Shadows and Lies (21 page)

I shook my head. “He disappeared before I even knew.”

Genny frowned. “Are you sure he just up and left you? Maybe something happened to him. Leaving’s not in his character, you know. He’s a good man. Or I thought he was a good man.”

I shook my head. Genny and Isaac had wanted to file a missing person’s report on Sean. I talked them out of it. “He moved out of his apartment,” I’d explained. “He wasn’t kidnapped.” Now I just said, “Maybe we didn’t know him as well as we thought. Everyone has secrets.”

Genny sighed unhappily and held my hand, squeezing it comfortingly. She said nothing more about Sean or about my condition, and it was exactly what I needed at that moment: non-judgmental comfort. Over the past two weeks, I had been telling myself over and over what a loser I was, what a failure, what a statistic I was. I am a whore, I’d say to myself. Nancy was right.

But Genny just held my hand, and it felt good to know that she didn’t think that about me. Instead, I thought to myself with a grim smile, it was Sean who she was likely plotting to murder, if she could ever get her hands on him.

“I’ll help you, okay?” she said to me after a while. “Isaac and I will be there for you all the way.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice choked with gratitude.

“What are you two whispering about back there?” Diana asked. She was acting the chauffeur while we two girls sat in the back seat.

“Just trading pre-wedding secrets, mama,” Genny answered lightly. “That’s all.”

Well, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that despite Sean’s absence and my depression, the wedding went off without a hitch that evening.

Paul and I waited in the lobby outside the chapel’s wide French doors for our turn to precede Genny and her mother up the aisle while Genny and Isaac’s anal retentive and ultra repetitive wedding coordinator Fran, who was constantly harping on how the wedding must be perfect and we must all do our parts to make it so, whispered to us in her ‘You Are a Mindless Dunce’ voice, “Now Carrie, Paul, remember: Left together, right together, all the way up the aisle, nice and slow, and don’t rush it.”

I repressed a sigh and looked at Paul who rolled his eyes but still smiled cheerfully. Fran kept her eye on Quinn and the new groomsman, whose name was Todd Wallenchuck, and their respective bridesmaids as they walked up the aisle. When they got to a certain invisible point that only she was able to discern, Fran gestured for us to come around the corner. “And… go,” she whispered authoritatively.

Of course I started out on the wrong foot, despite the reminder. Maybe Fran was repetitive for a reason. Maybe she could spot a mindless dunce when she saw one.

I pasted a charming smile on my face, which despite my own personal circumstances, I found wasn’t difficult to achieve. I really was happy for my friend, and her wedding really was beautiful. I felt magnificent in my dress, and Paul was a nice guy to have to walk down an aisle with. I reminded myself that I could have gotten stuck with Quinn. My smile widened and became more genuine the closer we got to Isaac, who waited so impatiently, so nervously. He kept touching his forehead with a hankie to blot away sweat as Paul and I took up our places on either side of the dais where a minister waited calmly.

I watched Isaac’s face as he saw his wife-to-be start down the aisle. He was so in love with Genny; his whole demeanor changed when he saw her. He smiled and relaxed, and Genny smiled back at him. She was so beautiful in her ivory gown. The skirt was extremely full, and she looked like a princess coming towards her prince. I wondered at the way they looked at each other. They really loved each other, respected one another, liked one another. I couldn’t remember a single time when my dad had smiled at Nancy that way, like everything was better and brighter when they were near each other, like each one was a relief and support to the other.

Horrifyingly, I felt tears in my eyes as I watched Genny walk towards her future. I didn’t dare wipe my eyes – I was made up like a china doll – so I just blinked the tears away. I wished with all my heart that Sean could have been there in that moment, to see his friends, to see me, to experience this. I wanted to share it with him so badly. The pain of his absence made me want to double over like someone had punched me in the gut, but I didn’t want to ruin my friends’ wedding, so I forced myself to stop thinking of him and I just focused on the minister as he started to speak.

Isaac and Genny looked from him to each other and then back again. I didn’t listen to what the minister was saying for long. My mind veered off on another tangent again, and I got lost in my own memories, remembering the first wedding I’d ever gone to.

