A Total Waste of Makeup (39 page)

Grandma looks at me, trying to figure out if he’s lying. I respond with a shit-eating grin of confidence.

“Of course,” Grandma barely manages to eke out to Drew.

There’s an awkward silence at the table for a few moments.

“Where are my manners?” Drew says, quickly standing up and offering his hand to my grandmother. “May I have this dance?”

And Grandma actually giggles. “Well, aren’t you sweet?”

As they walk out onto the dance floor, I overhear her say, “You know, we loved you in
Ocean’s Eleven
.”

“Well, thank you. Of course, that was George Clooney.”

Once they are on the dance floor and out of hearing range, I pat Dawn’s hand. “Thanks for letting me borrow your date.”

“No problem. And, hey, she’s not so bad. You should hear my Jewish grandmother on the subject of my not being married. You Catholics ain’t got nothing on us Jews when it comes to annoying grandmothers.”

As I laugh, the wedding coordinator leans into our table and urgently whispers to me, “May I have a word with you?”

Uh-oh.

“Of course,” I say, following her to a quiet corner.

“I was wondering if we could convince you to give the first toast?” the coordinator begins. “I’m afraid the best man is, um…indisposed at the moment.”

No fucking way.

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” I say. “See, I’m not very good at public speaking. And, when I say I’m not very good, what I mean is, it makes me want to throw up.”

“I understand completely,” the coordinator says, smiling. “However, from what I understand, apparently the best man actually
is
throwing up. Rather violently, I might add.”

Andy races up to us. “So, can you do it?” she asks me.

“Do what?”

“Give the toast. Talk about how happy you are for us…blah, blah, blah.”

“I don’t understand. What happened to Hunter’s brother?”

“He and Mom had a drinking contest, and he lost. Big time,” Andy says, sounding more than peeved at Mom. I open my mouth to ask for more information, but Andy puts up her palm. “It was Kamakazi shots. Apparently Mom drank him under the table. I don’t even want to go there. Can you just do the toast?”

I sigh. I have nothing prepared. I’ve been drinking since ten this morning. Yeah, this is gonna go well.

“No problem,” I say.

“Great,” Andy says, and hugs me.

The best impromptu speeches are written well in advance.

About five minutes later, I stand up on the stage, slightly tipsy, desperate for a cigarette, all eyes on me. Everyone probably thought I’d spent days writing and rewriting my speech for two hundred people.

So I do what great orators have done for centuries.

I wing it.

I stare at my champagne glass. “The moment I knew that Andy had found her true love was at her bachelorette party,” I begin.

There are titters from the audience, and Andy looks at me, wide-eyed and petrified. I laugh with the titters. “Now, now…contrary to what you might hear about bachelorette parties, most of them are quite tame. No, what I was going to talk about was Andy’s choice of lingerie for one of her last nights as a free woman. She had stolen one of Hunter’s T-shirts to wear with her flannel pajama bottoms.”

I raise my glass for the toast. “Here’s to finally finding the one whose T-shirts you want to steal for the rest of your life.”

Everyone clinks their glasses, applause, applause, applause, and I am done for the night.

A few minutes after the toast, I take my glass of champagne and sneak outside for a breath of fresh air.

That’s a total lie. I need a cigarette.

After tracking the wedding coordinator down and bumming a Marlboro and a light from her, I head toward the lake and away from the loud party.

I light up. Aaaahhhhhhh…

I can feel a slight chill on my shoulders as I walk around the grounds, dreaming of the day when I get to wear the white dress and be the center of attention and get all the free champagne flutes and fifty-dollar checks.

I finish my cigarette, stub it out in a discreetly placed ashtray, then start to walk back toward the reception.

On my way, I see Mawv sitting on a bench in a gazebo near the lobby, all by herself, also sneaking a cigarette.

“You know, those things’ll kill you,” I say as I walk up to her.

“Not soon enough, dear,” Mawv tells me, and takes a slow puff, exhaling small cigarette donuts.

I take the bench across from her.

Mawv’s glassy eyes seem to stare into space, even though she’s looking right at me.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I say.

“How about a kiss?” Mawv says, smiling.

I smile, and kiss her on the cheek. She smells of Chanel No. 5 and baby powder.

