“Ivory or these?” I say. “These are the best colored or patterned ones we’ve seen.” I hold the blue plate up higher.
Sophie twists her face funnily, then says, “Let’s spring for color. They’re fun.”
“Fun is what we need.” I hand the plate to her so she can write down the stock number.
By the end of our adventure, I’ve sent nearly a dozen photos to Allison for her take, and she’s agreed with Sophie and me that the robin’s-egg-blue plates will be stunning, as will the chosen crystal, the chargers, the linens, and the votives…the rest of all of the final reception touches.
Really, if I wrack my mind, I think that’s all that’s left. At least all of the major stuff. I mean, the suits are in Conner’s hands right now. I’m not going to get myself into a tizzy over it, because whenever I think about the missed appointment thanks to stupid Las Vegas, I start to imagine the potential disaster, the fights, and the simple fact that, if it weren’t for Sophie, I’d be sleeping alone this weekend. I’d have an empty home. Well, Schnicker’s there, but you know what I mean. I wouldn’t have gotten any wedding things done, either, and I would’ve spent the entire time alone just moping around and driving myself positively batty.
Sophie’s company is great; I don’t know what I’d do without her. Wait, I do know—I’d be curled up in a ball in my bed for seventy-two hours straight, wearing workout clothes, nursing a cheap bottle of Zinfandel, and watching seemingly endless reruns of oldies-but-goodies, like Three’s Company or Alf.
Having Sophie and Schnicker is certainly great, but it doesn’t make me forget, entirely, that the key man and love of my life is not with me. No amount of cupcakes or friendly visits or wedding errands can fill that gaping hole. Conner’s hundreds of miles away gambling, drinking, and goodness knows what other kind of debauchery he’s getting himself into. God help me.
“Lara says you don’t want a bachelorette party,” Sophie says. The two of us are holed up in my office for the night. Not your night-on-the-town Saturday night, but a laid-back one and enjoyable just the same. Sophie’s working on the ribbons for the rims of the jam jars, while I’m trying to finish the drapes.
“She’s right,” I say. “I had a bridal shower. Isn’t that enough?”
My bridal shower, which, upon the insistence of my mom and all of the girls, was held after New Year’s once the hype of the holidays had passed, and Jackie and Andrew had tied the knot. Everyone was so thrilled about the engagement that we just had to have a celebration, hence my bridal party.
It was fun; I got a bunch of neat gifts, and it was one of those moments that really made me feel so bridal. Almost like how I felt when I was wearing my dress—knowing that this was really happening!
But a bachelorette party and a bridal shower? I don’t really think I need both. Don’t we have enough stress? Enough to plan? And aren’t we kind of running out of time? I definitely don’t want anyone to feel like they need to get me more gifts. My wedding magazines all say the same thing: Gifts at the bridal shower replace gifts given at the bachelorette party and the wedding. Actually, I believe most brides have bachelorette parties, even if they have a bridal shower, come to think of it… Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really care at this point, nor do I feel like celebrating.
“It’s not the same,” Sophie says. “Bridal shower is all light and relaxed and girly. Claire,” she looks up from her project for a second to give me a discouraging glance, “a bridal shower is not a bachelorette party. The fun, the partying, the letting loose—that’s bachelorette party business.”
“Having a fling with some stranger before I tie the knot?” I ask mockingly.
“No, of course not. Just going out with the girls. You know what I mean.”
“I don’t really feel up to it. I don’t feel like adding more tasks to the to-do list.”
“Allison could plan it,” Sophie suggests. “Lara said she’d be happy to help, too.”
“Nah.” I lightly depress the pedal of the sewing machine, and the needle runs forward, then backward, and carefully forward again, making for a new hem I’m starting. “I appreciate the offer, but it’s more hassle than fun.”
“You won’t have to plan anything,” she says insistently.
“Doesn’t matter, really.” I watch intently as my thread line continues down its straight path along the glittered burlap. “Just another tradition and another thing to plan and complain about and rag on Conner over.” I give a mock laugh. “More trouble than it really is worth.”