I was four years old when my dad married Nancy. I don’t remember much, but I do remember that I’d had on a new pink dress, new to me that is, and that Nancy’s dress was a pale, pale green. It had been warm and sunny outside and I was so happy to be getting a mommy. Nancy had looked happy. My dad and my sisters had looked happy, too. I don’t have any memory of when things began to become unhappy in our family.

“Would the ring bearers please step forward?”

I had no idea how long I’d been in la-la-land, but I snapped out of it efficiently and handed over Isaac’s ring to Genny without missing a beat. Or so I hoped. I refocused on the wedding of the present.

“Isaac,” the minister said, “Repeat after me, please.”

Isaac repeated his vows, enunciating every word carefully so all in the chapel could hear and understand him. “Before God and these witnesses…I, Isaac Gebremichael…take you, Genève Viola Carter…to be my lawfully wedded wife…and I vow to be your loving and faithful husband…in plenty and in want…in joy and in sorrow…in sickness and in health…as long as we both shall live.”

Genny spoke her vows in a choked up voice, which made me want to cry because that’s just what I do when someone else cries. I call it sympathy weeping. Rings were slid onto the proper fingers, and the minister pronounced them husband and wife. Isaac kissed Genny passionately, and she gripped his shoulders and kissed him right back, heedless of their clapping and cheering audience. Genny’s mom was crying and clapping at the same time, smacking her hands together so hard that the fresh flowers on the brim of her hat flopped around enthusiastically as if they were happy too. Finally, Isaac and Genny came up for air and retreated down the aisle and out of the chapel. Paul and I and all the rest of the wedding party followed Genny and Isaac out to a private garden where posed pictures would be taken while the wedding guests began filing into the reception hall that adjoined the chapel.

Genny’s photographer was an absolute Nazi. He also wore a toupee. He’d taken plenty of candid shots before and during the wedding without a fuss, but he was more than a little anal about poses, wanting us to smile just so and tilt our heads ‘just a little bit more to the left’. Just when I felt that my neck was going to snap off from being tilted so far, he declared himself satisfied, took the shots, and the wedding planner took over once more.

I don’t think I’d ever been more delighted to see Fran. At least she didn’t make me pose.

“Alright,” she said, clapping her hands together to get our attention as if we were five year olds out on our first field trip. “We’re going to enter the reception hall and form a receiving line on the south wall. From there you’ll head to your seats, where you’ll be served dinner. The formal dances come after that, and then the Cake Cutting. All of you in the wedding party,” and she looked pointedly, it seemed, at me, “Make sure that you make yourselves available for the photographer. After the cake cutting, you can relax and enjoy yourselves until it’s time for the bride and groom to leave.”

“I think Fran hates me,” I grumbled softly to Paul as we all moved to do her bidding.

Paul smiled. “I think she’s just trying to make sure everything is perfect for Genny and Isaac.”

“She keeps giving me the dirtiest looks,” I insisted. “I think she thinks I’m an idiot or something.”

Paul nodded amiably. “Maybe she knows something we don’t.”

I gasped and laughed and gave Paul a playful slap on the arm. “That’s a horrible thing to say,” I said. But it felt so good to laugh, too.”

“You’re right,” Paul agreed. “Besides, I was lying, so stop worrying about it.”

“I will,” I promised.

We walked into the reception hall arm in arm and we stood beside the south wall to accept well-wishers congratulations and messages of goodwill. I couldn’t quite figure out what people were supposed to say to us in the wedding party though, since we weren’t the guests of honor. We were window dressings, I decided, and nothing more important. What could they say to us besides how nice they thought we looked, and “gee, but we’re really having fun.”

I glanced at the photographer, who was back taking candid shots of people hugging the bride and groom. I sighed and said to Paul, raising my voice to be heard over the din, “My only real consolation to the rest of this affair is the cake. It’s supposed to be a pumpkin cheesecake.”

That was when Quinn, who was standing to my left, decided to open his mouth. “You might want to rethink that cheesecake, Carrie,” he said as more people moved past us. “It’s high in calories and fat and white women like yourself need to watch how much sugar they eat. You tend to gain weight easily and you don’t carry it as well as black women do. They look statuesque, like Genny. You’ll just get chunky cellulite.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, turning to stare at him in horror. “What rock did you crawl out from? And how dare you say that about Genny?”

“It’s a fact, plain and simple,” Quinn said.

