“Two weeks in Tahiti. Private bungalow. Bikini. Maybe even no bikini,” he whispered, hands sliding down and giving my bum a grab.
“Charles! Someone could see!” I protested, looking around. He laughed, thinking this particular squall was over. After all, I was getting married tomorrow. Sigh.
“Baby, go to sleep. And then tomorrow, I’ll be waiting at the end of that aisle. You’ll be gorgeous. We’ll say some words, slip on some rings, and then you’re all mine. Sound good?” he crooned as he spun me around, then set me down to open the limo door.
“Mm-hmm,” I managed, a bit dizzy from all the spinning.
“There you two are! Now, Charles, scoot. She’s all yours tomorrow, but she’s still mine tonight,” my mother cried, appearing at my side with a grand smile.
“Yes, Mother Patterson,” Charles replied, knowing how much she hated when he called her that.
I giggled in spite of myself, and my mother frowned at me.
“Say good night to Charles,” she said primly, keeping any comments about Mother Patterson to herself for a change.
“Good night, Charles,” I echoed, leaning in for a kiss on the forehead.
“Night, ladies. See you tomorrow,” Charles said, packing us into the limo in a swish of silk and satin.
Sitting next to my mother, I listened to her chatter as we pulled away from the restaurant and headed toward our home. Where I’d lived since college.
Parents’ house. Sorority house. Parents’ house. Husband’s house? Sigh.
An hour later, I was in the bedroom I’d been sleeping in since I was seven. Canopy bed. Pom-poms. Tiaras. Sashes. Trophies. Pageant girl, remember? Elbow elbow wrist wrist.
Curled up on top of the covers, I was hot, my heart beating faster than normal. Nervous about tomorrow, I suppose. Marrying Charles. Becoming a Sappington and everything that meant.
I looked at the picture of us on my nightstand, taken the evening he’d proposed. The ring shone as brightly in the photo as it shone on my hand now. It was the largest diamond I’d ever seen, almost embarrassingly so. I slipped it off, setting next to the picture.
I’d met Charles eleven months ago. We were engaged five months to the day after we met. Whirlwind to say the least, and Charles was the most perfectly put-together whirlwind you’ve ever seen. Never a hair out of place, never a spot of food on his tie, or a piece of spinach in his teeth. The spinach would never dare.
But any piece of spinach would love to get the chance to lodge there. Charles Preston Sappington was the man about town, the bachelor every woman from San Diego to Santa Barbara had been trying to land for years. Any piece of spinach would count herself extremely lucky to be trapped between his pedigreed teeth; it was the dream tiny spinaches were told by their spinach mothers. Tall. Handsome. Rich. Good family. And if you do as you’re told, you too can go for the brass ring.
I was Miss Golden State. He was my final tiara after a lifetime of pretty and prancing. Now I could go quietly into that beautifully manicured good night, my wedding veil firmly in place. And a silent scream in the back of my throat.
With that comforting thought—and if by comforting, I mean abject terror—I turned out my light.
Toss. Turn. Toss. Turn. Toss. Turn. Tears.
Looking back, I wish I could tell you there was one particular thing that tipped the scales and made me run away from my wedding. But all I know was that from the moment I set my feet on the floor that morning, I knew something was off. And not just my stomach, although that had been burbling and gurgling since 3 A.M. Too much artichoke soufflé? I’ll never tell.
I ate oatmeal practically every morning of my life. Steel-cut oats, the slightest sprinkling of Splenda, fresh fruit (blueberries were my mother’s preferred choice—antioxidants are our friends), with a splash of nonfat milk. But today when I shuffled into the kitchen, I saw something I had never seen there before.
Donuts.
Actual. Beautiful. Sugary. Fatty. Gorgeous. Donuts.
Like, with the sugar and the fat.
I looked around to make sure that, yes, I was still in my own house. My oatmeal bowl was set out, place mat and utensils laid with care, as it was every day. Slow cooker was plugged in, with my preportioned amount piping hot and ready for eating. The small pitcher of nonfat milk sat by my place setting, holding exactly a half cup of gray, watery, not-so-much milk.
