Conversations With the Fat Girl (38 page)

black hair is in an updo, and her makeup is perfect. Jerry, the unsung

husband, is an average-looking guy. He's the type of guy you would never

be able to pick out in a crowd twice. He's wearing a brown linen suit

with an open-collared dress shirt. He's also wearing aviator-style

sunglasses. They look absolutely ridiculous on him. No doubt Gwen picked

them out.

I know which one is my table, so my lone gold-and-silver card stays put

as the board empties. Table Nine. The notorious Table Nine. Table Nine

could not be farther from the head table. Seeing it drawn is one thing.

Sitting at the actual table is a whole other animal. The waiters

continue to come around with wine.

There are four empty chairs at Table Nine, not counting the one I will

be sitting in. As I sit there, laughing guests ask me about every five

minutes if all the chairs are taken. And about every five minutes, my

heart soars until they take the chair and head over to another crowded

table far away from the now quarantined Table Nine. Carol and Bob left

their coats on the backs of two of the chairs here at Table Nine, but

they have yet

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to grace me with their presence. So it's just me. Do I want someone to

actually sit with me or do I just want to be alone?

Adam's brother begins the hike over to my table. It takes him about

thirty-five minutes.

"You know you're introducing the slide show, right?" I assumed he needed

a chair.

"Huh?" I ask.

"I'm going to make a toast. Then I'll hand the microphone over to you

and you'll introduce the slide show. Everything's timed," Adam's brother

says nervously. I don't actually know his name. For as long as Olivia

and Adam have been together, he's only been referred to as "Adam's

brother." He probably does have a name, but maybe not.

The crowd begins to settle in, and the DJ is playing the usual dining

tunes: standards, badly redone pop songs, and long, winding mixes that

never quite end. I am halfway through the small green salad when the

people I assume to be Carol and Bob finally approach the table, laughing

and having a great time. I perk up and start to greet the couple. They

both say hi to me, grab their coats and bags, and walk directly over to

another table. I hear Carol say this table is just too far away to

really be part of anything. Now it's just me and Table Nine again. No

hope of Carol and Bob. No hope of anyone. Just a tiny shred of hope that

I know the waiters will be back with full bottles of wine again in about

ten minutes.

I squint and can barely make out the head table, it's so far away. It is

beautiful, and everyone at it looks right out of a magazine. Gwen is

there with her husband, Jerry. They are grinning from ear to ear as the

photographer takes "candid" pictures of them for Olivia's memory book.

Mark and Grace don't really stay at the head table. They are bumping

from table to table. Following the wine. They'll be at Table Nine any

minute now.

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"I'd like to be the first to welcome you here tonight to celebrate Mr.

and Mrs. Adam Farrell's rehearsal dinner." The DJ cuts in over the

microphone to a smattering of applause and murmurs of disdain because

the DJ didn't call Adam "Doctor." The crowd falls silent as the happy

couple make their entrance.

Olivia and Adam are radiant. Olivia is wearing a yellow chiffon dress

that dusts the ground as she walks. Her blond hair is down and pulled

back from her face. Her makeup is natural and barely noticeable except

for the false eyelashes. Adam is wearing a gray dress shirt with a gray

tie to match. Doesn't he know the monochromatic look went out with Super

Millionaire? As night falls, The Athenaeum's gardens get more and more

beautiful.

"Oh, no, thank you, no trans fats," I say out loud to no one as I push

away the thousand tiramisu plates the waiters left for all of Table

Nine's occupants.

"Oh, but it is wafer-thin?" I answer myself in a French accent.

The time passes quickly I look at the head table every so often and see

Olivia and her chosen few laughing and having a good time as dessert is

served. I don't want what they've got. I want what I've got. Table Nine

rocks. I have busied myself by doing impersonations of people all night.

My AV guy kills.

Adam's brother awkwardly approaches the DJ and gives the AV guy some

kind of high sign. The music dies down, and Adam's brother clears his

throat. I roll my eyes. I take a deep breath as I head to the microphone

as well.

"I am Adam's big brother and I will serve as his best man during

tomorrow's festivities," he starts. Maybe he really doesn't have a name.

Olivia and Adam stand and walk toward the dance floor.

"I remember first meeting Olivia. And I thought that she

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wasn't like anyone else Adam had ever brought home. Her boobs were

real!" The crowd nervously chuckles. That's about all that's real on her

these days, brother.

"Aaaanyway, I want to congratulate my little brother and wish him and

his bride-to-be the best of luck tomorrow," he says and raises his

glass. I approach the microphone and see Gwen coming toward me. Adam's

brother gives her the microphone.

He whispers, "She just wants to say a few words. Once you finish, the

slide show will start automatically" Gwen and Jerry move to the front of

the dance floor.

"I have known Olivia for so long, I just can't believe she's here and

getting married," Gwen gushes.

Olivia is wiping away tears and clutching Adam.

Gwen hands the microphone over to Jerry, who breaks out in song about

love. I look around at the audience. Oh, good, it's not just me and my

bad attitude. Everyone's a little awkward with Jerry's "singing." Gwen

pulls her cashmere shawl around her shoulders and stares at Olivia and

Adam as Jerry finishes.

". . . it's about love," Jerry whispers as he drops his head to his

chest, awaiting applause. Olivia and Adam rush the couple and hug them

as they share this moment publicly. The crowd is quiet.

