“Just because you’re afraid to tell your mom about the cruise, that’s no reason to refuse the cruise completely,” I say. “Maybe you can negotiate with Gary’s mom.”
“Me?” Elaine says and looks around her. Her eye stops at Jerry.
“Don’t look at me. I have some measuring to do for Aunt Ruth,” Jerry says. He’s not looking at Elaine when he answers her, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Cruise or no cruise, Aunt Ruth gave me her orders.”
“Speaking of Aunt Ruth—” I forget about Jerry and try to catch Elaine’s eye “—shouldn’t you call your mother? I’m sure she’ll be worried about you.”
“She knows where I am,” Elaine says with a stubborn lift of her chin. “If she wants to see me, she can come here.”
Okay, well, that’s not a good plan for oh so many reasons.
I look to Cassie for help.
Cassie turns to Elaine. “Don’t you need to be back in Blythe yourself to keep making plans for the wedding?”
“Why bother? Everything is falling apart,” Elaine says and I see tears starting to form in her eyes.
I’m not sure any of us can take more crying. Besides, it will make her mascara run again. I rush in with a question of my own. “Don’t you have some sort of a bachelorette party coming up with your bridesmaids? That should be fun.”
“I don’t have any bridesmaids left.” Elaine begins to wail.
Okay, so much for her feeling better. Cassie starts to walk toward the box of tissues she keeps beside the sofa, but then she turns and brings back a towel from the bathroom. She hands it to Elaine without her usual pat on the shoulder.
“I thought you had all the bridesmaids lined up,” I say. “Aunt Inga said you asked the Bowman twins and Allison Murry.”
All three of these girls are from Blythe and Elaine has known them all her life. Well, Cassie and I knew them, too. And Jerry. There were no strangers in school when we were growing up in Blythe. The twins and Allison always seemed as empty-headed as Elaine and I was never comfortable around them. Not that I was a rocket scientist. I just couldn’t stand to talk about clothes and boys all day. Okay, so maybe it was because I didn’t have much to talk about in either of those categories. Still, those conversations used to give me headaches like the one I’m getting now.
“They all quit,” says Elaine. Her mascara is starting to run and I’m wondering what kind she uses. Probably something organic. I didn’t think they made any mascara that ran like that anymore.
“All three of them quit?”
“Well—” Elaine stops to take a breath “—Gary’s sister is still going to be in the wedding.”
Gary’s sister lives in Boston and she didn’t come to the engagement party so I’m sure she’s not planning to come to any bachelorette party.
“I can’t believe the others would bail on you like that,” Cassie says. “Just because it’s not going to be a fancy wedding in Palm Springs, that’s no reason for them to pull out.”
Aunt Ruth isn’t the only one in Blythe who thinks Palm Springs is as close to Mecca as any of us can ever hope to get. When we were in high school, it was the place to go if you wanted to have a serious date. Even now, the expensive weddings take place there.
Jerry grunts as if he’s heard this all before. “They’re not backing out because of Palm Springs. It’s those orange dresses. They finally had sense enough to try them on in front of some mirrors. Everyone says they look like pumpkins. The maid of honor is the only one who is wearing brown.”
Elaine sniffles. “Allison said she refuses to walk down the aisle looking like some vegetable out of the produce section.”
“I don’t think pumpkin is a vegetable,” Cassie says.
“The orange is not pumpkin anyway,” Elaine says as she dabs at her eyes. “The store says it’s their Fall Sunset color. Sunsets are beautiful.” Elaine takes a breath, but can’t manage to hold in her feelings. “My wedding is ruined.”
I hate to bring up the obvious, but I guess it’s time. “If you have a cruise wedding, you won’t need the bridesmaids anyway. And, if you did have bridesmaids, who wouldn’t go? I mean it’s a cruise.”
Even though I am turned away from everyone now because I’m momentarily adding raisins to the oatmeal, I become aware that the silence behind my back is going on a little long after my speech so I turn around. Elaine is looking at me with a calculating look in her eyes.
