The People We Hate at the Wedding

by Grant Ginder

  And then, an hour later, there she was: knocking Minty over as she toppled out of her tree pose.

  No one said anything—this was England, after all—and really, they didn’t need to. Once class had finished, and the women had showered and changed and settled down with tall glasses of beet juice, Alice intercepted enough clandestine glances to provide her with at least a year’s worth of humiliation. At first she thought she was being paranoid. After she mentioned that she was staying at Claridge’s, and she caught Henny raising an eyebrow at Minty, she tried telling herself that she was being overly sensitive and childish; that she was acting like she did during freshman volleyball, whenever she missed a strike and Chrissy Sherman laughed at her. But the looks kept coming. Minty winking at Henny; Henny gently nudging Flossie in the ribs; Eloise staring into the purple mess in her glass, doing her best to feign ignorance. Soon, Alice found her paranoia aligning a little too perfectly with reality.

  When they had finished their juices, a receptionist from the studio announced that a town car was outside waiting to take them to the spa, whenever they were ready.

  “We’ve arranged for a bottle of prosecco to be waiting for you in the backseat,” she said.

  Minty thanked her, and everyone stood.

  “Is this when we put on penis hats and slip dollar bills into a stripper’s G-string?”

  Alice looked around: no one was laughing. Instead, each of the women offered her own peculiar version of a pained smile and filed out toward the car.

  “Strippers and penis hats? Honestly, Alice,” Eloise said, when they were the only two left in the room. “Sometimes it’s like you’ve made it your mission in life to embarrass me.”

  That had stung, so much so that Alice was inclined to strike back, but she stopped herself. And looking back now, as she chews and swallows her cucumber, she’s glad that she exercised some restraint. Because if she had lashed out in retaliation—if she had, for instance, told Eloise that her friends were farces of fucking people with made-up fucking names—well, where would that have gotten her? She’d be left wallowing in a hole of her own making, a hole that she’d spend the next twelve hours trying to climb out of.

  * * *

  Lunch is prix fixe in a private room at the Ledbury, and when it’s finished Alice is still starving. The portions weren’t exactly small in size (though a confit leg of pigeon hardly inspires delusions of decadence), and there were five of them—six, even, if you count the petit fours the waiter brought out at the end. Still, very early on it became apparent to Alice that this would be a lunch of picking, as opposed to eating. Salads of almonds and green beans and peaches were dissected and rearranged, the ingredients lined up and scattered. The same went for the salmon in tomato butter, and the pork jowl with fennel and mousserons. When the baked meringue graced the table, Alice didn’t even bother to lift a fork.

  For all their aversion to solid food, though, none of the women seem to take issue with the prosecco. Since she climbed into the shotgun seat of the town car that brought them to the restaurant (there was no more room in the back), Alice’s glass, along with everyone else’s, has hovered somewhere between half full and spilling over. Initially, she was relieved by the addition of booze. In the disastrous aftermath of yoga she feared that the rest of the afternoon would be dry, and characterized by the sort of responsible and health-conscious activities that she’s spent much of the past decade avoiding. After her third glass, though, she began to grow nervous. She’d already screwed up once with that stripper comment, and all she’d had to drink at that point was a glass of blended beets. Who knew how badly she’d blow it after the fifth, sixth, seventh glass?

  “You can’t possibly claim that she’s got an ounce of taste,” Minty says. “For God’s sake, did you see what she wore two weekends ago at Goodwood?”

  “It’s easier than one might think to make that sort of mistake with mauve.” Henny leans back in her chair and drapes a long, bare arm over the back of the empty chair next to her. Of the three of them, Alice finds her to be the most intimidating. She’s not the most talkative of the group, but when she speaks, it’s with a bored, lazy authority. Reaching up, she unfastens the pin that’s been holding her bun together, and dark hair tumbles well past her shoulders. “Besides, babe, if we’re working off the proposition that a single case of erroneous judgment in selecting a sundress confines one to a lifetime of bad taste, you would’ve been a goner in the fourth form.”

