Not Quite A Bride (22 page)

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Authors: Kirsten Sawyer

BOOK: Not Quite A Bride
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44
Mailing the Invitations
I
am barely recovered from Valentine's Day when suddenly it's time to mail the wedding invitations. For the past two weeks, I have spent all my free time sitting in my apartment, stuffing the invitations and response cards into beautifully calligraphied “inner envelopes” and then stuffing those into “outer envelopes.” It's quite a process ... believe me, it's harder than it sounds. Now the end is near, and with each lick of an envelope and application of a “love” stamp, the knot in my stomach is growing. In the same way that the handwritten sign on Kate's hospital bassinette made her official, these stunningly letterpressed invitations make my wedding, my
fake
wedding, official.
I have to admit—I'm starting to see that my plan isn't exactly as flawless as it seemed all those months ago when Justin stuck my Nana's engagement ring in a scone. I look down at my left hand with the beautiful engagement ring, and for the first time, I think about how Nana would feel if she knew what I was doing. Well, that's a lie ... I had thought about it before, and always quickly convinced myself that as the ultimate wedding lover, Nana would be completely happy for me. Now I feel like that probably isn't true ... Nana loved weddings because she loved romance more than anything else and nothing can be more romantic than a wedding. Of course, that is true—unless the wedding is a total farce ... like mine. Don't worry ... I'm not turning back; my dress is to die for, the flowers are going to be amazing, and I've heard rumblings about my bridal shower lately ... it just feels bigger now, is all.
I finally have them all ready to go, and they sit on the coffee table, lined up in boxes, and they kind of frighten me. My mother and Marion had instructed me to take them to the post office to get them hand canceled, but I'm afraid to go alone. Of course, neither Justin nor Logan is here. Logan got a job as the assistant to the director of art at the Met, and now that he has a little money he and Justin are out on the town nonstop. Justin has convinced me that his hanging out with Logan is the perfect cover story in case they run into anyone who might question things. The truth is that although I feel slightly like my little brother stole my best friend, I am grateful to have a little of the peace and quiet Tiffany and I were once overdosing on way back when ... except right now, when I could really use some company.
“You don't want to go to the post office with me, do you?” I question the white cat. She meows politely and rolls onto her back for a belly scratch.
I pick up the phone to call Jamie, but realize that it would be selfish to ask her to leave her four-month-old daughter to accompany her thirty-year-old sister to the post office. Then I call Lauren, but I forget she and Rob are away for the weekend. Next I call Alex, but she and Steve are spending the day trying to get pregnant ... she actually tells me this and it actually makes me quite jealous. Finally, I dial Brad, knowing that if I even reach him he won't be able to go, but I figure I might as well try.
I'm surprised that he answers and even more surprised that he is willing, even sounds happy, to go to the post office with me. I put the lids on the boxes and stack them neatly in a (hopefully) waterproof bag, just in case, and head out to meet Brad.
Brad and I meet at a Starbucks ... not THE Starbucks ... and grab a quick latte before heading downtown to the open post office. Brad had to take his invitations the week before, so fortunately he knows exactly where we are going. We make stupid, idle chitchat about how our respective wedding planning is going, but it is nice not to be doing it alone. With his big day just one week after mine, we are on very similar schedules. I feel like it's kind of weird that we never bring up Claire or Justin, but I don't want to be the one to rock the boat. Even though it feels like there is a giant pink elephant between us, it's good to have Brad back in my life.
We get to the post office and for a moment I am paralyzed in fear before walking up the steps. This really is it ... this really is the last chance to turn around and end the charade with only a few of the most important people in my life having been viciously lied to for the past eight months. I feel like I might throw up. I move my eyes only because the rest of me is positively stuck and look at Brad. Brad is looking at me with a mixture of concern and confusion.
“You okay?” he asks.
“This makes it feel so official,” I manage to get out.
“I know ... once those babies are out in the world, people start making arrangements,” he says, joking because he thinks I'm joking. Only I return his joke with a look of terror and he switches gears. “You don't have to do this.”
“Yes, I do ... they are already being mailed out late.”