But . . . did I mention there were donuts?
On reflection, I was wrong when I said I didn’t know what tipped the scales that morning. Donuts were where I went off the rails.
Taking one more look around to make sure no one was there to witness this culinary mortal sin, I walked over toward the platter. And regarded the donuts, piled high and arranged with attention toward making a beautifully delicious display. These confectionary wonders, these puffy delights, these sugary and fatty diet cheats—I chose one toward the back, sticky with chocolate glaze and full of spite toward every diet I’d ever been put on.
I was a slim girl; genetics plus a Southern California lifestyle had made me so. Part of the reason I won Miss Golden State is due to the fact that I look exactly like every picture of the “Wish they all could be” variety of a California Girl. Long blond hair. Tan. Tall; not so much curves as there were hills and valleys; strong from running, tennis, Pilates, yoga, you name it. I’d nevertheless had it drilled into me from a young age that skinny was better, and to enforce that, nary a donut was ever brought into this home. Of course, I’d had them at friends’ slumber parties occasionally. And when I turned sixteen, and realized that a driver’s license and a little bit of baby-sitting money allowed me the freedom to eat anything and everything—which, to be fair, resulted in a weight gain of eleven pounds and a very stern lecture by my mother on health and wellness, and a ban on baby-sitting—I’d indulged occasionally when my mouth wasn’t under supervision.
But again: never in my life had I seen a donut in my own home. And then in my hand. And then in my mouth. And then . . . perhaps a second?
Somewhere around the third donut, my mother walked in with my wedding planner, Terrance. By the screech that came out of her mouth, you’d have thought she’d found me holding a bloody knife, not an innocent cinnamon twist.
Then she said quietly, “Those donuts are for the help today, Chloe.”
Frankly, I preferred the screech. Her quiet meant danger. She also failed to notice that Terrance flinched when she said “the help,” but in that moment, I didn’t care. It was every man for himself. Or herself.
Normal, chastised Chloe would have nodded, put down the donut in an apologetic fashion, and exited the room quietly, knowing that this indiscretion would be mentally catalogued and trotted out sometime in the future, typically when I least expected it. I was a twenty-four-year-old woman who still got a “talking to” when my mother thought it necessary. As the years went on I’d tolerated them with a sense of almost bemusement, but lately the control she exerted over my life—which I’d frankly allowed her to have—had worn thin.
I knew there’d be a critical remark later today, when I’d need to take a bigger-than-normal breath to be sewn into my wedding dress. And for whatever reason, I decided to draw a line in the sand—with my big, luscious donut.
I crammed four inches of heaven into my mouth, chewed, breathed through my nose, and took the other four inches, then grinned, calories and twenty-four years of silent “go fudge yourself, Mother” rioting through my bloodstream. It was a heady mix. Swallowing, I calmly licked my fingertips, never taking my eyes off my mother.
True to form, she remained cool. “Terrance, I wonder if you’d be so good as to set up in the living room? I imagine the hairdresser will be here any moment, and I want to make sure everything is as it should be,” she said with a regal dip of her head.
Terrance shot a stifled grin my way, snagged a cinnamon twist of his own, and went where he was told.
I was alone with my mother.
“Now, Chloe, I’m sure you di
dn’t mean to be as rude as you just were. What must our wedding planner think? A gorgeous bride, stuffing her face just hours before she’ll be sewn into the wedding gown we’ve spent months preparing your body for. As it is, we’ll be lucky if the buttons don’t pop.”
I let out a tiny but defiant burp.
My mother sighed and looked at the counter. And as she did, I realized it was the single most reliable expression she had on her face when it came to me. She was always sighing, if she wasn’t pushing. She was always sighing, if she wasn’t shushing. She was always sighing, if she wasn’t detailing exactly what I had done wrong.
I loved my mother, but it sure was hard to like her sometimes.
“Chloe?” I heard, and I realized the sighing was over.
“Yeah?”
“Is that how a young lady responds to a question from her mother?”
