by Sam Westland
It must have been clear that all of these instructions were blending together in my mind. Sally reached out and patted my arm. "Don't worry, I'll be by your side to let you know what to do next," she comforted me. "Just follow the instructions and everything will be fine." I fervently hoped so.
Sally, Alex and I made our way out of the church, the three of us all blinking as we emerged into the bright sunlight outside. Alex still looked quite angry, more so than I had ever seen before. To be honest, it scared me a little. Was all this craziness finally starting to be too much for him?
We were all headed off to different places; Sally had to go check on the many plans that she was juggling in the air, Alex had a lunch with his groomsmen for some reason, and I was taking my car back to the apartment to lay out my clothes for the next day, pack up anything that I might possibly need on the morning of my wedding so that it would be close at hand, and try not to think of all the different ways that this could go wrong.
As I got into the car, however, my thoughts were on my husband-to-be, hopefully. I could count on one hand the number of times he had raised his voice in anger. These fits of rage had never been directed towards me, and I was certain that, if I was in his situation, I would have reached my breaking point far sooner. Still, I felt worried, nervous about that anger, always there but usually hidden so far below the surface.
The Wedding, Part I
*
The morning of my wedding was the brightest part of the day.
The alarm went off early, at just after five in the morning, but I couldn't even muster the energy to reach over and turn it off. It's my wedding day, I thought to myself, but even this didn't fill me with happiness. All I felt was dread, and an overwhelming temptation to merely lay in bed, in the comfort and warmth of my blankets, and let the whole day pass me by. Maybe I could try again in a year. Or maybe Alex and I could just run off to Vegas one of these days and elope. That would be so much easier, and I wouldn't have to deal with writing thank you notes.
Something nudged aside the sheets covering my face, however. I felt warm wetness gently press against my cheek. "Rise and shine, honey," Alex murmured, kissing me again. "We're getting married today, and you have to get ready. Time to wake up - you're going to be my wife!"
I groaned, reaching out and swatting ineffectually at my man's muscled chest. "Can't you just do all of it?" I asked. "You could totally play both parts."
"I am amazing, but not quite that amazing," Alex acknowledged. "I can do many things, but I cannot play both parts in a wedding. I need you for that. Otherwise, I'd totally just do it all so this stupid thing could be over!" I briefly frowned at that comment, but then he started kissing me again, his stubble tickling my neck and cheeks.
Finally, with a laugh, I pushed him away and sat up, the covers falling away from my chest and exposing me to the cool air of our bedroom. "Ugh," I groaned. "I have to get up, go get my hair done, makeup applied, get into my dress, and then have all of my bridesmaids fuss over me because everything might not be completely perfect."
"That does sound like a lot of work," Alex agreed, and his muscled arm reached up and roped around my shoulders. With a tug, he pulled me back down to the bed. I let out a brief but delighted squeal as he tightened his grip around me, once again nuzzling at the neck. "Maybe," he suggested, "you could take a few minutes before you head off for all of that work?"
His fingers were everywhere, probing and tickling, and I couldn't say no. I rolled over on top of him, kissing him, as he effortlessly slid me out of my skimpy pajamas. As he expertly stripped me down, our bare skin brushed together, sending all sorts of amazing sensations coursing through my body. By the time he was slipping a couple fingers into my panties and working them off, I was on top of him, pinning him down. I grinned, feeling like a lioness on top of her prey. Her smiling, handsy, very sexy prey.
Twenty minutes later, I finally extracted myself from the sheets again, the covers now in a tangled pile around us. The bedroom air was still cool, but I was filled with warmth from our exertions, and didn't even notice the cold. As I stood up and began limping down towards the bathroom, Alex let out a silly, piteous cry behind me. "Save some for our wedding night!" I called out over my shoulder at him, eliciting a groan in response before I disappeared into the bathroom.
