The Less Than Perfect Wedding

by Sam Westland

  "What?" I asked, bewildered.

  "So, I went to Alex's bachelor party first," Susan reiterated. "I mean, his started earlier, but I figured that it would be a good idea to test him. His was a lot crazier than this, by the way."

  "Test him?" I repeated, confused.

  "Wait, how is his crazier?" Claire cut in, her tone surprisingly angry. "We're not done with ours yet! I have more stuff planned that will make the night crazier!"

  Susan shook her head. "Not like this, trust me," she said. "I mean, I don't know who planned all of Alex's, but he was just all-out. They were at a strip club, and they had a VIP table in a private booth and everything."

  "What?" I gasped, a hint of anger entering my voice. If there was one thing that I had tried to make abundantly clear to Alex, it was that I hated the idea of strippers! Even when we had jokingly discussed the idea of him having a bachelor party, I had explicitly, expressly forbidden him from having any strippers make an appearance. It might have been a little crazily jealous of me, but I felt that a stripper was only one small moral slide away from a hooker, and that would mean the end of the marriage, even before it had truly begun.

  "Yeah, it was insane," Susan went on. "I mean, this place was a pretty dark club, with all the lights those crazy colors that don't actually help you see anything except for flashes of skin and such. Basically, wherever you put your hands, there was naked skin. And one of Alex's friends kept on tossing handfuls of dollar bills up into the air, which made things even crazier because all the strippers were trying to get into our booth to get at that money.

  "Anyway, you know in those stories when the younger sister offers to sleep with the groom-to-be before his wedding day, just to make sure that he's going to be faithful?" Susan continued. I felt a pit open up in my stomach at this. "I decided that it would be a good idea to do the same thing to Alex, to make sure that he wouldn't cheat on you. Not like-" Susan cut off abruptly, but her eyes shot sideways towards my mom and Blossom, leaving no question about whom she might be referring.

  "So I grabbed Alex's hand, and I pulled him up, towards one of the back rooms," Susan went on. At this point, Claire and Judy on either side of me were starting to get an idea of where this story was heading, and they were both starting to make shushing noises, but Susan resolutely kept talking, pausing only to gulp down the third shot that she had sitting in front of her. "We found this room that was dark and deserted, and I pressed him up against the wall and asked him what he wanted his bride's little sister to do. Well, he immediately started pushing me down, and next thing I knew, I was down on my knees, and his pants were around his ankles."

  "Oh no," came several gasps from the table - Claire, Judy, and surprisingly, Blossom as well.

  Claire went further. "You didn't do it, did you?" she inquired, leaning forward with a rather threatening glint in her eyes.

  "Well, his pants were already off! I couldn't very well back out at that point, could I?" Susan retorted. She gulped down her last shot. "God, I have to say, though, your fiance could do with a bit more showering and a little less body spray. He reeked like that Axe crap. Or maybe that was just from all the strippers grinding on top of him beforehand. Really, not one of my best experiences, I'll say that." She looked back up, and realized that she was talking to me. "Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry."

  The Bachelor(ette) Parties, Part II

  *

  All of my blood seemed to be rushing to my cheeks - I could feel them flaming red, and I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. "Please, no," I managed to get out, my voice sounding as though it was coming from someone else.

  Across the table, looking rather bored and not at all sympathetic, my sister shrugged. "Just figured that I should be the better person, and come and let you know," she commented, and then tossed back her final drink. "All out," she announced, and stood up and headed back towards the bar before I could collect my thoughts enough to say anything more.

  On either side of me, Claire and Judy were wearing nearly identical expressions of horror, although Judy looked sadder about this news, while I could tell that Claire was visibly fighting the urge to make a run for the bar and wrap her hands around my sister's neck. Even on the other side of the table, my mother looked slightly taken aback by this new revelation.

  I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, but even before they could emerge, Blossom, on the other side of the table, burst into loud sobs. "Oh no, Danielle, I'm so sorry!" she cried, throwing her hands wide and lunging across the table at me. Before I could react, I found myself immersed in a tight hug, and Claire was forced to intervene a second time that night to save my drink from being knocked off the table.

