Leslie squeezed Cate’s arm. “Anything you say at this point will be better than ‘Whipped.’ What the hell was he thinking?”
The coordinator was holding the mike and beckoning for Cate.
She pulled the top of her dress up again and prayed that she wasn’t exposing herself to everyone at the wedding as she walked to the microphone.
The spotlight was rudely bright on her face. She could feel the heat from its beams on her skin. She looked out at the faces watching her, waiting. She cleared her throat. “Well. I have to admit I’m very nervous. And I don’t have a guitar.” Light laughter filled the banquet hall. “I’ve been trying to think about what to say for weeks now. I could tell a story about the newlyweds, I guess. After all, I lived with Sarah for three years. So I really know what went on behind the scenes.” She looked at Sarah and Miles. They were smiling at her. “Um . . . I’d rather talk about who they are, instead of what they have done. So I am not going to tell any stories.” Her eyes wandered over the sea of faces, most of them strangers. “Sarah is one of the best people I know. And I am proud to call her my friend. She is an extraordinary, genuine, solid, and car-ur-ring—”
Her voice had cracked. For a moment she felt flustered, rattled by the nervous squeak. What was she saying? She couldn’t remember. Oh yeah. She cleared her throat and continued. “She is a caring woman of character. Miles is also one of the greatest people I’ve ever met. He is an extraordinary, solid, and caring man of character.” She paused. “Together they have created an extraordinary, solid, and caring relationship. They are a wonderful pair. One we can all admire and aspire to emulate.” She raised her glass. “So let’s raise our glasses to two extraordinary people and the life they will create with one another.”
“Hear! Hear!” someone yelled as champagne glasses began to clink together.
Sarah and Miles stood and hugged Cate.
Leslie was waiting for her with a gin martini. “You earned this,” she said.
Cate welcomed the cocktail.
The conclusion of the toast had been a release. Her shoulders relaxed, and her smile finally felt natural. Now she could get her camera and take candid pictures of her friends dancing.
Photography was one her favorite hobbies, and capturing people in their most natural and unassuming moments was her favorite thing to photograph. A wall in her apartment was devoted to black-and-white eight-by-tens of her friends and family merely being themselves.
On her way to the dance floor, the videographer went racing past like a lifeguard rushing to save a drowning child. He offered no apologies for gruffly bumping her shoulder or hitting her hip with his equipment.
Ignoring the smart of pain in her hipbone, she followed the videographer into the crowd that had formed on the dance floor. She inched her way through the path he had created. A space had cleared in the center of the crowd, forming a circle. From the middle of the circle sprang Aunt Sue, thrusting her pelvis in ways a woman her age shouldn’t do. Hooting and smiling, she kicked up her feet, missing Cate’s shins by an inch. Suggestively, she licked her lips and sashayed around the circle. Her eyes were glazed over and transfixed on nothing in particular. God, she’s going to be hurting tomorrow.
Cate remembered when Aunt Sue used to bake them Rice Krispies wreaths at Christmastime and give out her salsa Mexican casserole recipe. She shot half a roll of film on Aunt Sue.
Applause broke loose when the song ended.
Everyone lined up in rows on the dance floor when “Electric Slide” began. The fact that she loved doing the electric slide was a secret she kept to herself. In fact, she thought she was pretty good, too. She even threw in extra little kicks and stuff when she did the turns. B. J. danced next to her on the right and Leslie did the grapevine on her left. She was thoroughly enjoying herself when B. J. glanced over his shoulder and smiled.
“This is a great wedding!” he yelled over the music.
“I know!” She said as she did the grapevine. She held her camera in her right hand.
He lowered his voice a notch. “Hey, thanks for taking care of, uh—Claude. How’d you get rid of him anyway?” He turned with the rest of the dance floor, snapping his fingers.
Cate froze. Leslie danced into her, her pointed heel crushing Cate’s toes. Pain shot up her foot. Claude! How could she have forgotten him?
“Cate! Keep moving!” Leslie yelled as she danced with the rest of the group.
She could feel the color draining from her face, the hair on her arms standing on end.
B. J. grabbed her shoulder. “Cate? Are you all right?”
“Oh my God! Oh shit. I have to leave,” she muttered before fleeing from the dance floor.
The air was crisp outside. Her car was parked at USD, and she didn’t have a dime to spend on cab fare. She looked for the limo that had taken them to the reception. She spotted the vehicle in a far corner of the parking lot, several teenage guests decorating it with whipped cream and toilet paper. Even if she did talk the chauffeur into driving her to USD, there was a remote chance that Sarah and Miles would decide to make their exit. Cate pictured this nightmare all too vividly. “The blonde bridesmaid with no boobs and a big nose took the limo,” the teenagers would say. It would be another disaster.
She attempted to run her hands through her hair as she often did when she was stressed but found she couldn’t. Her hair was as hard as the bathroom tiles Claude was probably sitting on. It had been hair-sprayed into a rock earlier that morning at the salon.
“Damn!” she muttered. If she asked someone to drive her to USD, she would be ruining his or her time at the reception. She could walk. It would probably take her about an hour, and besides, her left foot was throbbing from where Leslie had stepped on it.
