by Howe, Violet
My confidence plummeted. I wondered what the hell I was thinking, which made me stumble and splatter tea all over her desk. She didn’t say a word. She continued typing on her keyboard while I got paper towels and wiped the desk and the damaged paperwork. I wanted to kick myself in my own ass. Once again, in my efforts to please Lillian, I had screwed up and made a mess of things. Happens every time.
As I finished cleaning and turned to leave her office with handfuls of wet paper towels, I heard a long sigh and a very quiet, virtually inaudible, “Thanks for the bagel.”
I turned back to make sure I had actually heard it, but her eyes were fixed on the screen and her fingers were tapping away. If she’d said anything, she didn’t plan on repeating it. Oh well.
Mr. Hotel Man finally got up the nerve to ask me out. He called to see if I’d go to the Food & Art Festival with him. I’m not so sure I want to go, though. At first, I felt interested and wanted him to ask. Now I don’t know. I do this all the time. I meet someone I think I’d like to go out with, but then if they do ask me out, I change my mind. So fickle.
I said I’d go but told him I prefer to drive my own car and meet him there. One, it’s safer. Two, I can go home when I get ready to.
Still no word from Cabe.
Tuesday, October 22nd
My wedding party had just arrived for their rehearsal when Cabe texted me.
“Dinner tonight?”
For a week, I’ve heard nothing from this man. No texts, no calls, nothing. Then he ever so casually asks if I want to have dinner. This is one of the many reasons why I never dated him. He is freakin’ clueless.
However, since I am working hard on being a patient and understanding friend, I said yes. (Well, that and the fact that I had no dinner plans. Plus, I did want to see him.)
“Sure. At a rehearsal now. Shouldn’t be too late.”
“Let’s cook. I’ll bring it. Your place. What time?”
It’s been over a year since we cooked at my place. It used to be a regular occurrence. At least a couple of times a week, every week. We were one helluva dynamic team in the kitchen. We loved finding a great recipe and then deviating from it as much as possible.
I haven’t cooked much at all since he went to Seattle. Partly for nostalgia and missing my buddy, and partly because it makes no sense to buy all the ingredients and make an entire meal for one person. I felt more than a little thrilled at his suggestion for tonight.
“Should be home by eight,” I answered.
“See ya then. Do you have red wine?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll get some.”
My whole mood turned around. I knew my freezer held no good dinner prospects, so the thought of arriving home to a hot meal was enticing. Of course, I looked forward to seeing Cabe again without all the stress of his big announcement. I also hoped he would explain what his deal was with not calling and not texting me back.
He didn’t. We made it through the entire meal—prep, cooking, eating, cleaning up—and not one word about not hearing from him. He seemed in a much better mood than when we met at the lake, and he ate heartily, which was good since he was still skin and bones. He pretty well acted like nothing had ever happened, and things were back to normal.
I know I probably should have let it go, but I couldn’t.
“So, did you get my texts?” I asked. He lay sprawled out on my couch while I sat on the floor with my back against the overstuffed chair in the corner.
“Yeah.”
We sat in silence for as long as I could possibly manage to stand it without speaking. About one minute.
“You just didn’t bother to respond?”
He put his arm over his face and turned his head toward the back of the couch.
“Are you trying to hide?” I asked. “You realize I can see you, right?”
He shifted to sitting and took a deep swig from his wine glass, but he still didn’t speak.
“Hello? What’s up, dude?”
(I know. I need to work on my patience. I’ll start on it tomorrow.)
(Maybe.)
(Probably not.)
“I dunno, Ty.”
“You don’t know what? That I can see you? Or why you completely ignored my texts and didn’t bother calling me for a week? Or while we’re discussing it, why you didn’t call me for the first two months since you got back? Do you have any idea how that feels? What if I had run into you somewhere in town? What if I went out with some friends and bumped into you? That would’ve sucked. I thought we were friends. Like, I thought we were best friends. I understand you felt like you needed to dump me for your marriage, but I don’t understand why you came back and didn’t feel like you wanted to talk to me at all. Especially when you were obviously going through something where I would think you would want a friend to talk to. I feel like maybe I was delusional in thinking we were close. What the hell is your deal, dude?”
(Okay, I kind of vomited all that out before I realized what was happening. So much for putting his needs before my own. But I was pissed.)
“I don’t have a deal, Tyler. I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you again. You are my best friend, and I did want to talk to you. But it’s embarrassing. Humiliating. I didn’t want to face you. I know what I did hurt you. And I know you let it go because you were trying to make me happy and make Monica happy. So I feel like a complete ass, Ty. I gave up on what we had for something that wasn’t even real. For someone who evidently didn’t love me and definitely wasn’t worth giving up a friendship for. I didn’t feel right calling you up and leaning on you to get me through it after I walked away from you. But now you’re pissed because I didn’t call you, and I ended up hurting you anyway. I can’t freakin’ win.”
He stood up and tossed back the rest of his wine before putting the empty glass in the sink.
