The makeup artist is late, and she squabbles with the hair stylist. But they manage to get Kassandra, Amelia—who arrived at my house at some point during the morning—my mom, and I ready in time. At noon, we eat cold sandwiches, and half an hour later, a car’s here to pick us up. I clamber in the back with my mom and Kassandra, and Amelia hands us my wedding gown that we lay across our laps to minimize wrinkles. Dylan should come to pick up Amelia shortly and bring along the hair stylist and makeup artist for on-site retouches. My dad climbs in the front seat and, at last, we’re ready to go. The driver starts the engine and the car flings forward into London’s traffic. I barely have time to wonder how long the journey will take when we’re back. Kassandra forgot her clutch. We’re not exactly late, but I’m getting anxious. Luckily, we reach Fulham Palace with time to spare before the ceremony, and all I have left to do is slip into my white dress and wait for the guests to arrive.
My mom pulls up the zip of my wedding gown and flashes me a proud smile in the mirror. Her eyes glistening with unshed tears, she makes me emotional too.
“You look perfect.” She squeezes my shoulders gently. “I’m going to give you a minute.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I squeeze her hand in return before she exits the dressing room I’ve been given to get changed in.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, trying to decide how I feel. I feel like the last six months have rolled me over. Since Richard proposed, it’s as if my life’s slipped out of my hands. Decisions have been made, venues, dresses, meal courses have been chosen, and I let it all flow past me. As if it wasn’t my life that was being decided; as if it wasn’t my wedding. But I can’t escape the fact that this is my wedding day. That today I’m pledging to love one man, and one man only, for the rest of my life. Looking at myself in my white dress, I think of a man other than my fiancé.
I moved across the world to forget him. I burned all memories of him. I’ve refused to even voice his name for months now. But he always finds his way back into my heart. Is this how Jake felt on his wedding day? As if he was saying his final goodbye to me at that moment? I doubt he spared me a thought.
Amelia bursts into the dressing room and stops as she spots me. “You look… oh gosh, I don’t have the words. I’m going to cry.”
“That makes two of us,” I sob.
“Gemma, what’s going on?” Amelia shuts the door behind her before rushing to my side. “Are you overwhelmed by emotions? Nerves?”
“No, I’m just being stupid. I couldn’t help thinking about him just now. How this is goodbye, for good.”
“Him? Are you… you mean Jake?” Amelia asks in a shaking voice.
I nod.
Amelia looks at me aghast. “But you haven’t spoken about him in forever, not since…” She searches in her memory for the last time his name came up. “Not since you met Sharon, ages ago.”
“Well, you chided me every time I tried to talk about him. But you were right: he’s married and I’ve no business thinking about him on my wedding day.”
Amelia grimaces and blushes tomato red.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Ames, don’t say, ‘Nothing.’ You couldn’t look any less nothing.”
“Okay, but promise me you won’t freak out… this is the worst time, really… I probably shouldn’t…”
“Freak out about what? What is it? You’re making me freak out by not telling me whatever the hell it is you’re not telling me.”
“Why don’t we sit down?”
“I can’t. Whenever I try to sit I’m stabbed by the boning—. I hate this dress; I don’t know why I bought it, and if you don’t start speaking soon, I’m going to scream.”
“Okay, okay. But I’m sitting down.” She also takes a flute of champagne and downs it in one sip. “Now, try not to get mad. But I thought it was better not to tell you…”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Not to tell me what?”
“You seemed finally happy, so I didn’t want to stir up useless doubts. You’d finally stopped talking about Jake, and I had no idea you’d just stopped talking about him, but not thinking about him…”
“So what? If you’re about to give me a lecture, I’m not in the mood.”
“No, no lecture. Gem, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you…”
I watch her wring her fingers in agony. “Out with it,” I hiss.
“It was some time ago, I bumped into Jake…”
“You what? I don’t understand. When did you go to San Francisco?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t. It was here in London.”
“What was Jake doing in London?”
“He-he sort of m-moved here.”
“I need to sit down.”
“But the boning.”
“I’ll take the stabbing, and a glass of that too.” I point at the champagne and Amelia pours me a glass. “So he’s moved here with her?”
London’s my city.
“Without,” Amelia whispers.
“So she lives in San Francisco and Jake lives in London. I’m not following you.”
“Oh, Gem. Jake got… Jake got d-divorced!”
I shoot out of the chair as if I’ve been given an electric shock. Actually, my body did give me an electric shock, like when you’re sleeping and your body thinks you’re dying so it electrocutes you. I pace in circles around the room.
“Tell me everything you said to him and everything he said back.”
“Gemma, this isn’t a good idea.”
“Not telling me Jake got divorced was the bad idea. How could you?”
“I’m sorry, but you seemed finally happy.”
“Do I look happy now?”
“Not so much.”
“I need you to tell me everything. When did he get divorced?”
