by Liza Palmer
Adam’s brother begins the hike over to my table. It takes him about thirty-five minutes.
“You know you’re introducing the slide show, right?” I assumed he needed a chair.
“Huh?” I ask.
“I’m going to make a toast. Then I’ll hand the microphone over to you and you’ll introduce the slide show. Everything’s timed,” Adam’s brother says nervously. I don’t actually know his name. For as long as Olivia and Adam have been together, he’s only been referred to as “Adam’s brother.” He probably does have a name, but maybe not.
The crowd begins to settle in, and the DJ is playing the usual dining tunes: standards, badly redone pop songs, and long, winding mixes that never quite end. I am halfway through the small green salad when the people I assume to be Carol and Bob finally approach the table, laughing and having a great time. I perk up and start to greet the couple. They both say hi to me, grab their coats and bags, and walk directly over to another table. I hear Carol say this table is just too far away to really be part of anything. Now it’s just me and Table Nine again. No hope of Carol and Bob. No hope of anyone. Just a tiny shred of hope that I know the waiters will be back with full bottles of wine again in about ten minutes.
I squint and can barely make out the head table, it’s so far away. It is beautiful, and everyone at it looks right out of a magazine. Gwen is there with her husband, Jerry. They are grinning from ear to ear as the photographer takes “candid” pictures of them for Olivia’s memory book. Mark and Grace don’t really stay at the head table. They are bumping from table to table. Following the wine. They’ll be at Table Nine any minute now.
“I’d like to be the first to welcome you here tonight to celebrate Mr. and Mrs. Adam Farrell’s rehearsal dinner.” The DJ cuts in over the microphone to a smattering of applause and murmurs of disdain because the DJ didn’t call Adam “Doctor.” The crowd falls silent as the happy couple make their entrance.
Olivia and Adam are radiant. Olivia is wearing a yellow chiffon dress that dusts the ground as she walks. Her blond hair is down and pulled back from her face. Her makeup is natural and barely noticeable except for the false eyelashes. Adam is wearing a gray dress shirt with a gray tie to match. Doesn’t he know the monochromatic look went out with Super Millionaire? As night falls, The Athenaeum’s gardens get more and more beautiful.
“Oh, no, thank you, no trans fats,” I say out loud to no one as I push away the thousand tiramisu plates the waiters left for all of Table Nine’s occupants.
“Oh, but it is wafer-thin?” I answer myself in a French accent.
The time passes quickly. I look at the head table every so often and see Olivia and her chosen few laughing and having a good time as dessert is served. I don’t want what they’ve got. I want what I’ve got. Table Nine rocks. I have busied myself by doing impersonations of people all night. My AV guy kills.
Adam’s brother awkwardly approaches the DJ and gives the AV guy some kind of high sign. The music dies down, and Adam’s brother clears his throat. I roll my eyes. I take a deep breath as I head to the microphone as well.
“I am Adam’s big brother and I will serve as his best man during tomorrow’s festivities,” he starts. Maybe he really doesn’t have a name.
Olivia and Adam stand and walk toward the dance floor.
“I remember first meeting Olivia. And I thought that she wasn’t like anyone else Adam had ever brought home. Her boobs were real!” The crowd nervously chuckles. That’s about all that’s real on her these days, brother.
“Aaaanyway, I want to congratulate my little brother and wish him and his bride-to-be the best of luck tomorrow,” he says and raises his glass. I approach the microphone and see Gwen coming toward me. Adam’s brother gives her the microphone.
He whispers, “She just wants to say a few words. Once you finish, the slide show will start automatically.” Gwen and Jerry move to the front of the dance floor.
“I have known Olivia for so long, I just can’t believe she’s here and getting married,” Gwen gushes.
Olivia is wiping away tears and clutching Adam.
Gwen hands the microphone over to Jerry, who breaks out in song about love. I look around at the audience. Oh, good, it’s not just me and my bad attitude. Everyone’s a little awkward with Jerry’s “singing.” Gwen pulls her cashmere shawl around her shoulders and stares at Olivia and Adam as Jerry finishes.