This was all her fault. How could she have forgotten about Claude? She could always make an anonymous phone call to the police, tipping them that someone was locked in a bathroom on the University of San Diego campus. But then what if Claude blamed her, and she was arrested? She wondered what she’d be charged with.
“Aren’t you supposed to be inside?” It was Ethan. Smoke billowed from his mouth as he puffed on a cigarette. “They’re doing the bouquet toss now. Shouldn’t you be in there?”
“No. I mean, yeah, I should . . . but something has come up. I really need to leave.”
He held out a pack of Marlboro Reds. “Cigarette?”
She didn’t smoke but took one anyway. He lit it for her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I really need to get back to USD.” She took a violent drag from the cigarette.
“Well, I’ll tell you what. I have to finish packing up, but I can give you a lift. You’ll have to ride in the catering van though.”
“You have no idea how much you are helping me right now.”
“Not a problem. Can you wait a few minutes?”
“Sure.”
Instead of waiting outside, she returned to the reception hall for her purse. She debated telling someone where she was going. However, her abrupt departure might raise suspicions. There was no time for questions. Besides, no one would miss her. She’d see them later, when she returned with her car. Or maybe she’d be asking them to post bail for her.
A huge white van resembling a UPS vehicle pulled up in front of the hotel. Good Time Catering and a phone number was written in red across the van. She could see his dark hair through the windshield.
“Sorry, we have to ride in this,” he said as she climbed into the passenger side of the van.
“That’s okay. If you towed me on a skateboard I’d be grateful at this point.”
She expected the van to smell like food, but instead it smelled like pine air freshener.
He had changed from his white chef’s uniform and was dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She still couldn’t get over the fact that he had facial hair. All she could envision was his scrawny shoulders beneath an oversized Guns n’ Roses T-shirt.
“USD, right
?” he asked as they pulled out of the circular driveway in front of the hotel.
“Yeah.”
“Good toast,” he said.
“You heard it?”
“Yeah. It was good. Seriously, I’ve heard millions, and yours was pretty good.”
“You cater a lot of weddings?”
“Tons.”
“What’s the worst one you’ve ever heard?”
He let out a sharp chuckle. “I have heard some pretty bad speeches. Lemme think about it.”
Visions of Claude pounding on the bathroom door, fists raw and bloody, throat sore from screaming, plagued her mind.
“I think the worst speech I’ve ever heard was when the groom’s father slipped and called the bride the groom’s ex-girlfriend’s name. Then to make it worse, he tried to rectify the situation by saying that he got confused because the two women were so much alike. The old man was three sheets to the breeze.” He paused. “However, I think the new worst one that I’ve heard was the song that guy sang tonight. What was up with that?”
She laughed. “Mark. He thinks he’s a rock star.”
It felt strange sitting next to Ethan Blakely, chatting about toasts as if no time had passed between them. His throaty chuckles still sounded so familiar. She remembered the way he used to laugh when they would look at the candid pictures Cate would take of their science teacher Mrs. Prissard when she wasn’t looking. Cate had managed to snap a few of that old goat picking her nose. But her thoughts of Mrs. Prissard and Ethan were interrupted by another vision of Claude, sweating, dying of heat exhaustion. His last words: “Cate. You bitch.”
She tried to think of something else. “So, you live in Pacific Beach now?”
“Yeah. I live with a couple of friends. You should come over sometime. We always have barbecues and stuff.”
“That sounds good.”
“You still hang out with Beth?”
“Yeah, in fact I’m in her wedding in October—Halloween.”
“She’s getting married on Halloween?”
“Yes. And we all have to dress up.”
“That is so Beth. What are you going to dress up as?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
He looked at the camera on her lap. “You’re still into photography?”
“Yeah. I have a lot of free time right now because it’s summer break, so I’m not teaching.” Another vision of Claude crying, begging for mercy, being taken from the bathroom in a straitjacket and repeating Cate’s name over and over again. Her stomach turned sour.
“Well, here we are,” he said as they pulled into USD. “Where to?”
“Right here is fine,” she said, even though they were three buildings away.
“Well, where is your car? I’ll drive you to your car.”
“Uh . . . that’s okay. I actually have to go inside first.” She released an uneasy chuckle.
“It’s dark. Are you going to be all right? I mean, I can drop you off wherever you need to go.”
It was dark and the looming shadows across the campus were scaring her. However, what would he think if he learned that she’d accidentally locked someone in a public rest room for five hours? “Really. I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thanks so much for the ride.”
“Lemme give you my card real quick. We should hang out sometime.”
“Yeah, I’d love to.” She wanted to tell him that she was responsible for someone else’s mental health at the moment and that she’d look him up in the phone book but didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
He pulled a business card from his wallet.
“Great,” she said as she snatched the card. “I’ll give you a call.”
She put his card in her handbag as she headed toward Camino Hall.
There were no squad cars in sight. That was a good sign. A layer of coastal fog had already begun to roll in, and dewdrops had settled on the lawn. The campus grounds were eerily empty. Wet grass rubbed her toes as she stalked across the lawn. She knew her gown was dragging, but she was beyond the point of caring. Lights filled the windows in the girls’ dorms above Founders Hall. She remembered that there were usually teen summer camps that used the USD dorms at night to lodge their tenants.
