reception is a triumph of fresh flowers and tiny fairy lights. A faux antique crystal chandelier hangs from the peak of the ballroom ceiling, and small crystal lamps sit on each table, casting dappled light over the warm wooden dance floor and the groups of guests happily chatting away.

An assortment of silk neckties and black bow ties hangs from the backs of the damask-covered chairs as everyone loosens up, enjoying themselves and the fully stocked bar set up under a sparkling arbor just outside on the patio. The photographer is making his rounds. Everyone and everything are fair game for a candid shot, including the cake table and the eight layers of spun sugar and fondant he is casing as he clicks by.

I am ducking and dashing my way through the crowd of long-lost grade school friends and random guys who sold my dad his first boat or whatever. My head is down, and I’m trying not to rub up against anyone too old or too friendly as I navigate my way away from the head table, toward the square of indigo sky calling to me from the wall of open patio doors.

I am making a sincere attempt to ditch Shane, my grabby dinner partner, along the way. My progress is slow because it seems that every two or three steps I have to stop when someone taps me on the shoulder or reaches for my hand with a smile and says, “It will be your turn soon,” or, “You must be so proud of your sister today,” or, my personal favorite, “Oh, Leah, sorry, I thought you were your sister.”

Once outside I stop to rest. I breathe a sigh of relief, leaning up against the side of the building, the brickwork catching my curled hair. I have been clutching my pink bouquet so tight up against my chest, using it almost like a shield, that when I let down my guard and release it slowly, crushed rose petals shower my feet. The party hums behind me.

“Don’t you tire of the constant comparisons?” a female voice asks as I twitch a couple of pink petals from the tops of my toes.

I force myself to smile before I look up, but it’s not a meddling relative or even a friend of my mother’s who gets all her gossip about our family secondhand at the local beauty parlor during a weekly shampoo set. It’s Valerie. I swallow the polite argument I had ready and give her a smile. My resentment’s been rendered unnecessary.

She’s wearing a navy blue and white dotted swiss dress with puffed cap sleeves, a big bow at the neck, and a huge, floppy white hat, the kind of hat that only British women can get away with at British weddings. She’s obviously confused a simple summer wedding for a day at the races, but she seems to be loving it.

She steps toward me, wobbling a little in her snappy spectators. Her eyes scan the revelers inside the room. She stops, rolls back the front brim of her hat with her hand for a better view of my face, and announces, skeptically, “Frankly, I don’t see it.”

Knowing Valerie, I’m sure there was a chart or a graph or some other scientific research involved before she made this pronouncement, but I am wondering if she can honestly see anything past that hat. It’s monstrous.

I follow her gaze and look across the flushed faces swarming the bar, the three bartenders in pink vests chipping ice and mixing drinks as fast as they can. I look past the tables circled with guests just finishing up their prime rib and new potatoes to my sisters huddled together near the head table, cloistered from the rest of the world by an elevated platform draped in satin and their superior attitude.

It’s weird, but when I was inside the party, at the table with my sisters, in the mix, all warm and jostled, they looked rosy and smiling and benevolent to me. Now, from out here, they look taut and shiny and tense. And maybe even a little bit scared.

“Sometimes,” I say, sighing as I reach up to flip the brim of her hat back down, “neither do I.”

Valerie nods and disappears onto the dance floor. I watch her for a beat and then take the small step up onto the parquet floor, too, losing myself in the cloud of muggy air and meaty breath of tipsy forty-year-olds.

Everyone seems to be moving toward the bar while I sputter and struggle to make it toward the head table at the opposite end of the room. I climb onto the platform, lifting the back of my hem to clear the steps. A few ragged staples that started out the day cleverly tucked and hidden away in the swagged pink fabric have sprung loose, leaving the left side looking saggy and crooked.

I flop into my seat, glad to see my sisters have moved on and that Shane and the other wedding boys are presently pounding a bottle of champagne at a table in the corner.