“I was just thinking that in my day, a woman defined herself by whether or not a man loved her enough to marry her. Then we had women’s lib, and you all went to college, and you got jobs, and you worked your butts off so you could buy your own houses, and have sex with whomever you wanted. And you want to know where it’s gotten you?” Mawv asks.

I shake my head, smiling the way you do when you talk to really old people.

“A woman now defines herself by whether or not a man loves her enough to marry her.”

I’m not saying I totally agree with her, but there’s something to be said for what comes with the wisdom of age.

“I’m sorry, where are my manners?” Mawv says, and quickly pulls a Winston from her silver cigarette case. “You want one?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” I say, taking the cigarette greedily.

She hands me her sterling silver lighter, and I light up, enjoying the second cigarette I’ve had in five minutes.

“The grandkids are in the back, sneaking pot, if you want to go there instead,” she tells me.

“Nah, I’ll stick to the legal stuff.”

Mawv smiles a grandmotherly smile and pats me on the knee lightly. “Good girl.”

We silently smoke our cigarettes while listening to the wedding music drift from the ballroom.

“Whatcha thinking about now?” I ask.

“I was actually thinking about you, dear,” Mawv tells me.

“Oh?” I say, surprised.

“I worry you’re sad it’s not your day today.”

“No, I’m not,” I lie. “My day will come.”

Again, she smiles and pats me on the knee. “I’ll bet you don’t remember your cousin Jenn’s
Charlie’s Angels
baseball cards.”

“Can’t say as I do,” I admit. “I’m notoriously bad about sports.”

Mawv laughs at that. “No, no. When your cousin Jenn was about five, she loved this TV show called
Charlie’s Angels.
You know, before it was a movie.”

I nod. “I know. I’ve seen the reruns.”

“Nice little show. Of course, it was on at ten o’clock back then, and even in 1976 I was old, so I didn’t watch it much, because I went to bed early.”

I nod, already worried she’s about to go off on a tangent.

“
Baretta
was on before that, and I didn’t like him, even before he killed his wife. I did like that
Carol Burnett Show,
though. She’s such a funny woman….”

“Mawv,” I say gently, patting her knee.

“That Lyle Waggoner was such a handsome fellow. Very pleasant on the eyes. You know, he was on
Wonder Woman,
too…”

“Okay, Mawv…”

“That was the show with that actress whose husband was accused of stealing all that money….”

“And we’re back to the baseball cards,” I remind her.

Listen to your elders’ stories. They have a lot to teach you.

“Yes. Baseball cards,” Mawv continues. “Your cousin wanted all the
Charlie’s Angels
cards. They were like baseball cards, and each had a picture from the show on one side. Then, on the other side of the card, instead of statistics, there was a picture that was a piece of a puzzle. If you collected all the cards, you could make a picture of the Angels on a beautiful beach in Hawaii.”

I continue to nod politely, but honestly I don’t know what this has to do with me.

“Anyway,” Mawv continues, “Jenn collected all of the cards—except for one. Her mother must have bought her fifty packs of bubble gum just to get this one card, but she never got it. So, her puzzle was always missing Jaclyn Smith’s hat.”

“Hmm,” I say, figuring the story was over.

And pointless.

Suddenly, Mawv gets more animated, and more desperate to make her point. “But it was just one piece of the puzzle. Do you understand?”

“I do,” I say, lying.

Mawv sighs and shakes her head. “No, you don’t.”

And then she gets me with a zinger. “I worry about you because you have a good life. And you spend too much of it sad that you don’t have Jaclyn Smith’s hat.”

Ouch.

I wish I could assure her that that’s not the case. But I can’t. Because it’s true.

For the next minute or two, we smoke our cigarettes in silence, listening to the sounds of an early Beatles tune coming from the ballroom.

Suddenly, my mother comes running out of the ballroom. “Charlie?!” she screams across the courtyard. “Where are you?! Your sister’s about to throw the bouquet!”

I roll my eyes, and Mawv bursts out laughing.

Reluctantly, Mawv and I head back to the ballroom, and over to the center of the dance floor, where all of the single girls huddle in a pack near Andy.

I stand between Kate and Dawn. “Well, girls, time for the most humiliating part of the evening.”

