For the Love of Friends

by Confino, Sara Goodman

  “For a wedding?”

  “You’ll look lovely in black,” she said, patting my arm. “It’ll be so flattering.” She looked down at my arm under her hand. “Something with sleeves, I think.”

  I wondered if I could get away with slipping a laxative into her cocktail at the wedding.

  But for now, Sharon was happy. And that was what mattered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I felt so good about finding dresses for both Caryn and Sharon (and surviving my encounter with Mrs. Meyer) that I decided to treat myself to my favorite salad for dinner. I asked Becca if she wanted to meet me at the restaurant, but she was at happy hour with friends from work. I texted Megan next to see if she wanted to grab dinner, but she was at her soon-to-be in-laws’ house, so I called and ordered my salad to go. The fact that I would be dining alone was not lost on me after Mrs. Meyer’s questions. But could I celebrate my successes with a glass of wine and an extravagant twenty-eight-dollar salad that had a crab cake in it anyway? As a Marylander, that sounded divine.

  I got home, kicked off my shoes, poured my wine, pulled up my latest Netflix binge, and settled in to enjoy my overpriced salad. My phone dinged and I glanced down reflexively, then set my salad on the coffee table.

  It was an email from my bank. The subject was Urgent: Overdraft.

  Oh God, I thought. That card reader at the gas station must have had a skimmer on it.

  I logged into my bank account, expecting to see that someone had bought a ninety-inch 4K TV and a Louis Vuitton purse and praying that their fraud division would be easy to deal with. Not how I wanted to spend my evening, I thought as the wheel spun. The page finally opened.

  My mouth dropped open.

  There were no weird purchases. My salad had sent my bank account twelve dollars into the red.

  Meaning I had started the morning with sixteen dollars to my name.

  Holy crap.

  I knew my bank account was low from the auto deductions to the wedding account, but I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten. And I had never overdrafted before.

  My heart was racing and my mouth was dry. I quickly moved two hundred dollars out of the wedding account and into checking to cover the overdraft fee I had just incurred and pad the account a tiny bit, but that was literally the amount that I assumed I would need for a dress for one of the weddings.

  Yes, I could start putting all of the wedding expenses on credit cards, but that made me nervous. I wasn’t exactly a financial wizard, so I tried to limit myself to spending money that I had. And I really didn’t want to spend the next decade of my life paying off these weddings. I needed to find some way to generate additional income, but other than writing about science, I didn’t have any marketable skills. I couldn’t fold clothes to save my life, so retail was out, and my last foray into waiting tables had ended disastrously in college when I spilled an entire pitcher of sangria on a little girl in her white first communion dress.

  “How to make money writing,” I typed into Google. About 1,130,000,000 results. People can make money writing, I thought, clicking on the top link. Start a blog, it suggested.

  I paused. What would I blog about? Becca frequently said I should have a reality TV camera following me all the time because I was the only person she knew who found herself in situations like I did with the mystery groomsman. But would I actually make money off a blog about my life?

  I googled “wedding blogs.” About 256,000,000 hits. So that was a thing.

  But would I have any friends left if I did that?

  “Anonymous blogs.” About 317,000,000 hits.

  Okay then.

  I went to my bedroom for my laptop and began researching how to make money from a blog. Basically, I just had to enable ads on my site. I would make money (granted not much unless I developed a large following) every time someone clicked on a post. It looked like it was a slow process, so I would be stuck with credit card debt in the meantime, but if I could build a following and be smart about it, this could be a light at the end of the tunnel.

  Becca walked in a little after nine. “Whatcha doing?”

  I glanced up, startled. I hadn’t even heard her open the door. My salad sat long forgotten in front of me. I realized I was hungry but didn’t know if crab could sit out that long, and the lettuce had started to wilt.

  “Do you think anyone would read a blog if I started one?”

  She sat down on the sofa and pulled a crouton off my salad, then made a face when it didn’t crunch. “I mean, I would. What would you blog about?”