  "Blossom... please..." I choked out, frantically patting her on the back and hoping that she would let go before I passed out. The woman's face was buried in my neck, and I could feel her tears soaking my neck and trickling down my back. She smelled vaguely floral, a bit like I had fallen face first into an herb garden.

  Finally, the woman relented, and I was able to pull in another breath. Of course, now that I could breathe again, I could also think about how my sister had just told me that my fiance had cheated on me, and the tears came rushing back. I reached up and covered my eyes, trying to hold them back, but it was futile. "Let me out," I gasped out to Claire, blocking my escape from the booth.

  Claire obliged, sliding out of the booth and letting me follow her. As soon as I was on my feet, I sprinted for the bathroom. Inside, I put both hands on the counter and, hair falling all around my head and shielding my view of the rest of the bathroom. I sobbed loudly, my crying echoing in the bathroom as the tears poured down my cheeks and fell into the sink below me.

  A minute later, I heard the bathroom door open again, but I couldn't tell who had entered, unable to see through the dual barriers of hair and tears. "Oh, Danielle, I'm so sorry," came Claire's voice a moment later, as her hand rubbed my shoulder with a gentle touch.

  "Actually," she continued a moment later, "I'm not even sad right now. I don't have any room in my head to be sad; it's all filled up with anger! Argh, when I next see Alex, I'm going to kill him! I'm going to literally grab his neck between my hands, tighten my grip, and squeeze until he's dead!" I heard her fiddling with something, probably her phone. "In fact, I'm calling him right now to lure him over here so I can jump him!"

  "Claire, no-" I choked out through sobs, but when I turned and pushed some of my hair haphazardly out of my face, she already had the phone to her ear.

  "Shush, it's ringing," she told me, pushing a button and setting it down on the counter. "It's on speaker."

  A moment later, there was a click from the phone's speaker, and then Alex's voice came out, also echoing slightly in the bar's bathroom. "Ugh. Hello?" he said, his voice pained and raspy.

  "Alex, you sick scumbag, how dare you do this?" Claire immediately yelled out, down at the phone. "How dare you do this to Danielle!? She's devoted her whole life to you, and now you've gone and thrown it all away! And next time I see you, I'm going to make sure you pay for it!"

  "Whoa, whoa, not so loud, please," Alex moaned. "What in the world are you talking about?"

  I finally managed to find my voice again. "Alex, why?" I managed to say. "Why would you throw all of this, everything that we had, away?"

  Another groan came from the other end of the line. "Is this another part of the bachelor party?" Alex asked. "Some sort of trial, or trying to psych me out? Because after how this night's gone so far, it really wouldn't make things much worse."

  Something wasn't quite right. Claire, on the other hand, wasn't letting up yet. "And with her damn sister!?" she shouted, her face literally inches from the phone's speaker.

  "Who, Susan?" said Alex. He sounded generally confused. "Did she get into some sort of trouble? I don't remember seeing her since..." he trailed off for a minute. "Oh, now I remember. She was dragging Danny off to the back room of the strip club." He cut off abruptly, and then resumed. He sou
nded exhausted. "Um, honey, sorry, but the guys dragged me out to a strip club. It wasn't my idea, honestly. I took the first opportunity to head home, so that maybe I can try and drink some water, get an early recovery from the night. God, my head hurts."

  "Danny," I echoed. In my chest, I suddenly felt a tiny flutter of hope, blooming amid the tears and sadness. Could it be that this whole thing was just an entire, confused mess?

  *

  Claire's face was still red and furious, and I could see her sucking in a fresh breath to let loose yet another torrent of anger onto Alex. I reached out, however, fumbling around, and managed to put my hand on her arm to forestall her. She looked at me, obviously unsure of my judgment call, but she held her tongue.

  "Alex, what do you mean that you last saw my sister with Danny?" I asked, holding my breath as I waited for a response. I moved my head down so that my ear was right next to the speaker, straining to try and hear any note of untruth in my fiance's voice.

