Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

by Melissa Senate

  “Omigod!” Dana squealed as she stepped up on her platform. “I love this dress!” She turned to the left and to the right, admiring her petite figure and playing with her wispy blond bangs.

  We all stared at her. Was she kidding? Did Dana Dreer Fishkill have a sense of humor, after all?

  No, she was serious. She was preening. She started singing “Living In America” (she was no James Brown) and almost fell off her platform.

  “Well, at least it’s not rubber,” Amanda said, winking at me. “But it’s also not free.”

  “Oh, Dana!” Ina gushed at her daughter. “You look so beautiful! How did I get so lucky? First my baby gets married to a wonderful, wealthy man, and now my Jane, my beloved niece, my late sister’s only child, is getting married. And it’s all my doing!”

  It sort of was. Ina had been trying to fix up Jane with the guy who lived next door to Jane’s grandmother, but Jane figured him for a nerd, said no thanks and dated half of Manhattan to find a date for Dana’s wedding. Then she met the next-door neighbor—Ethan—at Dana’s wedding, and it was love at first sight.

  “Love is so great,” Dana squealed. “When Jane was getting fitted for my wedding, she wasn’t seeing anyone. In fact, she even made up having a boyfriend to take to my wedding. Do you remember that, Jane? All that trouble you went through, trying to find Mr. Right, when my mom had the perfect guy for you all along. If only you’d listened to Mom, you’d have saved yourself a lot of trouble.”

  “I like trouble,” Jane shouted from behind the dressing-room curtain.

  Dana shook her butt as she sang an off-key version of the chorus of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.” “Larry is going to love me in this dress. I can’t wait to try it on for him. Ooh, I’d better not. He’ll rip it right off me!”

  Ina wagged a finger at her daughter. “Dana Dreer Fishkill, don’t you dare get pregnant until July fifth! No matter how badly I want a grandbaby, you have to fit into that dress come the Fourth of July!” She laughed. “That goes for all of you girls. No getting pregnant until after Jane’s wedding.”

  Pregnant? Could you get pregnant if your boyfriend was always away on business?

  “No losing or gaining an ounce, for that matter,” Ina added.

  “Aunt Ina, stop torturing my bridesmaids,” Jane called from her dressing room. “Okay, I’m coming in. Ready or not…”

  As Jane walked in the room, all of our hands flew to our mouths. I immediately started to cry. Ina grabbed Jane in a tight hug.

  This was a wedding gown.

  “You look so beautiful!” Ina said, tears in her eyes. “Oh, would your mother be proud, Jane. If she could see you now…Oh, Jane.”

  I wondered what my mother would think of me in the Big Bird gown. She had always liked the color yellow.

  Jane’s gown was exquisite. Strapless, with a white ribbon across the empire waist, the white satin flowed to the floor. Her veil was long, and she wore elbow-length white gloves. There wasn’t a hint of red, white or blue anywhere.

  But guess what colors her bridal bouquet would be?

  “Look what I found at the drugstore when I was buying panty hose on sale,” Ina said, twirling a cheap silver garter around her index finger. “I’ll bet I can find red, white and blue garters for the Fourth of July!”

  Jane, Amanda, Natasha and I shared a look of horror.

  “The good news is that not one of you will be forced to line up to catch the bouquet at the wedding,” Jane said. “We’re all taken women! I’m including boyfriended Natasha.”

  “Whew!” Natasha said with a wink.

  “I don’t see why single women have such a problem with the bouquet toss,” Dana said, practicing her cousin-of-the-bride smile in the mirror. “I mean, if you catch it, you’re next!”

  “Not every single woman is obsessed with marriage,” I pointed out.

  “You’re one to talk,” Dana said. “You’re getting a free dream wedding from a major magazine. It’ll be like the entire world is coming to your wedding!”

  “For three dollars and ninety-five cents,” Amanda said, citing the cover price of Wow Weddings.

  Dana ignored her. “So, Janey, who’s going to walk you down the aisle?”

  Ina gave her daughter one of her famous sharp glances.

