By the Numbers (12 page)

“You can be bitter or you can be better. Which would you prefer?” Michael asks.

At the same time, both Patrick and Karin say, “Bitter!”

“I wouldn't even know how to meet someone,” I protest. “Do I just go to bars? I haven't had a date since 1987, when only doctors had car phones and long-distance calls cost twenty-five cents a minute.”

“Technology, honey. You let technology do all the work,” Michael says. “Sign up for a dating site. There are so many out there. There's eHarmony, Match, PlentyOfFish, OkCupid, ChristianMingle—”

“There's Tinder,” Karin says, “if you just want to hook up. You know, make sure all the equipment is still working before you actually get back in the game. Swipe right for yes and left for no, or vice versa. Actually, I'm not sure; might be the other way. Sasha's on it
all the time
. I'll have to ask which way to swipe because it seems important.”

“Every single thing you've just said disturbs me!” I say.

“What about Ashley Madison or Grindr?” Patrick asks, with a wicked grin.

“Not funny,” Michael admonishes. “Oh, and there's OurTime and SeniorPeopleMeet if you're looking for someone more mature.”

“Please,” Karin says. “Those sites are for geezers or for girls hunting for sugar daddies. Penny doesn't want any of that.”

The three of them argue about which site might be the most appropriate for me, but I've stopped paying attention. Instead, I'm distracted watching as Kelsey calls Stassi over to her table. She proceeds to give Stassi a tremendous hug before introducing her to a group of her friends. All the girls at the table then bound up and take turns hugging Stassi before she returns to casually fling one arm over Kelsey's shoulder. They stand there, side by side, arm in arm, best of friends, whereas Kelsey hasn't even acknowledged me since Stassi showed up, let alone introduced me to anyone.

Yep, this is a real shit sandwich all right.

But chewing every bite is entirely my decision.

• • • •

I'm standing in the front row when Chris walks Kelsey down the aisle to Regina Spektor's “Us.” Honestly, I'm glad she didn't pick a more traditional song here. If she'd gone with Pachelbel's Canon in D, I might have been overcome. Sure, I've heard the tune at dozens of weddings since mine, but this is the first time since our day that I'll have had the perspective of being on the other end of the aisle from Chris. I feel a lump in my throat noting that the reflection of pride and love on his face is almost exactly the same as it was on our day, too.

As Kelsey proceeds toward him, Milo weeps openly, and Topher, who has already conveniently lost his straw boater, hands him a handkerchief.

Kelsey is luminous and beatific, like none of the chaos of the past couple of days ever transpired. Her dress is divine, as Stassi made it better than new. She added in a few elastic panels and draped them with swaths of vintage tulle, thus improving on the original design. Kelsey says now she'll actually be able to eat and dance at the reception. The few extra pounds actually fill her out nicely, as I always thought she was too thin. The wreath of flowers nested in her wild hair makes her seem like a nymph from a fairy tale. For all my quiet skepticism, I cannot imagine her ever being more beautiful than she is at this moment. I don't even hate the sparrow tattoos.

Okay, I do hate the sparrows, but in a benign way, like how I hate fennel seeds or the idea of Ben Affleck playing Batman.

Chris hands Kelsey over to Milo and then comes over to stand by me.

I exchange a look with Patrick, who's on the other side of me, as if to say,
Why is he standing
here
? Where is Stassi? Shouldn't he be with his date?
Patrick gives me a shrug, equally confused.

As though Chris can hear my racing thoughts, he leans over and says, “This is family time.” His familiar scent of cloves and citrus and cinnamon hits me at such a visceral level that I suddenly can't imagine him
not
here at this moment.

Bishop Gartner invites us to sit, and we all take our seats in the gold bamboo chairs lined up in neat rows in front of the lattice arbor, which is woven with blush-colored New Dawn roses. I had the arbor built next to the old apple tree, now strung with vintage chandeliers. Spring came late this year, so the last of the apple blossoms are still in bloom, filling the air with their sweet perfume. Pale pink petals spill down around the couple when the wind blows. The scene looks so much like the inside of a snow globe that the guests collectively gasp with delight.