  "Ugh. Um, we were all sitting in this booth at the strip club," Alex recounted. "I have to say, I would have rather skipped the whole experience. Remember your new half-brother, Bryan? Well, I had the chance to finally talk with him tonight, when he asked me to pay for his lap dance. And then I got to meet him four more times tonight, and each time he asked if I could "help a buddy out." I'm pretty sure he owes me a couple hundred dollars.

  "And your sister was sitting on the other side of me," he continued, "and she kept trying to get my attention, but I was busy paying off all the girls that Bryan kept on waving over. So when I eventually have a free minute, I turn and look, and she's sitting on my younger brother's lap. I only knew it wasn't a stripper because she had on slightly more clothing than the other girls." He paused after this comment, reconsidering. "Sorry, honey. I tried to keep my eyes up, but, well, you know. Anyway, I look back a few minutes later, and she's got one hand on Danny's shirt collar and is tugging him off towards the back of the club. Danny showed up when I finally managed to convince the rest of the guys that it was time to leave, but I never saw your sister again."

  My mouth was opening and shutting, but no sound was coming out. Astoundingly, hope was now in full bloom inside my chest. I had nothing but Alex's word to rely on, no confirmation that he wasn't lying, but I knew him, and I knew my sister.

  "Danielle? Are you okay? Either I'm still drunker than I thought, or this is a kind of weird call," Alex commented, still oblivious as to what we suspected.

  I reached forward, picking the phone up from the bathroom counter and taking it off speaker as I raised it to my ear. "Yeah, I'm fine," I finally said. "Alex? I love you."

  "Love you too," he replied, the words flowing out without a second thought, little more than instinct. There was no hesitancy, no uncertainty; Alex always seemed to speak with conviction. I hoped that he really meant what he was saying. "I'll see you tomorrow. Right now, I need to get to bed, before I fall over on the floor right here." With a click, my fiance disconnected.

  I lowered the phone. Claire was staring at my face, and for a long minute after Alex had hung up, the two of us simply gazed at each other. "I believe him," I said simply, smiling ever so slightly through my tears. The smile grew, expanding until I was grinning at my best friend like a banshee, still wiping errant tears from my eyes where they clung. "I do!"

  Claire stepped forward, one of her hands lifting up to help wipe one of the long trails of salty water from my face. "You know, I think I do, too," she said, her voice considering as she weighed the options. A moment later, however, her face tightened as she turned and glared at the door leading out to the bar. "I think I might honestly kill Susan." Her hands twitched in the air, tightening around an invisible neck.

  I held up my hand to forestall her. While I was tempted to let her run out and attack, as I knew that my loyal friend would do, I also realized that my sister's death would force me to completely redo my seating charts at the wedding - plus, I'd be down a bridesmaid.

  "Different plan," I said instead, a new idea slowly swimming its way up into my brain through the Long Islands in my stomach. "Follow my lead." Tucking the phone away, I made my way back out into the bar, Claire hot on my heels.

  *

  Out in the bar, I quickly spotted my sister - she was at the bar, draped across the lap of one guy as she leaned back across a stool. Another man was currently slamming down the shot in his hand; a moment later, he leaned in, locking lips with Susan as he pulled the lemon wedge from her mouth.

  Beside me, Claire's lip curled in revulsion. "God, she just throws herself at anything that moves," she commented, her expression so angry that she looked as if she was about to breathe flames.

  "I don't think that she's drunk enough for this," I replied.

  "Drunk enough? I don't think that anyone is drunk enough to be this much of a slut."

  "I don't think she's drunk enough for this... yet," I repeated, this time with added emphasis.

  Finally, Claire caught on, and we headed over to join my devious little sister at the bar. As we approached, Claire put up her hand, waving to catch the bartender's attention. "Shots!" she called out, landing heavily on the bar next to my sister, and incidentally knocking the man standing next to her back and away as Claire took his place. "Shots for this young lady!"