“You and Cassie could be my bridesmaids,” Elaine says in a rush when she sees I’m looking at her. “I don’t think there would be any money involved, but I’m sure Mom would pay for the cruise—”
“Of course, there wouldn’t be any money involved,” Cassie says indignantly. “No one accepts money to be a bridesmaid. It should be an honor. Of course, there’s no more room on the cruise, remember?”
I hope Elaine doesn’t interpret Cassie’s response about it being an honor as a yes.
I turn back to the stove and lift the pan of oatmeal off the burner. “Regardless of where you get married, if you still have that same color, we’re in trouble. I thought you said it wouldn’t go with my hair.”
I know it’s too late to get new bridesmaid dresses of any color so the orange pumpkins are it.
“You can put a darkening mousse in your hair for the day,” Elaine says.
“I like my hair—I’m not going to hide its color,” I say as I set the pan of oatmeal on a trivet in the middle of the table.
“Of course, nobody in my family will know my wedding is ruined because they won’t be there,” Elaine says.
“I can’t believe Gary’s mother isn’t open to compromise about who is going. Besides, your parents can certainly afford to pay for their own cabin. Maybe Gary’s mother just meant they were only going to pay for their side of the family to go. That makes sense.”
“Nothing makes sense,” Elaine says as she stands up and walks toward Cassie’s bedroom.
“It’ll be okay,” Cassie says.
“How would you feel if this was your wedding?” Elaine asks as she opens the door and stands in the doorway. “It’s supposed to be the most wonderful day of my life and it’s turning out awful.”
Now that Elaine has stopped crying, none of us know what to say to her so we are silent as she closes the door. Part of me thinks she’s right. She’s going to have a hard time keeping all of the parents happy on this one.
There aren’t many gray mornings in Hollywood, but this is one of them and the gloom comes through the window and settles on the three of us as we sit at the table. Jerry has taken the plants off the wooden box that serves as a coffee table and has upended it to make himself a stool so he can sit at the table with Cassie and me.
“You need a couple of folding chairs,” Jerry says. “I’ll keep my eyes open for some used ones.”
Cassie nods, but gives a worried look toward the closed bedroom door.
“She just needs some time alone,” I say quietly. I’m not sure that’s true, but the rest of us need some quiet time without her. We eat our oatmeal with raisins in peace for a minute.
“She’s going to have to tell Aunt Ruth pretty soon,” Jerry says.
I nod. I always thought people in our family were trying to spare each other’s feelings, but now I’m seeing that all this sidestepping of the truth has only stopped us from being close. Elaine should be sharing her troubles with Aunt Ruth. It might make them closer. I know I feel a lot closer to Jerry now that there are fewer secrets between us.
I think I’m becoming warped. Somehow the me I always knew isn’t the me I am these days. I think it’s because of those Bible verses from my childhood that have come back to haunt me. I have started to wonder what my relationships would be like now if I had become a Christian back then in Sunday school. I’m not wondering what my life would be like, because it might be close to the same as it is now. At least the unattached, rolling-around part.
But I might be closer to people, especially the cousins and the aunts. Maybe I woul
d even have been able to be on Elaine’s side sometimes growing up instead of always picking the opposite side just to show that I was my own person. Maybe even if she kept calling me her half cousin, I could just have accepted her as family. If I had done that, maybe there would have been no reason for her to keep calling me a half cousin. Forgiveness and truth should be the backbone of any family, even a mismatched one like ours.
I think it might be because of lack of sleep, but I decide right then and there that, if I’m hoping everyone in the family will be more truthful, I need to do my part.
“I’m going to tell Aunt Ruth about the Big M,” I announce.
“What?” Cassie says.
“Are you nuts?” Jerry, always the diplomat, adds.
“What’s the Big M?” Elaine asks from the doorway of the bedroom. She’s combed her hair and stopped crying.
Well, this isn’t quite how I’d pictured it, I think to myself. I hadn’t meant to tell Elaine. I mean Elaine is stressed out enough over the wedding; she doesn’t need to know that the chapel that is the backup place for her wedding is a mortuary.