“Why do you say that?” Kate says, totally excited. “This is my favorite part. You know, I’ve caught the bouquet three times.”

Dawn shakes her head. “That just says so much.”

As Andy makes a big show of turning around so as not to see anyone, Dawn leans into me and whispers, “Hey, can you do me a little favor later?”

“Sure. You want me to make myself scarce tonight?” I ask, because, let’s face it, who wants to be in an insanely romantic hotel room with your best friend next door listening to your every smooch.

“Not exactly,” Dawn says, and she starts chewing her cuticles, which is her one nervous habit in the world.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, slightly concerned.

“Well, it’s Drew. See, we’ve kind of hit that point of, you know, fish or cut bait.”

I stare at her blankly. “Meaning?”

“Meaning we haven’t slept together.”

“You haven’t…” I say loudly, then catch myself. I lower my voice to a whisper. “You haven’t…”

“No, and tonight’s kind of the night,” Dawn says. “So I’m going to break up with him.”

She’s what? I stare at her in astonishment as—

Bam!
The bouquet hits me right in the face.

“Shit!” I scream, but I’m drowned out by the yells of disappointment from Kate and the other girls, and applause from the wedding guests.

I touch my cheek lightly with my finger. “I’m bleeding,” I say to my sister. “What the hell’s in this bouquet?”

“Just roses and lilies,” Andy says, then walks up to check it as I grab a linen napkin and put it up to my face. “Ooh, it looks like a thorn hit you.”

“Because, you know what they say,” Dawn enlightens us:

A rose by any other name still has thorns.

I glare at both of them as we get off the dance floor to make way for the single men and the garter toss.

Yeah, here’s another fun tradition.

The first time Hunter throws the garter, it falls about five feet short of the group of bachelors, and not one guy walks over to pick it up.

Swell.

The next time, it’s caught by a twelve-year-old, whom I get to dance with. Finally, my prince has come.

The second the song is over, I race over to Table 9, grab Dawn, and tell her she needs to join me in the ladies’ room. All jokes aside, I need to get her alone, so I can find out what’s going on with Drew.

Because, you know what they say:

If you can’t get laid at a wedding—go into a monastery.

Note to self: Call monastery Monday morning. Book “get to know” meeting for Drew.

Thirty-Four

You don’t choose love, love chooses you.

Once Dawn and I get to the ladies’ room, I try to be the understanding friend that everyone deserves during a painful breakup.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” I yell at Dawn. “You’re going to break up with my boss at a wedding?!”

I said I
try
to be an understanding friend.

“I know,” Dawn says, pulling a lipstick from her purse and applying it in the mirror. “I picked a bad time, and I’m sorry about that. But there really never is a good time to break up.”

Kate charges in. “Did I hear right?” she says to Dawn. “You’re breaking up with the Sexiest Man Alive?”

“No. I’m breaking up with Drew,” Dawn says, now irritated. “If Denzel calls, I’m open.”

I stare at them, speechless.

Dawn finishes with her lipstick and hands it to Kate, who applies some in the mirror. “You’re nuts,” Kate says. “The guy’s gorgeous.”

“Do you want him?” Dawn asks.

Kate hands back the lipstick. “Actually, no. I kind of like this fuckbuddy thing I got going with Jamie.”

Ewwww…

“Please don’t refer to my brother as a ‘fuckbuddy,’” I say to Kate. “It’s going to take three more cocktails just to get that visual out of my head.” I turn to Dawn, who puts away her lipstick and pulls out a powder compact. “I don’t get it. You like him. What did he do wrong?”

“He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just not working out,” Dawn says apologetically. She puts on some powder, staring at her reflection in the mirror, consciously not looking at me.

Dawn finally looks my way. I guess I must be looking like a kicked puppy, because she seems genuinely upset to be hurting me. “It’s just not working out,” Dawn says, putting away her compact. “I mean, I’m at this incredibly romantic wedding watching people recite their vows, and I know he’s not the one. So, rather than getting all depressed about it, I think it’s better for all concerned if we just call it a day, so to speak.”

I blow out a big sigh. I hate it when she’s being reasonable. “Okay, fine. But do you have to break up tonight? I mean, have a heart. And why do I have to be here for it?”