Chapter Five
I’D FORGOTTEN ALL about last night when I went into the kitchen and poured myself a bottle of orange juice. It was early in the morning, but the sun’s rays seemed to mirror a mid-afternoon effect. With a quick look, I deduced I’d need to head to the grocery soon, as I stuffed the last blueberry breakfast bar into my throat. I walked back to my room, packed up my necessities for the bachelorette party that night and the wedding the next day.
As I hummed into the bathroom to gather an assortment of makeup, a contact solution bottle, and my toothbrush, a monstrous croak sounded from the toilet. Confused, I gazed to my left, and a woman heaved into the toilet. A full-blown vomiting episode by a woman I’d never seen in my life. I screamed as loud as I could and ran away, running into the wall. The nearest can of Raid wasp spray was in my bedroom, so I hurried and grabbed it from the dresser. Then I came back and shouted, “Who in God’s name are you?”
The woman continued to barf, and I pushed my finger on the trigger. At the exact moment, a face appeared in front of the can and was effectively shot down. Jamie’s body shook on the floor, so I fell down beside him. “Jamie? What is going on here?”
“Ella…Ella!” He sobbed.
I turned to see the woman, who fell against the wall, passed out. I hurried to her, checking her temperature. She came to moments later and squealed, but I pointed to Jamie and she gathered herself. “What is going on?” I demanded.
“Hi. Ella Monrey,” she said, sticking a tan hand at me. I declined.
“I have to get to work, and I find a puking woman, and now Jamie is handicapped due to wasp killer?”
Jamie was still writhing on the floor, so I tossed him a cool cloth. For extra measure, I handed a cloth to Ella too. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I spent the night because I got sick after our date last night.”
“Did he cook for you? Did he make you sick?”
“No, no, no.”
“Good, because I would spray his eyes again. I’ll be right back.” I brought her some saltines and a bottled water. “I wish I could stay, but when Jamie is able to get back to a normal person, he’ll take care of you. I have work. It is nice to meet you.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll just be here.” She began gagging, and I hurried back to Jamie.
“Care to explain?”
“Not right now. Go, go, have fun. I’ll see you… Oh gosh, is this what hell is like?”
“Somehow, I don’t think so.”
“Get to work. I’ll see you…later.”
What a great way to meet your best friend’s girlfriend. Okay, okay.
MISSION VIEJO IN the dead of June is nothing like the heat of Texas, but the Saturday of Chelsea Villanueva’s wedding was unusually toasty. The sun was bright, which was a treat because June Gloom is a real thing in which gray clouds dominate Southern California skies. So I was glad for the sun, but angry because it was hard to breathe in the cool-based purple twist-front halter bridesmaid dress. It had tightened against my skin since I’d tried it on with the girls a month or so ago, back when I’d jogged regularly. I rolled my eyes.
I was standing in the midst of the busy bridal-prep room where girls were everywhere, running to and fro, fixing hair, makeup, and boobs. Lacey and I stood close to a window so that we could oversee the street of Chelsea’s childhood house in the heart of the town. A little girl biked down the baked pavement, and I wondered if the heat would give her a stroke. Someday, I hoped I’d be blessed with a little girl of my own, with my red waves or even a little semblance of the Richmond gene pool; she deserved the Richmond nose at least, I decided. Aunt Eunice used to parade around town and brag about the prim nose of our ancestral lineage.
Lacey was pulling my hair into a complicated up-do while whispering little adages about how weddings went. From her accepting tone, I wondered if she would appreciate the chaotic atmosphere of the room, where clothes were strewn in all positions, where the young and old alike had taken a tornado to get ready, and where the crazy atmosphere had dictated various spheres of cliques. Luckily Lacey had been invited as a bridesmaid, or I’d be confused in the midst of fluent Spanish and the hint of a Mestizo language.
“So, can you believe this will be you in two months?” I asked when Lacey and I stood, ready.