  My sister turned to stare down Claire as I made my way closer to the bar on her other side, nodding noncommittally to the man on whose lap Susan was perched. "Why are you buying me drinks?" she slurred, her alcohol-soaked brain still somehow able to muster up suspicion. "You hate me. You never take my side."

  "That's because you're always-" Claire cut off what she was saying, gritting her teeth into a forced smile. Fortunately, my sister didn't seem to notice this accidental slip-up. "We realized that you're the hero of the hour," Claire said instead, pasting an obviously fake smile across her features. "You showed that Danielle's fiance was being unfaithful, through your rigorous testing method, and we should be thanking you for it!"

  Just as we had known, Susan completely overlooked the sarcasm, preferring instead to believe that we were truly praising her, as I'm sure she felt that she deserved. "Well, I'm just looking out for my sister, you know," she managed to get out, her voice sounding as though her mouth was filled with cotton balls. "Gotta take the burden of looking out for everyone else."

  I felt my hands tighten into fists as I listened to my sister spew these blatant lies, but I forced my anger down, keeping it in the roiling pit of my stomach. The bartender had arrived with the shots Claire had ordered, and Susan needed no more urging. Before the bartender had even turned away, the glasses in front of her were empty, Susan gulping down the last one with a smile. Claire, also smiling but for an entirely different reason, waved her hand at the bartender for refills.

  Even I was surprised by how easy it was to get Susan filled up with bottom-shelf liquor. She gulped down four more drinks with no physical reaction, and I decided that we had better stop before we killed her from alcohol poisoning. "Suzy, can we have a word with you quick?" I broke in, grabbing her arm and gently but firmly tugging her away from the man she was using as an ersatz chair.

  For a moment, my sister looked sad to be abandoning her grabby, handsy seat, but the expression was quickly replaced by one of drunken complacence. She slid down from the high chair and, wobbling slightly, followed Claire and me to the back corner of the bar.

  As we moved into a relatively people-free zone, I tried to think of a good tactic for revenge. Admittedly, I hadn't planned past getting my sister completely smashed, and that part of the plan had gone much more easily than I had anticipated. Claire, on the other hand, was pulling out her phone from her pocket, and the grin now spreading across her face looked decidedly more sinister. She definitely had an idea.

  "Listen, Susan, it's good that we had you to hit on Alex - you're obviously the most attractive person in the wedding party, wouldn't you say?" Claire began, keeping a soothing smile on her face as she gazed at Susan. When my sis
ter looked away for a second, however, she shot me a blatant wink.

  "Well, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings," my sister began. For a moment, I felt a little bad. Was she, even when blackout drunk, going to actually say the right thing? "But yeah, I'm definitely prettier than anyone else. For sure." My sympathy vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  "Right," Claire agreed. "And that's why you were able to show that Alex was unfaithful. But I think that you need to prove it - especially now, since all of the other members of the bride's party are here."

  Susan tilted her head towards Claire, her face looking as though Claire had just tried to teach her calculus. "How do I do that?"

  Claire ran her eyes down over my sister's slutty, low-cut outfit. Her scoop-neck shirt was showing off just about everything that Susan had to display, and if her jeans were any tighter, they would be cutting off all circulation to her legs. "See, you need to show that it isn't just the clothes," she pointed out. "And the best way to do that would probably be to go in the bathroom, take everything off, and then come running out to our table naked to show us all that you're the hottest!"

  "That's..." my sister began, but then stopped. I tried to muffle my gasp. Egotistical as she was, there was no way that my sister would go for something so embarrassing, so crazy!

  "...that's the best idea ever!" my sister finished!

  Claire didn't give her any more time to reconsider, but immediately shoved her off towards the women's restroom. "Perfect! I'll make sure that everyone stays at the table!" she shouted out over Susan's shoulder as my sister stumbled off.

  I stared at my best friend as she tugged me back towards our table, where Judy was still attempting to maintain an uneasy peace between my mother and Blossom, mainly by trying to distract my mother from attacking Blossom as she rambled on about other things that Rick liked to do. I tugged at Judy's arm as Claire and I slid back into the booth. "What happened?" I asked. "They were getting along so well when I got up?"