There’s a minute of shuffling silence.
“It’s a new kind of milk Julie found,” Cassie finally says. “You know, the Big M. Big Milk. Lots of vitamins. She’s planning to buy some at the store later.”
“Good,” Elaine says with a shrug. “You can’t get too many vitamins.”
“Nope, you can’t get too many vitamins,” I agree.
There is another minute of silence as Elaine walks over to the sofa and sits down.
“Oh, here,” Jerry says as he stands up from his stool with his empty bowl in his hand. “Sit here and have some oatmeal. There are lots of vitamins in that. It even has raisins.”
I think to myself that Jerry has been using manners he probably didn’t even know he had. He doesn’t seem to be minding it, though, so I have reason to hope that he’s turning into a thoughtful kind of a guy.
Elaine has barely sat down at the table when my cell phone rings. My purse is beside the sofa so I walk over to it and pull out my cell phone. I think it might be Doug, but I see from my number display that it is Aunt Ruth.
“Oh.” I pick the phone up without answering it and walk it over to Elaine. “Sorry, but this is your mother. I’m sure she wants to talk to you.”
Okay, so I know that is the cowardly thing to do. I do plan to tell Aunt Ruth about the Big M soon, but I don’t want to do it at seven-thirty in the morning with Elaine listening. No one, at least in our family, is at their best before midmorning.
Elaine talks on the phone for about ten seconds and then holds out the phone to me. “It’s really Aunt Inga. She’s just calling from my mom’s place.”
“Oh,” I say as I reach for the phone. “Hi, Aunt Inga.”
“Oh, Julie,” Aunt Inga says with her voice gushing loud enough I wonder if everyone in the room can hear her. I look at Cassie and can tell from the smile on her face that she hears the gush. “I couldn’t wait to talk to you.”
“Did you call about Elaine? She’s still a little upset, but she’s doing fine.”
“Well, of course, she’s doing fine,” Aunt Inga says. “It’s a wonderful day.”
Even for Aunt Inga this is a little happy for this early in the morning. “Have you had breakfast? Maybe a little protein would—”
“I called your mother,” Aunt Inga announces, which stops me in midworry.
“What?”
“I called your mother in Las Vegas,” Aunt Inga says proudly. “I remembered how she could always make a room look pretty. I thought maybe she’d help us decorate the chapel.”
I blink and look over at Cassie. She looks as shocked as I feel.
“You asked my mother to help?” I finally manage to say. “What did Aunt Ruth say?”
“Your aunt Ruth is lying down with a wet towel on her forehead. The hotel with the golf course told her they had no openings for the wedding. They even refused to give her golf lessons.”
“Oh. But there might be another hotel they can use,” I say.
“Your mother was so excited that I asked for her help,” Aunt Inga continues just as though I hadn’t hinted that we need to keep looking. “It will be a real family affair. I even told her all about the place where you work and how your boss is letting us use it for Elaine’s wedding so he must think the world of you.”
“Oh, well, he just—”
“Once your mother is done with that chapel of yours, it will look ten times better than the church in Palm Springs.” Aunt Inga rushes to the end. “Isn’t that wonderful? It’s been a long time since the whole family worked together on something.”
I cannot even speak. Our family has never worked together.
“But what does Aunt Ruth say?”
“She’s not saying anything right now. But she’ll see the chapel is for the best. I never did believe in having a wedding in a hotel anyway. A marriage should begin in a place where God is respected.”
“God is respected in nature,” I say. “He created the ocean.”
“Ruth refuses to consider the beach.”
“But maybe a ship,” I say. “There’s no sand on a big ship.”
“Who has a big ship?” Aunt Inga asks. “No the chapel will work just fine, but we have a million things to get ready. Make sure Jerry takes those measurements today for us. I’ve gotten all of the phone numbers for the guests gathered up and Ruth and I are going to have to call everyone on Saturday to tell them where the ceremony will be.”