“. . . it’s about love,” Jerry whispers as he drops his head to his chest, awaiting applause. Olivia and Adam rush the couple and hug them as they share this moment publicly. The crowd is quiet.
I walk to the microphone. Olivia and Adam settle into their poses, waiting for some kind of story. I thought I was just introducing the slide show. It becomes obvious to me that I need to say something. I clear my throat and the world goes quiet. Now it’s just Olivia and me.
“I’m so happy that you’ve gotten everything you always wanted, Olivia. You are truly living out our teenaged fantasy.” I smile to myself and I see Olivia harden. My smile fades. I look out into the audience, lick my lips, and take a deep breath. I stare directly at Olivia and Adam, lifting my champagne glass high.
“Congratulations, Olivia and Adam. Here’s to the beautiful life you’ve always wanted.” The crowd applauds. I can see Olivia sigh with relief as I finish.
The opening chords of my slide show play, but Olivia and Adam don’t rush up to hug me. Instead, Olivia holds Adam and they begin to dance in front of the slide show. The DJ takes the microphone from me, and I make the long trek back to Table Nine.
I sit down and gesture to the waiter for another glass of wine.
Olivia and Adam have taken dance classes to get ready for all the dancing they’ll have to do. This is a warm-up for the big day tomorrow. I hear their wedding song is “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Of course it is. They glide across the floor to their song as the crowd looks on with drunken smiles and baby-shower wonder. The slide show begins on a large movie screen that has been set up at the front of the dance floor. The darkness makes every picture crisp and clear. There’s Olivia on vacation in Hawaii in her yellow bikini. Isn’t she cute? Oooooh, and there’s one of Adam looking up from underneath the sink with a wrench in his hand. Oh, that little stinker can’t fix a thing.
Well, there’s the one of Olivia and me proudly standing in front of her first car. Olivia is wearing what appears to be a small change purse on a silvery thread, or what some would call a “purse.” I have my leg up on the bumper in a victorious This is Ours! pose. The crowd gasps in unison as Olivia’s massive ass attacks all forty-seven rehearsal dinner invitees like some bad 3-D movie. I take a long sip of my wine as the whispers and shushes rise from the tables. The guests might be talking at full volume, but from Table Nine everything is pretty much whispers and hushes.
Olivia and Adam twirl even harder. They probably think they are dancing so well now that the crowd is murmuring in awe. The next picture is their engagement picture. Olivia and Adam walking hand in hand on the beach. Oh, and here are the outtakes. Aren’t they cute? Adam is splashing Olivia! How could he do that? Oh, but look, she got him. She splashes him even more, and now she is jumping on his back and trying to wrestle him down. Oh, but wait, what’s this? Could it be Olivia’s high school yearbook picture from our junior year?
Gwen sits on the very edge of her chair as a succession of pictures follow that chronicle Adam’s climb in the medical field. I squint to get a better view of Gwen. She’s fingering something around her neck: a gold, diamond-encrusted necklace. Let me guess—with the initials G&O? I sit back a little more at ease and focus on the slide show. There’s Adam with a stethoscope. Now he has a shiny silver chart. And now he’s speaking at some seminar with a red laser pointer and half-moon glasses, from which he looks down intelligently. Mr. and Mrs. Morten are beaming. I enjoy my wine.
This next picture was one of my favorites. I remember finding it in that shoe box while I was packing. I knew I had to keep it out. Scannin
g it into the computer was just a natural progression. Kate’s mini-tutorial at breakfast allowed me to crop and position the pictures more artfully than I could have ever dreamed.
It is of Olivia on her one trip to a homecoming dance. She’s wearing a black dress with a high Victorian collar. It was the only dress her mother could find on such short notice. A young man named Franklin Bonner asked Olivia to the dance. His dishwater-blond hair stuck straight up in the back and looked a lot like Olivia’s. I feared they were really long-lost siblings. He wore a black suit, white shirt, and pink-and-green tie to this particular dance. The outfit could have worked if it hadn’t fit him five years prior to the dance. About four inches of his white shirt protruded from the sleeve of the jacket, and the tie barely made its way down half his chest.
At this Shawna snorts.
She has spit her wine out onto the table and is already fully engrossed in apologies and another fit of giggles.
