by Mary Simses
“Having fun is one thing. Ruining your career is another. What if he loses his job, Sara? What’ll happen to us? We’ll end up living in a tent on the street somewhere. I need a man I can depend on.”
“You’re not going to be living in a tent. Carter’s not going to lose his job. He’s a very successful partner at the firm.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe his clients will fire him because of those pictures. It was such a stupid thing to do.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a sweater. “Maybe it’s good it happened. I mean, how can two people get along for a whole lifetime? Carter and I proved this week that we can’t.”
“Hold on. You’re jumping to conclusions. Everybody gets frazzled the week before a wedding, even without something like those photos coming along. You’re looking at a very stressful time and trying to predict everything based on that. You’re not being fair.”
She held the sweater over the suitcase and let it fall. “But shouldn’t that be the test? If you can make it in stressful times? Otherwise, why bother?”
She had a point. God, she was irritating me, sounding so rational. “I really think you guys can work this out.”
“There’s nothing to work out. He doesn’t love me. If he did, he wouldn’t have acted like such a jerk.”
“Yes, he does love you. Just talk to him, please? I’m sure you two could straighten everything out. I know how much he cares about you.”
“Oh, and how would you know?”
“Because I saw him.”
“You saw him.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Do you think I need you running interference for me? I know you wanted to get him back all along. You couldn’t believe he was in love with me. Me, the pretty one without the brains, instead of you, the brainy one…”
Without the looks. She didn’t say it, but I knew that’s what she was thinking. I let it pass. I needed to defuse, not escalate.
“You can have him,” Mariel went on. “He’s all yours.” She threw a pair of black heels toward the suitcase; one of them narrowly missed my head.
“Okay, okay.” I raised my hands. “You’re right. I admit it. I did want him back. I did want to take him away from you.” There. I’d said it. I waited for the world to come crashing down around me.
Mariel shoved a canvas tote into the suitcase. “I know that. How do you think it made me feel? Sure, I get it. I knew I wasn’t going to be nominated for the sister-of-the-year award when Carter and I got together. Even though it wasn’t my fault. He swore things had already gone way south between you two. That it was over.”
She was right. He was right. It was over. I’d been trying to keep our relationship on life support, but it was over. I thought about the ill-fated trip we’d taken to Montecito that fall. How we’d just arrived at Rich and Margo’s house when Carter got the call. His new client, twenty-two, superstar singer, arrested for cocaine possession. We drove right back to LA so he could take command and save the day. It didn’t matter that she had a criminal lawyer, a therapist, a publicist, a life coach, and parents who lived an hour away. Was that when it began to fall apart? Was that when I realized our relationship had worn thin? Or had it already been unraveling bit by bit, death by a thousand cuts?
“It was over,” I said. “I shouldn’t have blamed you. But I was jealous. And hurt.”
“What happened between us just happened, Sara. You always made it seem like it was personal.”
“Well, it was personal. You’re my sister.”
“And I wish I weren’t. I wish I were a stranger so you would have left it alone, accepted the way things were and gone on. Mom kept telling me I had to reach out to you and make things right, that if I didn’t do that, I’d never really be happy. I tried to, but you wouldn’t talk to me.”
She slammed the top of the suitcase down and tried to zip it up, but the sleeve of a dress was sticking out and the suitcase wouldn’t close. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Mariel and I turned. Mom stood in the doorway. I had the feeling she’d been standing there for a while. “Not until you and Carter and I can sit down and talk about this together, rationally. I just want a few minutes with the two of you. Before you go off and ruin your lives.”
“What is this? An intervention?” Mariel tried to close the suitcase again, then gave up.
“You owe it to Mom to talk to her,” I said.
Mariel wheeled around. “Since when did you become Mom’s BFF?”
That was laughable. “Me? Are you kidding? I’m the odd man out here. You two are the BFFs, in your own little bubble. I’m floating way off to the side by myself.”
“What are you talking about?” Mom asked. “What bubble?”
“I mean you’ve always favored Mariel. And don’t deny it. I have a whole lifetime of proof that you love her more than me.”
Little lines I’d never seen before appeared on my mother’s face. “Sara, that’s not true. I love you girls equally.”
“No, you don’t. You’ve always given her more attention.”
Mariel raised her hands. “How can you say that? Half the time I talk to Mom, she’s telling me I need to be more like you. ‘Make goals for yourself. Plan your future. Figure out how to do things on your own.’”
That was news.
“Well, you two share secrets,” I said, glancing from Mariel to Mom. “Things you don’t talk about with me.”
“Like what?” Mariel asked.
“You want an example? Okay, here’s one. Mom’s high blood pressure. You guys never told me about that.”
“Maybe there are things Mom doesn’t tell you because she’s afraid you’ll be a pain in the ass about them.”
“A pain in the ass? When am I a pain in the ass?”
Mariel let out a shriek of laughter.
“That’s not how I’d put it,” Mom said, giving Mariel a look that silenced her. She turned back to me. “But your sister has a point, honey. Sometimes I don’t mention things to you because you try to take over, as if no one else can do as good a job as you. When I found out I had hypertension, I didn’t tell you because, well, for one thing, I didn’t think it was a big deal. Lots of people have it. They take their medicine and they’re fine. How could I know that the medicine wouldn’t work for me?
