by Liza Palmer
“We’d better get going,” Kate says, getting the girls together. Bella and Emily are quiet. It breaks my heart to see them so conflicted and frightened.
“You’re leaving? Wait . . . please? How . . .” Kate leads the girlies out the door of the bakery. They all look back through the glass doors. How could this happen?
Mom approaches, and I can see she’s going to hug me. But I can’t. I’ll burst into hysterical fits of crying if she comes any closer. The bakery has pretty much emptied out during our show. Just the employees are watching now.
“What? What?” I sob.
“It has to stop. You’re the only one who can do it. I can’t watch anymore.” Mom hugs me, and I lean into her. She is reaching up to my shoulders, and I bury my head in the crook of her neck. I smell her perfume and allow her arms to make their way around me.
I watch as Kate loads the girls up in the van. Mom has her sunglasses on, but I can tell she’s crying now, too. I look around the bakery but I can’t even muster a brave face for the employees. What have I done? How is Olivia’s friendship worth all this? Maybe the question I need to answer is not who Olivia has become but who I’ve become. Or what I’ve not allowed myself to become. I sit and sip my coffee until new patrons come into the bakery. All-new patrons. They could infer I came here alone, not that I was just left by my entire family. The wrapped presents are still stacked on the table.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve built everyone’s hopes up, including my own, that I’m awake and ready to make some real changes. The internship. Eating healthy. Going to the gym and trusting Gabriel. Even seeing Domenic as a real man and not imposing “golden” deal breakers on him. What does he think of me now? I just want to go back to sleep. I want to turn all of this off and just go back to asking strangers whether or not that four-dollar coffee is for here or to go. I want to go back to the time when two old friends were planning a fantasy wedding. But back to reality. I’ve got nine messages on my cell phone from Mrs. Morten and Olivia over the past week begging for help. I finally call Mrs. Morten back the day before the rehearsal dinner and am summoned to the manor.
“Maggie!” Mrs. Morten answers the door before I even knock.
“Hi, Mrs. Morten,” I say. I am introduced to aunts, uncles, and cousins who have flown in from many different parts of the world.
Through the crowd, I see Dr. Adam Farrell sitting in Mrs. Morten’s kitchen with his cell phone in one hand and a slip of paper in the other. I smile my way through legions of Mortens and wave to Adam.
“Hey there,” I say, approaching.
He lifts the phone to his ear and holds up one finger, the international sign for Just a second. I pinch back my face and hold up both my hands. The international sign for Sorry.
“Yes, this is Dr. Farrell. I was paged.” He crumples the paper and flicks it to the end of the table. I watch as it falls to the floor.
I stand there staring at him and soak him in. He’s still as good-looking as I remember. He would be the type of man you’d see in some glossy magazine touting the year’s hottest bachelors. I can see why Olivia is so beside herself. Dr. Adam Farrell is the perfect man. But how can he really know Olivia? How can anyone in her new life really know her? I mean, isn’t she sentencing herself to a fantasy prison, where pain and authentic memories have no place? What if she has kids—what then? What if she has a daughter who confides to her that she’s having self-image problems? What then? Will she sign her up for liposuction at ten to get rid of that unsightly baby fat? If the only thing that matters to Olivia is how beautiful she is on the outside, what can her life really be about?
“So the long-lost Maggie Thompson surfaces.” Adam stands.
“Mrs. Morten called me. I guess she needs some help,” I say, ignoring his slight.
“Oh, yeah, that.” Adam is now scrolling through his cell phone address book. The bleeps and blips remind me of the casinos in Las Vegas.
“So how are you holding up, groomie?” I say, trying to make small talk.
“Huh? Did you say something?” And with that Adam dials another subordinate and hangs up on me. Man of the year, that one. Olivia is a lucky woman.
“Maggie? Honey?” Mrs. Morten pulls my arm into the center of the family.
“Can you still design the seating chart and place cards for the rehearsal dinner? You know, so people can see where they’re seated?” she asks.
“Sure. Sure. Just give me the board and the cards,” I say.