  Flossie leans forward. “Remember that terrible plaid number, Mint? The skirt with those awful green tights?”

  “It was before my growth spurt.” Minty clinks her wedding ring against the stem of her glass. “It was more than the mauve, Henny, and you know it. That hat she was wearing with it looked like an omelet. A big, bloody omelet.”

  Henny runs her fingers through her hair and cranes back her long neck.

  “You’re just cross that Simon ended up with Lucinda, instead of you.”

  “UM, I BEG YOUR PARDON, DO I LOOK CROSS?”

  Alice glances over at Minty, who is presently flipping her left ring finger at Henny. At its base, pinched up against Minty’s sizable knuckle, is one of the bigger diamonds that Alice has ever seen.

  “I can’t travel with it, you know,” Minty says, cocking her head and gazing at the gem. “Last year Thomas took me to Tulum. Not for any special occasion, really—just because. In any event, I had to leave it in a safe at Coutts. Anyway, Lucinda’s got a face like a feral cat. And she’s from Nottingham.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Minty.” Henny holds her champagne coupe by its wide bowl, instead of its stem. “Please try not to be such a terrible bore.”

  “I hardly see what’s boring about Tulum.”

  Alice doesn’t know what to say, though she’s sure she should say something. The only comments she’s had to offer so far have been bland critiques of the food that’s been served—food that none of them have actually eaten. Every time she’s on the verge of saying something else, though, of putting her neck out and contributing, she stops herself. She worries that whatever it is she’s thought of to say might stop all conversation dead in its track.

  Still, despite her better judgment, she says, “Tulum’s the best,” and everyone stares at her.

  “You’ve been?” Minty asks, and Alice tries not to be too hurt by the incredulity in her voice.

  “A few times, yeah. I … I lived in Mexico City for a few years, actually.”

  “Fascinating. Simon loves D.F.” Minty looks around for the bottle of prosecco. “Why’d you leave?”

  Alice reaches down and begins picking at a loose thread on her napkin. She can feel her face turning red. “Uh, well—”

  “She just missed me too much,” Eloise says. Beneath the table she reaches over and squeezes Alice’s leg.

  “Anyway, Mint,” her sister says, “what were you saying about Simon?”

  “Oh, just that he doesn’t need reasons to take me on holiday.”

  Flossie groans. “What are you going to tell us next? That he whisked you off to Lapland for Christmas, and that’s the reason you sleep with him? Because he flew you Club Europe to meet the real Father Christmas? It’s just all so terribly pedestrian.”

  “Simon only flies first.” Minty adjusts her ring and purses her lips. She’s near to a retort—Alice can tell—but Eloise stops her.

  “It’s a lovely ring,” she says. “And Lapland is gorgeous in December. So,” she continues, trying to diffuse whatever tension remains, “who’s going to Tilly’s shoot the first weekend in September?”

  “I suppose I am,” Flossie says. “Though the Cotswolds can be so tedious.”

  Eloise shifts her chair so she’s facing Alice. “You’d love a shoot. They’re fun.”

  Alice smiles. “Is Tilly the name of the model?”

  There’s a brief moment when the women do their best to be polite, but it fades quickly, and just as quickly they dissolve into laughter. Alice feels her nostrils flare. Looki
ng down, she sees herself, distorted, in the reflection of her knife.

  “That’s positively adorable,” Henny says. Leaning forward and speaking softly, she explains, “No, darling, it’s not a fashion shoot. It’s a proper shoot.”

  She pantomimes holding a rifle, and Flossie about falls from her chair to the floor.

  On the other side of the table she can see Eloise shift in her seat, uncomfortable, wanting to save her again. Alice prays that she doesn’t. She prays that Eloise just lets them laugh.

  “It makes perfect sense that she’d think it’s about models,” Eloise says. “Alice is a big player in Los Angeles.” She smiles. “She works at one of the most important big data companies out there. Last year Forbes ranked them as one of the most innovative firms to watch in the United States.”

  “Oh?” Henny lifts an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Alice says. “I do.”