Luckily, the whole building was open. She walked past the church, her heels clicking on the tiled floor, and rounded the corner toward the men’s bathroom in Camino Hall. Her heart beat with each step, pumping dread through her veins.
The door was closed. She set her purse and camera on the floor before she knocked. “Claude? Are you in there?”
No response.
She knocked again. “Claude!”
Nothing.
She pounded. Then she faintly heard someone shuffling around. “Hello.” His voice sounded groggy and weak.
“Claude. It’s Cate. Are you all right?”
“What time is it?” He sounded as if he’d been thrust from a dream.
“I don’t know. Six maybe.” A blatant lie. It was almost ten.
“What happened?”
“Uh. There was a slight misunderstanding. But I’m going to get you out now.”
“All right. I don’t feel good.”
She tried the handle. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. She pushed hard. Still, no budging. “Hold on, Claude!”
She pulled a bobby pin from her hair. God knew she had enough of them implanted in her coiffure to break into the White House. She pried the pin open, suddenly thankful that Sarah had insisted they all wear up-dos.
She shoved it in the crevice of the doorjamb where the quarter had been inserted. Feeling like a criminal, she picked at the coin, prodding and pulling at it with the hairpin. It was a cruel tease when the quarter shifted but failed to dislodge from the crack. She decided to shove the door again. This time she threw herself into the barricade. The door flung open. She toppled onto all fours in the bathroom, the quarter landing with a light ping next to her hand. The tiles felt freezing on her palms, and her knees throbbed with pain from the spill.
“Thank God,” she mumbled as she stood up. The room smelled strongly of bleach, and she felt a headache coming on.
Claude looked confused. “What happened?” he asked. “I just remember that damn door wouldn’t budge. I eventually got tired and fell asleep.”
“You don’t remember crashing the wedding?”
He suddenly seemed wide-awake. “I did what?”
“Claude, you showed up at the church. You wanted to talk to Sarah.”
“Oh God.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I didn’t. Please tell me I didn’t make a scene.”
“She doesn’t even know you were here.”
“I’m such an ass.” He leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, burying his face inside his hands.
Cate stepped outside for her camera and purse. When she returned, he was still hunched over.
She didn’t want to instigate further conversation because then he might start asking how he ended up locked in the bathroom. For a moment she thought he was breathing heavily. Then she realized that he was crying.
“Oh Claude.” She sat down next to him on the floor. His shoulders felt limp and weak when she put her arm around him. “I know today wasn’t easy for you.”
He nodded. “I never wanted to hurt her.”
“She doesn’t care anymore. She’s happy now. And I think she’d be very flattered to know that you still care.”
“It doesn’t matter, Cate.”
There were two kinds of people she could not fathom crying. Grown men and old people. Tears made men seem so vulnerable, and old people seemed so helpless. Watching Claude’s contorted face, his flaring nostrils, and the hot tears that were streaming down his cheeks made her want to cry, too.
“Cate?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he like?”
“Who? Miles?”
“Yeah. I mean . . . is he a good guy?”
Cate wanted to think of something bad to say about
Miles. She wanted to make Claude feel better, and wished she could tell him that Sarah’s husband was a worthless, fat shithead who couldn’t control his rage and had bad breath. Truth: Miles was great. He had his priorities in order, and Sarah had always been at the top of his list. He called her three times a day just to hear her voice, and he shared exciting news with her before telling anyone else. He brought her lunch when she couldn’t leave her office, and replaced her windshield wipers when they broke. He loved her family. He was funny and sincere, and he had his head screwed on straight. There was one thing though. Sarah had mentioned that he sometimes farted during sex. She decided not to share that detail with Claude.
Instead, she chose her words carefully. “He’s . . . good for Sarah.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked you that. I don’t even want to know.”
“I know how hard this must be for you, Claude.”
“I let her go.” He shook his head. “I was such an idiot, and now I’m going to end up alone. I’ve never had that kind of chemistry with anyone else. I’ve never had another girl call me a nickname or leave me a burrito and a nice note on my counter when I had a bad day. I’ve never felt that way again. I don’t want to be alone.”
They sat together for a long time on the tiled floor, not saying much. He rested his head on her shoulder. In all the wedding chaos—the photos, the toasts, the hairdos and electric slides—she never really thought of those who were left behind. She’d never considered that while she was eating her wedding cake or watching the wedding drunk that someone’s heart had broken. She picked up her camera. She held it at arm’s length in front of them, aimed toward their faces. The last picture on her roll: she and Claude leaning against the tiled wall of the bathroom floor.
3 • Leftovers
Cate awoke to a light yet demanding tap on her eyelid. She released a leave me alone groan and rolled to the opposite side of the bed. Seconds later, Grease stepped on her rib cage, oblivious to the pain his paws shot up her chest and traveled to the other side as well. He sat there for a moment, watching her.
Again, he pressed on her eyelid. This time she felt the tips of his claws. Patiently, he stood vigil, waiting for her eyes to open. Another tap.
Always the Bridesmaid Page 3
