by Ree Drummond
Marlboro Man’s wedding preparations were equally complicated. Not only did he have to prepare for our three-week honeymoon by wrapping up a long list of ranch duties, he also had to finalize the honeymoon plans, which he’d handled entirely himself. He was also making regular trips to my parents’ house, picking up bags and boxes of my belongings and moving them to the house on the ranch that we’d soon share as a newly married couple. It was a small bunkhouse, a little less than a thousand square feet, situated just behind the large yellow brick home we’d begun renovating a few months earlier. Since the little house hadn’t been occupied in over twenty years, we’d spent our spare time over the past several weeks cleaning it from top to bottom, replacing the tile floor, and redoing the tiny bathroom and kitchen so we could move right in after the honeymoon. The house was in a more centralized location on the ranch than the house where Marlboro Man lived when we met, and living there would allow us to closely monitor progress on the main house. Then, when we eventually moved into the main house, we’d have a nice little guesthouse out back—perfect for visiting grandmothers or siblings. Perfect for slumber parties for the kids.
This would be our new homestead—the thousand-square-foot bunkhouse and the larger, half-remodeled two-story home built next to it. The rusty, paint-chipped cattle pens out back. The old, but structurally sound, barn. The overgrown brush. The dead branches in the yard. The place needed work—constant work. It would be up to us to get it back to the way it needed to be.
But it was ours, and I loved it. Not having had any real experiences with a rural lifestyle, I looked at that homestead of ours as a little piece of paradise on earth—a place where Marlboro Man and I would live out our days in romantic, bucolic bliss. Where I’d milk cows every morning in my tiered prairie skirt, like the one I’d bought at The Limited back in 1983. Where the birds would chirp happily and visit me on the kitchen windowsill as I washed dishes. Where the sun would always rise in the east and set in the west. Where nothing disappointing or sad or scary or tragic would ever, ever happen.
At least I was right about the sun.
IT WAS wedding week—to date, the most important week of my life, miles above winning Miss Congeniality in the one and only pageant I ever entered. This would be the week where everything would really change. Gone would be the life I knew. Gone would be golf course living, high-rise apartments, or city lofts. Gone would be parties. And cappuccino. And bookstores. But blinding love made it impossible for me to care.
I’d been reborn since Marlboro Man had entered my life; his wild abandon and unabashed passion had freed me from the shackles of cynicism, from thinking that love had to be something to labor over or agonize about. He’d ridden into my life on a speckled gray horse and had saved my heart from hardness. He’d taught me that when you love someone, you say it—and that when it comes to matters of the heart, games are for pimply sixteen-year-olds.
Up until then that’s all I’d been: a child masquerading as a disillusioned adult, looking at love much as I’d looked at a round of Marco Polo in the pool at the country club: when they swam after me, I’d swim away. And there are accusations of peeking and cheating, and you always wind up sunburned and pruney and pooped. And no one ever wins.
It was Marlboro Man who’d helped me out of the pool, wrapped a towel around my blistering shoulders, and carried me to a world where love has nothing to do with competition or sport or strategy. He told me he loved me when he felt like it, when he thought of it. He never saw any reason not to.
It was wedding week. My mom, happy to grab any opportunity to avoid the strife and stress in her own marriage, occupied herself in the last days by helping me tie up the final loose ends of a country club reception. Betsy came home from college for a whole week so that she and my mom could cut squares of red and blue bandana fabric, fill them with birdseed, and tie them into parcels with twine. They retrieved beautifully wrapped gifts from the local gift shops and helped me open them one by one. And they helped me coordinate gifts for my three bridesmaids, one of whom was my sister, of course, and they kept Mike—who, due to the rush of activity, was well on his way to a manic episode—entertained. They made sure hotel rooms were in place for out-of-town guests. And they did my laundry.
Meanwhile I decided to get a facial. I needed a little pick-me-up. I needed to lie in a dark room away from the doorbell and the telephone and the flowers, away from red bandana squares and twine. Even then, in my midtwenties, I knew when I was in danger of becoming overwhelmed. I knew when I needed to decompress. A treatment room at a day spa had always been the answer.
