Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest (4 page)

Fred had known Boyd from college, though they hadn’t run in the same crowd. He’d been brought up to speed, of course, on my hankering for restitution of an ancient wrong. He leaned in
and reported, “He’s looking at you. Oh, oh, he’s coming in for the kill . . .”

He was. Not for the kill, per se, but for something. It could be the kill.
What was the kill, anyway?
I turned to Fred to ask, but Boyd was already in earshot, loping toward us in khaki pants and a baby-blue golf shirt that, I wanted to mutter to Fred, only emphasized the lobster hue of his face. (Destination Wedding Tip: SPF.) He stopped, gave us a sort of leering half smile, and slapped my BWF on the back. Fred, who’d been sipping his drink, held back a cough. Boyd then turned to me. “Hello, Ms. Doll,” he said, wasting no time pretending he didn’t know exactly who I was. “I trust you’ve had a splendid evening?”

I nodded. “Highly splendid. The most splendid.”

“We have something to discuss,” he said. “Can I interest you in a nightcap back at my villa? As an added enticement, I have a bottle of Jamaica’s finest. And cigarettes. And—”

My suave demeanor was toast, because despite all the plotting and planning, I’d never successfully figured out what I might say in this initial interaction. I was terrible at this, really. I would have sucked at espionage. I relied on the oldest trick in the book: postponement. “Oh, hey, there’s Lucy. I have to talk to her,” I mumbled, departing hastily and snagging a fresh glass of wine on my way to the bride, who was gazing dreamily out at the water and moonlit sky.

“Did I just see you talking to Boyd?” she asked, snapping to attention. She had always been an excellent multitasker.

“He invited me back to his villa,” I told her. “For a nightcap. Who says ‘nightcap’?”

“Boyd does. Also, he told David he got that villa on purpose just in case he needed ‘extra room for guests.’” Lucy looked at me pointedly.

“What’s he going to do, house the wedding band? He hasn’t even spoken to me since he got here!” I said.

“Well, he just got here,” was her response. “You should give him a chance.”

“You think?” This was not the first time I’d been given this advice. There were plenty of paired-up couples in my life who seemed to see me as a hard-hearted ballbuster who never opened up, who refused to even
consider
anyone less than some idealized form of man. In truth, I knew that my heart, though deeply crusted on the outside with a protective layer of sarcasm and revenge schemes, was as welcomingly pliable as any of the hearts of the married twosomes I’d seen into wedlock. I might present a tough barrier, but it was a thin one, and once a man had found his way in, I was as accepting as anyone else, possibly more so, probably to a fault. I was starting to consider another truth: that I gave too many chances to people who didn’t deserve them.

But with Boyd, we were suspended in the faux reality of the wedding. Whether I gave him a chance or not didn’t really matter, not in terms of any permanent situation, not in terms of having to clean something up afterward. Not in terms of heartbreak. He’d made an offer, the most basic of overtures. I knew I could take it or leave it, and I knew that leaving an offer on the table, while occasionally advisable, is almost always the inferior basis for any sort of experience you might want to tell someone about later.

“So, are you going to go?” she asked. “You’ll go. You always go.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“It’s a story,” she said. “You’ll do anything for a story.”

I might have smiled—she knew me after all—but I kept it from getting out of control. I had a cover to protect. “I’m really happy for you,” I said. “You and David are a great couple.” I meant it. They clearly loved each other, and that was far better than any false impression of idealized couplehood, which, I’d come to realize, was a cruel form of deception to both those who wed and their guests. Lucy and David bantered and bickered and laughed and teased, but his expression when he looked at her, which he was doing right now, though she didn’t appear to notice, was one of joy and amazement.
I am so lucky
, it seemed to say. For some reason, out of me came these words: “Not everyone gets this.”

She smiled, that dreamy look crossing over her features again. “I know.”