“Okay, I guess we have to buy a board and some cards for that. I also have to find a guest book.” I notice she is reading from the cocktail napkin Olivia wrote on after speaking with Kate at the high tea in Las Vegas.
“We can probably find those in the same store,” I say.
“Okay . . . okay . . . we can do that,” Mrs. Morten says, rummaging through her wallet, giving me several hundred-dollar bills and a crumpled-up sheet of paper.
“Here’s some money and the list of where everyone is sitting. Thank you, sweetie,” she says.
I find tiny stationery cards and a guest book at Vroman’s Bookstore. They are silver and gold just as I was told. I am sitting at a stoplight when I pull out the crumpled list of table placements for the rehearsal dinner.
TABLE ONE—THE HEAD TABLE
Adam and Olivia
Gwen and Jerry
Mark and Grace
Wait. Wait a fucking minute. That’s the head table, right? Where am I? I read the list again. Adam and Olivia. I don’t know this Mark or Grace, I assume Mark is Adam’s groomsman. Gwen and her husband, Jerry? Where am I? Was I left off? I scan the remaining tables and find my name at Table Nine. Table Nine? What’s the significance of Table Fucking Nine? Oh, Table Nine is for supposed best friends and people named Carol and Bob. I don’t know who the hell Carol and Bob are, but they’d better be fucking important.
The car behind me honks, and I screech forward. I wasn’t forgotten. I was put at another table. A table that couldn’t be seen by the world, apparently. I just don’t fit. I’m an embarrassment to Olivia. But wait. So true friendship is embarrassing to Olivia if it comes in anything over a size 2? I didn’t know that. I guess her theory works because not only does friendship have to look pretty, so do prospective husbands. She wants a life carved out of cutout articles in high-fashion magazines and adolescent fantasies. I’m kicking myself. How could I have been so blind?
Olivia didn’t even have the guts to tell me herself. She let her mom give me the list and figured I would see it on my own. Can I leave now? Can I crawl back to Mom and Kate with my tail between my legs and convince them that I’ve mended my ways? My cell phone chirps. I am maniacally searching for the phone but can’t seem to let go of this crumpled piece of paper.
“Hello?” I am holding the paper in my hand.
“Hey there.” It’s Olivia.
“Hey.” Table-Nine-putting bitch.
“I’ve been trying to reach you all week. Do you even turn your cell phone on?”
“It’s on now.” I am numb.
“Can you keep it charged up for me just this weekend? Please? I can’t take getting your voice mail all the time.” Olivia sounds as if she’s hyperventilating.
“I’ll do my best. I just saw your whole family. Adam, too.” I almost rear-end the car in front of me.
“You saw Adam?” Olivia’s voice cracks.
“Yeah, he was at your mom’s house.”
“Ummm. Can you do me one last little favor?”
I am silent. Olivia continues.
“Can you make sure the slide show gets set up for the rehearsal dinner? Mommy has a stack of pictures Adam and I chose and she’s already called a couple of places about turning them into slides on short notice,” Olivia says. I suddenly remember my Pandora’s box filled with pictures I found during the move.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I say.
“Well . . . um . . . is that a yes?” Olivia asks.
“No,” I begin.
“
No? No? You won’t do it?”
“No, we shouldn’t do a slide show. There’s no time for that. I’ll scan the pictures into my laptop and we’ll do a slide show from there. I’m sure I can connect my laptop to whatever projection thing they have set up.” I am now the audiovisual geek rolling the TV-VCR through the hallways of my high school.
“Thanks, Mags.” Olivia sighs.
“Sure. Hey, did you want me to bring this board with all of the table placements for the rehearsal dinner by your mom’s house before or did you want to come get it now?” I ask.
“The board? Oh . . . you know . . . um, you can hold on to that and just bring it with you.” Didn’t Olivia know that Mrs. Morten was going to delegate that chore to me? Did she want me to walk into the rehearsal dinner blithely thinking I would be seated at the head table only to be banished to Table Nine?
