“I’m not assembling them, silly! You are! What do you think a maid of honor’s supposed to do?”
I smiled sheepishly. She was right. This is what I signed up for—tying fresh flowers to boxes. Me, sorting and snipping and arranging fresh flowers just so on the top of 150 teeny tiny boxes. I’m talking about me. Are you understanding this? I stepped out of my body for a moment and pictured myself doing this—battling my OCD that was both detrimental to and beneficial for a task like this. Catch-22. No wait. Nicki’s twenty-four. A Catch-24.
Well, at least I had bridesmaids to help me. That was if I didn’t let my perfectionism take over and redo all their work.
“Only you can make them look like this,” Nicki said, holding up a picture of “exactly” what she wanted “with the ribbon and all.”
“May I have that?” I asked. “To have a guide?”
Nicki passed it over. “Don’t lose it.”
“I won’t.”
“And I don’t want the girls helping you. They’ll screw them all up,” Nicki said.
“Wait. You’re asking me to assemble 150 boxes all by myself?”
“Is it a big deal?” she asked.
“Umm, yeah. I have a job. A boyfriend. A freaking life!”
“Bailey, no one in this wedding party is going to have a life three weeks before the wedding. Let’s just be clear about that now.”
I bit my tongue as our waitress placed salads on our table. Once she left, I addressed my overbearing sister.
“Nicki, you have to let the girls help me. I’ll be up all night tying those flowers.”
“But why have the girls help you? You’ll just redo them anyway.”
There. There it was. I was waiting for the evidence. Erica still thought I was delusional about Nicki’s motivation for appointing me maid of honor, but I was right! I knew I was right. I just didn’t have the proof. But now I did. Nicki was taking advantage of my OCD, and she nearly said so.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t have OCD anymore,” I said flippantly.
Nicki narrowed her eyes at me. “Huh?”
“I said I don’t have OCD anymore. Just so you know. I’m not, like, a perfectionist with things like I used to be.”
Nicki stared. “Oh, really?”
“Mmhmm. I mean, if that’s what you were worried about with having the bridal party help me with the favors. I’m not gonna scream at them or anything. Or go back and redo their work, even if it’s not all that great.” God, I’m mean.
Nicki said nothing. She took a bite of her salad instead, and I listened for the sound of the little cogs in her brain turning. It made me the slightest bit nervous.
“I didn’t know you could be magically cured of OCD,” Nicki said after a moment.
“Well, stranger things have happened.”
“So you don’t turn your locks three times anymore before going to bed?”
“No.” Lie.
“You don’t tap your pens?”
“No.” Another lie.
“You don’t count your steps from your car to your kitchen door?”
“No.” I just kept on lying.
“You don’t wash your sheets every third day? Put the same number of ringlets in your hair when you curl it? Avoid the pavement cracks and walk to a rhythm you count out loud under your breath? Organize your Tupperware when you’re anxious? Count your peas before you eat them?”
“I don’t count my peas anymore!” I shouted.
Patrons turned in our direction. Nicki shook her head, silently telling them, “She’s not well.”
That bitch knew exactly what she was doing. The more she talked, the more anxious I grew. I tried really hard to suppress the urge. I talked myself out of it before. Lots of times. But the fork was very demanding. It was yelling at me: “I’m not a pen, but I can hang!” I picked it up, hating my very core as I flipped it in my hand and tapped the end three times on the table.
Nicki smiled triumphantly. I wanted to scream at her some more, but I couldn’t. Acting on my compulsion erased all the tension, anxiety, and anger. All that remained was a touch of sadness, sitting uncomfortably on my heart.
“You’re using me,” I whispered. My eyes burned as the tears pushed forward, threatening to spill over the edges of my eyelids.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Nicki replied.
“You’re using me for your wedding. You’re using my OCD. It’s a shitty thing to do, Nicki.”
Silence.
“All for perfect boxes and scored edges,” I continued, and then I looked up at her. “I’m supposed to be managing it. You just want it to stay bad.”
“For a while longer, Bailey. That’s it,” she replied.
My eyes grew wide, and I felt the tear slide down my cheek.
“Are you hearing yourself?” I breathed. “What is wrong with you?”
“You’re so good at this stuff. I’m not,” Nicki said. “I can’t do any of this without you. You’re, like, a professional.”
“Stop flattering me.”
“But you are,” Nicki insisted. “Mom and I agree.”
“Of course you do.” I wiped the tear and stood up.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Home. And you can pay for my salad,” I said. “I didn’t want the fucking thing anyway.”
***
“Nicki is a selfish bitch,” Erica said, watching the play area like a hawk. Little Noah held Annie’s hand as they ascended the blue plastic tube. No way in hell I’d ever get in that thing. All I could think about was kids’ pee.
We sat in the McDonald’s near her house, eating Big Macs and fries and trying to remember when kids’ play equipment changed from metal to plastic.
“The nineties. That’s when everything started going downhill,” Erica said.
“You think?”
She nodded. “Mid-nineties. Suddenly kids could get hurt! OMG!”
I laughed.
“The world is just too safe,” Erica complained. “Kids need to cut themselves on some sharp edges. Experience stitches. A broken limb. I want Little Noah looking like a beat-up mess by the time he’s eighteen.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause no woman wants her a delicate man. He needs to be sporting at least five scars.”
“I thought mothers don’t want to think about the day their sons will date,” I said, swirling my fry in ketchup and Special Sauce.
“Eh. I’m realistic. I gotta think about it.”