“Well, if you insist. I’m sure Conner’s having his little bachelor celebration right now. You can totally have one.”
I feel the stinging of the tears come to surface all of a sudden, and I try to blink them away, not wanting my straight hemline to go astray. “Doesn’t matter,” I choke out.
“I say you do whatever you want, Claire. If you want a party, we’ll totally throw you one. You can have a smashing time. Hey, we could even take you to Vegas, if you want—”
I release the pedal, the needle stopping dead in its tracks. I drop my head and wipe the surge of fresh tears from my eyes and cheeks. I sniffle back loudly, and Sophie is instantly at my side.
“Oh, Claire,” she says apologetically. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. Oh, no. I didn’t—I didn’t mean to bring him up. I’m sorry.”
I sniff back again and rub hard at my eyes. The tears won’t stop, so I give in and let them run, crying out, “It shouldn’t be like that. You shouldn’t have to not bring him up.” Her arms envelop me, and I cannot abate my tears. “He’s my fiancé, Sophie. My fiancé! How can this be happening?”
I bring my hands to my face and continue to bawl, loudly moaning out the question that I just want answered. “Why? Why, why, why?”
“Shhh,” Sophie soothes, rocking me gently from side to side. “Don’t you worry, Claire. Everything will be all right. We’re going to get this figured out.” She kisses the top of my head. “Don’t you worry, girl.”
“I feel like I’m chasing…nothing! This false hope that everything will be okay.” I bunch up the tulle and burlap that’s covering my lap and push it frustratingly away. “This is all for nothing. This stupid tulle. These dumb drapes. This wedding is a disaster! My relationship…oh, Sophie. What is happening?”
“Shhh.” She pulls me tighter. “Trust me. Everything will be better than okay.” She presses her cheek to my temple. “Trust me. Things always work out one way or another.”
***
I’m sitting here, waiting for Conner whenever he arrives home. I’ve spent some time thinking about how I’ll react when he returns. I’ve thought through quite a few scenarios, and no matter which one I choose, they all seem to end up with me being upset and there being a big question mark looming over our heads and the entire subject of a wedding.
Do I still want to marry Conner? Absolutely. This is trivial crap we have to get through. But that’s the important part: We have to get through it. We have to talk. The silent treatment, the secretive running off to cities far away, and the general avoidance are not helping matters—they’re only damaging. The wedge is being driven harder and harder between us, and before either of us knows it, there will be serious implications. Then what?
So, here I am, forcing myself to be ready to have a calm and rational discussion about where Conner’s been, why he left so abruptly, and what we can do together to heal our relationship. What we can do to make sure we head towards the altar via a healthy and happy route. I know the potential conversation could become an all-out bitch-fest, but I have to try. I have to summon the courage to sit here, approach him, and figure something out.
Oh, but things don’t seem to be working in my favor. At least in the short term, when it comes to all things wedding-related. So I should have known that Conner and I couldn’t approach an adult conversation when he arrived. I tried really hard to stay calm and act all grown-up. I really did. I tried so hard.
But the instant I laid eyes on him
when he walked through the front door, me sitting there in one of the living room chairs, nervously waiting for this very moment, a random knitting project in my hands and glancing repeatedly at my watch, I knew we were both in for a doozy. The first words out of his mouth, which I think are completely to blame for my subsequent reaction, were, “Don’t give me a lecture, Claire.”
Can you believe that? Don’t give me a lecture. A lecture! After he randomly took off and jetted down to Sin City to do who the hell knows what? Just weeks before our wedding! The nerve! Don’t give me a lecture.
Naturally, the first words out of my mouth were, “You asshole!” Yeah, totally not how I envisioned our “adult conversation.”
So here I am, following Conner around the house while he puts away his clothes, his bathroom products, all the crap he whisked on out of here during his secretive “Get Away From Claire” trip.