“No, I mean you don't have to get married ... to Justin,” he says gently.
Suddenly, I am very tense and on edge. What is he trying to do to me? Anger swells through my body. It was one thing for me to try to break up his marriage to Claire right when they first got engaged ... but for him to be doing this now, just a couple of months before the wedding, at the post office, of all places. It is totally insane. Insanely awful, that is. I am about to explode.
“How dare you?!?” I yell at him.
I can tell from the shocked expression on his face that he didn't expect me to explode like that at him right here on the street, in front of the United States Postal Service building. Then his expression changes to a far more distant, cold one.
“How dare I do what?” he asks rigidly. “How dare I make sure that my friend knows she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to do? How dare I only want you to be happy?”
“How dare you try to talk me out of getting married! You're just trying to get even for when I did it to you!”
Brad looks at me disgustedly.
“You know that's not the truth. Forget it, Molly, I'm done here.”
And with that he turns around and walks off, leaving me, and my bag of invitations, alone on the steps to the post office. It doesn't exactly register to me how awful I was or that I am completely at fault. I turn on my heel, exactly as he had, but in the opposite direction and march up the steps. I'll show him. I'll mail these invitations right now and I will have this wedding!
I enter the post office and wait in an epic line, but my mind is racing so fast after my fury at Brad that I don't even notice how long it takes. It feels like a few short seconds later that I'm thrusting the envelopes onto the counter and walking out empty-handed. Then I get on the subway and go home ... it feels like I haven't even blinked yet.
I enter my apartment, still in a rage, and am glad to find Justin and Logan sitting side by side watching TV. I immediately start on a rampage about how awful Brad Lawson is. I retell the entire incident, and because I am so convinced of my rightness, I stick exactly to the truth and leave out any embellishments. After I have gotten it all out, I feel slightly better from the venting ... until I look up at their faces, that is. From their expressions I can tell immediately that they aren't going to be on my side.
“Molly, it doesn't sound like he did anything wrong,” Logan tells me with a face that pleads,
don't shoot the messenger.
“But ... he was trying to talk me out of getting married!” I explain.
“No, he really wasn't,” Justin tells me. “He was just telling you that you didn't have to do anything you didn't want to do.”
“He was being a good friend,” Logan adds.
Crap. There are two things I really hate: 1) being wrong, and 2) admitting when I'm wrong. I look up at Justin and Logan, who are nodding at me like parents encouraging their child to learn a lesson.
“Damn it,” I say, and they know I get it because Logan hands me the cordless phone and Justin points at my bedroom. I take the phone and walk to my room, head down, figuring out how I am going to manage to eat this enormous slice of humble pie.
Brad's cell phone rings twice before he answers it by saying, “You realized you're wrong?”
“Yes,” I pout.
“And?”
“And I'm sorry.”
“I knew you would be.”
“I'm sorry I upset you ... just miscommunication, I guess.”
I cannot believe how mature and understanding he is being, but I just decide to take it.
“Claire has been hypersensitive, too. I guess it's just something that happens to brides,” he continues.
The mention of Claire's name upsets my stomach, as always, especially the comparison that I am anything like her. I need to figure out a way to stop that response; obviously she's not as evil as she was six months ago, since Brad appears to be allowed to talk to me and see me in public now.
“It must be,” I say, grateful that things with Brad are going to be okay. “Thanks for being so understanding,” I say humbly. It is a relief to me that he is acting like his good old self. “How's your planning going?” I ask, in an attempt to be selfless.
It takes all my energy to act happy for Brad as he cheerfully chats about his wedding plans. The truth is, that besides the pain that comes from knowing what a horrible person he is marrying, there is also the pain of knowing that even though what he has may be bad, at least it's
real
. It's more than a little hard for me to deal with the “realism” of Brad's wedding in contrast to the “fakeness” of my own, but somehow I manage to hold it together.
45
A “Date” With Justin
I
t has been easy to lose sight of why I originally got into this wedding nonsense ... in fact, it feels easier all the time. With all of the “unfun” requirements and demands of wedding planning, it has been an effort for me to keep my “eyes on the prize” and remember that this is my chance to experience being a bride and truly relish it. That is, up until this week when things have become much more fun and I am constantly reminded of why it is worth it to lie to everyone I hold near and dear. Most days it feels worth it again.