I had been concerned about my man in the last couple of days, all of it coming to a head the previous day when he had his outburst at the rehearsal. The man seemed calm and collected, now totally at ease, but that outburst still worried me. I knew that Alex had a tendency to hold things in, containing his feelings until they eventually overwhelmed him and came bursting out, often with devastating results. Yesterday's shouting seemed to have let off some steam, but was he on the brink of having another meltdown?
The hot, steaming water from the shower head helped relax me, however, and I did my best to push such dark thoughts out of my mind. I just had to make it through today, I told myself. Just this one last ceremony and reception, and then it would all be done. After that, Alex and I would be married, we'd be wishing farewell to all of my family members, and I would be done with what I now truly believed was going to be the hardest day of my life. I could make it twelve hours - no problem. I tried to let the steaming water pouring from my showerhead wash away the fears that insisted on hanging around the back of my mind.
Out of the shower, I barely had time to pull on some clothes before Sally was knocking at our door. "Time to go, time to go!" she shouted at me as soon as I opened it. I noticed that she was once again wearing that ridiculous headset. Before I could speak, however, she grabbed me by the shoulders and began marching me out. "We can't be late for your hair appointment!" she said when I tried to open my mouth to protest the rough handling.
"Breakfast?" I managed to get out.
"We'll get it on the way!" she responded. "It's your day, you can make someone bring you whatever you want! But you will just have to do it later - there's a wedding going on, and you have to get ready!"
Despite Sally's worries, however, we made it to the salon where I had booked an appointment with plenty of time to spare, and the ladies working there assured my frantic wedding planner that there would be more than enough time to style my hair. "We've got this under control!" they insisted multiple times.
Finally, Sally had to head outside to answer some phone calls. I caught a glimpse of her through the front window as I was escorted back to one of the salon chairs, holding her phone in one hand and her headset with the other as she shouted into the microphone.
True to the stylist's word, my hair was looking perfectly styled and fabulous in less than an hour and a half, and by the time that Sally came back inside to check on my progress, they were finishing up work on my nails, letting the final clear coat dry. "Good, good," Sally acknowledged. "Danielle, you look great. Now, just stop frowning! I have this all under control."
I wanted to tell my wedding planner about the pit that had been settling slowly in my stomach over the last week, but she had already turned away as her phone began ringing again. Instead, I kept the dark thoughts to myself, leaning back and closing my eyes as I gently waved my fingernails back and forth.
*
By the time that I arrived at the church, I was beginning to feel more than a little worried about my wedding planner. Throughout my hair and makeup appointments, Sally had been constantly on the phone, and although she would step outside so that she wouldn't disturb the stylists, I could get glimpses of her every now and then through the window, yelling into her headset. As the morning went on, I could have sworn that the frown lines on her face seemed to deepen into valleys.
"Sally, is everything going all right?" I asked, finally, as we rode towards the church. I had been instructed to sit perfectly upright in the seat so that my hair wouldn't touch the headrest, and my hands were held straight up in the air above my lap, so that nothing would smudge the fresh paint on my nails. I felt as though I was made of glass, with the care that
people were insisting I take.
"Oh, yes, fine," Sally commented, staring down at her phone. "It will all be resolved by the time you walk down the aisle, don't worry."
"What will be resolved?" I probed. Sally was trying to be reassuring, but I still felt out of the loop.
"Nothing, nothing," she insisted. "Oh, look, we're here."
Indeed, we had just pulled up outside of the church. I could see that the parking lot was already filled with cars, which reassured me that at least most of the guests had managed to arrive successfully. There was nobody outside, though, and Sally took the opportunity to hurry me out of the car and rush me inside the church through a side entrance.
As soon as we were inside, however, I could immediately hear yelling echoing up from the main chamber. I turned on Sally as she tried to physically push me up the stairs towards my dressing and prep room. "Sally, what's going on?" I demanded. "What's happening?"