“You did good, kid,” Chris whispers.

“All I did was write checks.”

“Wrong. All you did was make this happen.”

I look from Kelsey to Jessica in the middle of the bridesmaids and then over to Topher. I have to fight the urge to put my head on Chris's shoulder, not because I'm overcome with emotion for him, but because regardless of where he and I are, this is what we created.

We made this happen.

The ceremony is short, and I'm surprised at exactly how traditional the vows Kelsey and Milo exchange are; in fact, they're almost exactly the same ones Chris and I pledged to each other once upon a time, with the better or worse, sickness and health, richer and poorer, and the loving and cherishing. Maybe the lesson here is that it's fine to be offbeat and indie in all areas of the wedding, save for the ones that count in the long run.

Like forsaking all others.

The bishop pronounces them husband and wife, they kiss, Milo thrusts a fist in the air and cheers, everyone applauds, and then it's over. As they head back down the aisle, we all turn to watch them, and that's when I spot Stassi standing in the back row. She gives me a small wave and mouths,
So beautiful!

Damn it. If I'm not careful, I might accidentally end up liking her. She could have come up here and been so officious, so smug at having righted all that went wrong, but instead she simply stood by herself and let me have this moment with my daughter's father. Even if I hate him right now—and the jury's still out on that—I will never forget having had the opportunity.

Stassi had better lose her top on the dance floor or hit on my
dad or barf in the punch bowl at the reception, because her being a good person does not fit my narrative.

• • • •

“Yes, I like you, Stassi. No, I'm not kidding.”

Stassi's laugh is like a musical instrument, and her eyes sparkle in the ambient lighting of the tent. I want so badly to despise her right now, but at some point I had to give that up. Was it when she gave the Heimlich maneuver to Mrs. Bunky Cushman because her salmon went down the wrong pipe? Perhaps when she administered the EpiPen to Zara, who didn't realize the crab puffs contained crab? Or maybe it was just watching her kick off her shoes and scuttle up the apple tree like a goddamned rhesus monkey to relight the chandelier that finally won me over, but she did, and now I can't legitimately hate her.

(I might hate myself, however.)

Truly, we'd have crumbled without her. For example, who'd have guessed all the rusty crap would have turned the backyard into something so magical and otherworldly?

Even the bathtub seems appropriate in this setting.

Sensing that this day might be too much for Jessica, it was Stassi and not me who thought to have her father ask Jess to dance. They were laughing the whole time they spun around the floor to “Sweet Child o' Mine.” Kelsey was testy that someone diverged from her hipster playlist, but Stassi distracted her with fake mustaches long enough for them to have their moment. That was the first time all day I saw Jessica smile.

As for the slumber party? Stassi called her friend who lives in
Kenilworth and camped out there so we didn't have to worry about sleeping arrangements. P.S. She even wore a bra today. What more could I want? Under different circumstances, I suspect Stassi and I might have even been friends.

“Don't tell Chris, but I like you, too. If he knows, he'll get nervous and worry we're plotting against him,” Stassi says.

“Then we'll keep it between us. Seriously, thanks for everything. Now I'm going to go somewhere that isn't here because this is so awkward that I can't even stand it,” I say.

“I wish we could have been friends, Penny,” she replies before merging back into the thick of the party. She stops to chat with Topher, who's doing a fine job of perpetuating the fiction that Adrienne is his date. The two of them have been dancing up a storm all night. If I didn't know better, I'd actually believe they were a couple. I like how they're holding hands—really helps sell the lie.

I head in the opposite direction, to the corner of the yard where it's dark and quiet. Years ago, Chris built a playhouse for the girls, and after they outgrew it, it morphed into a storage shed. Right now I'm planning to hide behind it and smoke a cigarette I bummed from one of the groomsmen.

I know.
I know
.

I'm not normally a smoker for so many reasons, but mainly because tobacco usage is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, plus it's gross and expensive and I could go on and on. Really, there's no good reason to smoke except in this moment it's the only thing in the world that I want to do.