I scheduled an hour-long exfoliating facial, more for the length of the treatment than the treatment type itself, and I loved every second of it. The aroma of essential oils filled the room, and soft African spiritual music played overhead. With ten minutes remaining, Cindy the Aesthetician whipped out a special bottle of fluid. “Now this,” she said softly, opening the lid of the bottle and reaching for a large cotton swab. “This…is magic.”
“What is it?” I asked, not really caring about the answer as long as I could stay in that chair a little longer. The African music was working for me.
“Oh, it’ll just give you the slightest little healthy glow,” she answered. “People won’t even know what you’ve done, but they’ll ask you why you look so great. Perfect for your wedding week.”
“Ooooh,” I said. “Sounds great!” I settled farther into the comfortably padded vinyl chair.
The cotton swab softly moved across my face, leaving a pleasant coolness behind. It swept over my forehead, down my nose, on the sides of my cheeks, and across my chin. It relaxed me and I melted. And slowly, I began to fall asleep. I considered reupping for another hour.
But then I felt the burning.
“Oooh,” I said, opening my eyes. “Cindy, this doesn’t feel right.”
“Oh, good,” Cindy said, sounding unconcerned. “You’re starting to feel it now?”
Seconds later, I was in severe pain. “Oh, I’m more than feeling it,” I answered, gripping the arms of the chair until my knuckles turned white.
“Well, it should stop here in a second…,” she insisted. “It’s just working its magic—”
My face was melting off. “Ouch! Ow! Seriously, Cindy! Take this stuff off my face! It’s killing me!”
“Oh, dear…okay, okay,” Cindy answered, quickly grabbing a soaked washcloth and quickly wiping the nuclear solution from my skin. Finally, the intense burning began to subside.
“Gosh,” I said, trying to be nice. “I don’t think that’s something I want to try again.” I swallowed hard, trying to will the pain receptors to stop firing.
“Hmmm,” Cindy said, perplexed. “I’m sorry it stung a little. But you’ll love it tomorrow morning when you wake up! Your skin will look so fresh and dewy.”
It better, I thought as I paid Cindy for the torture and left the tiny salon. My face tingled, and not at all in a good way. And as I walked to my car, the floodgates of wedding worry opened once again:
What if my dress doesn’t zip?
What if the band doesn’t show up?
What if the shrimp taste fishy?
I don’t know how to two-step.
How long is the flight to Australia?
Are there tarantulas in the country?
What if there are scorpions in the bed?
The facial had done little to decompress me.
That night, Marlboro Man and I had a date. It was the Thursday night before our wedding, and the rehearsal dinner was the following night. It would be our last night alone together before we’d say I do. I couldn’t wait to see him; it had been two whole days. Forty-eight excruciating hours. I missed him fiercely.
When he arrived on my parents’ doorstep, I opened the door and smiled. He looked gorgeous. Solid. Irresistible.
Grinning, he stepped forward and kissed me. “You look good,” he said softly, stepping back. “You got some sun today.”
I gu
lped, flashing back to the agony of my facial that afternoon and fearing for the future of my face. I should have just stayed home and packed all day.
We went to a movie, Marlboro Man and me, longing for the quiet time in the dark. We couldn’t find it anywhere else—my parents’ house was bustling with people and plans and presents, and Marlboro Man had some visiting cousins staying with him on the ranch. A dim movie theater was our only haven, and we took full advantage of being only one of two couples in the entire place. We reverted back to adolescence, unashamed, cuddling closer and closer as the movie picked up steam. I took it even further, draping my leg over his and resting my hand on his tan bicep. Marlboro Man’s arm reached across my waist as the temperature rose between us. Two days before our wedding, we were making out in a dark, hazy movie theater. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life.
Until Marlboro Man’s whiskers scratched my sensitive face, and I winced in pain.
When we returned to my parents’ house, Marlboro Man walked me to the door, his arm tightly around my waist. “You’d better get some sleep,” he said.