Before my overwhelmed wedding planner could answer, however, we were interrupted by Claire, dashing up the stairs and looking as flustered as I'd ever seen her. "Oh, hey, Danielle," she said, skidding to a stop and risking a quick glance over her shoulder. "Um, how is getting ready for your wedding going?"
"Claire, what's going on?" I shouted at her.
Claire shot another look over her shoulder, back towards the main area of the church. "Things may have fallen apart, ever so slightly," she said after a moment.
Sally was still trying to push me the rest of the way up the stairs, but I planted my feet, clamped down one hand onto the banister as hard as I could hold, and fixed my gaze on my best friend. "Explain," I ordered her. And Claire started to talk. As she went on, my jaw slowly dropped. Eventually, I felt my legs going out from under me, and took a seat down on the hard, cold stone steps as I listened in horror to how my wedding was falling apart.
Apparently, ever since they had seen each other the day before at the rehearsal, Susan and Danny hadn't been able to keep their hands off of each other. The two of them had arrived together at the church this morning, and had immediately set about making a scene in front of everyone. From making out in the pews to trying to sneak into the back kitchen, traumatizing the caterers who were trying to get set up for the luncheon that would follow the wedding ceremony, they were making everyone feel quite uncomfortable.
While this had been rather frustrating, it hadn't managed to derail the whole wedding yet. No, Claire explained, that had come when, while searching for a slightly more private place where they could do terrible things to each other, Susan and Danny had managed to pull open the sticky door to the broom closet, right off of the main chamber of the church - and Rick and Blossom had all but fallen out, both of them completely naked and wrapped around each other.
"I guess love is really in the air," Claire cracked at this point, trying to salvage this story into a joke of some sort. I glared at her, rubbing my fingers against my forehead and completely ignoring Sally's gasp over possibly messing up my fingernails. Before Claire could keep talking, however, Sally looped her hands under my armpits and physically hauled me upright.
"Look, it will all be fine," she insisted as she tugged on me. "But you know what won't be fine? If you aren't in your dress in time for your own wedding! Now come on, we have to get upstairs and you have to get dressed!"
Reluctantly, I gave in to my wedding planner's insistence, but I also grabbed Claire's wrist and hung on as tightly as I could. "You're coming with me," I stated. "And keep talking."
Claire gave one last glance over her shoulder, flexing her arm slightly as if testing to see whether she could escape my grasp, but I made sure that I was holding on as tightly as possible. With a gulp, she continued sharing the morning's events.
To make matters worse, Susan and Danny hadn't been the only people present when they had discovered my father and his mistress getting busy - my mother had also been passing by (ironically, she had been complaining about how there was far too little romance in the air when the door had opened). Upon seeing what my father was doing, my mother flew off the deep end, and had charged towards him, screaming bloody murder and swinging at him with the nearest object she could get her hands on.
This object happened to be my mother's bouquet of flowers, the one that she was supposed to hold as a bridesmaid in the ceremony. Fortunately, the flowers didn't even have thorns, and thus caused little damage to my father as he scrambled to get up from the floor and cover up his nakedness. Unfortunately, my mother's frenzied swings had reduced the flower bouquet down to little more than a small, shredded pile of leaves and petals, and upon realizing that her weapon was fairly ineffectual, my mother had resorted to kicking instead, which had proved much more effective.
Finally, my father and Blossom had both managed to get up off the floor and pull enough of their clothing out of the coat closet to cover themselves up. At this point, my mother decided that she should switch over to verbal assault, and had begun screaming bloody murder at my dad, refusing to let him get a word in edgewise. "You are ruining this wedding!" my mother had screamed, throwing the sad remainder of her bouquet into my father's face. "You should just get out, and never show your face again!"
After a few minutes of this, however, my father had had enough. "If you want me to leave, then I'll leave!" he had finally thundered, overwhelming and cutting off my mother through sheer, wall-shaking volume. "But if I'm leaving, then I'm also taking my money with me! I refuse to pay for a wedding that I'm not a part of, where I'm not welcome!" And dragging a rather confused looking Blossom behind him, my father had stormed out of the church, with my mother still yelling even more obscenities after him.