“Okay. See you tomorrow.” I feel conflicted and disgusted. I have to focus and keep my eyes on the prize. I’ll set up this board exactly as I’ve been told. Guests will find the bulletin board containing the seating arrangements for the rehearsal dinner. They will all note that the maid of honor is not seated at the head table. Then they will make their way to their table assignments and form theories as to why not.
“Hey, we’re going out later for drinks and dancing. All the girls are going. Are you up for something like that?” Olivia’s voice is hushed.
“That sounds fun,” I say. Fun, yes. Something I would sign on for . . . no. I stop at another red light and pull my rearview mirror down. Spinning my birthday necklace around so I can see the clasp, I furiously try to undo it. I should just rip the damn thing off. Why don’t I? I grab the chain and pull as hard as I can. The diamond-encrusted letters bounce around the car, both hitting the windshield. The M settles in one of the cup holders while the O is banished to the passenger-side floor mat.
I finish working on the bulletin board later that night and crawl into bed. It is around two o’clock in the morning when I hear my cell phone chirp once again. I have it plugged into the charger just as I was instructed. Doesn’t Olivia have my home phone number?
“Hello?” I ask.
“Where are you?” It’s a drunk Olivia.
“I’m sleeping. Where are you?”
“Everybody is here. Everybody keeps asking where you are and I don’t know what to say. Are you coming?” Olivia is yelling.
“No, I’m in bed.”
“Why aren’t you here?”
“I’m in bed.”
“You’re supposed to be here.”
“I know. But I’m going to stay here for the night.”
“Can’t you get out of bed and come here and dance with all of us?”
“No, I’m going to stay here. But I’ll see you tomorrow, remember?”
“I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“No, honey, the rehearsal dinner is tomorrow. You’re getting married the next day.”
“I told everyone you were coming.”
“Well, I think they just want to spend time with the bride right now.”
“I’m the bride.”
“I know.”
“Are you on your way?”
“No. I’m going to go back to bed.”
“Okay.”
“Are you going to be okay for tomorrow?”
“I’m getting married tomorrow,” she slurs.
“No, honey. Who’s driving you home?”
“Hannah isn’t drinking.”
“So she’s driving you to your mommy’s?”
“We’re staying with Mitzi Carlson.”
“At the Ritz-Carlton, honey?”
“Fancy.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
I hear the phone click off. I turn over and feel sad. That was the real Olivia.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Super Beetle
I framed that picture of me in the teensy light blue dress with the red socks and the navy-blue Vans on top of the jungle gym after I had finished moving. It has come to symbolize something in me that I need to be reminded of daily. One day, Mom stopped by on her way to work, picked up the framed photo, and looked at it for a long time. I told her why I framed it and why I had displayed it so prominently. She smiled to herself and set the photo down. Then she sat down next to me and told me the story behind the picture. She had just packed all of our worldly belongings in our yellow Volkswagen Super Beetle after my real father left us. I was three and Kate was five. Her own mom came to help her, and this picture was snapped at a park on the long road trip back home. Our future was uncertain; our little family was in crisis. But if you look at the pictures we took that road trip, there is no sign of that fear. There is pride. There is dignity. There is hope.
My alarm begins its morning taunt right at seven thirty-nine. I’m partial to odd numbers. I have decided to keep my scheduled Friday training session with Gabriel. I show him my food diary, and he lectures me about the evils of trans fats. He leads me through my training session. I notice we’re using heavier weights. My body feels more stable. I’m not afraid my knees will give out anymore or I won’t be able to get out of a low car. The core of my body is stronger. At least that’s what Gabriel calls it—“Core Work.” That’s when he’s not referring to it as “Functional Training,” which makes it sound like I should be wearing a helmet to school.
I pull up to EuroPane in my workout clothes. I’m still a little sweaty. The rehearsal dinner is at six thirty tonight at The Athenaeum. I have a lot of work to do before then. Kate’s minivan is parked out front, and I feel a slight twinge of pride. Now I’m the architect of an infamous breakfast invitation. I grab my laptop from the passenger seat and walk into EuroPane with my head held high.