  “I just mean that she can borrow Daddy or Larry,” Dana defended herself.

  “What do you want?” Ina asked Jane. “This is about you, after all. It’s your day.”

  Jane almost laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Ina asked.

  “Nothing, Aunt Ina,” Jane said. “Actually, I’ve given the question of who’s going to walk me down the aisle some thought. I want Eloise, Amanda, Dana and Natasha to give me away.”

  Ina was horrified. “But, honey, that’s hardly normal! Friends giving away the bride?”

  “It’s right in keeping with the Independence Day theme,” Jane pointed out. “My gal pals delivering me from single life to married life.”

  “I suppose,” Ina said. “Well, if it’s what you want. But it’s hardly traditional.”

  Jane nodded and smiled at us. “It’s what I want.”

  If a father walking his daughter down the aisle was traditional, I could absolutely cross it off my list of Things To Worry About.

  Flirt Night Round Table Discussion 1, 000, 001: Eloise is wearing a Big Bird gown to marry a guy she’s having heart palpitations about marrying.

  “Not heart palpitations,” Jane said. “Heartburn. Self-inflicted heartburn. Caused by transferring anxiety about one thing to another that doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Are you a book editor or a headshrinker?” I asked.

  “I’m your best friend” was her answer.

  “I think the heartburn is from this salsa,” Amanda said. “It’s way too spicy for me.”

  We were in a Mexican restaurant around the corner from A Fancy Affair, toasting our freedom from the bouquet toss and sharing a huge plate of chicken nachos. Summer was crumbling tortilla chips onto the floor.

  “And, anyway, who cares about the gown?” Amanda said. “It’s the guy that counts. And Noah is great.”

  He was. He definitely was.

  Jane eyed me. “Okay, Eloise, I see from your expression that there’s a but coming. Let’s have it.”

  “I look awful in yellow,” I said.

  Consensus: The Big Bird gown is going to be taken off your body seven hours later by your hot new husband who you do want to marry, so who cares about a few feathers? And haven’t you heard, yellow is the new black?

  I felt much better.

  Until Amanda mentioned that my lingerie would probably have feathers too.

  Dear Wedding Diary,

  My favorite character from Sesame Street has always been Elmo, not Big Bird.

  Wow Weddings Memorandum

  To: Eloise Manfred

  From: Astrid O’Connor

  Re: Wedding-Planning Diary Entry #2

  Eloise,

  I’m afraid I don’t understand your references to Big Bird and Elmo. And if I don’t understand these references, American women will not understand these references. I’ve asked Maura to draft the entry for you as an example for future entries. Please do your best to emulate her style and word count.—AO

  Oops. I’d actually spent an hour writing a ridiculous account of how yellow was the new black for the Modern Bride and how very Sarah Jessica Parker I felt twirling around in the gown. But, by accident, I must have given Astrid the diary entry I wrote for my own sanity.

  It was my first smile of the day.

  chapter 8

  For the past few weeks, the reception area of WowWeddings magazine had turned into the hottest ticket in town for the wedding industry. From 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the three-seater leather sofa and four upholstered chairs were filled by advertisers hopeful of getting their wedding wares past Astrid O’Connor. Entrepreneurs laden with samples of everything from hosiery to bouquets to hair combs. Caterers an
d photographers and travel agencies and jewelry shops.

  This morning, every seat and square inch were taken by men and children. As I pulled open the glass double doors, a gob of what looked like red Play-Doh hit me in the stomach.

  “Gotcha!” announced a three-year-old boy, who then went running down the hall, gleefully shrieking and tipping over wastepaper baskets in his wake.

  “Bradford, you come back here this instant!” shouted an attractive man in a suit splattered with stains. He chased the child around a corner.

  Suddenly a baby wailed.

  Was I in a playground? A nursery school? What was going—

  Ah. Today was Father/Grooms-To-Be day. Today’s Brides weren’t enough for Astrid for the all-important June issue. Her latest brainstorm was to capitalize on Father’s Day, as well. Her plan was to feature four grooms-to-be who were also fathers and one groom-and-father-to-be.