As Claire had continued talking, Sally had managed to get me the rest of the way upstairs and into my changing room, and most of my clothes were off by this point. The dress was currently on the floor, halfway up to my waist, and Sally was still darting around me trying to get it the rest of the way on, even without my assistance. When Claire reached this point in her recounting of the morning's events, however, I sank down slowly onto the floor, landing in a heap of white gauze and fluffy silk.
In the mirror on the wall, I saw Sally throw up her hands helplessly behind me. Claire, on the other hand, carefully lowered herself down to her knees, taking care not to tear or rub her bridesmaid's dress against the floor too much. "Look, it's going to be okay," she said in a quieter tone, reaching out and patting my bare shoulder.
"It isn't," I stated, not making eye contact with her, already feeling the tears welling up, threatening to come pouring out and ruin my perfectly composed makeup. "It's ruined, just as I knew that it would be." I could have sworn that the room itself was darkening.
"No, it isn't!" Claire insisted. "Look, I sent Alex out to go try and track down Rick and Blossom, and I also sent Danny with him, so that he wouldn't be around your sister to cause any more trouble. Judy's watching your mother, and I've put Bryan on guard duty, since he's too lazy to desert his post. I think that if we take some of the flowers from all of the other bridesmaid's bouquets, we can make enough of one for Janice to hold, and it will look good enough for the pictures."
I shook my head. "It's more than just that," I choked out. I tried to reach up and flick the beads of water out of the corners of my eyes without disturbing my makeup too much. "This is the first time that our families are together, and even when it's for the most important event in my life, they still can't set aside all of their squabbles and pettiness for even a couple hours! They'll never be able to get along, ever again!"
Claire sighed. "To be honest, I don't think that your family can think about anyone besides themselves for more than fifteen minutes, so I'm pretty sure that this would have happened no matter what," she confessed. "They're just all too reactive. Around one or two other family members, they can kind of control themselves for a little while, but putting them all in one spot is basically a guaranteed disaster."
I tried to pull in a deep breath, choking slightly as I forced my lungs
to stop jerking from the crying and to instead take in the air. Using my hands, I inelegantly pushed myself up to my feet, the dress sagging down to hang around my waist. Continuing to suck in deep breaths to hold back the tears, I turned around to face Claire and Sally.
"Do you think that I could have a few minutes?" I asked them, trying to straighten the dress sitting around my hips. "Just so that I could pull myself together?"
Sally started to open her mouth, looking as though she wanted to protest, but Claire scrambled to her feet and grabbed my wedding planner with both hands. "Of course, take all the time you need," she told me, turning Sally by the shoulders and marching her out of the room. "When you're ready, just stick your head out and call, and we'll be right there."
"But what about-" I heard Sally start, as Claire forced her out the door, but Claire shushed her.
"The poor girl's having a breakdown!" I caught Claire saying. "Give her a few minutes to get a grip! She's the bride - I think that the ceremony can wait a minute or two for her."
"Thank you," I called after them, and then pushed the door shut behind them.
As soon as the door was closed, I immediately jumped into action. I yanked the dress down, pulling it off to my waist and turning around, searching for the street clothes that I had worn into this room. Unfortunately, they weren't where I had set them, on the chair. I cursed violently. Claire was a step ahead of me! She must have grabbed them on the way out, sensing that I was considering making an escape and trying to prevent me from running. Instead, I was forced to stick with the wedding dress, as well as the tall heels that accompanied it.
Once dressed again in my wedding gown (which I now noticed was, although pretty, not very suited to running away), I peered around the room. Claire and Sally had left through the only door, and I wouldn't put it past Sally to be waiting immediately outside for me to say that I was all right, so that she could try and keep everything going according to her schedule.