“Look in the mirror,” she said, pulling me to the vanity. “I really cannot. Seems like yesterday I was a little girl playing dress-up in my sister’s closet.” To me it seemed like yesterday that my father first awarded me with a BB gun and a round of ammo. For years I worked on my aim by shooting at soda cans sitting on a ladder.
Lacey and I were pretty women, I thought (maybe even hoped). Of course, Lacey was the one who was more traditionally beautiful, due to her blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She and my friend Annabel looked similar, but Lacey had the more reserved expression, and her lips were less prominent. I saw myself, the dark red hair and the gray eyes, and bit my lip. Little freckles dotted my shoulders, proof that I was my mother’s child.
“Come on, let’s go check on Chels.” She pulled me away from my momentary mom memory, and then we were standing by the bride.
Chelsea was hyperventilating, a mess of hair and beaded lace. As her mother hurriedly fiddled with the veil on top of Chelsea’s freshly dyed cocoa roots, I assessed the bride-to-be, whose au naturel face would soon be caked with makeup. Through the haze of women, Chelsea reached her hands out to me, muttering, “Dios necesita venir aquí. Ahora.”
“Sweetie,” I said, rubbing her hand, “Dios is here. He hasn’t left.”
“Come again? I took French.” Lacey began fiddling with the bottom of the dress.
Chelsea smiled at me and said, “If I pass out up there with Father Dimonada, please be in charge of resuscitating me. I’m not dying since I got into UCLA.”
“Oh, dear Chels.”
Suddenly she was ripped from my arms, off to get her makeup. Part of me cried as she was carried off—because inside, I knew this was the next step toward growing up. I hated being an adult—especially an adult expected to get married.
THE MUSIC WAS traditional, something Catholic, because I recognized it, but it wasn’t exactly familiar. I noticed Chelsea’s father first, a suave man whose wrinkles added to his friendly mien. Then my eyes glimmered over to the stunning swanlike Chelsea Villanueva, the gorgeous friend I loved, the woman whose heart adorned her sleeve. In the trumpet-styled gown, she looked like a princess. The gown was gorgeous—an off-the-shoulder bodice, along with a long, snow-white train—but the woman enclosed radiated like a gem. She sparkled, literally, and tears poured out of her mother’s eyes. As everyone stood to admire Chelsea, I gazed over to Jim, who pulled out a handkerchief to pat his watery eyes. Chelsea began to tear up, but she had a look of, If you think I’m about to ruin this makeup…
From my perch near the altar, I remembered the adage: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. The something old were the pearls stranded across Chelsea’s svelte neck like genuine Christmas lights, while the newness was formed from the trumpet gown. Something borrowed was the veil on the perch of her brown tresses, covering her gorgeous face, though I could still see her beauty. There was a hint of the blue high heels under her gown, the rebel she was. Yet no one seemed to pay attention to that; they were too focused on the enduring love searing between one man and one woman. I almost choked on the goodness emanating from the couple, though the anti-love part of me gagged because I wanted what they had.
Throughout the rite of marriage, I contemplated how Chelsea and Jim had fallen in love. During their relationship, she’d been quite brazen in her approach. “I’m not going to be that person who says ‘I love you’ in the first stage. I’m going to make him say it to me first, even though I know I’m in love with him right now.” Yet as they made their vows known before Father Dimonada, the parish itself, and God, I smiled, blinking back wetness from my own eyes. There was no doubt that Chelsea had Jim wrapped around her dainty littl
e finger.
As soon as the two broke apart from the kiss, they made their way down the aisle in wedded bliss, Jim lifting his wife into his arms like a macho-man. They disappeared and then it was the wedding party’s turn to follow the matriarchs and patriarchs out. As I took my designated groomsman’s arm, I locked eyes with Luke Cho, who took one of Chelsea’s sister’s arms.
As soon as we made it to the foyer, he edged up to me and whispered, “You look gorgeous, Emma.”
