Member of the Wedding | 5 July 2021
She knew she shouldn’t be here. Well at least she knew there would be consequences for being here. She knew that for sure, yet she was here, sitting at a huge round table of wedding guests that she hadn’t seen in 23 years. Her classmates and him, the groom. She had quite a history with the groom, a long and lustrous relationship- torrid is probably the better word. As she sat listening to the drunkards wane prolific, her mind wondered off into the past…
BNR Response
It didn’t have to wander that far. The past could refer to high school, to the last ten years, two months, or 15 minutes, depending on what she was searching for. High school meant prom and sweet stolen kisses, ten years ago meant first weddings and borderline flirtations, two months meant inconspicuous rendez-vous at any given coastal restaurant or hotel, and the last 15 minutes marked the latest indiscretion: sex in the wedding rehearsal coat check. Why had she RSVPed to this horrid event?
Buffet dinner with the same linen tablecloths, the same faux gold bamboo catering chairs, and the same schmucks she was finally rid of after graduating from Torrance High back in the 90’s. It felt more like a high school reunion except for the unavoidable wedding kitsch: the cupcake wall, the step-and-repeat with the banner, “Tad and Sandra got hitched!”, and the bad DJ playing all the wrong disco.
This dress was itchy, and she suspected she still smelled of sex…which of her former classmates had walked in on them, again? She shuddered to think it had been “Mom”, the loveable nickname they gave to the thick-necked but tender student coach of the football team back in ‘98. She poked at her American-style orange chicken, listening to the blithering of her drunken alumni around her. “Can you believe that was Suzanne?” one gushed, “I KNOW, right? She is so slim considering that she has FOUR kids!”
Her head swiveled around the room, she hadn’t seen Sandra yet and she figured it was best to just up and leave the whole situation before seeing the bride-to-be. She felt herself pushing that plastic chair backward and it catching on something as she not-so-delicately excused herself from the high school homeroom table while polishing off her third glass of champagne. Turning around, nearly tumbling, she came face-to-face with Sandra: one-time friend, some-time enemy, current target of betrayal.
Dammit, she really wasn’t ready to face all that looking at Sandra carried: the heartbreak of their broken friendship all those years ago, the decades of words unspoken, and, most recently, the affair with Frederick. She wasn’t sure where “Tad” came from as a nickname, it seemed as mysterious to her as how “Peggy” could be derived from Margaret, but the latest string of sexual encounters led her to call him by his given name, Frederick, which sounded more adult and therefore more accountable for the mutual destruction they were creating.
So much flashed through her brain in those next few seconds: Sandra was breathtaking. Her dress was simple, and her skin was flawless. She really had nothing to say, and even looking at Sandra made her instantly think of all the things she had done that would hurt her. It was as if she was looking through one of those dermatologist lenses that shows you the sun damage you can’t see with the naked eye, only in this case she could see all the visible markings of the wrongdoings she and Frederick had committed against Sandra showing up like ink stains on that rehearsal dress like spots under a black light.
Sandra was greeting guests warmly as another cater-waiter walked by with a tray of champagne, so she grabbed two glasses. Still standing, she reminded herself how she had vowed she would call it off before it got to this point. I mean, after all these years if he couldn’t choose her for her and not as a side dish then when would he? Never, she reminded herself. And what did Sandra deserve? Should she marry this cad without even knowing what she was in for, or did she deserve a warning before blindly walking down the aisle? She tipped the first glass bottom up and then the second, and caught the lace of Sandra’s cap sleeve firmly in her hand while saying, “Can we talk?”