  “Me. The weddings. My life. All of it, I guess.”

  “Megan would go ballistic.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. “Not if it was anonymous and I hid everyone’s identities well.”

  “Why write one if it’s going to be anonymous?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to admit to the overdraft from my now unappealing-looking salad. “I—I need to make some money. These weddings are expensive. And—well—I kind of need a place to vent without losing all of my friends.” I hadn’t realized that last part was true until I said it, but it definitely was.

  “You have me.”

  “I know. But you’re not paying me to complain about people.”

  She laughed. “They have people on talk shows all the time who make a living blogging. And you’re funny. You’d be good at it.” She stood up and stretched. “I’m gonna go change. You wanna watch something?”

  I glanced up at the muted TV. I hadn’t shut off my show and had let it run for the last couple hours. “No. I think I’m going to try to flesh this out.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. I can watch in my room.”

  I told her not to be silly, that I’d go work in mine, then tossed my salad, grabbed a protein bar, and camped out cross-legged on my bed with my laptop. I went to wordpress.com and created an account. Blog title? it prompted.

  I thought for a minute, then started typing.

  Bridesmania.

  And I began to write.

  Always the bridesmaid, but glad I’m not the bride?

  Welcome to the blog! I’m not quite sure where to start, so I’m just going to dive right in. I’m a bridesmaid in five weddings this coming summer, all taking place within the same two months.

  If it sounds like the plot of that ridiculous Katherine Heigl movie, let me stop you right there because I don’t have twenty-seven friends close enough to want me in their weddings. (Does anyone? That might have been the least realistic part.) Nor am I going to fall in love with a supersexy wedding columnist who looks like James Marsden. (Okay, if James Marsden is reading this, yes, I’m single, ready, and have five weddings that I could use a date to . . . just saying. Although I don’t think I’m allowed to bring a date to any of them, but that’s a post for another day.)

  On the contrary.

  No. I have one best friend, two close friends who want me in their weddings to help deflect from horrible friends and family members, and two younger siblings who apparently don’t agree with the Victorian concept that the elder sibling should be married before the younger.

  I can’t use their names because if my identity is revealed, I not only won’t be in any weddings, I won’t have any friends left. And despite the fact that I’m being snarky about them on the internet right now, I actually do love my friends.

  So I’ll refer to them by letters.

  Bride A asked me to be in her wedding first. She’s my work bestie and I adore her. Her other bridesmaids, however? I don’t think they’re human. And if they’re cyborgs, or Stepford people, they’re definitely the evil kind. But in such a NICE way. One of them offered to send me a juice cleanse to help me lose weight before the wedding. Isn’t she sweet? She’s also Bride A’s future sister-in-law, so I can’t be rude back in person or Bride A will suffer for it. The saddest part is that Bride A told me she doesn’t even like her bridesmaids, which is pretty much the saddest thing ever. So I’ll play along and behave for her sake.

&n
bsp; Bride B is lovely but has Mom-zilla (Mommy Kruger? I’m not entirely sure how naming wedding party members after horror movie icons works.) and basically asked me to be in the wedding that Mom-zilla is forcing her to have because God forbid her daughter actually have a say in her own wedding. I know I’m mixing my movie monster metaphors, but I’m going to need a bigger boat.

  Bride C is like Mary Poppins—practically perfect in every way—except I hooked up with a groomsman in her wedding and I don’t know which one it was. How is that possible, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you. I blacked out drunk and then snuck out of the room the next morning while he was asleep facing the wall. But I made the super-mature decision to not let Bride C tell me who the mystery man is because I can’t be awkward around him if I don’t know who he is.

  Bride D is my brother’s fiancée. At the risk of sounding like Mariah Carey, I don’t know her. I’d like to. I think. But she’s like twelve and basically never speaks. And I might have thought he was kidding when he told me he was engaged and made a snarky comment. While I was on speakerphone. With her. Oops. (However, in the grand scheme of Bride C and all, it wasn’t THAT big of a faux pas.)