My stomach jumped inside my body. “I know,” I said, stopping and holding him close. “I can’t believe it’s almost here.”
“I’m glad you didn’t move to Chicago,” Marlboro Man whispered, chuckling the soft chuckle that started all this trouble in the first place. I remember being in that same spot, in that same position, the night Marlboro Man had asked me not to go. To stay and give us a chance. I still couldn’t believe we were here.
I went straight upstairs to my bedroom after Marlboro Man and I said good night. I had to finish packing…and I had to tend to my face, which was causing me more discomfort by the minute. I looked in the bathroom mirror; my face was sunburn red. Irritated. Inflamed. Oh no. What had Prison Matron Cindy done to me? What should I do? I washed my face with cool water and a gentle cleaner and looked in the mirror. It was worse. I looked like a freako lobster face. It would be a great match for the cherry red suit I planned to wear to the rehearsal dinner the next night.
But my white dress for Saturday? That was another story.
I slept like a log and woke up early the next morning, opening my eyes and forgetting for a blissful four seconds about the facial trauma I’d endured the day before. I quickly brought my hands to my face; it felt tight and rough. I leaped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, flipping on the light and looking in the mirror to survey the state of my face.
The redness had subsided; I noticed that immediately. This was a good development. Encouraging. But upon closer examination, I could see the beginning stages of pruney lines around my chin and nose. My stomach lurched; it was the day of the rehearsal. It was the day I’d see not just my friends and family who, I was certain, would love me no matter what grotesque skin condition I’d contracted since the last time we saw one another, but also many, many people I’d never met before—ranching neighbors, cousins, business associates, and college friends of Marlboro Man’s. I wasn’t thrilled at the possibility that their first impression of me might be something that involved scales. I wanted to be fresh. Dewy. Resplendent. Not rough and dry and irritated. Not now. Not this weekend.
I examined the damage in the mirror and deduced that the plutonium Cindy the Prison Matron had swabbed on my face the day before had actually been some kind of acid peel. The burn came first. Logic would follow that what my face would want to do next would be to, well, peel. This could be bad. This could be real, real bad. What if I could speed along that process? Maybe if I could feed the beast’s desire to slough, it would leave me alone—at least for the next forty-eight hours.
All I wanted was forty-eight hours. I didn’t think it was too much to ask.
I grabbed my favorite exfoliating facial scrub, the same one I’d used all the way through college. Not quite as abrasive as drugstore-brand apricot scrubs, but grainy enough to get serious and do the trick. It had to be the magic bullet. It had to work. I started by washing my unfortunate face with a mild cleanser, then I squirted a small amount of the scrub on my fingers…and began facilitating the peeling process.
I held my breath. It hurt. My face was in a world of pain.
I scrubbed and scrubbed, wondering why facials even existed in the first place if they involved such torture. I’m a nice person, I thought. I go to church. Why is my skin staging a revolt? The week of a girl’s wedding was supposed to be a happy time. I should have been leaping gleefully around my parents’ house, using a glitter-infused feather duster to sparkle up my wedding gifts, which adorned every flat surface in the house. I should have been eating melon balls and laughing in the kitchen with my mom and sister about how it’s almost here! Don’t you love this Waterford vase? Oooh, the cake is going to be soooooo pretty.
Instead, I was in my bathroom holding my face at gunpoint, forcing it to exfoliate on command.
I rinsed my face and looked in the mirror. The results were encouraging. The pruniness appeared to have subsided; my skin was a little rosy from the robust scrubbing, but at least flakes of dead epidermis weren’t falling from my face like tragic confetti. To ward off any drying, I slathered my face with moisturizing cream. It stung—the effect of the isopropyl alcohol in the cream—but after the agony of the day before, I could take it. When it came to my facial nerve endings, I’d been toughened to a whole new level of pain.