I straightened up automatically, tummy in, chest up and out, head balanced on a tiny cloud floating on top of my spine. Good posture is the calling card of good breeding, after all. “Mother, I’m sorry I was rude. I’m sure I’ll fit into my beautiful gown.”
She studied me carefully, her pretty face carefully composed, her pretty hair carefully composed, and finally nodded once. “Now go apologize to Terrance, dear, and please don’t eat another thing until your new husband offers you some wedding cake. This is going to be a beautiful day—I’m so happy for you.” As she turned to head outside, where the gardener was once again positively ruining her prize begonias, she called over her shoulder, “I’ll put a water pill on your bedside table, dear; let’s see what we can do about that puffiness around your ankles.”
It took everything I had not to kick something with my allegedly puffy ankles. If I could manage to lift my giant elephant legs off the floor. I relaxed my posture, licked a traitorous bit of sugar from the corner of my mouth, and headed in to see Terrance and the rest of the “help.”
“You know,” Terrance said, “I have seen it all. Mothers of the bride getting in screaming matches with the mothers of the groom. Grooms getting drunk at the reception and falling into the wedding cake. Once I even saw a father of the bride trying to make out with a groomsman.”
The glam squad was going full throttle. I had someone curling my hair, someone painting my nails, someone applying my makeup, and someone touching up my pedicure. In the background, happy music played and happy bridesmaids danced while sipping mimosas. The entire house was Happy Wedding Central, bursting with feminine giggles. Yet I, the one the frivolity was revolving around, was ready to burst into tears. Something that seemed to have escaped everyone’s attention. My bridesmaids had been my friends for years—friends I once had something in common with, but from whom I’d been feeling more and more distant in the last few months as I was marched toward this wedding cliff. As I looked around at their perfect faces, I realized I didn’t care a whit about any of them. No one was noticing my dark mood except my wedding planner.
“And I’ve seen my share of nervous brides and cold feet,” Terrance continued, leaning down in front of me, between two nail techs and a makeup artist. “So you wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Terrance was six feet six inches of fabulous stuffed into five feet two inches of tiny shoes. Which I was pretty sure were stacked. Caramel skin, tiny dreadlocks, and an enormous personality, he’d planned the weddings of every major socialite and debutante in Southern California for the last ten years. He alone had listened to what I wanted for my wedding, and even though I eventually gave in to what my mother wanted, he had fought for me all along. And seemed to see things that others didn’t—or chose not to. And now he saw that the tears that were building in my eyes were not, in fact, due to the false lashes recently applied, as I had tried to spin it.
Since I’d gotten out of bed this morning, a ball of awful had been kicking in my stomach. And it wasn’t nerves. I’d been in pageants since I was four years old and I knew how to deal with butterflies in my tummy. As each hour passed, that ball of awful was getting bigger and bigger, and it was starting to affect the rest of my body. There was a ringing in my ears. My fingers and toes felt buzzy. My tongue felt thick. And my eyes kept filling with tears. My pulse was racing, my hands were clammy, and words were thundering up my throat, literally begging to get out.
Scary words. Like no. And stop. And seriously stop this.
But it was just wedding nerves, right? The cold feet I’d been phantom feeling for a month or so? Not so phantom now. They were blocks of foot ice. But normal, right? It wasn’t like my entire body was turning in on itself for protection, trying to manifest real doubt into some kind of action . . . right?
“I just need a little quiet time, I think,” I managed to get out past the other words fighting to follow, fighting desperately for breath.
Choke. Breathe. Choke. Breathe. Please breathe. And . . . Crumple.
Terrance took one more look at me and told the glam squad to scram. Bridesmaids whooshed out in a wave of orange juice and champagne, my curls were quickly pinned to my head, and then I was all alone.
I put my head into my hands and just sobbed. As you do on your wedding day, right? Oh, so wrong. This felt wrong, all of this, just felt so very wrong. I was beyond nerves; I was into panic. Panic that needed space to move and give voice to what was raging inside.
My mother entered the room and asked, “Care to tell me why there are five bridesmaids, two nail technicians, and a makeup artist drinking mimosas on the patio right now?”