“I can’t believe you would do something like this, Conner,” I cry, exasperated. “Leave and not tell me! You could have been killed in a car wreck or something terrible that I didn’t know about…and…and…you don’t even care. Just let me sit here and worry all weekend. Without even bothering to call me. At all!”
“I know Chad told Sophie where we were,” he says flippantly. “Don’t have such a cow.”
“I waited and worried, Conner. The whole fucking day you left! Into the night…” The rage is boiling within me. I thought our last fight was enormous. This one is setting records. “How can you be so selfish?”
“I needed some time away, that’s all,” he says in a smooth voice. “Now I’m home to be nagged again. Haven’t you learned anything, Claire? Your nagging and stress is tearing us down. I can’t handle it anymore.”
“Well your insouciance about our wedding—you missed your fitting, by the way, and you knew that was important to me—it’s—it’s—it’s making me more stressed and nagging.”
I angrily tangle my hands in my hair and let out a scream. “Argh! Well, was it fun? I hope you had a blast. Was it worth it? Was Vegas and leaving your fiancée in the dark really worth it?”
“Claire,” he sighs and pulls his t-shirt off and over his head. “It was a weekend with Chad. No craziness. Just a guys’ weekend away.”
“With strippers.” I can’t help myself. It was Las Vegas after all.
“No, Claire,” he says in a deep voice. “No strippers.”
“Right,” I say, fluttering my eyelashes.
“A fun time, just the two of us, hanging out…not really all that different from any other weekend here,” he says in an infuriatingly casual way.
He tosses his t-shirt into the hamper, and I notice a gauze pad taped to his back, just above his right shoulder blade.
“What the hell?” I gasp, reaching up to the pad. “Is this a—” I am successful in tearing a corner of the pad off when he abruptly turns around, grasping over his shoulder at the slightly torn bandage. “Is that a tattoo?” My eyes are bugging out. “You go and get a tattoo?”
“It’s not like it’s the first time,” he says under his breath. “Chill out, Claire. Just chill out, dammit.”
“Chill out! My fiancé runs off to Las Vegas without telling me, with a wedding weeks away, and he comes back with a tattoo! Gambled all our life savings away, too? Shack up with some bimbo while you were there? God!”
He tightens his jaw and looks at me with sharp eyes. “Believe me when I say that all we did was hang out by the pool, drink some beers, and do a little gambling…nothing to have a cow over, Claire. Trust me, can’t you? Damn…”
He slowly turns on his bare heels, and before he clears the doorway, I manage to throw a toss pillow right at the back of his head. He waves a hand behind and, to add insult to injury, says, “Take a chill pill, won’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The bed has been unmade for four days straight.
There have already been three nights since Conner returned that neither of us has said, “I love you,” before falling into a bad night’s sleep.
We’ve since had two brief fights about, in all honesty, I have no idea what they were about.
There’s still one set of drapes that is unfinished, with no hope in sight of there even being a reason to finish them.
Life is as low as it could be, and how many brides-to-be do you hear say that?
Some brides might be depressed at such a time because their dream wedding dress or dream wedding design or dream wedding plans are falling out of place. Not me, though. See, the most important part—the entire reason behind getting married—is kind of, sort of, well…missing from it all. I’ve never felt so distant from Conner. How did this all happen? I thought the worst of my troubles were ever-growing guest lists, or lawsuits from airhead wedding coordinators.
I’ve been trying to devise a plan to get things straight away again. I don’t just mean getting things in order so there can actually be a wedding. I’m over even considering the wedding and its lengthy plans. Right now my focus is Conner—trying to reach out to him, ignite those sparks again, and repair the magical relationship we once had.
For better or worse, married or not, Conner is the one with whom I want to spend the rest of my life, and right now I’m not so sure he’s feeling the same way. How can I blame him?
1247 Parker Lane, Seattle, Washington, is a mammoth hell hole of anger and finger pointing and bone-chilling silence (at least when we’re not screaming at each other). It has to stop.
