Second: Stacy is a gorgeous bride, and Mike looks so radiantly in love with her that it even makes me, professional romance writer, a little sick to my stomach. But mostly sick with happiness.
Third: I absolutely cannot look at Nate. Because if I do, with this whole fairytale wedding unfolding before my eyes, I might projectile vomit onto him due to nerves and crippling sadness. And I think Stacy and Mike have put up with enough weirdness from us today.
They’re at the vows now.
“I, Mike, take you, Stacy, to be my partner in all things. I promise constant arguments followed by ecstatic make-ups. I promise to let you sleep in every other day when I make breakfast, but I’m expecting French toast on Tuesday and Thursday.”
Ah, so they wrote out their vows. Stacy laughs at a lot of parts that I don’t even get; couple inside jokes. In some ways, that’s what I miss most with Drew. Being silly with each other, laughing about things that other people didn’t even get.
Maybe that’s when I knew our marriage was over, six months before he walked out. Because the laughter had dried up.
And with Nate next to me, that momentary blip of closeness that I felt with him for the first time in so long, I start to tear up. Not because it was hot—although it was—or because it was swooningly romantic. I felt something I swore I wouldn’t be able to feel again. That closeness, that fun, that intimacy. But it’s over before it started. It’s all fizzled out, and now I’ve got a bunch of memories distorted in an alcoholic haze, and nothing else.
Here’s the nice thing about weddings: nobody wonders or makes an awkward face when you cry. A couple of hot tears slide down my cheeks, and I feel his hand on mine. Nate. I look up at him, daring to hope—
He hands me a tissue. Right. Don’t want to smear the mascara and frighten the children. I dab at my eyes, and Stacy finishes her vow.
There’s a bit where the rabbi finishes up, folds a napkin around a glass, and the happy couple breaks it underfoot. That must be the big moment, because everybody cheers, and Mike and Stacy kiss deeply.
Despite the ecstatic applause, I’d bet any money they don’t hear us right now. They’re probably caught up in the gloriousness of that moment, the one where they think it’s going to go on forever. Nothing can damage them; nothing can get in the way.
And damn, I hope they’re right.
“Everybody get outta the way. I need to nurse my agent’s hangover,” I shout, squeezing in between people on my way to the bar. Someone laughs as I find Meredith, still with an ice pack on her head, sitting with Tyler on the stool beside her.
They each have some fizzing glasses of ginger ale at hand, and look like people Edward Gorey would’ve drawn when he was feeling particularly malicious. M is for Meredith, barfing her guts out. T is for Tyler, trying to get his nuts out.
Or something. I’m not really a poet.
“Still not feeling it?” I ask them, knocking back some water. Hydration. It’s important in the desert.
“I think I need to go to bed soon,” Tyler says.
“Good. I’ll join you,” Meredith croaks. He actually smiles and tries waggling his eyebrows, but it doesn’t completely work.
Of all Meredith’s strange hook-up stories, this one is pretty near the top of the weirdness list. Well, everyone needs a little fun in their lives.
I meet up with Shanna out on the floor, where she’s dancing with Brenda Summersby. Toni and Daphne, two of the other authors, are chatting with the DJ. One day, Mike and Stacy are going to have to explain to their kids why there were so many romance authors at their wedding. Where there is free cake and dancing, you can expect us to crop up. We’re sort of like lemmings that way, only in wedge sandals.
“Sort of can’t believe you didn’t have the hook-up with Tyler,” I say to Shanna, as we dance a little bit. She twirls me.
“Honestly, hair gel isn’t really my thing. Besides, I, uh, kind of got a text from a certain person.” Her eyes are particularly glowing right now.
I know she’s been out on a few dates with someone from online, someone she was into, but . . . .
“They want to make it official?” I ask, feeling giddy with how giddy Shanna looks. She nods, and I squeeze her. Subtle as a Sphinx, this one. I never get any intel on who she’s seeing until it’s a serious thing. “Boy or girl?”
“Girl. Tabby. Enough about me,” she says, pulling me off the floor a minute. She looks at me with what can only be described as loving concern. “Did you talk to him?” She gives me that look, the one that only your closest friends can give when they know exactly how sad you are because they have a damn laser vision.
I shake my head. “There’s really nothing to talk about. He didn’t get in the cab. The metaphorical cab, I mean. Well, the physical one too. So in that sense, it was sort of this metaphysical cab. Get it?” I wish Shanna would lighten up about my shitty philosophy jokes. They’re great for parties, dammit.