  Minty tucks her blond hair behind her ears and tops off her glass. “I went to Los Angeles once. Dreadful place unless you like the beach, which I find to be absolutely awful. All that water.” She takes a sip and smiles at Alice. “I hear plenty of people find it positively lovely, though.”

  “Well, I—”

  Eloise interrupts her. “Hopefully she won’t be there for too much longer, though.” She winks at Alice.

  “Oh?” Minty says. “Considering a move?”

  Again, Eloise answers for her. “We’re hoping she’ll agree to come to London. Ollie knows of a new job in town that’s absolutely perfect for her.”

  Alice stares at her sister. This morning, when Eloise first told her about Ollie’s proposal, Alice—with as much grace as she could muster—quickly declined the offer. Eloise had stared at her, confused, as if Alice had suddenly sprouted a second head.

  “But why?” she’d asked.

  “Because I like Los Angeles. Because I’m just starting to thrive there,” Alice had responded.

  “Will you at least consider it?”

  “Sure.” Alice blinked, and counted two breaths. “There, I considered it.”

  “Alice.”

  “Look, I like where I’m at, all right? So … thanks, but no thanks.”

  She knew it was pointless. For starters, she could never explain her relationship with Jonathan to her sister. The real problem, though, ran much deeper than that: Eloise couldn’t comprehend Alice’s life, which bore such little resemblance to her own.

  Minty tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “How thrilling! What’s the job?”

  “Some film thing,” Alice mumbles.

  “Oh come on, Alice.” Eloise pours herself some more prosecco. “It’s not just some film thing. It’s a distributive analytics job for a new production company that one of Ollie’s classmates from Sherborne has started. Xavier Wolfson’s his name. Using data from old box office receipts to decide which foreign markets might respond best to his films, and then going out and selling them to those distributors. I bet you’d get to travel to the most fascinating places.”

  Henny adds, “Side note: I know Xavier Wolfson and he is fucking fit.”

  “Anyway, it would be perfect for Alice, what with her experience in big data. Also, she’s worked in film before. In Mexico City. And she studied it at UCLA. Her thesis on misogyny in Latin American cinema almost won the undergraduate prize for her major. She’s brilliant.”

  Flossie reaches across the table for the bottle of prosecco and knocks over a glass of water, which no one moves to clean up. She refills her coupe and sips a scrim of foam off the top.

  “I like my current job,” Alice says. She wishes she could crawl beneath the table. Find some crack in the floor and disappear.

  “Crunching numbers in front of a screen all day? Alice. Come on. In any event, here’s to my sister—” Eloise raises her glass. “And the possibilities that might await her.”

  The women clink their glasses, and Alice excuses herself from the table.

  In the restaurant’s bathroom she checks to make sure she’s alone before she splashes cool water on her face and dries her hands on a cotton towel. What the fuck does Eloise know? she thinks. So maybe working in big data isn’t the life she’d always imagined for herself, but look where it’s led her: to Jonathan, to something approximating love, to the possibility of escaping the entrapping loneliness that’s defined her life since she left Mexico City. Her sister thinks that she’s saving her, that she’s rescuing Alice from a life that she deems unworthy. She’s reminded of the dress Eloise sent her years ago, for her junior prom, and how furious she’d become upon opening the package, and trying on the dress, and seeing how perfectly it had fit her. She remembers wanting to throw both her fists through the mirror; instead, she cut the gown’s thin, expensive straps and sent it back to New Haven in the same box.

  “It’s the same fucking thing,” Alice says to herself, and her voice echoes. Eloise the Angel, Eloise the Divine, Eloise the Saint, sweeping in to save a life that doesn’t need saving. Sweeping in to remind Alice just how much more capable she’s always been.

  She wonders how long she can stay here before they start to notice that she’s gone. Alas, she’s hardly shut off the faucet before Eloise comes in and locks the door behind her.

  “Alice—”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Do what? Talk about how nice it was for Ollie to think of you for this job?” Eloise leans against the sink. “Alice, you’re good at film. You like working with film. You should at least talk to Xavier about the job.” She adds, “It’s like you’re punishing yourself for what happened in Mexico by chaining yourself to some awful job that you could give two shits about.”