“He’s just so small!” she cries.
I look up at the pictures and can’t help but smile. This was Olivia and me at our best. She actually liked Franklin Bonner and allowed him to give her a good-night kiss. Her first kiss. It just seemed right that he should be in this little slide show the night before her wedding day.
Olivia is now standing front and center and staring up at her dirty little secret.
The song plays on in the background as the buzz of my laptop whirs on. Panchali is cleaning up Shawna’s spilled wine and quieting her giggles, pleading with her to calm down and get ahold of herself. But Shawna’s right. Franklin Bonner is a good two hundred pounds lighter than Olivia and a full head shorter. Olivia is trying to get her hands around Franklin’s in such a clawlike manner it looks like they’re trying to send Red Rover Red Rover right over.
Looking down on us now are a perfect Olivia and Adam at the base of the Eiffel Tower. The laptop whirs on. There is the happy couple playing doubles tennis at a fancy tournament.
Olivia turns to Adam. He is holding her hip in a kind of distancing way. It’s as if he wants to show everyone that his soon-to-be-wife’s flaws don’t freak him out. But at the same time, he’s clearly not allowing her to come any closer to him. With this rejection, Olivia turns to her mother. The song is still playing in the background as the laptop whirs on.
“I told you not to put those pictures in!” Olivia screams as she walks over to Mrs. Morten’s table.
“What, honey?” Mrs. Morten gazes fondly up at the picture of Olivia posing in front of the elephants at the LA Zoo with her arm at her nose in parody.
“These pictures! I gave you a stack of pictures to put into the slide show. Those were the only ones I wanted. Not these! Not these! I gave you a stack. Do you remember the stack I gave you?” Olivia is approaching Mrs. Morten’s table in a frenzy, which is now in earshot of Table Nine.
“Honey, these pictures are darling. You chose wonderful pictures. I love every one of them. I forgot about that boy, what was his name, Maggie? What was his name—”
Olivia cuts her mother off. “I didn’t choose these pictures. Why would I choose these pictures?” Olivia is pointing at the night she played Santa in our elementary school Christmas pageant.
“I chose them,” I say, setting my wineglass down on my empty table.
Olivia flips around. Mrs. Morten looks at me and then back at Olivia. The laptop whirs on. The crowd is silent. This silence is different. No one wants to watch. But everyone is riveted.
“You what?” Olivia continues the long walk to Table Nine.
“You asked me to help, so I threw a few pictures of us in there.” I put my hands on the table and begin to fidget with my wineglass.
“I gave my mother a stack of pictures I wanted included in my slide show. Putting your own pictures in there is a problem.” Olivia is now standing at the other side of Table Nine. I don’t even recognize her anymore. This is no longer my best friend. That little girl I stood next to against that chain-link fence is dead. Olivia is fussing with her hair. She is beginning to realize how much of a scene she is causing. Behind her, I see Gwen get up from the head table and walk out. I focus back on Olivia. She’s getting ready to turn and make the long trek back to the head table—but stops and slowly turns back around.
“You just can’t take that I got out,” she says. Her voice is low and angry.
“Got out?” I say. How could I have defined myself by this person for the last fifteen years?
“That fantasy life—it’s not a fantasy at all. I’ve got it. Look around you, Maggie. Everything is beautiful and perfect. There are no ‘before’ pictures. It kills you that I’ve gotten everything we’ve ever wanted.” Olivia twirls around in victory. I can’t stop shaking my head, no . . . no.
It’s as if I’m really seeing her for the first time. I breathe out. And there she is. My best friend: the little girl still lost in her little pink room fantasy playing with her Barbie and Ken dolls.
I don’t want what she has. I don’t want to figure out why I’m not good enough for her. She’s not even good enough for her. My shoulders slowly relax and the world comes back into focus. I wet my lips and speak.