Now, with two months until the big day, the lists from Martha are getting shorter and the items on them are more enjoyable—they are the kind of tasks that made me long to be a bride. Instead of long lists of tedious and stressful decisions like selecting florists, caterers, and photographers, my mind is now occupied with much more pleasant subjects like hairstyles, makeup, and shoes.
Today, Justin and I are at Capella Salon on the Upper West Side to have my hair and makeup run-through. The girl who will be doing my hair and makeup for the big day admits that we are the first couple to come in together ... obviously what she doesn't know is that we are also the first couple where the “future husband” is paid to act as such. That's okay, though. The truth is that I really need Justin's advice on these important decisions.
I am really glad that he has come along, and he definitely seems to be enjoying it, but Eden, the hairstylist, probably wants to kill us both. Every time she picks up a section of my hair, Justin says, “Eh, eh, eh,” and tells her a different way to do it. He might have been annoying to her, but in the end I LOVE the hairdo they have created. Plus, I think it will look stunning with my dress ... poor Eden almost lost it when I described my dress in front of Justin. I felt like saying,
Believe me, Eden, my wedding-day luck cannot get any worse.
Once the hair is finished, Eden moves on to my makeup, again with Justin in her face the entire time, and once again this pays off because it is one of the few times in my life that I have had a professional makeup job that didn't look whorish. When it is all finished, Justin whips out his Polaroid and takes pictures of me from all angles to be sure that Eden will see exactly how everything should look on the big day.
We leave Capella and I feel sort of silly with my ultrafor-mal hair and makeup in jeans and a sweater. Justin insists it looks fabulous and treats me to dinner to prove it. It's fun to have a night with just the two of us. We talk about some wedding stuff and we talk about some Logan stuff. In the beginning we got to be such good friends because it was this “us against the world” feeling and because we had this huge secret that nobody else knew. Once we let Logan in on the secret and Justin starting spending more of his time and energy helping Logan through his stuff, I felt grateful but I also started to feel slightly left out.
After dinner, we decide to swing by “our place.” With all the insanity over the past few months (and my embarrassment at the attention we get whenever we go there), we haven't had as many of our regular breakfasts as we used to. Tonight it's no more crowded than it is in the morning, but it's a different-looking crowd. On the weekend mornings, it's filled with people in expensive sweat suits reading their papers and eating muffins while their dogs sit patiently at their feet. At night, it's people in trendy clothes stopping for a shot of espresso to keep them going through an active night of clubs and bars. It is also a different staff and nobody realizes that we are the engaged Starbucks celebrities. We squeeze past all the twentysomethings with their caffeine jolts to our table where we sit down with our decaf, nonfat lattes to share a gingerbread man. I insist on treating ... now that Justin refuses to take money from me, I feel bad and maintain that I must pay whenever we go out. It's only fair.
Justin and I chat excitedly about all the fun wedding stuff that is finally happening. With our invitations in the mail, many response cards already back, and my bridal shower a few weeks away, our gift registry at Bloomie's has quite a dent in it. Okay, I must admit, I'm that person who cheats and goes on to view our registry to see what has been purchased. It's just so exciting, though! Although Justin gets a good laugh from the fact that I've been checking up on the list, he's also excited to hear about the loot that he will be bringing home.
We also laugh about the response cards we've received and the funny things his friends and family have said. He decided to inform most of the important family members and friends that the invitations were for the play he is doing, but then he decided to “shock the pants” off a couple of people, and it is clear by the RSVP enclosures that their pants are definitely gone. Just wait until the wedding day.
I have to admit that mindlessly chatting about all these details helps take my mind off the things that normally torture it. You know what they say about idle hands? The same goes for idle minds. If I can keep myself completely occupied, it's much easier to cope than when I am just open to thinking of all the things I'm doing wrong. I guess it's the upside of having to take care of so many wedding details that I hadn't expected when I began this crazy journey.

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