Always the Last to Know (Always the Bridesmaid) (2 page)

      I’m just waiting for her to snap.

***       

       “Jess, are you going with us to pick Matt up from the airport? Or do you just want to meet us at the tailor’s?”  Carla yells from the living room.

        “I have to work until two.  I’ll just meet you guys at the tailor’s.”  I reply back from the kitchen where I have my hands down in soapy water while I wash dishes.  Dirty dishes in the sink have always bothered me.  I’m not a clean freak by any means but there is something about seeing a plate with lasagna caked on it or a cup with a milk ring in the bottom of it that gives me the unnatural desire to clean it and shove it back in the cabinet as soon as possible.

      Plus, Evan is in the living room with Carla watching something about the NFL on ESPN.  While I do love college basketball and even the occasional game of soccer, football makes me want to curl up and die somewhere.  I think it might be because I don’t understand the rules.

      Evan never has talked to me much, but when I asked the point of football one day, he was all too happy to explain to me why football players would run two feet just to be brutally tackled.  Evan had played football through all four years of high school and for his freshman year of college, until he tore an ACL and had to quit the program.  He still knows his shit though, and is even an assistant football coach at the local high school where he’ll begin teaching history in the fall.  After twenty minutes of explanation and listening to him bitch about Green Bay’s defense, Carla had fallen asleep on the couch and Evan was so frustrated at my questions that he had given up all hope for me.  That was the last time Evan and I had spoke more than seven words to each other.  And it was three months ago.

      I have tried to stir up conversations with Evan.  It’s just that we have absolutely nothing in common and talking to each other is like chewing on glass: it’s painful, unnatural, and neither of us really wants to do it.

      I put the last dish on the rack to dry before I head into the living room to talk to Carla.  She’s sitting on the couch next to Evan.  One of his muscular arms is draped on her shoulder.  They look so oddly perfect together.  They are both shorter
(Evan’s about my height, actually)
and Evan’s stout frame seems to compliment Carla’s smaller bone structure.  They’re both blondies too.  Of course, Evan’s short dirty blond hair is naturally that color whereas Carla has to make a regular appointment at the salon to keep her hair a light blonde before her dark roots make themselves known. 

      I sit down at the ottoman by the television, trying to keep the football show out of my line of vision.

       “Where is this Matt guy flying in from again?”

       “Oklahoma.  He moved out there after high school for college.”

      I was going to ask why he would move out of the state to go to college, but then I remember: we live in Kentucky, and that’s reason enough to leave.  Being best friends from high school, Evan and Matt had grown up in a small town somewhere south of Louisville famous for bourbon or horses or something.

       “You’re going to love Matt.  He’s really great, Jess.”

      I nod at Carla, but doubt that I will like Matt simply because I can’t stand the majority of Evan’s other friends.  Even though he had to quit playing football, Evan is still friends with a lot of guys on the team and the majority of those friends are jackasses who seem to have it on very good authority that they’re God’s gift to the world.

      They are so wrong.

       “You’ll like him, Jess.  He was so nice when I met him last Christmas up at Evan’s parents’ house.”

       “Wait. . . was he that dark haired guy you showed me a picture of?”

      Carla nods, “Yeah, Matt Mancini.  The one that, when I said his last name, your eyes glazed over and you mumbled something about Italian boys.”

       “Oh.”  I say softly, trying to recall how the guy had looked in the picture.  I remember that he had black curly hair and a natural tan.  And that he was taller than Evan, which isn’t really any feat at all.  I can’t remember any other strong features about him.  But I have a suspicion that he is kind of gorgeous.

       “Just one more thing to be excited for at the tux fitting, right?”  Carla raises an eyebrow that’s accompanied with a smirk.

       “What are you talking about?”

       “In addition to Matt being handsome and single, I know that you’ve been jonesing to see Riley all cleaned up.”

      I laugh lightly.  She has that right.  The one thing that makes my dress a little bearable is the fact that Riley and the groomsmen are all stuck in lavender tuxes with matching lavender ruffle undershirts and top hats.  Oh, the top hats make me so happy.

       “Did you ever find a date to the wedding?”  Carla looks at me with a bit of a smile playing on her lips.

      I shake my head, “No, not yet.”

      Like I would actually ask a guy to go to the wedding and see me in the dress from Hell.  That would be too cruel, for both my date and me.

       “Well, Matt’s going to be free.   Maybe you can go with him.”

      I snort, “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

       “Why wouldn’t it?”

       “You said he was handsome and single, Carla.  Handsome and single guys don’t like girls like me.  We’ve gone over this.”

       “Oh, right, the whole Bubba Theory.”  She rolls her eyes and snuggles closer to Evan.

       “That’s exactly right.”  I mumble, tossing a small throw pillow at her.  Evan catches the pillow before it hits Carla without taking his eyes off the television.

       “You ruin all the fun, Evan.”  I say in a joking tone.  He only grunts as a response.

      The Bubba Theory is the belief that I’m going to end up marrying a guy who wears his NASCAR shirts too tight and too short, therefore letting his severe DunLap Disease
(where his stomach has ‘dun’ lapped over his waist)
be exposed for all the world to see and he’ll wear his greasy long ponytail through the back of a ball cap advertising something about how he didn’t wake up grouchy this morning, he let her sleep in.  Oh, and he will go by Bubba, regardless of what his actual name is.  And I’d marry him and think very seriously every morning about poisoning his eggs and bacon but decide that jail isn’t worth killing the sorry son of a bitch.  That’s going to be my future and though I’m not happy about it, I don’t see any other choice that I have.