“He told me they started discussing a separation in early April this year,”
“But that’s just after I met his wife in my office. When was it? Right after Richard proposed, so first days of March. That explains the melancholy expression she had. Did he say why they got divorced?” My brain and my heart are in a race to decide which one’s frying faster. And adrenaline’s fueling them both.
“Something about understanding they weren’t right for each other.”
“So when did he move here?”
“Two months ago, early July.”
Jake. Wifeless. Living in my city for two months. And I didn’t know. What if I passed him on the street and did not see him?
“Did he say why London?” I’m not letting myself hope yet.
“He said The London Clinic offered him a research position here a year ago, around the time he got married. He refused it at the time, but they kept insisting… offering him bigger and bigger salaries and more and more research independence every time. So when they renewed the offer just after he’d signed the divorce papers, he finally took it.”
Uh, not what I expected. What did I expect?
“Did he… hem… ask about me?”
“Yes, he asked how you were and told me he knew you were engaged and asked when the wedding was.”
“I told Sharon that day in my office and she must’ve told him. What next?”
“I told him you were getting married the first of September at Fulham Palace, so he told me to give you his felicitations.”
My heart seems to be winning the race for the more stressed organ. “Did he… did he say anything else?”
“No, he told me to take care and went along his way.”
I collapse back on the chair and my sides pay for it as I receive a vicious stab from the dress’s corset.
“How did he look when he asked about my wedding? Sad? Genuinely happy? Indifferent?”
“He didn’t have any particular look. Listen, Gemma, it was a five-minute conversation on the street, nothing more.”
“Nothing more? How can you say that? Jake living here, in my c
ity, single! And you say, ‘Nothing more.’ How could you not tell me? I could’ve… I could’ve…”
“What? Canceled the wedding?”
I don’t need to tell her that’s exactly what I’d been thinking because she knows.
“This is exactly why I didn’t tell you,” she says fiercely.
“You don’t get to decide how I should live my life. You should’ve told me.”
“And what? Watch you throw away a wonderful man who simply adores you to chase after a memory?”
“Don’t you think it’s destiny Jake ending up here, of all places? And after all this time, just when he got divorced. He married the wrong person. You almost married the wrong person. Maybe I’m about to marry the wrong person too.”
“So tell me. In the two months Jake’s been here, how many times did he call you?”
“He doesn’t have my number.”
“You’ve been working at the same firm since you moved here. If he wanted to contact you, all he had to do was call your office.”
“Maybe he thinks I don’t want him to call me. I left him. I never answered any of his calls. I never told him I still loved him… and if I did…”
“What? You’d get back together with him? Do you even know Jake? When was the last time you spoke to him?”
I blink at her, get up again, and move toward the door, giving Amelia my shoulders. I need to think.
“Listen, I’m not saying you should marry Richard at all costs,” Amelia says. “Tell me you don’t love Richard and you don’t have to say another word. I’ll get you out of here and take care of everything. The guests, the minister, your parents…”
At that instant, the door bursts open again and I see a brief image of Richard looking dashing and full of life in his tuxedo before he closes the door again.
“Sorry, wrong room!” he shouts from the other side. “I know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony, but I’m glad I got a peek. You’re breathtaking. I love you.”
I hear steps moving down the hall and assume Richard’s gone.
Staring at the door, transfixed, I can feel Amelia’s eyes piercing two holes between my shoulders.
She’s right. I know Richard. I know where I stand with him. Jake? I don’t know him anymore. It hits me like a punch in the stomach. It’s been too long. The Jake I knew wouldn’t have married a woman to divorce her only months later. Maybe he’s a different man, altered beyond all recognition. He won’t be the same Jake I once knew. The boy I lost my virginity to one summer afternoon at his parents’ lake cabin. Amelia’s right—I’m not going to throw everything away for the memory of something that’s long gone.
Thirty-one
Vows
♥♥♥
Saturday, September 1—Chicago Area
On my wedding day, I wake up when it’s still dark outside. It takes me a couple of blinks to remember why my heart’s beating so fast and why my entire body seems to be sparking with electricity. I’m marrying Jake today. I savor the thought, snuggling under the warm blankets in a cocoon of sheer happiness.
My solitary bliss is short lived. A few minutes later, alarm clocks come to life around the house and everything seems to explode in a bustling mayhem. Neighbors and friends scamper in and out of the house like little ants along with makeup and hair professionals. It’s as if the entire block’s celebrating. I glide through everything with a smile on my lips until it’s time to drive to the lake.
The inside of the lake cabin has been reserved for my entourage. When Mom pulls up the zip of my gown, I twirl in little jumps, hands stuck inside the delicious pockets of my skirt. And Kassandra and Amelia both clap and hug me.
There’s a knock on the door and Jake’s mom pokes her head in. “You look radiant,” she says. “Jake has arrived; we’re ready whenever you are.”
I smile and nod. “I’m ready. Can you send my dad in?”
“Sure.” Susan winks and she’s gone.
“You.” I point at the others. “Go.”