  “I happen to like what I’ve got going in L.A.,” Alice says. “You made me look like a goddamned idiot out there.”

  “I’m sorry if I don’t believe you.” Eloise looks down at her fingernails. “Alice, why can’t you accept that I’m just trying to look out for you? That I’m just trying to help?”

  “Well, stop. Okay? Just stop.” Alice tosses the towel into a woven basket. “Because you’re ruining my fucking life.”

  “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “Oh, stop acting so surprised.”

  Someone tries to open the bathroom door, rattling it a few times on its hinges.

  Eloise pushes herself away from the sink. “I can’t win with you, Alice. Do you know that? I can’t ever win. I try, and I fail. I try, and I fail.”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “You know what? Fine. Just … fine. You can go to hell.”

  The rattling against the door continues, punctuated with brief, nervous knocks.

  “You don’t get it,” Alice says. “You just don’t fucking get it.”

  “You’re right,” Eloise says, throwing up her hands and heading for the door. “I don’t. Unfortunately, though, I’m starting to suspect you’re the only one who does.”

  * * *

  Minty flicks the butt of her cigarette into Regent’s Canal, and Alice watches as the thing bobs in the gray-green water. Two hours ago, she wouldn’t have pegged any of these women as smokers—now, though, it’s a rarity to see any of them without a cigarette, save her sister, who Alice knows wouldn’t be caught dead with one. In some respects, it makes her feel better, seeing them let their hair down, seeing them act uncouth. At the restaurant, she had a minor panic attack deciding what fork she should use to eat her salmon, but now here’s Minty, nearly stumbling over the railing of the long, skinny barge that they’ve rented—a barge that’s meant to comfortably host twelve people, but that obviously isn’t big enough for the five bitches currently patrolling its decks.

  They boarded the boat in Little Venice, just east of Paddington Basin. From there they floated through Maida Vale, past the neighborhood’s hodgepodge of old Edwardians and Victorians, aligned like hordes of sleepy, constipated sentinels. Each side of the canal is lined with trees whose leaves blend together to form a canopy that’s not q
uite thick enough to provide shade; when they emerge from the Lisson Grove Tunnel, an errant branch nearly smacks Alice in the face. As they inch along, Minty lights a fresh cigarette and Alice watches commuters ride their Boris Bikes along the paths that rib the canal. They mostly look absurd, with their knobby knees jutting outward in sharp, uncoordinated angles. While the barge is waiting to pass through the Hampstead Road Lock, Flossie complains about having to spend an intolerable amount of time in Camden (“anything longer than a cigarette”), and Alice finds herself suddenly missing Los Angeles. She’d trade anything, she thinks, to be stuck in traffic on the 405, or waiting in line behind some Beverly Hills housewife at Gelson’s. Anything to be back in a world that’s filled with things that she knows how to hate.

  She considers calling Jonathan. It’s been two days since they’ve spoken (she tried phoning him yesterday—twice—but each time her call went to voice mail) and right now, especially right now, she thinks that she’d give about anything just to hear his voice. But then, what would she say to him? That Eloise is trying to get her to move to London? That she suspects her half sister’s actions are as guided by her own selfish generosity as they are by guilt over not having been there five years ago, when Alice lost her child in Mexico and she needed Eloise the most? That all these awful details about her past she suddenly wants Jonathan to know? Wants to tell him how when the doctors removed her little girl and the baby didn’t cry—didn’t blink, or breathe, or grasp at the world—Alice convinced herself she was just sleeping, and that any moment she’d wake up? That she’s currently sitting in some backwater channel of London, watching grown women—women who’ve mastered the art of making her feel small—flick cigarettes at feeding ducks?

  The barge glides under the Kentish Town Bridge. A breeze robs a nearby cherry tree of its blossoms. Alice won’t call Jonathan, she decides. He’ll call her back—she knows he will—and she’ll tell him everything then.

  “Alice.”