      Other than joining a convent, that is.  I mean, I’m not having sex now so what would I have to lose?

       “You never know, Jess.  Matt may just sweep you off your feet.”

       “Carla, you’re not going to set me up, are you?  You know how awkward that is, right?”

       “I only set you up for dates because I care.”  She sighs, “We’re out of college now.  We don’t have classrooms and parties during finals week to meet people.  And,” she looks at Evan, “I don’t have that much time to help you with your love life anymore.  This is my last ditch effort.”

      I snort; this is not going to be her last attempt at trying to find me love.  If the producers would let her, she would run a personal ad for me on the local news channel she works at.  I don’t know what her exact job title is, but I know that it involves holding a clipboard, wearing a headset, and being in the control room a lot, which would allow her to sneak in a commercial about her pathetic roommate’s lack of a social life with no real difficulty.

       “Carla, I appreciate the help, I really do.  But I don’t need any help getting a date.”

       “Really?  Jess, who was the last guy to call your phone?”

      I eye my phone.  It’s sitting on the coffee table, closer to Carla than it is to me.  There is no way that I can even attempt to beat her to it.  Realizing such, she scoops it off the table and flips it open.  After a few clicks, she smiles.

       “Just as I suspected.  The last guy you talked to was my brother.”  Her smile vanishes and is replaced with a look of surprise.  “You talked to him for forty-three minutes?”

      I nod, “Yeah.  Well, technically, I argued with him for forty-three minutes.  He couldn’t find his sketchpad and thought that he left it here.  I told him that he didn’t, he said he did, I called him a doofus, he called me a wuss, and it only got meaner after that.  And I was right.  His sketchpad was at his office, not here.”

      After Riley graduated college two years ago, he immediately got accepted to this local contracting business to design blueprints for houses and companies and that kind of thing.  He loves his job but makes sure to keep his work sketchpad at his office.  His other sketchpad, the one he called questioning the location of, is full of random doodles and drawings.  Kind of like the drawings Leonardo DiCaprio’s sketchpad in
Titanic
, only without the naked drawings of prostitutes and stuff.  That’s what Riley loves to do.  The drawing part, I mean.  Not the prostitutes.  He has been drawing for as far back as I can remember.  And he is really good at it.

      Not that I would ever tell him that to his face, of course.

      Carla snaps my phone shut and smiles smugly, “I rest my case.  You need my matchmaking skills.”

       “Don’t set me up, Carla.  It’ll make me nervous.”  I say with a sad face, but she seems unmoved.  Fine, two can play this game.  “And there’s nothing worse than a nervous and shaky bridesmaid who has a history of accidentally knocking stuff over to take all the focus off the bride during a wedding.  And there’s going to be all those lit candles around and, oh my God, just think what could happen to the wedding cake.”

       “Fine.  I won’t set you up.  Geesh.”

       “Thank you.”

       “But you should know that Matt plays guitar and volunteers at a soup kitchen twice a month.”

       “Really?”  Evan and I ask at the same time.

       “Yeah.”  She turns to stare at her fiancé, “Evan, he’s your best friend.  How did you not know that?”

      Evan, as usual, grunts in response, and even shrugs a little.  Carla rolls her eyes, but can’t help to steal a quick glance at him and smile.

      Yuck.

       “So, are you sure, Jess?  You’re sure that you don’t want me to set you up with a guitar playing, soup kitchen volunteering Italian?”

       “That’s right.”  I say slowly and with some difficulty.

      Carla hears the weakness in my voice and smiles.  “Okay, I won’t say anything to him.”

       “Thank you.”  I say with the same amount of trouble.  It isn’t that I don’t want a date to the wedding, or just a date in general, I just don’t want the guy to feel bad for me and give me a pity date.  Not that I could get a date as cute as I could remember Matt being; my luck has never been that great.  And, there is no way in Hell I am going to land a date with him, or any other guy, for the wedding if they know that I will be dressed like Scarlet O’Hara’s ugly sister.

      Of course, Matt is going to have to wear a lavender suit.  Maybe I would feel pity on him as well.  Then we could date each other out of pity and have one of those classic love stories of the Best Man and Maid of Honor falling in love and jetting off to Italy for a private wedding in his native Italian village, perhaps in the same court square that his grandparents were married in some fifty years ago.

      I haven’t even met the guy and am already picking out a china pattern.

      I’m worse than Carla.

Two

Tuesday, June 23
^rd

       “When does Little Bo Peep want her dress back?”

      I don’t even look up at the person across from the teller window.  I know exactly who it is.

       “Vayase, por favor.”

       “Come on, Reynolds.  Don’t start this Ricky Ricardo crap with me again.”

      I look up at Riley and smile.  He has an annoyed expression on his face but I can see amusement in his eyes.

       “Riley, how are you dear?”  Annie, my neighbor teller, pushes me out of the way with her hip to get a better look at him.

       “Hi Mrs. Connelly.”  He replies wearily and takes a step back from the teller window.  Riley is convinced, as am I, that Annie has a crush on him.  Which would be all well and good if Annie wasn’t married and old enough to be his mother.  It may just be that Annie is overly sensual, or just a total cougar.  Of course, if I look like Annie when I reach my fifties, I’ll be hitting on guys in their twenties as well.  She kind of reminds me of a brunette Dolly Parton, with bright eyes and big hair, but with drawn-on eyebrows.  She definitely has the same sweet Southern nature that Dolly seemed to radiate, and is, without a doubt, shopping in the same size of bras as Dolly.

      I look down at my flat chest.  Damn her.

       “I brought lunch.”  Riley waves a take-out bag from the deli down the street.