“Well, thanks,” I blushed, not expecting immediate flattery.
He took my arm, an act of bravado I appreciated, and pulled me to the left, where we followed the others to the wedding party wait spot. After the guests left, we’d pile into rented limos and cruise down to the banquet hall twenty minutes away, for pictures, drinking (not for me), and a good time.
“So, as a self-proclaimed agnostic, what do you think about the articulate embodiment of a Catholic parish?”
He nodded. “It isn’t shabby in the slightest. Quite stunning, I have to admit.”
“But not enough to convince you that Christ is Lord?”
“No.”
“We’ll keep working on that,” I winked.
“Are you Catholic?”
“I’m Methodist. Like Hillary Clinton.”
“The fact that you said Hillary and not Bill is indicative of your feminist leanings.”
“Gah,” I whispered as we gathered together in a clumped ball of cologne, purple lace, and confusion, awaiting the photographer and time to steadily tock. “The fact that you mentioned that is indicative of your wish to associate away from me.”
“Just the opposite,” Luke Cho said with a cocky smile, and he looked away just in time to not see the redness of my cheeks bloom like a rose in December.
THE FATHER-DAUGHTER dance was provoking, and the first dance of husband and wife was the right mix of classy and downright emotional. But then came a round of real grinding-dancing, where some bridesmaids went full-on trashy, some of the groomsmen were insistent on taking off Chelsea’s garter, and I was somehow pirouetting with Luke Cho, letting my body sweat and my hair down from the tight up-do Lacey had crafted.
The dance floor was packed with people—children, adults, the elderly—and somehow, Luke and I hadn’t left each other’s side. As the music went from sultry salsa to indie and electronica, I allowed my body the rapture of letting loose, enjoying a good time, and feeling quite free from restraints of normal life.
Luke spun me in a circle and whispered into my ear, “You know, I didn’t know this would be quite as fun as it has been.”
“You mean, because we are so good at dancing? Did that surprise you?” I was really sore, but ignored the feeling of achy muscles.
Lacey sidled up to us in a flurry of tiredness and bliss. “I wish my fiancé had been able to come—so I could look like you and Lukey here.”
“Lukey?” I gasped, falling over onto Luke’s chest when Chelsea’s grandmother—who had been dancing with a twentysomething surfer groomsman—bumped into me. She blew me a kiss and pointed to her hot date.
“It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve ever been called,” Luke offered, staring down at me. He blinked a few times, and then twirled me around. I felt really short compared to him, yet somehow it was a turn-on.
“One time,” I said, feeling the delirium that comes late at night in the hurry of a party, “someone called me ‘Stinking Polecat Dilemma Emma’ and, ever since, I have been blinded by that fact.”
“Someone’s tired,” Luke said, smiling. “Does she get really talkative when it is late at night?”
Lacey nodded quickly. “Yes, she does. Emma, the crowd is starting to disperse. Do you want me to drive you home?”
“No, I definitely got this. With a handsome guy like Lukey here…”
“She could be drunk,” Lacey offered.
“I’ve been with her all night—she hasn’t had anything except water.”
I felt tired, needy, and ready for a nice, cold shower—like always. There was a sort of ringing in my head from the mixture of sounds, but it wasn’t until midnight when I had an opportunity to leave, once Chelsea and Jim had been sent off to their honeymoon at a resort down in Oceanside and their parents had been formally driven off as well. Then, suddenly, under a thick blanket of stars, I stood at my car. Lacey was gone, but Luke remained, and his warm eyes matched my own.
“Will you be all right driving home? You seem loopy.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, standing on my toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you for a fun night. I really did have fun, because you agreed to dance like a complete idiot for me.”
“That makes it sound like it was a personal invitation. One I would like to follow up on soon.”
“I’ll see you around?” I asked, dropping him a piece of paper with my phone number enclosed. I had never done this before, but it did not strike me as something strange to do. I simply did it without giving it an intelligible thought.