  Bride E is my baby sister. She’s eight years younger than me, still lives with my parents, and is walking around with her fiancé’s grandmother’s Tiffany diamond ring. She’s twenty-four and has never held a full-time job or paid rent. Granted, there’s a pretty close to zero percent chance she actually gets married, but come on. This whole situation has to be a giant troll designed to ruin my self-esteem. No one falls ass-backward into things that easily in real life, do they?

  Still with me?

  So why a blog? My roommate, who is thankfully NOT planning a wedding, suggested they make a reality TV show about my life. I don’t do reality TV. No judgment if you do, but it’s not my scene. Writing, however, is. And I figured if I could make some money off people laughing at my ridiculous existence, it would help pay off the astronomical debt I’m assuming by agreeing to be in all of these weddings. Seriously, I think getting another college degree would be cheaper!

  In other words, welcome. Come for the drama, stay to laugh at my mistakes.

  This is Bridesmania.

  I proofread it and fixed a couple of typos. I felt a little guilty about trashing my siblings, especially when they had caused the least actual disruption to my life so far, outside of my own sense of failure at being significantly older than both of them and still single. Which really wasn’t their fault. But Jake had ridden his bicycle into my first car when he was thirteen, severely denting it, and Amy was just plain annoying, so it was all fair play, right?

  Was it any good though? Would people want to read it? I needed an outside opinion, but my three closest friends were implicated in it.

  Becca would be honest.

  “Hey Becks?” I called toward the living room. I heard her mute the TV.

  “What’s up?”

  “I wrote a blog post. Will you read it and tell me if it’s any good?”

  “Sure.” She sat down on my bed and I handed her my laptop. She nodded as she read along, smiling at the James Marsden line, chuckling about the horror movie mom names and laughing out loud at the Mariah Carey part. “Love it,” she said, passing the computer back. “But what happens if one of the brides reads it?”

  I tilted my head. “I mean, what are the odds that that happens?”

  “Depends where you share it. Probably stay away from your social media and the big wedding websites.” A grin spread across her face. “Wait. This is kind of like The Help. If you put something in there that the people you’re trashing wouldn’t want to admit to, they won’t acknowledge it’s you.”

  I was skeptical. “But I don’t want to put in anything bad about my friends.”

  “You wouldn’t, because that’s not who it’s being snarky about. Caryn already knows her friends are awful, Megan knows who you slept with, and Sharon knows her mom is a tyrant. But Caryn will deny up and down that it could be you because she would never admit that she said she doesn’t like them, and Sharon will do the same thing because she’s scared of her mom. And no guy is reading a bridesmaid blog. It’s foolproof. And you don’t even have to shit in their pie!”

  I smiled at the reference. “Madison would probably be mortified if she read this, but I’m pretty sure she hates me anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. And it’s not like I know any details about her to put in the blog. And Amy doesn’t read.”

  “I think you’re fine.”

  “Does the title work?”

  “It’s perfect,” Becca said. “What’s your second post going to be about?”

  I grinned, feeling better already. “I have so much material. Where to begin?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Megan did not make my resolution to avoid the male members of her bridal party until the rehearsal dinner any easier when she and Tim moved into their new house in early October.

  “It’ll make the registry go so much smoother,” she confided on the phone one night. “Living in an apartment, we didn’t have room for anything. This way we can really pick out what we need.”

  “Makes sense. Do you need help moving?” I prayed she would say no.

  “No.” Thank you sweet baby Jesus. “But is your schedule clear on the twenty-first?”

  “Umm,” I said. “Let me look, hang on.” I pulled out my bullet journal. Dress shopping with Amy the following morning, but nothing that day. “I’ve got nothing. What’s going on?”

  “Housewarming party. No gifts. Just bring yourself.”