THE NEXT DAY, I started getting dressed at three for the rehearsal. The beautiful cherry red suit had black stitching, and I had taken the skirt to a seamstress to have it shortened to a sexy upper-midthigh length—an unfortunate habit I’d picked up while watching too much Knots Landing in the late 1980s. I was relatively slender and not the least bit stacked on top, and my bottom was somewhat fit but wildly unremarkable. If I was going to highlight any feature of my anatomy, it would have to be my legs.
When I arrived at the rehearsal at the church, my grandmother kissed me, then looked down and said, “Did you forget the other half of your suit?”
The seamstress had gotten a little overzealous.
Friends and family arrived at the church: Becky and Connell, my two lifelong friends and bridesmaids. Marlboro Man’s cousins and college friends. And Mike. My dear brother Mike, who hugged everyone who entered the church, from the little old ladies to the strapping former college football players. And just as I was greeting my Uncle John, I saw Mike go in for the kill as Tony, Marlboro Man’s good college friend, entered the door.
“Wh-wh-wh-what is you name?” Mike’s thundering voice echoed through the church.
“Hi, I’m Tony,” Marlboro Man’s friend said, extending his hand.
“It’s n-n-n-nice to meet you, Tony,” Mike shouted back, not letting go of Tony’s hand.
“Nice to meet you too, Mike,” Tony said, likely wondering when he would get his hand back.
“You so handsome,” Mike said.
Oh, Lord. Please, no, I thought.
“Why…thank you, Mike,” Tony replied, smiling uncomfortably. If it hadn’t been my wedding rehearsal, I might have popped some popcorn, sat back, and enjoyed the show. But I just couldn’t watch. Mike’s affection had never been any respecter of persons.
The wedding rehearsal itself was uneventful until Father Johnson decided it was time to show Marlboro Man and me the proper way to walk to the marriage altar. Evidently, all of Father Johnson’s theological studies and work was destined to culminate in whether or not Marlboro Man and I approached the altar in the perfectly correct and proper way, because he was intent on driving the point home.
“At this point,” Father Johnson instructed, “you’ll start to turn and Ree will take your arm.” He lightly pushed Marlboro Man in the proper direction, and the two of us began walking forward.
“Nope, nope, nope,” Father Johnson said authoritatively. “Come back, come back.”
Marlboro Man’s college friends snickered.
“Oh…what did we do wrong?” I asked Father Johnson humbly. Maybe he’d discovered the truth
about the collages.
He showed us again. Marlboro Man was to turn and begin walking, then wait for me briefly. Then, as I took his arm, he was to lead me to the altar.
Wait. Wasn’t that what we just did?
We tried again, and Father Johnson corrected us…again. “Nope, nope, nope,” he said, pulling us both by the arm until we were back in our starting position. Marlboro Man’s friends chuckled. My stomach growled. And Marlboro Man kept quietly restrained, despite the fact that he was being repeatedly corrected by his fiancée’s interim minister for something that arguably wasn’t all that relevant to the commitment we were making to spend the rest of our lives together.
We went through no fewer than seven more takes, and with each redo I began to realize that this was Father Johnson’s final test for us. Forget the collage assignment—that was small potatoes. Whether we could keep our cool and take instruction when a nice steak dinner and drinks awaited us at the country club was Father Johnson’s real decider of whether or not Marlboro Man and I were mature, composed, and levelheaded enough to proceed with the wedding. And while I knew Marlboro Man would grit his teeth and bear it, I wasn’t entirely sure I could.
But I didn’t have to. On the beginning of the eighth run, just after Father Johnson gave us another “Nope. You’re not getting it right, kids…” Mike’s loud voice echoed throughout the wood-and-marble sanctuary.
“Oh, c-c-c-c-come on, Father Johnson!”
The chuckles turned into laughter. And out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony giving Mike a subtle high five.
Thank goodness for Mike. He was hungry. He wanted to get on to the party.
WE FINALLY adjourned to the country club for the elegant rehearsal dinner hosted by Marlboro Man’s parents. It was a large gathering of every close friend and family member in both of our lives. The sit-down dinner was filled with choruses of laughter and clinking of glasses…and my brother Doug calling my future mother-in-law “Ann” repeatedly.