•   •   •

O
n the way back to our rooms, Fred and I decided we’d take a quick dip, because no matter how often you get to jump into a pool overlooking the ocean under the light of the moon, it’s not enough. We traipsed through the resort, which was quiet but for the chirping of tiny tree frogs and the occasional rustlings of nocturnal creatures or other humans wandering back to their rooms. We emerged from a wooded patch to find ourselves not by the pool but in front of one of the expensive villas, an entity on its own. I’d seen the photos on the website: Underneath that thatched roof was an enormous four-poster bed surrounded by
floor-to-ceiling windows so as to allow a guest to gaze out at the ocean while horizontal. Adirondack chairs were perched outside on the rocky patio surrounding the hut, which had its own personal climbing ladder for access to the water beyond the cliffs. Outside of this hut there was a man sitting and smoking in his Adirondack chair. We were all in shadows, but there was no doubt in my mind who it was, and soon we found the man knew exactly who we were, too. “Oh, hi,” I heard, a familiar voice emerging through the dark over the crashing of the waves. “I was hoping to see at least one of you.”

Fred gave me a look, squeezed my hand, and was gone. I picked my way along the rocks, trying my best not to trip in my heels, until I arrived at the empty chair next to Boyd. Brave through drinks, I looked at him, not letting my gaze waver when he stared back at me. In the dark his eyes resembled those of a raccoon interrupted while picking through the garbage. I realized he was waiting for my next move before he made his. “I was robbed,” I said. “You do realize that.”

He laughed. “Sit down.” He gestured toward the nearest chair, but I waited a moment, gauging him; even, I thought, making him sweat. Of course, it was hot. He’d be sweating anyway, as evidenced by the splotch of perspiration that was currently working its way down my own back. More important than any sort of suspense or nervousness-making, though, was that from this vantage point, standing above him, I had room to consider. Who was this man? Not just the guy I’d put together from Facebook status updates and photos and Lucy’s stories. Not just the boy I barely remembered from so many years ago, the young man I
spent an hour standing next to, trying to convince a judge, who may or may not have been asleep, that my side of a hypothetical argument was best. Nor was he even some clear combination of the two, bound together by the indignation that silly incident had wrought. This person, while someone with whom I shared a strange, brief history, a specific moment in time, was largely a mystery. He was also more real than any of the options I’d considered up to this time. I must be the same for him, I thought. We were characters to each other, but we were not only that.

“Do you think people ever know people?” I asked, but before he had a chance to answer my seemingly random question, I eclipsed it with another. “I heard you dated Naomi Windham.” She was a girl who’d been a sophomore at my high school when I was a senior. I’d also heard that the relationship had ended badly, but I kept that to myself.

“I did,” he said, offering nothing more than a lengthy drag on his cigarette, which he then handed to me. “Want?”

I didn’t smoke, but I took it. It seemed the thing to do, companionably, even if what I really wanted was another glass of wine. He noticed me glancing at the cup near his feet and heaved himself out of his reclined position. “I’ll make you a drink,” he said. “You really are the same, you know that?”

“You never even knew me,” I managed, before breaking into a fit of coughing. He shook his head, went into his villa, turned on lights, poured something into a cup, and emerged again. I sat watching and wondering how I’d gotten into this, at the same time aware that to get out all I had to do was walk away.

I’d figured out by now that there are times in a person’s life
when she knows what will happen before it actually does. One might argue that this was such a time, that this had been in some ways predetermined, even before that debate competition fifteen years ago. That we would reunite at a wedding made our romantic interaction inevitable—because it was a wedding, because we were both single, because of our shared history, and because, practically speaking, it’s better to try your hand at a seduction scheme than it is to pummel a wedding guest with coconuts. Just because.

There are other times when a person has no idea what will happen, but is pretty sure whatever it will be will be interesting, and so chooses to stick around and see. Lucy was right. Anything for a story.

I took the cup he handed me and drank.

•   •   •

T
he reception took place steps away from the spot where Lucy and David had, earlier that evening, said their vows before their collection of guests and the ocean. Boyd and I were seated next to each other at a table covered in a white linen tablecloth and scattered with bright flowers. He was wearing a pink collared shirt. I had on a blue silk dress, turquoise like the color of the pool under full sun, and a necklace of matching blue beads. My fair, freckled skin glowed with its own pinkish hue. In my week poolside I had managed to acquire some semblance of that much congratulated “bit of color” wan East Coasters traveling to beachy locales crave.