I walk to the microphone. Olivia and Adam settle into their poses,

waiting for some kind of story. I thought I was just introducing the

slide show. It becomes obvious to me that I need to say something. I

clear my throat and the world goes quiet. Now it's just Olivia and me.

"I'm so happy that you've gotten everything you always wanted, Olivia.

You are truly living out our teenaged fantasy" I smile to myself and I

see Olivia harden. My smile fades. I look out into the audience, lick my

lips, and take a deep breath. I

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stare directly at Olivia and Adam, lifting my champagne glass high.

"Congratulations, Olivia and Adam. Here's to the beautiful life you've

always wanted." The crowd applauds. I can see Olivia sigh with relief as

I finish.

The opening chords of my slide show play, but Olivia and Adam don't rush

up to hug me. Instead, Olivia holds Adam and they begin to dance in

front of the slide show. The DJ takes the microphone from me, and I make

the long trek back to Table Nine.

I sit down and gesture to the waiter for another glass of wine.

Olivia and Adam have taken dance classes to get ready for all the

dancing they'll have to do. This is a warm-up for the big day tomorrow.

I hear their wedding song is "Wind Beneath My Wings." Of course it is.

They glide across the floor to their song as the crowd looks on with

drunken smiles and baby-shower wonder. The slide show begins on a large

movie screen that has been set up at the front of the dance floor. The

darkness makes every picture crisp and clear. There's Olivia on vacation

in Hawaii in her yellow bikini. Isn't she cute? O0000h, and there's one

of Adam looking up from underneath the sink with a wrench in his hand.

Oh, that little stinker can't fix a thing.

Well, there's the one of Olivia and me proudly standing in front of her

first car. Olivia is wearing what appears to be a small change purse on

a silvery thread, or what some would call a "purse." I have my leg up on

the bumper in a victorious This is Ours! pose. The crowd gasps in unison

as Olivia's massive ass attacks all forty-seven rehearsal dinner

invitees like some bad 3-D movie. I take a long sip of my wine as the

whispers and shushes rise from the tables. The guests might be talking

at full volume, but from Table Nine everything is pretty much whispers

and hushes.

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Olivia and Adam twirl even harder. They probably think they are dancing

so well now that the crowd is murmuring in awe. The next picture is

their engagement picture. Olivia and Adam walking hand in hand on the

beach. Oh, and here are the outtakes. Aren't they cute? Adam is

splashing Olivia! How could he do that? Oh, but look, she got him. She

splashes him even more, and now she is jumping on his back and trying to

wrestle him down. Oh, but wait, what's this? Could it be Olivia's high

school yearbook picture from our junior year?

Gwen sits on the very edge of her chair as a succession of pictures

follow that chronicle Adam's climb in the medical field. I squint to get

a better view of Gwen. She's fingering something around her neck: a

gold, diamond-encrusted necklace. Let me guess-with the initials G&O? I

sit back a little more at ease and focus on the slide show. There's Adam

with a stethoscope. Now he has a shiny silver chart. And now he's

speaking at some seminar with a red laser pointer and half-moon glasses,

from which he looks down intelligently. Mr. and Mrs. Morten are beaming.

I enjoy my wine.

This next picture was one of my favorites. I remember finding it in that

shoe box while I was packing. I knew I had to keep it out. Scanning it

into the computer was just a natural progression. Kate's mini-tutorial

at breakfast allowed me to crop and position the pictures more artfully

than I could have ever dreamed.

It is of Olivia on her one trip to a homecoming dance. She's wearing a

black dress with a high Victorian collar. It was the only dress her

mother could find on such short notice. A young man named Franklin

Bonner asked Olivia to the dance. His dishwater-blond hair stuck

straight up in the back and looked a lot like Olivia's. I feared they

were really long-lost siblings. He wore a black suit, white shirt, and

pink-and-green tie to this

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particular dance. The outfit could have worked if it hadn't fit him five

years prior to the dance. About four inches of his white shirt protruded

from the sleeve of the jacket, and the tie barely made its way down half

his chest.

At this Shawna snorts.

She has spit her wine out onto the table and is already fully engrossed

in apologies and another fit of giggles.

"He's just so small!" she cries.

I look up at the pictures and can't help but smile. This was Olivia and

me at our best. She actually liked Franklin Bonner and allowed him to

give her a good-night kiss. Her first kiss. It just seemed right that he

should be in this little slide show the night before her wedding day.

Olivia is now standing front and center and staring up at her dirty

little secret.

The song plays on in the background as the buzz of my laptop whirs on.

Panchali is cleaning up Shawna's spilled wine and quieting her giggles,

pleading with her to calm down and get ahold of herself. But Shawna's

right. Franklin Bonner is a good two hundred pounds lighter than Olivia

and a full head shorter. Olivia is trying to get her hands around

Franklin's in such a clawlike manner it looks like they're trying to

send Red Rover Red Rover right over.

Looking down on us now are a perfect Olivia and Adam at the base of the

Eiffel Tower. The laptop whirs on. There is the happy couple playing

doubles tennis at a fancy tournament.

Olivia turns to Adam. He is holding her hip in a kind of distancing way.

It's as if he wants to show everyone that his soonto-be-wife's flaws

don't freak him out. But at the same time, he's clearly not allowing her

to come any closer to him. With this rejection, Olivia turns to her

mother. The song is still playing in the background as the laptop whirs on.

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"I told you not to put those pictures in!" Olivia screams as she walks

over to Mrs. Morten's table.