His words stunned me. I felt like a jerk for bringing it up and waving the “what about me?” flag. My heart hurt to hear he felt like he couldn’t call me. At the same time, the twisted part of me felt happy it wasn’t because he didn’t need me anymore. Not like happy he was unhappy or anything. Just happy I did matter after all.
I stood on the other side of the counter, facing him at the sink.
“You total dork,” I said. “Did you like miss the whole point of being best friends? Friends stand by one another and try to help each other. Look out for each other. Yeah, you’re right. It hurt when you broke ties with me for Monica. I ain’t gonna lie about that. It sucked. But I don’t think you did it maliciously. You were doing what you thought was best for your relationship. I got that. I not only got it, I agreed with it. I knew you couldn’t have been fully in that relationship with us being so close. Monica would have gone nuts, more so than she already was, I mean, and you would have always felt torn. Plus, that was me encouraging you to leave everything behind, including me, and follow her to Seattle. Remember? I told you to go?”
It dawned on me then that maybe that had been bad advice. It seemed right at the time, but given how everything turned out, I wondered if he was upset with me for telling him to go.
“Oh wow. I guess that didn’t really work out so well, huh? You’re not mad at me, are you? For encouraging you to go? Because I thought . . .”
“No, Tyler. You didn’t drug me and tie me up and send me on a one-way flight to Seattle. I made the decision to go. What you told me at the time was right. If I wanted to spend my life with Monica, then I needed to go. But evidently she didn’t want to spend her life with me.”
His face crumpled, and his eyes got glassy. No tears fell, but I could see my friend was still very much in pain. I needed to say something to make him feel better. Something profound.
“Rejection sucks.”
Alright, so maybe it wasn’t profound, but it was all I could come up with. We both stood silent for a minute as I tried to figure out how to lighten the mood.
“I think the first thing you need to do is shave off that god-awful g
rowth all over your face. You look like some maniacal creature who’s been wandering the Alaskan wilderness. Or I guess the Seattle wilderness. Don’t they have a lot of woods there? I’ve never been, but they spent a lot of time in the woods in Twilight.” I smiled at him and hoped he’d smile back.
“Oh, please. Tell me you did not just use Twilight as your geographical basis of knowledge.”
Ah, there it was. A bit of a smile. A glimpse of the Cabe I knew and loved.
“You wanna shave it off?” he asked.
I walked around the bar into the kitchen and grabbed his beard with both hands.
“It’s so scruffy and wild. Rough. Do you have anything hiding in there?” I pulled sections of the beard apart, mimicking a monkey grooming its mate.
“There may be. I don’t know. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time looking in a mirror lately. I guess my masculine pride is a bit wounded since my wife left me for lady bits.”
It felt odd to hear him say “my wife.” We hadn’t really talked since their spur-of-the-moment wedding, so I’d never heard him say those words or refer to her like that. It bothered me, but I don’t know why. I mean, I knew he was married. Maybe it was because she hurt him so badly, but I felt resentful that she got to be his wife. Not that I wanted to be. Lord, no! But Cabe was an awesome guy. One in a million. Whoever he called “my wife” should have been worthy of the title.
“Well, if you were trying to establish masculinity by morphing into a grizzly bear, you accomplished it. I think your strong cheekbones and prominent jawline are plenty masculine enough without the beard, though. Even if you do have your mother’s dimples.”
“Let’s shave it. I’m assuming you have a razor,” he said. He looked excited to get rid of it.
“Not for that! Good God, man, what the hell do you think I’m shaving here? My legs have never on their worst day been that far gone, and without getting too personal, we’ll say nothing else has either. I think we need a machete or some pruning shears for this beard.”
“Let’s go buy razors. I want to shave this off. I want you to shave this off. Let’s do it,” he said.
“Right now? It’s almost eleven o’clock. I have a wedding tomorrow,” I whined, but I was already putting my shoes on and grabbing my purse. I wanted nothing more than to shave that hideous beard off his face. I think for me, and maybe even for him, it was symbolic of Monica and what she’d done to him. I wanted her gone.
So we went and bought razors, shaving cream, aftershave, some KitKat bars and a bottle of cheap drugstore wine. Then we ventured into my bathroom to rid Cabe’s face of his wife’s betrayal.
I looked up at him as I sat on my bathroom counter straddling the sink. “Okay. We already established I’ve never had to shave this much hair. What do we do? Do you just wet it and then put on shaving cream like I do with my legs? Should we cut it with scissors first? How will the razor get through all that?”
“You’re asking me? I have no idea. I’ve never shaved this much hair before either. You do it. Then if it’s all jacked up I can always blame you.”
“I don’t know what to do! I’m scared I’ll cut you. Give you scars for life.”
“I think I already have those,” he said. I think he meant to try and be funny, but his face fell a bit when he said it. I didn’t want him sliding back into darkness so soon, so I grabbed the scissors and started trimming.
“I still think I would do better with hedge clippers,” I said. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Once I had it cut down some, I lathered him up and took the razor to his face. I was so scared I would cut him that my hand shook. As I worked, the hair fell all over me, the sink, the floor, and the countertop. This man had a lot of facial hair happening. I tried to spread my legs further and lean backward so he could lean forward over the sink, but hair still went everywhere.