Even Schnickerdoodle is lodging a complaint about hostile living conditions. He’s not his usual bouncing self, eager to go on walks. The height of his excitement regarding walks comes when he limply carries the leash in between his teeth and lazily drops it at either of our feet. He then kind of looks up in a cowering way, as if he’s saying in a very glum tone, “Which one of you will it be today?”
Conner and I need to talk, and I don’t mean hurling insults at one another or immediately breaking into a fight the moment either of us says something. We need to fix things, but how? When? What can I possibly say or do to fix this?
“Ruth?” I call out from her small back porch, which thankfully has a wide awning, shielding me from the hot July sun.
It’s such a lovely day that one of my patients, Ruth, insisted she spend some time tending to her garden. I told her that we could do that, and I’d be delighted to help her, but that we really shouldn’t be out in the heat for too long. When I lathered our arms and faces with some sunscreen, she made a light fuss about the oiliness of the cream.
“Ruth, dear,” I repeat from the porch. I’ve already told her we needed to go back inside now. I don’t want to bake the poor elderly woman’s brain with this strong heat.
She seems to be ignoring me, however, or she just doesn’t hear me. I’m pretty sure I know which one, because one time she looked up at me after I called, then quickly looked away and went back to admiring her rose bushes. Stubborn little lady.
“Ruth.” I descend the porch steps and put a hand on her shoulder. “Ruth, dear. How about we go inside now? Get out of the heat?”
She carefully pets a vibrant pink rose and says to it, “You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?”
“Come on, Ruth,” I slowly direct her towards the porch. “You’re getting very warm. Let’s get back inside, yeah?”
“Inside?” she asks, looking at me with a dazed face. “Go inside?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Inside…yes, inside…”
It’s relaxing in front of the cool breeze of an oscillating tabletop fan in the kitchen. As we sit, Ruth seems to come more to her wits. A combination of her advancing Alzheimer’s and the warm Seattle summer heat are not doing her or her memory any favors.
Now, in the comfort of the cool home and heavy in a conversation about men and marriage and love (you can guess who initiated this one), Ruth seems to be much more adjusted.
“You know, Claire,” she says in her sweet and shaky voice. “You are a much too young and pretty th
ing to be getting yourself mixed up in this kind of mess.” She flourishes her wrinkled hand about, just to make a point or emphasize.
“You and this Conner of yours—it’s Conner, isn’t it?”
I smile and tell her she’s spot-on.
She smiles, too, as if proud that she’s remembered this nugget of information. “You and your Conner—you’re both too young to be having squabbles like this. Life is so short, Claire. So short.”
Ruth’s face looks like it loses a little color as she looks off at the wall opposite us. Maybe she’s imagining time with her husband, Art who’s passed away. Maybe she’s contemplating their many good times, maybe even their few spats.
“I was with Art for sixty-two years,” Ruth says, her gaze still set on some point behind me. “Sixty-two wonderful years, but sixty-two short years.” Her eyes meet mine, and I can sense a slight sheen of tears coating her deep blues.
“Life and love, together, are so priceless.” She leans forward in her chair at the kitchen table and rests a palm, open and facing upward, on the clothed table.
“Claire,” Ruth says, wiggling her fingers.
I put my hand in hers and look at her with warm and kind eyes, understanding what she wants to tell me before she does. “Don’t lose the man you love over things that don’t matter.”
“Even though he’s been acting childish?” I ask. “I mean, going to Vegas?” I have to reiterate this point.
She cups her other aged hand over mine and rubs it softly. “I have news for you, Claire—you’re both children. How else are you supposed to act?”
We share a laugh.
“You’re both so young,” she says, tossing a wave. “And, let me tell you this.” She points a finger at me and says, with squinted eyes, “Art was just as childish at eighteen as he was at eighty. Men! They never grow up.”
“You’re probably right.”
When Girlfriends Chase Dreams Page 32