“But the other reason was that I was afraid if I did tell you, you’d drop whatever you were doing and come flying back here wanting to take over, fix everything. Which was what you did. You threw out my food, you left me dozens of articles to read, you put notes all over the kitchen about what I should and shouldn’t eat, you got me a blood pressure cuff and two cookbooks. I could have done all that myself.”
Maybe she could have, but I wasn’t so sure she would have. “I was trying to make things easier. And I was worried you wouldn’t do it yourself.” She would never have gotten rid of those frozen pizzas. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Mom’s eyes softened. “Sweetheart, you’ve got to let me make my own decisions, do things my own way. I appreciate the help. I know it comes from a place of love.” She touched my cheek. “But let me work on that. I promise I will. You need to work on loosening the reins a little. You can’t control everything.”
Was I really that controlling? Did I make people think they were incapable of doing things themselves? I didn’t want to be that way. Still, Mom had her own issues about control. “You can’t control everything either. You still support Mariel. If you didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to keep her apartment and put food in the fridge. She’s never been independent. And that’s because you’ve always enabled her.”
“You’re right. I do help your sister. I’ve probably helped her too much. She could take some lessons from you about being more self-reliant. Of course, I’d help you too, if you asked. Except you don’t. You want to be completely independent.”
“You could have asked me if I needed help. But I don’t want to be like Mariel. She has no idea what
the real world is about. Her life has been so easy.”
“My life has not been so easy,” my sister said, surprising me when her voice cracked. “How would you like to be the one with the perfect sister? The sister who’s so great at everything? I’m sorry I can’t be just like you. You think I don’t try, but I do. I’ve tried my whole life to do what you do, but you always do everything better.”
How could she not see that the real problem was that by copying me, she made me crazy? “That’s the whole issue. You drove me away from things I loved because you were copying me, getting into my territory, my space. I couldn’t stand it.”
“I didn’t mean to copy you. I just thought if I did what you did, people would like me the way they liked you.”
“People did like you,” I said. “You always got attention, lots of attention.”
“Because of how I looked, Sara. Do you know how hard that is? People never say, Oh, there’s Mariel. She’s so talented, so clever, so smart. No, they say, She’s so beautiful. Everybody thinks that’s great, to be beautiful. But that’s all I’ve got.”
“That’s not all you’ve got. You just don’t stick with things long enough. You don’t persevere. If you want to be good at something, you’ve got to put time and effort into it. I’ve told you that since we were kids. You could have been a great rider. Much better than me. You were better than me. But you gave up too fast.”
Mom sat down on the edge of the bed. “That’s true, Mariel. I used to tell you the same thing. Maybe I didn’t say it enough. Or maybe I should have pushed you more. Maybe I let you give up too easily.” She looked at me. “You’re right, Sara, about me giving your sister more attention.” She ran her hand over the jeans I’d folded. “Maybe that was easier for me than being tough. I never had to worry about you being independent, Sara. You knew what you wanted, knew how to get there. Mariel always seemed a little lost.”
I sat down next to Mom; Mariel sat on the other side of her. “I’m sorry,” Mom said, her eyes misty. “I’m sorry I’ve let you down.” Mom grasped our hands and we became a chain, like something forged of steel. She pulled us in tight. I could smell the freesia on her cheek as we sat there, jigsaw-puzzle pieces that hadn’t always seemed to fit together. But we were getting closer.
I heard the doorbell ring. “I’ll get it,” Mom said. A minute later she called up the stairs, “Mariel, Kellie’s here.”
“Kellie,” Mariel muttered. “She wasn’t supposed to come until…”
She headed for the door and I followed her. Downstairs, in the foyer, Mom was fussing over Kellie, one of Mariel’s friends from LA. Mariel and Kellie hugged and squealed as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, although I knew it had probably been a matter of days.
“What are you doing here?” Mariel said. “I thought you were coming tomorrow.”
Kellie adjusted the scarf around her neck. “Listen, babe, when I saw what was going on with those photos and then you told me you were going to call off the wedding, I dashed over to LAX and got on the redeye. I couldn’t let you handle all that on your own.”
Mom put her hand over her heart. “A verus amicus. A true friend.”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Mariel said, taking Kellie’s hand.
“Oh, I am too. But I guess I didn’t have to rush to your side after all.”
“What do you mean?” Mom asked.
“You haven’t seen what’s going on with Carter’s photos?” She grabbed Mariel’s arm. “There’s been this whole backlash to that ‘boys behaving badly’ thing. Somebody posted one of the photos of Carter and the guys and put ‘Shaving Should Be Fun!’ over it, and it started going around. And now hashtag-shavingshouldbefun is trending, and people are posting pictures of themselves doing crazy things while they’re shaving.” She took out her phone and began tapping the screen while Mariel and Mom looked on.
I took out my own phone and went to Twitter. There it was—#shavingshouldbefun. I scrolled through and saw that people had retweeted the photos of Carter and his friends and added comments like Come on, let them have a little fun and Gillette should use this in a PR campaign! There were even some copycat photos where guys had gone into fountains and shaving-creamed themselves. A couple of them were actually shaving.