It’s funny that I can be so close to him physically and not be weirded out. I mean, shaving a guy’s face is kind of a personal thing. (Not as personal as bathing someone, but still personal.) Being crammed together in my tiny bathroom put us in really close proximity with my legs spread wide around his as he leaned into the sink. I could feel his breath as he exhaled and smell the sweet bitterness of wine on his tongue with our faces only inches apart.
If this was a date, I’d be freaking out. Worried my breath smelled, or my thighs looked fat in this position. I’d be nervous he was looking down my top and expecting this to lead somewhere. I’d be obsessing over whether or not I wanted it to and what would happen if it did. I’d be wondering if it meant anything that I was shaving him and if I should be worried about him taking it the wrong way.
Luckily, it was just Cabe. I didn’t have to go through all that. It didn’t matter because it wasn’t a date. (Wouldn’t that be a really weird date—to shave someone? I bet there’s some kinky sexual fetish for that, too, but thankfully I am unaware.) There was no tension. No awkwardness. Just me and Cabe. As comfortable and easy as it’s always been.
I hear people say they’re married to their best friend. I think that must be the best relationship of all. If I could have what Cabe and I have in friendship and fun but also have the physical attraction and romantic feelings, then that would be the bomb-diggety to end all searching. Does it exist? Is it possible to be utterly uninhibited and not at all self-conscious, and yet be in love? Because it seems like once you introduce love—sex, passion, romance—then it all gets messed up and scary. You have something to lose. You can be rejected. Or betrayed. Your heart, your hopes, your dreams can all be annihilated.
And yes, Cabe did hurt me. He did leave me. But it wasn’t rejection really. It wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough or thin enough. It wasn’t because he didn’t want me or like me, or even love me. Because we are friends, not lovers. It’s different.
I think love screws it up. Maybe you get love or you get friendship. Only the very lucky get both.
Wednesday, October 23rd
Laura asked me today to train Charlotte on an event this weekend. She must be joking. In addition to sending my client the entire wedding file, Charlotte also told a bride her wedding was cancelled when it wasn’t, told another bride the groom was ridiculously smoking hot and she would date him in a heartbeat, and ordered a cake covered in daisies for a bride who had very emphatically requested no daisies anywhere at her wedding.
Charlotte says she saw DAISIES in all caps in the file and figured they were important, so she asked the chef to add them to the cake. I asked if she bothered to read any of the comments regarding daisies. Nope. Saw the word in all caps and figured the bride must like them.
Good Lord, help us. Now I’m supposed to take her to an actual wedding? Where she could screw up someone’s life? Well, maybe not their life, but a pretty darned important day in their life.
That’s the flip side of doing weddings. Everyone thinks it must be so much fun, but it’s a helluva lot of stress. This is the day a little girl has dreamed of her whole life. The day her mama has planned since the doctor said, “It’s a girl.” And the day her daddy has dreaded paying for since that same day, so he wants every single penny accounted for. He wants to know what he’s getting for his money.
Something as simple as the wrong color napkins can send a bride or family member into a complete the-sky-is-falling-and-you-ruined-our-wedding-and-our-life kind of meltdown.
I remember all too well my first event. What a disaster! I really did ruin someone’s wedding, and at the time, I thought I had ruined their lives.
The bride’s parents had surprised her with a beautiful white carriage pulled by six white ponies. They intended for Nancy to make a grand entrance to her outdoor ceremony like Cinderella coming to the ball. A loving and extravagant gift from her parents intended to make a statement about their princess’s worth.
Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly the fairy godmother in this scenario.
Laura told me to escort Nancy and her bridesmaids down a hallway a
nd outside to the waiting carriage. Once Nancy departed in the carriage, I was to call Laura and then escort the bridesmaids back inside to another hallway where the groomsmen would be waiting to walk them down the aisle.
I was as much in awe of the carriage and ponies as Nancy was. As she petted the ponies, the sun’s rays caught the shimmer of her dress and it sparkled like magic. I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. I knew without a doubt this had to be the best job anyone ever had. I wanted to hug myself with joy at my good fortune, and hers, of course.
When I called Laura and told her Nancy was in the carriage and ready to get married, she said to send her.
I smiled at Nancy as she straightened her veil and settled herself on the seat. “Good luck! You look beautiful! Like a princess!”
Her father sat tall and proud next to his beloved daughter as her bridesmaids sniffled and waved goodbye. I fought back tears. The carriage driver said to me, “So are we good to go, or is someone going to tell me when?”
I have replayed those words in my head a million times since that day. I am sure that is how he said it. But I would like to say again: IT WAS MY FIRST WEDDING.
It turns out the carriage ride is usually a two-part process. The bride and her father board the carriage, and they are sent to a staging area. A manager from the carriage company waits for them to arrive at the staging area and then goes to a vantage point where he can communicate with Laura at the ceremony site. When the ceremony is under way and it’s time for the bride to arrive, Laura gives a signal to the manager and he motions the carriage driver to pull forward.