I move my jaw. Now is the time to speak. I swallow. Nothing comes out so I try again.
“Maybe—” I manage to squeak, but it is too late. Aunt Inga has already said goodbye and hung up.
Wow. I look around the room. No one has moved since the phone conversation began. Jerry has his mouth hanging open. Cassie is looking dazed. Even Elaine has stopped moving.
“Did Aunt Inga say she’d called your mother?” Jerry finally finds his voice and asks. “The one in Las Vegas?”
I nod. “She’s going to decorate the chapel. For the wedding.”
“My wedding,” Elaine says. She’s found movement in her face again because I can see a frown happening. “I don’t want a wedding chapel that looks like a casino.”
“I’m sure it won’t look like a casino,” Cassie says.
“My mother’s coming,” I repeat myself.
“I’m going to go talk to my mother about this,” Elaine says. “I mean even if I have to have a small wedding, I at least want it to be dignified. I’m marrying a doctor, after all.”
This time I don’t even bother to correct Elaine. If she wants to pretend Gary is a doctor rather than a dentist, who am I to force her to see the truth? For one thing, I have bigger lies of my own to worry about.
Elaine marches into the bedroom. I look at Jerry and then at Cassie. We’re all thinking the same thing.
“I better get down to measuring everything,” Jerry says to me.
I nod. “You can go ahead and measure, but I don’t think we should give up on the Chinese restaurant. You know, they have these cute little fortune cookies, too. They can make them special with the names of the bride and groom.”
Cassie looks at me with pity in her eyes, as if she knows that we’re way past the Chinese restaurant plan.
Elaine walks back into the main room from the bedroom. She barely says goodbye as she drags the bag holding her wedding dress past us.
When Elaine is gone, Cassie looks at me. “Well, I should get going. I open up the shop this morning.”
I nod.
“Maybe we could all have dinner together tonight,” Jerry says to Cassie.
Jerry nods toward me to include me in the invitation.
I am touched, but…“No, I don’t want to be the third wheel.”
They both look a little pleased that I had noticed they have something going on that would make someone else a third wheel.
“We could ask Doug,” Jerry says. “I ki
nd of like him.”
I nod. “Okay.”
I am back to hoping Doug will go to Elaine’s wedding with me and, if he does, it wouldn’t hurt us to practice some. Not that I mean practice to look like something we’re not. I’ve learned my lesson doing that. No, I mean to practice being what we are—two friends on a very casual date with no expectations of anything or commitments to anything.
“I’ll call Doug a little later and we’ll come up with a plan,” Jerry says.
I never thought I’d ever go on a double date with any of my cousins. Not that it’s exactly a date since it’s Doug, but still it’s close enough to make me wonder what my life is coming to.
“Is this place you work a pit?” Jerry asks me. “I mean, is it obvious that it’s a funeral home?”
I shake my head. “It’s beautiful. I thought it looked like a bridal chapel when I first saw it.”
“It does look like it could be a bridal chapel,” Cassie adds.
“That’s good,” Jerry says. “It might just be the best place to have that wedding after all.”
Cassie and I both nod even though I’m still holding out for the cruise ship.
“I do intend to tell Aunt Ruth and Aunt Inga about the Big M,” I say into the silence that follows. “I’ll leave it up to them to decide what to tell the guests, but I need to tell them both before they make their calls on Saturday.”
“The Big M looks so good that, at least, the pictures will turn out great,” Cassie says. “You know how the aunts love their pictures. All those scrapbooks.”
Jerry nods. “I wonder how much it is to rent a video camera. Maybe if Elaine had pictures she’d eventually forget about—”
“Being married in a mortuary,” I say.
Now, I’ve got to admit that normal-looking pictures would help make the whole thing better, but this generation would have to die off before those pictures would ever be viewed without someone bringing up the fact that they were taken in the mortuary where poor cousin Julie worked when she was so delusional she thought she was working in a wedding chapel.
Going to the Chapel Page 18