I slip behind the playhouse and find an old book of matches under a terra-cotta pot. I sit on one of the tree-stump benches and light my cigarette. I draw in the smoke, letting it fill my lungs,
reveling in the sheer wrongness of it all. I do this maybe once a year, and I refuse to feel guilty for these five minutes of unadulterated bliss.

I shut my eyes and listen to the band playing in the distance. Everyone sounds like they're having a wonderful time. I'm glad I stuck it out here for another year; I would hate to have missed this night or denied the family this one last time here together.

“I can't believe you held out until ten thirty to smoke. I'd have laid four-to-one odds on it being no later than nine o'clock.” Chris sits next to me on one of the stumps.

“I'm a woman of infinite mystery,” I reply.

“You are at that,” he says.

I pass him the cigarette. “You want in on this?”

“Like you've ever been able to finish a whole one by yourself,” he says.

“The mind is willing; the flesh is weak.”

He laughs. “The flesh never learned to inhale.”

“Hey, the flesh has delicate little lungs. The flesh can't help it.”

“So, how was it?”

“The cigarette? Weird. The kids are smoking American Spirits these days. They're organic with no nicotine. If I'm going to smoke one per year, it may as well be a cowboy killer, you know? Marlboro Reds? Ooh, or Lucky Strikes? Now,
they
were cigarettes.”

“I mean the wedding. How was the wedding for you?”

“The wedding was great and I loved it. At the same time, I wish I felt more relevant and connected to the kids. This week wasn't about me, yet I'm hurt by the extent to which it wasn't about me. Is that horrible to admit?”

“You are perfectly justified, and your secret's safe with me.”

“Thanks.”

“So . . . now what? What's next?” He hands the cigarette back to me.

I take my final drag and exhale slowly, letting the smoke out in one long plume that curls and disappears into the darkness. I lean back against the playhouse and look up at the stars. “I don't know. I don't have a plan. I wonder if not knowing isn't the worst thing in the world?”

“That's always been my philosophy.”

We're quiet for a full minute.

“Hell is the truth discovered too late,” I finally respond.

“Hey, Pen?” He leans companionably against my shoulder.

“Yeah?” I breathe in the cloves, cinnamon, and citrus.

“Are we cool?” He takes my hand and rubs his thumb over my knuckle.

I offer him a wry smile while I look down at our hands together. “No, Chris. We are not cool. But I'm willing to give you two-to-one odds that we could be someday.” I take my hand back.

“Then it's a good thing I'm a bettin' man.”

We spend another couple of minutes in companionable silence. The whole world stands still, and I feel like we're at peace. We've reached some kind of truce. While this moment feels familiar, it's no longer imbued with all the pain of the past few years.

Perhaps this is our new reality.

Maybe there's some middle ground between perfection and the proverbial shit sandwich. Possibly . . . friendship?

He rises and brushes the dust from his tuxedo pants. “I'm going to head back to the party. You coming?”

“I'm going to enjoy the quiet for another minute or two.”

“Cool.”

He begins to walk away.

“Hey, Chris?”

He turns around. “Yeah?”

“Stassi says you guys are leaving for an ecotour of Costa Rica soon? You're going to zip-line through the jungles? That sounds exciting. Do me a favor, though, and double-check your life-insurance rider to see if—”

“Henny-Penny,” he says, “it's not your job to worry about me anymore.” If I didn't know him better, I'd say he sounded melancholy about this.

“Sorry. Have fun.”

I wave as he walks away, but he doesn't see me in the dark.

So . . . I did it. I got through this whole wedding relatively unscathed. Kelsey's married, Jessica and I had a moment, and Topher, well, he's still Topher. I feel like I've been able to let something crucial go with Chris. Maybe by releasing some of my rage, I'll have time to process other thoughts and that will make room to grow.

I feel ready to get on with the next phase of my life. And damn it, I'm actually kind of excited. I want to see what's next for me. I need a new role to replace what I've lost. I can't just be what I do; that's unhealthy. I need balance. To achieve equilibrium, I need to move on, to a new house, a new city, maybe a new pet, and, if Karin has her way, a new face. (Or, a new and improved old face.) And if Michael has his way, a new man.