  “No gifts for real, or you say no gifts and everyone shows up with one and I look like a jerk because I didn’t?”

  Megan laughed. “No gifts. Especially not from the bridal party. You guys are already spending enough on us this year.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “The bridal party,” I echoed. “So we’re all invited.”

  “Of course.” She sounded confused. “You’re our best friends.” Either she was doing a really good job of never speaking of the engagement party situation again, or in the chaos of buying a house, moving, and planning a wedding, my shame had been forgotten. I excused myself from the phone call shortly thereafter and planted myself firmly on the edge of my bed.

  What did you expect? I asked myself. Nothing is ever that easy. Just play it cool, act like it’s no big deal if it comes up, and don’t get drunk! “Easier said than done,” I said out loud, then sighed and walked to my closet. I couldn’t afford a new dress for the housewarming party, but I wanted to look nice. Rule number one of facing down a guy you never wanted to see again is to look your very best so he at least feels that it’s his loss, not yours.

  Becca provided both the dress I wore to the party and the pep talk that got me in the door. And it helped that Megan updated her wedding website with pictures of the bridal party before the housewarming. All six groomsmen looked familiar, but I had met three of them since Megan and Tim started dating and the other three at the engagement party. None of them triggered specific memories of the later parts of the evening, and they all had similar enough coloring to prevent ruling anyone out. So while I couldn’t determine whom specifically I should be avoiding, I at least knew all six potential hot potatoes’ names. I couldn’t imagine it getting much worse than one of them mentioning our night of debauchery and me then having to ask him his name.

  “You’ve got this,” Becca said reassuringly as I sat in my car outside Megan’s new house. “And if it gets awkward, text me and I’ll call you with an emergency.”

  I thanked her and begged her to keep her phone handy, which she promised to do. “Give me an update even if it’s not awkward,” she said. “And worst-case scenario, you have material for your blog!”

  I laughed and hung up. So far, I had made eighty-seven cents off the blog. Not exactly a runaway success, but I only had three posts. I was afraid to post it on the WeddingWire or Weddingbee forums, even though that would generate readers
, because one of the brides might see it, so my only hits so far came from Google searches.

  But I hadn’t written a post detailing the groomsman situation yet, so Becca was right. I could potentially get a juicy post out of this. I still hoped it would go smoothly instead though.

  Before leaving the car, I typed help into a text message to her, but didn’t hit send. A good offense is the best defense and all. Thus armed against future humiliation, I took a deep breath, grabbed the bottle of wine I had brought as a de facto housewarming gift just in case other people did bring them, checked the address one more time against the number on the curb, and walked up to the front door.

  “I love your dress!” Megan said, hugging me in greeting. “Is it new?”

  “Borrowed. But neither new nor blue.”

  “Come in, come in! Let me give you a quick tour!” She took the wine from me with a quick “You shouldn’t have,” and led me on a whirlwind tour of the house.

  The doorbell rang as we were heading back down from a glimpse of the upstairs and Megan shooed me toward the kitchen, where the island was made up as a bar. “Plenty of gin and olives. Make yourself a martini.”

  I will not get drunk, I told myself. No matter how much easier it would make things, I will not get drunk. A glimpse around the living room showed two of the groomsmen playing a video game with Tim, while another perused the bookshelves and a fourth told a story to two of the other bridesmaids. I threw them a half-hearted wave as I crossed through the dining room, where more people were helping themselves to the platters of appetizers. I passed Megan’s parents and spoke to them for a few minutes, hoping desperately that I hadn’t done anything too embarrassing in front of them at the engagement party. They greeted me as warmly as ever, and, relieved, I excused myself to get a drink. One is fine, I rationalized.

  A handful of people were seated at the kitchen table, more gathered by the back porch door off the kitchen, and two more at the bar area. I stiffened as a man behind the island looked up at me and smiled with obvious recognition. “Lily!” he said, coming around to kiss me on the cheek.