I am invigorated after my breakfast with Mom, Kate, and the girlies. I’m sure Patrona has the entire rehearsal dinner planned down to the last infinitesimal detail. All I’m responsible for is the bulletin board with table placements and the slide show. Once home, I sit down in front of my laptop and begin the process of scanning picture after picture using the software Kate loaned me. The day flies by as I get deeper and deeper into stacks of CDs and pictures. The slide show is turning out beautifully; the running time is about five and a half minutes. I run it one last time as I turn on my shower to wait for the hot water. I have to be at the dinner in less than an hour. I’m finally walking past my last blue bucket. No. There’s one more—but I’ll handle that one later.
I put on my black skirt and the wraparound white shirt. This will be my only opportunity to wear this outfit. The skirt is even looser than it was when I tried it on at the Beverly Center, and I’ve finally thrown that tightener in the garbage. The shirt can actually be tied as it is supposed to be—not how Mom rigged it in the dressing room. I am comfortable. I never thought I would feel comfortable today. I dry my hair and swipe on a little pink lip gloss. I stand in front of a full-length mirror and smile. This is the first time I’ve ever done this. I smooth my shirt down and turn to the side. I stare at my face and can’t hold back the tears. Why have I denied myself this validation for so long? What good came of never looking at myself in the mirror and cursing my Area? I vow never to refer to my Area again. It’s all part of me. Even my Are . . . even my belly.
I load the bulletin board and the guest book in the back of my car and set my laptop on the front seat along with all its cords and wires. I’m wearing my pink-and-gray Pumas until I have to put on the four-inch heels I bought for the occasion. Beautiful shoes, but absolutely unwalkable. Patrona is standing by the entrance to The Atheneaum. I hand her the bulletin board and the guest book. She thanks me and waves over The Athenaeum’s audiovisual guy.
“You got the slide show? The one we’ll be using for the rehearsal dinner before the wedding?” He is wearing a flannel shirt over a Black Sabbath concert T-shirt.
“I have it right here.” I hold up my laptop.
“Come on over with me. We’ll set you on up over
here by the dance floor.” The AV guy apparently has a habit of using too many words to convey a simple request.
I follow him, noting all Patrona’s hard work. I pass under the vaulted ceilings painted with Italian frescoes. Patrona has the food and wine set up inside. The wait staff is milling around setting up wineglasses and large gold chargers under every plate. I have yet to see Olivia or Gwen.
I am led out onto the courtyard. It is a veritable fairy wonderland. Italian café lights are strung end to end across the entire width of the garden. There are nine tables set around the small dance floor, each seating five people. The AV guy takes my laptop, and I get butterflies for the first time. I join the throng of guests who are just beginning to arrive. I still have my Pumas on. I resolve to take them off once I am seated at my table. I’ll keep them under the table until I have to leave. Or until I’m asked to leave—whichever comes first.
As I start on the first of many glasses of wine, I see my bulletin board at the top of the stairs. It’s the focal point as guests enter the event. I see Gwen and Jerry pull their card and walk proudly over to the head table. Gwen’s wearing a lavender slip dress with lace accents. Her black hair is in an updo, and her makeup is perfect. Jerry, the unsung husband, is an average-looking guy. He’s the type of guy you would never be able to pick out in a crowd twice. He’s wearing a brown linen suit with an open-collared dress shirt. He’s also wearing aviator-style sunglasses. They look absolutely ridiculous on him. No doubt Gwen picked them out.
I know which one is my table, so my lone gold-and-silver card stays put as the board empties. Table Nine. The notorious Table Nine. Table Nine could not be farther from the head table. Seeing it drawn is one thing. Sitting at the actual table is a whole other animal. The waiters continue to come around with wine.
There are four empty chairs at Table Nine, not counting the one I will be sitting in. As I sit there, laughing guests ask me about every five minutes if all the chairs are taken. And about every five minutes, my heart soars until they take the chair and head over to another crowded table far away from the now quarantined Table Nine. Carol and Bob left their coats on the backs of two of the chairs here at Table Nine, but they have yet to grace me with their presence. So it’s just me. Do I want someone to actually sit with me or do I just want to be alone?