And as I sat there, surrounded by tufted crinoline and pretty, I finally threw up the words that had been cooking all day. “I don’t want to marry Charles.” Oh. Oh.
Have you ever had those moments when words just seem to hang in the air? I could literally hear them echoing back to me in the stark silence. I lifted my head to see peep-toe pumps, one of them now tapping furiously against the dark teak wooden floor. I saw tanned and toned legs, knees that were just beginning to wrinkle, an off-white linen afternoon skirt, a peach silk wraparound blouse, a ruby, an emerald, a diamond, Chanel lipstick (Rouge Coco Shine, thank you very much), and wide green eyes accented by more than a touch of irritation.
“Pardon me, young lady?” she asked, concern crossing her features for the first time.
Concern over how I was feeling? Or concern that I might unravel her perfect day? I know which horse I was betting on.
“I don’t want to marry Charles Preston Sappington.” Oh, that felt pretty good.
Sigh. “Chloe, do you mind telling me what’s going on?” she asked.
So I told her once more, with feeling: “I don’t want to marry Charles Preston Sappington! Not today. Not any day.” My body had an immediate reaction to saying those words out loud. My spine straightened as if a weight had been lifted, and my head was floating on a tiny string twelve inches above my body.
If I’d been in a factory, I’d have written it on a piece of cardboard and climbed on top of a table to wave it around Norma Rae style.
“Okay. I don’t know exactly what has gotten into you today, but I’m beginning to get a little peeved.”
Peeved? Here’s some word vomit to go with your peeve.
“I don’t want to marry Charles Preston Sappington. Not today. Not any day.”
Fudge me, I was starting to feel good. My head was now floating a full two feet in the air, light as a feather. And oh boy, now I was smiling? Small, but it was there. Smiling.
The same could not be said for my mother. “Explain yourself,” she commanded, and when my mouth opened she said, “and if you say that one more time I’ll—”
I laughed out loud. With a saucy Latin rhythm I repeated, “I don’t want to marry. Charles Preston Sappington. Not today, not any day,” finishing with a hip bump that shook my pinned-up curls.
“I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense!” my mother snapped. “Now straighten up and get it together. We’ve got a house full of people and I won’t have them witnessing a breakdown.”
&nb
sp; “Breakdown?” I laughed again. “I think maybe I’d better go get some air. Yeah—air is good.” I hiccup-giggled, my smile now wrapping across my entire face. “Bye, Mother.” I whirled for the kitchen and grabbed my purse and the keys to my convertible. Convertibles were good for one thing only, something I needed desperately right now. Built in air. Let’s go.
“You’ll do no such thing, Chloe. Chloe, you listen to me!” she yelled after me as I raced out the front door, cackling. Wow, breakdowns happened fast. I slid behind the wheel of my BMW, turned the ignition, and was out of the driveway before she made it to the front door.
“I’m calling Charles!” she yelled as I waved madly at my glam squad peeking over the backyard gate.
“I’m not marrying Charles Preston Sappington. Not today. Not any day!” I yelled once more, this time in full opera voice to the tune of Ode to Joy.
I sped out of my neighborhood, took a few crazy turns, and headed out onto the highway, top down, music at full blast. Still in my nightgown and pinned curls.
Point: mother-fudging Chloe.
My mother called my phone. Seventeen times in a row. Then Charles called. Fourteen times in a row. Then my father called. Once. I let them all go to voice mail. My text box was filling up by the minute. I didn’t look once. After driving for a while, I ended up at the beach. I sat on the sand, picked the pins out of my hair, and let the sun shine down through my thin cotton nightgown. I ran my fingers through my curled hair, not caring that there was sand clinging to my fingertips.
I watched as a family of four headed down toward the water. Mom and Dad, Junior and Girl Junior. They splashed and played, Mom looked amazing in a bikini, and Dad was good looking too. They kissed once while the kids were busy building a sand castle. Dad’s hand migrated south, grabbing a handful of buns and squeezing, making Mom laugh and pretend to slap his hand away. The kids saw them kissing and made a great show of pretending to be disgusted, but laughed the entire time. Then Mom and Dad grabbed the kidlets, and into the water they all went once more.