“Thank God,” Mom said. “What a relief.” She put her arm around Mariel. “I don’t think you have to worry about this anymore, honey. It looks like the problem’s taken care of itself.”
I silently thanked J. P. List.
Mom said, “Maybe you and Carter can get married now,” just as the front door opened and Carter walked in. He stood there for a second looking at Mom and Kellie and me, then he turned to Mariel. “That’s exactly what I think. We can get married now. My Saturday is completely open and I’d really like to get our wedding back on track. What do you say?”
Mariel smiled, her bottom lip trembling. “Yes!” she said, running into his arms.
Mom looked at me and Kellie. “Exit stage left, girls,” she said, and the three of us quietly walked away.
Chapter 26
The Rescue
I had only that afternoon and the following day to put the wedding back together. I got into the car and raced over to Marcello’s, wondering how I was going to tell Bella that the wedding gown she’d thought she fixed needed to be fixed again. When I got there and she brought out the gown and hung it on a rod by the counter, I broke out in a cold sweat.
“This was a very big job,” she said. “But it came out perfect. Take a look.”
I did. And I cringed, because it was perfect. Except, of course, the waist was two inches too small. This was the moment of truth. I had no choice but to come clean.
There was an awkward moment of silence after I told her what I’d done. She looked at me like I was a criminal, which I guess to her I was, having vandalized a Valentino. “You re-pinned this so it wouldn’t fit?”
I gave a sheepish nod. “But we made up, and now I want to fix everything. I want her to walk down the aisle in this dress. You’ve got to help me. Please?”
“But the wedding is Saturday, and it’s already Thursday. That would only give me tonight and tomorrow. This isn’t like doing a hem or shortening sleeves. This is hours and hours of work.”
I knew that. I couldn’t imagine how long it would take, how many stitches.
Bella looked at the gown and shook her head. “I don’t see any way I can do it. We’re backed up already. And we’re closed next week for vacation. On top of all that, I need to finish getting ready for my father’s party on Sunday. He’s turning eighty. I’ve told all our customers that anything we take in now won’t be ready until at least the week after next.”
The week after next? “But Mariel has to wear this on Saturday,” I said. “I’ll pay you whatever you want. Double, triple, you name it. I can’t sew, but I’ll do anything else you need if you can just put those two inches back in there.”
“If you can’t sew,” she said, “what could you possibly do to help me?”
I thought about that as I gazed at the counter, where someone had etched the word EUREKA in small letters in the wood. And then it came to me. “What do you need to do for your dad’s party?”
It turned out to be a long list. Food, liquor, drinks, decorations, party favors. I’d have to bounce around three or four towns to get it all done while making calls and going to various places to put the wedding back together. But what choice did I have? I had to get that gown fixed. “I’ll do it,” I said.
“Then so will I,” Bella said, and we shook on it.
On my way to the car I called Wade, the photographer I’d canceled just days before. He sounded a little bit smug when he told me he’d taken another job for Saturday. I couldn’t really blame him, not for taking the job or for sounding smug. I sat in the car and called every photographer I could find within a hundred miles. The ones who answered told me they were already booked, and I wasn’t optimistic about getting calls back from the others. We w
ere in the middle of the summer, prime wedding season. I put the phone down. It was a lost cause. I couldn’t possibly conjure up a photographer at this late date. Unless…
I drove to the Duncan Arms, walked into the Pub Room, and asked the hostess for Jerome’s phone number. I wasn’t surprised when she said she couldn’t give it to me, but she called him while I was there and left a message for him to get in touch with me. Twenty minutes later, while I was on my way to the Hampstead Country Club, he phoned.
“Saturday?” he said after I’d explained everything. “This Saturday?”
“Yes. I know it’s last minute, but—”
“I thought you two weren’t speaking. I thought you weren’t going to the wedding.”
“I know. I wasn’t. But it’s all changed. We’ve made up. And I need a photographer. I canceled the one we had and now…well, I need one. Bad.” I crossed my fingers. “Can you do it?” Please say yes, please say yes.
“I’d love to help you, hon, I really would, but I work Saturday night. I’d switch shifts with somebody if I could, but I already know I can’t because I asked a few days ago—I wanted to go to a big party on the Cape this weekend—and all the other bartenders have plans. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” I said, feeling a sharp stab of disappointment.
“I wish I could help. I really do.”
I put on my blinker as I approached a turn. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I guess I’m paying the price for what I did—blaming my sister for things she didn’t do, refusing to admit my own part in what happened with my ex. Worst of all, sabotaging her wedding. I’m trying to put it back together now, but…” I glanced out the car window and willed myself not to cry. “Anyway, you don’t need to hear all that. Thanks for listening.”
We hung up and I wondered if I could find my old Nikon camera at the house. Maybe I could take some pictures and…oh, stop. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t a wedding photographer. Besides, I was a bridesmaid. Was I going to walk down the aisle with a camera slung over my shoulder? Maybe I’d have to. Maybe I’d have to ask some of the guests to take pictures as well. What a mess.