  The four dads, ranging from Wall Street businessman to East Village grunge, and three children, ranging from a baby in a car seat to the Play-Doh-throwing toddler, who was now tearing pages out of a pile of Wow Weddings magazines on the coffee table, to a sullen teenager, plus a very pregnant woman, were squeezed into the small space.

  The receptionist, trying to tempt the toddler with a stuffed bride doll left over from another promotion, looked as if she was going to cry. “No, don’t touch that,” Lorna said to the boy, who grabbed her appointment book and was shaking it.

  “Daddy, do I have an agent?” the teenage girl asked, twirling her long, brown hair around her finger. “My friend says you need an agent to be a model.”

  “Honey, this isn’t really modeling,” the father said. “We’re going to be in an article about fathers who are getting married.”

  “So what am I doing here?” the girl said.

  The man turned to the East Village guy. “Hey, buddy, maybe your baby’s crying because she needs a diaper change. I can’t hear myself think over that wailing.”

  “I don’t believe in diapers,” East Village Dad said. “My wife and I are into natural expellment.”

  We all stared at him.

  “Duh, kidding,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “Jesus, can’t you do something about that baby’s wailing!” barked the toddler’s dad. “He’s driving my kid batty!”

  “Too bad!” East Village Dad snapped. “And it’s no wonder she’s crying. She’s being sold out at two months as a child star. A pawn for the greedy! I got talked into allowing this, but I won’t stand for it!” He stood up and wheeled the carriage out of the room.

  And then there were three. And blessed quiet.

  Five minutes later, I was summoned into Astrid’s office.

  She sat behind her huge desk, tapping a beige talon against her cheek. “The most outrageous idea occurred to me,” she said. “We need to find a young, hip male model to replace the young father who left. Would your brother be interested in filling in? He fits the bill. We’d supply the baby, of course.”

  Unbelievable. But this was how Emmett’s life worked. Offers—and babies—came to him.

  I stopped by Charla’s apartment after work, curious about where Emmett was living. Turned out she had a very nice studio apartment in a doorman building near NYU, where I myself had gone to college.

  “Graduate-school housing,” she explained when I arrived. Emmett was sprawled on her futon, reading Ulysses and popping red grapes into his mouth. “I’m not being subsidized by my parents or anything.”

  “I wouldn’t think less of you if you were,” I assured her.

  “A lot of people do,” she said. “You have to be really careful to come off as poor as possible around some people.”

  “Well, speaking of money,” I said, and explained to her and Emmett about Astrid’s offer.

  Emmett threw Ulysses at the wall. “They want me to be some baby’s fake father for idiot photographs in a magazine? Are they fucking kidding me?”

  “Emmett, sweetie,” Charla said, “it’s five hundred bucks! We could—” she coughed à la Mrs. Benjamin “—really use the money right now.”

  He let out a breath and sank down on the sofa, then bent his head to his knees, his face in his hands.

  “I’m pregnant,” Charla explained.

  Oh.

  “I need some air,” Emmett muttered. He grabbed his book, the stalk of grapes and his jacket and practically ran out of the apartment. “I could use some air too,” Charla said to me. “Wanna go for a walk?”

  We headed up Broadway. Charla stopped at a street vendor to buy new gloves, since one of hers had a hole in the palm. She chose a pink chenille pair with little pompoms on the knuckles.

  “Let me get them for you,” I offered. “Pregnancy gift.”

  She smiled. “It’s okay. I can afford it. I have a really great student loan and a part-time job at the Gap, so I can get a good discount on clothes, maternity clothes and baby clothes.”

  I nodded. “That’s good.”

  She rubbed her hands together. Her little pompoms shook. “It’s so cold out. Are you hungry? We could grab some dinner.”

  Charla had a craving for beef tacos, so we found an inexpensive Mexican restaurant a couple of blocks away. Despite the fact that I wasn’t hungry, I ordered a chicken burrito to make the minimum for sitting at a table.