“We’ll see you outside.” Amelia hugs me again before exiting.
My dad comes in next. “All right, pie. Let’s do this.”
He offers me his arm and I take it. Outside, it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the bright midafternoon sun, and a little longer for my heart to recover from the sight of Jake in a tux, waiting for me under an arch of white roses. We make our way down the beach along the pretend aisle delineated by two rows of white flowers and green leaves. Until we’re there. My dad gives my hand to Jake, and the ceremony begins.
I have trouble following what the minister’s saying, as I’m lost in the sea of mountain mist and snowstorm of Jake’s gray eyes. I notice we’ve reached the vows part when Jake gently relieves me of the bouquet, passing it to Amelia, to take my hands into his.
“Gemma, I love you. There isn’t a time when I can remember not loving you. As someone once said at another wedding, you are my life.”
Edward, Jake’s brother, cheers at his quote from my wedding-crashing speech and the crowd gives a chuckle or two. Heads turn as those who know what the quote is about, tell the ones who don’t.
I fight back the tears as I listen to the rest of Jake’s vow.
“Today’s the best day of my life because you’re here with me. All I want to do is to protect you and make you as happy as I am today for all the days ahead of us. I vow to love you and stand by your side through everything life will throw at us. I promise to laugh with you, and cry with you, to love and honor you. To never let you go again and always find my way back to you, to us. I vow to love you even when it takes you an hour to order a pizza because you read the entire menu then just order a Margherita.”
I chuckle and the first tears roll down my cheeks.
“Gemma, you’re the person I want to grow old with, the person I want to see every morning when I wake up and the one I want to kiss goodnight. I promise to give you all of me and to love you, from this day forward, always.”
“Jake.” I pause to steady my trembling voice. “Today’s the happiest day of my life too. It took us a long time to get here, and some crazy moments…”
The crowd chuckles again. This time everyone knows what I’m referring to.
“I love you because you’re the best person I know. The kind of person who even a dying animal would trust with the most important thing she had.” I wave toward an iPad set on a pedestal. On the screen is our cat sitter in London, who’s following the ceremony via Skype with Lucky. She waves Lucky’s paw back.
“Today I give myself to you, completely. I vow to love you even when you make me cry with your incredibly romantic words, completely ruining my makeup on our wedding day.”
He brushes the tears away from my cheeks with his thumbs.
“Jake, from the night you kissed me for the first time my heart started to ache with how much I love you. It felt like my chest could no longer contain it as if it didn’t belong to me anymore. And it didn’t; it doesn’t because my heart belongs to you. It always has. Even when we were apart, you were always with me. You were my first love and I want you to be my last. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved, and I promise to love and cherish you from this day forward, always.”
Ten minutes later, we’re husband and wife.
Thirty-two
At the Altar
♦♦♦
Saturday, September 1—London
After I’ve made my decision to go through with the wedding, it all spirals out of my control. The hair stylist inserts fresh pink roses in my hair, the makeup artist gives my cheeks a last minute brush of color, and before I know it, the wedding march is playing and I’m at my father’s side, walking down the long, long aisle. I hold on to him, hoping this walk will be over soon and willing it to last forever at the same time. So I’m not marrying my first love; almost no one does. Nothing wrong with that. I focus my attention on Richard’s adoring face. I don’t deserve you. The treach
erous thought slips out of my head.
I’m such a fraud. Richard’s face is glowing with love, and not two minutes ago, I was contemplating leaving him at the altar to chase after another man.
We reach the front of the chapel and my dad gives my hand to Richard. I hold tightly onto Richard’s strong arm, trying to stop mine from shaking. I try to plaster a confident smile on my face. Richard leads me to our spots in the center of the aisle and the minister opens the ceremony.
“Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here on this beautiful day to celebrate the union of Gemma and Richard in matrimony…”
Right, there’s no turning back at this point.
As the ceremony progresses, increasingly frequent shivers of panic spider walk down my spine. My palms begin pooling with sweat and I try to inconspicuously dry them on the skirt of my dress. I hope no one notices.
“…In the time that Gemma and Richard have spent together, they’ve built the sturdy foundation for a lifelong relationship…”
Now, seriously. We’ve been together barely a year. It hardly qualifies as a sturdy foundation. Lifelong relationship. It gives me pause; I’m committing myself to Richard for life. It’s not on a day-by-day basis anymore; it’s forever. Forever! Tiny beads of sweat make their appearance on my forehead. Why are those huge yellow lights pointing right in our faces? Are they trying to melt us?
“…May you all remember and cherish this ceremony, for on this day, with love, we will forever bind Gemma and Richard together…”
This forever thing again. Why does he keep repeating it? Isn’t once enough?
A noise behind us distracts me. It sounds like the chapel’s front door opening. Some late guest maybe. I’m tempted to look back, but I’m afraid that if I see an open escape route, I’ll take it.
Love Connection (A Feel Good Romantic Comedy) Page 18