“You know, Quinn,” I said hotly, my ire rising rather more quickly than was usual. “Someday some woman is going to kick you in your balls. The sad thing is that you’ll probably just think she’s just PMSing and not learn one single thing from the experience.”

“Humph,” Quinn replied haughtily. “Like I’d ever let a woman kick me in my balls.”

I looked Quinn up and down. “It’s more likely a woman would never want to get that close to you, Mr. Giant Beer Gut. Looks like you’ll be missing out on the cake too.”

“You shouldn’t get hysterical, Carrie,” Quinn said smugly. God, he was actually smirking at me, the twit. “It puts strain on you, and we all know that stress causes wrinkles – something else that white women don’t look good with.”

I knew he was purposefully goading me, but I couldn’t help myself. Before I could think about what I was doing, I had raised my fist. Thankfully, before I could commit a crime that Quinn could sue me over, Paul grabbed my wrist and quickly switched places with me, putting me next to Genny.

“Quinn, stop baiting her or I’ll shove my own fist down your throat,” he said sternly. I hadn’t ever pictured Paul as being menacing before, but he did a good job of it at that moment, and Quinn settled down.

Finally, people stopped coming by to say hello and thank you, and we made our way over to the head table. I minced along, since by then my feet were starting to kill me in the high heels Genny had forced me to wear. “These shoes are horrible,” I complained once I was down in my chair at the dinner table, and I kicked them off.

“That’s another thing that I don’t understand about women,” Quinn said as he sat down next to Paul. “Fashion. You women are always squeezing yourselves into impossible attire that ruins your bodies.”

I tried to ignore him, but he just wouldn’t shut up. “For instance, I know for a fact that you’re wearing a body shaper under your dress because I’ve seen you in your everyday clothes and you’re not that – OW!”

Paul was doing something painful to Quinn under the table. At that moment I hoped that he was breaking his fingers because my feelings were definitely hurt. I could feel my face get hot, and to make things worse, everyone at the table had heard what Quinn had said.

Isaac turned to his friend and said mildly and clearly, “You may leave the table Quinn.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked. Unbelievably, he seemed to be bewildered by that request.

“Because you’re a prick,” Genny snapped. “Fran?” she signaled and the bossy wedding coordinator hustled over. “Quinn will be eating at the children’s table, okay?”

Quinn sputtered as Fran removed his place setting and hustled away. “What the devil for?” he asked indignantly.

Genny smiled at him. “Because the children’s table is where the juveniles sit.”

Quinn didn’t look like he was going to move a muscle from the table, but Paul did something else to him under the table and Quinn yelped again. “Alright, I’m going. Geeze! I just made one little observation…”

Quinn stomped off and Isaac apologized. “I’m sorr’ he say such thin’ t’ you. I’d d’mand he ‘pol’gize, bu’ it wou’ be mean’less. I’m ‘shamed tha’ a frien’ o’ mine ha’ treat’ you so badly.”

I nodded, and looked away. Everyone started talking then, about Quinn, about the wedding, and most importantly, about when the food would come.

“You okay?” Paul asked me.

I nodded. “What were you doing to him under the tablecloth?”

Paul shrugged diffidently. “Just being persuasive.”

“How mysterious,” I said, making myself make a joke.

“You probably won’t believe this, but he’s usually not such a huge prick. I don’t know why he tends to act this way when you’re around, but don’t pay any attention to him. He’s a blind fool. You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I said, touched. “I am wearing a body shaper though, a corset. It came with the dress, and Genny insisted. She thinks that all women should wear them at least once in their lives just to know what women’s suffrage was really all about.”

That made Paul laugh. “She would think that. My Debbie is just the opposite. We got married on a beach in Hawaii. I wore cotton pants and a polo shirt, and she wore a flowing white sun dress with no bra,” he said and smiled at the memory. “She had flowers in her hair and a golden tan. She looked like a sea goddess.” His eyes focused back on me. “She’s still not too keen on wearing bras, and you’d never in a million years get her into a corset. Oh, look, they’re coming with the food.”

“Finally,” I said, my stomach growling. After weeks of eating little and sleeping lots, I was ready to chow down. I didn’t realize it then, but getting out of the house and around people who were my friends, and doing something happy like attending a wedding, was lifting my spirits and putting me on the path to mental wellbeing.