When I arrived, he was already there, and he smiled up at me as I set my clutch down at my place setting. “Well, hello, there,”
he said. This was the first time I’d seen him all day. The night before, we had sat outside and talked until the sun was rising and I was forced to sneak back to my room so that no one would see where I’d spent the night. There had been one kiss, or two, possibly more? It had blurred around the edges in the end, but I’d pulled myself away and gone back to my room. I’d woken up excited, eager to see what would happen now. And now. And again, now.

With him staring at me in his preppy wedding clothes, his face sun-pink and shiny, I had no idea if what I’d felt the night before—a certain fondness for him, a camaraderie paired with that antagonistic jousting that could, in some situations, resemble a kind of sexual attraction—was even remotely real or just some sort of wedding-induced haze. After a brief intermission, the wedding play was coming to its last act. So what would it be? I grinned back at him. “Hello.”

“You should get food,” he said, looking down at his already full plate. I made my way to the buffet, where I was served coconut chicken, tilapia cooked in banana leaves, and a medley of greens grown locally. There was an ice sculpture adorning the table, two great swans, their necks entwined. I paused at it for a moment, considering the plantains below and watching water from the ice slowly drip onto the tablecloth. I wondered how long we had until the statue melted entirely, given the temperature, and why there was any need for an ice sculpture in Jamaica, anyway. It seemed an odd motif for a celebration of forever.

Interrupting these thoughts was a sharp cracking noise as one of the swan heads broke off and plummeted down. I gasped and involuntarily reached up to grab it in what may be the only truly
athletic effort at hand-eye coordination I’ve ever made, at a wedding or otherwise. I succeeded, though the rest of the sculpture came crashing down soon after that. As the resort staff gathered to take care of the detritus, for a few long moments I was left standing, figuratively and literally frozen, a cold chiseled swan head in one hand and my plate in the other.

The crowd of guests had hushed, and someone punctured the silence, asking, “Are you okay?” I looked down at my plate, full of water and chunks of ice, the
Titanic
of wedding dinners, just before it was whisked away and I was offered a new one upon which was quickly served a replacement meal. I took it and returned to the table, where I showed everyone the remains of the ice ball. It was speedily whittling itself down to a chip. “You hate swans!” said Fred, adding to me alone, “You either have some serious wedding mojo or some serious
anti-wedding
mojo.” I laughed nervously and set down the piece of ice, which melted into a damp smudge on the tablecloth and was gone.

The reception had begun. “To Lucy and David!” we shouted, lifting our glasses. Boyd caught my eye, winked ostentatiously, and raised his drink toward me.

Well after the pool had turned a dark, muted blue, the party continued. There was a makeshift tequila bar set up just before the cliffs began, and I stepped over to it in my high heels. They were silver and gold with an intricate crisscross weave on the tops. If worn too long, they would leave a contrasting pattern on the tops of my feet. I had worn them too long.

“Tequila shot?” asked the bartender, a jovial man in a short-sleeved, collared shirt and pastel bow tie. I nodded, holding out
my hand to accept his offer. A pleasant burning sensation traveled down my throat and into my stomach as I drank. Boyd appeared next to me and requested his own shot. For some reason, I took this to mean I should have another. We clinked glasses for the second time that night, simultaneously put our drinks to our lips, and gulped.

That was a mistake. There was a queasy churning in the depths of my stomach, a roiling that I knew from experience would not end well. Without saying a word—there was no time—I stepped away from the bar and out onto the jagged terrain surrounding the resort, toward the ocean water, darker and more sinister than the contents of the pool, though its surface was smooth as glass. In the distance, music played under the cabana, where couples were still dancing. That would serve as a noise muffler, I hoped. I quickly, neatly vomited between a pair of jutting rocks, wiping my mouth with a wadded-up old tissue discovered in my clutch. I suddenly thought I knew the real reason they didn’t allow children at the resort. It wouldn’t be fitting. After all, you never knew when a wedding guest might have to puke and rally on the cliffs.