“Well that’s all you’ve got now.” I smooth my hair back and walk out from behind Table Nine. I grab my Pumas from underneath the table. Olivia watches me walk across the dance floor. I begin to unplug my laptop but pause to see the final sequence of pictures. Olivia and me in front of her mom’s house on Halloween. She was a flapper from the 1920s and I was in this fluffy yellow chickadee costume. Olivia’s lipstick was a horrible pink shade we had stolen from Mrs. Morten’s makeup case. She has her hand at her head and her hips sticking out in her best dancer pose. Her little belly is peeking out from beneath the stretched sequined shirt. I hold what looks to be like a big egg as the big orange beak lowers itself over my round, twelve-year-old face. We are smiling and in the next shot we are bent over with laughter. The final shot is of Olivia falling to the ground in laughter with me looking down at her and my hand gently placed on her back. My mouth is open in a wide laugh.
I catch a side glance of Mrs. Morten, and she quickly stands. I unplug my laptop and walk across the dance floor, cords and wires trailing. The spotlight blinds me for one second. The DJ quickly puts on some music as the guests buzz and murmur. Mrs. Morten makes her way across the dance floor.
“Maggie?” I quickly turn around. “She’ll come around, sweetie. The pictures were beautiful,” Mrs. Morten says as she holds my face and smiles tightly.
Olivia is still standing in front of Table Nine as Adam comes to collect his bride-to-be. Panchali rises, with Shawna on her heels, and they tentatively approach a now unmasked Olivia. I break from Mrs. Morten and feel their anger on my back as I walk toward the exit.
I don’t look back and I don’t slow down. The tears are subsiding and my breath is evening out. I am walking easily under the vaulted ceiling with the Italian frescoes. I look down and realize I’m wearing my heels and I’m not tripping or walking like a truck driver. I’m looking down at my shoes when the bathroom door opens.
“That was quite a show you put on out there.” Gwen is straightening her cashmere shawl as she closes the bathroom door.
“What?” My eyebrows are raised. I stand a good five inches taller than Gwen. Olivia has been outed. Gwen backed the wrong horse and she knows it. Moreover, she knows I know it.
“Don’t you have a rehearsal dinner to get to?” I continue. Gwen fidgets with her necklace.
“So we’ll see you at the wedding tomorrow?” Gwen titters.
“Fuck you, Gwen.” My voice is calm and methodical. My eyes crinkle with drying tears, and I can feel the rush of air through my lungs. Gwen stands unmoving in front of me. I don’t move.
One last duel.
After what feels like hours, Gwen finally clears her throat and steps to the side. I stride down the front steps of The Athenaeum and walk gracefully to my car, never looking back once. The night is crisp as the door shuts beside me.
What did I just do?
I turn the key and drive. The car knows before I do where I’m going. I follow. Visions of the glow from the screen and the whir of my laptop play over and over in my head. I make a left.
I am stopped at the light getting my speech ready. Visions of the glow. Sounds from the laptop. Click . . . click . . . click. The light changes. I make another right.
I park out front and turn the car off. I sit in the silence of my car for what feels like hours. The diamond-encrusted M is still in the cup holder.
I open the door easily and step inside. The lights are bright and the tile floor is slippery. The high-heeled shoes are solid underneath me as I walk chest-out, hips swaying, head held high. My eyes are straight ahead, staring at that back door. The door I looked through every shift to watch him. I walk quickly yet steadily.
“You’re a little dressed up to come crawling back for your job, don’t you think?” I stop, locking my hip into place, and take a deep breath. I slowly turn my head and see Cole leaning back on the counter with the tiny espresso mug in his mitt of a hand.
“I’d try and talk to her but then I’d be giving advice, now wouldn’t I?” Peregrine is chewing gum as she retwists a blue-black bun on the side of her head. My eyes slowly move to her. I lose sight of the back door momentarily.
“I’m sorry. You were right.” I walk toward her and put my hands on the counter. She finishes twisting her hair and squares me off. I will myself not to cry anymore.
“What?” I can smell her bubblegum. She begins to blow a bubble.
“You were right. Everything you said. Olivia didn’t pick me. Shit, Olivia couldn’t even pick herself. And I’m terrified of what is going to happen when I let Domenic—jeez, I guess when I just let Domenic do anything, huh?” Peregrine’s bubble pops. She fumbles with the bits of gum on her lips. I continue, “Let me be in your life, but as your friend, not your project.”