  She poured three containers of hot salsa on her taco. “I’m pregnant,” she repeated, letting out a deep breath. “I can’t quite believe it.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Just eight weeks. I know you’re not supposed to tell anyone until you’re twelve weeks to be safe, but I couldn’t not tell Emmett, and then, well, it just sort of came out before at the apartment.”

  “So Emmett was a little freaked, huh?” I asked, having no doubt what his reaction had been.

  She nodded, her pretty, green eyes filling with tears. “He was blown away.” She sniffled. “I’m still so hungry. I’m going up to order another taco. Do you want something?”

  I shook my head and watched her walk up to the counter. She was pregnant with my brother’s child. My niece. My nephew. A new Manfred.

  I was blown away.

  Charla came back with two more tacos. She inhaled one, then downed a Snapple iced tea. “He didn’t say a word for, like, ten minutes after I told him. And then he asked if I saw my doctor and if everything was okay and I told him it was and he asked me if I wanted to have the baby and I said yes, and he nodded and he hasn’t mentioned it since.”

  “Which was when?” I asked.

  “Four days ago,” she said, biting into her third taco.

  The baby would be gorgeous. Between Charla’s delicate blond beauty and Emmett’s “you could be a model” great looks, little Manfred was going to be a Summer.

  “How long have you known Emmett?” I asked.

  “We’ve been dating almost four years on and off.”

  I almost spit out my mouthful of Corona. “Four years? You’ve been dating Emmett for four years?”

  How could Emmett have been dating Charla for four years? Why hadn’t he ever introduced her to the family? Brought her to a family holiday? Mentioned her name, for that matter! Sigh. I really didn’t know Emmett at all—and he clearly wanted it that way.

  Charla nodded. “Four in March. Well, February, really. We met on leap year, isn’t that funny? This is the first year we’ll be celebrating on the actual day we met.”

  I laughed. “We have something in common. I’m getting married on February 29.”

  “You’re kidding!” she said. “That’s so crazy.”

  “No, it’s so modern,” I corrected, filling her in a bit about Astrid O’Connor and her vision of a Modern Bride. “Noah told me there was no such thing as a free wedding, but I didn’t listen. Now it’s too late.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Emmett told me he’d never commit to me but I wouldn’t listen. And now I’m pregnant with his baby.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  I scooted
my chair over to her side of the table. “Charla, four years is a long time. And you’re still together. He might not realize it, but he clearly is committed.”

  “You think so?” she asked. “Even though he takes off for months at a time? The only reason he came back last week was because he wanted to see some band playing at the Beacon.”

  “Or so he said,” I told her. “I’m sure he came back because he missed you.”

  Suddenly I wondered if he came back for me. Because I called. I’d assumed he was in New York already or that my need coincided with his plans.

  Charla shrugged and crunched on a tortilla chip.

  “And when you met,” I added, “he was only, what, twenty-four? He’s twenty-nine now. And there’s a baby on the way. Maybe he’ll surprise you, Charla.”

  “You think so?” she asked again.

  Actually, I had no idea.

  “Because I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’ll leave,” she continued, “when it really sinks in. Right now he’s turning it around in his mind, trying to see a way out, but there isn’t any. If he wants to be with me, he gets a baby.”

  “His baby,” I pointed out.

  “His baby, a baby,” she said. “It doesn’t make a difference to him.”

  How could it not?

  “I’m sure he’ll be gone by my first ultrasound appointment. This isn’t what he’s about.”

  I shook my head. “Unbelievable. How is someone allowed not to be about responsibility?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not what he wants right now.”

  Emmett, Emmett, Emmett. How did you turn into a carbon copy of the man you last saw at age two?

  I slammed my palm down on the table. “Self-absorbed, selfish jerk!”

  She smiled through a sniffle. “Hey, you’re talking about the father of my baby.”

  We both smiled weak smiles and bundled back into our coats and gloves and hats. “Did you tell your parents?” I asked as we headed outside.

  “There’s just my mom,” she said. “And she told me I was a fool if I had the baby. That I finally found what I wanted to do with my life, got myself in grad school after years of temping and now I was going to have a kid with a guy who didn’t even have health insurance or know what a 401K Plan was.”