THE JUNIOR BRIDESMAID (5 page)

“Delilah?” He
asked hoping for an explanation.

I faced Davis
deliberately looking straight into his eyes. I slapped the note that was in my
right hand against his bicep and fisted it with the material of his polyester jacket.
My left hand mirrored my right but probably gripped a whole lot of arm hair
with the tight hold I executed rivaling that of a silver back gorilla. Then I
started shaking him violently. “Did you see him, Davis?”

“No, Delilah. I
was out at lunch. Giancarlo was filling in for me,” he explained while his hat
rocked back and forth on his head from my violent shaking.

“Damn it.” I
released his jacket but still fisted the note and slapped it against my thigh.
Then for some strange reason my fight or flight instinct kicked in just as
panic consumed me. Since I couldn’t justify beating the crap out of Davis for
no apparent reason, (though with all the adrenalin coursing through my veins
there was a good chance I could take him) the flight impulse took over. I had
to flee. “I have to go,” I breathed. “Thank you, Davis.”

“B…but,” he held
up his hand as if there was something else he needed to tell me. I didn’t give
him the chance. I ran for the interior set of doors. His voice deflated
instead. “Oh. Ok. H, h, have a great night, Delilah,” he called to me as he
buzzed me through.

A great night? I
was lucky if I didn’t have a heart attack.

I threw myself
against the wall of the elevator as it slowly made the ascent to my floor and
felt my skin flush. I un-crumpled the note and looked at it again convincing
myself that I must have missed something. I turned it over again hoping that
there was a signature or something that would tell me that it was definitely
Hugh Rowen, the long lost love of my life that left this cryptic note. I
slapped it against my thigh again punishing both it and myself when there were
still no identifying markers. It had to be him. No one, no one who wanted to
continue breathing without medical assistance would dare call me Junior. I was
like one of those assassins in a Hollywood movie and Junior was my trigger
word. But how the hell did he know where I lived and what possessed him to stop
by?

I ruined his life.

Me.

Delilah Jean
Welling.

Yes, I was a kid.

Yes, in the long
run I probably did him a favor. But there was no two ways about it. I changed
the course of his life that fateful day and I had no business doing it.

I fumbled with my
keys trying to enter my apartment. Twelve years. Twelve years had gone by since
I had last spoken to Hugh Rowen. The day I ruined his wedding I ran home with
my tail between my legs and buried myself under a very feminine, down comforter
in my bedroom. I stayed there for days never emerging except for a few mini
chocolate chip muffins, water and bathroom breaks, of course. My mother finally
had to call Julia to come over and organize an extraction. It took Julia hours
to convince me that my life wasn’t over. I emerged slowly repeating her mantra.
‘My life is not over, my life is not over.’

But she was wrong.

It was.

Not because anyone
in town held my unabashed announcement against me. Honestly, there were plenty
of folks who were happy to see Darcy go down in flames and finally get what she
had coming for quite a while. But because I couldn’t forgive myself for the
relationship that I had decimated. And no. Not the relationship between Darcy
and Hugh. Sooner or later the secret Darcy was keeping would have unraveled
their relationship on its own. Secrets like that never stayed hidden. But there
was another relationship my unsolicited outburst had affected. Mama and Aunt
Dody’s.

Aunt Dody never
spoke to my mother again. She blamed Mama for telling me about Darcy’s
‘situation’ even though she had sworn her to secrecy. Of course that wasn’t the
case. I had figured out all the sorted details by myself but Aunt Dody was
angry and wouldn’t listen to anyone who tried to explain. It probably didn’t
help that Aunt Dody learned of the real baby-daddy on her daughter’s wedding
day. Thanks to me. So even though I had ruined someone’s wedding, I was more
upset about the damage I had done to the relationship that my mother had
cultivated for almost her entire life. Mama tried to make me feel better. She
told me that if Dody would think something so awful of her then she wasn’t a
real friend anyway. But the fact that she had to come to that realization at
all had to be devastating and that was all on me.

The Wellings
weathered all of the village repartee that followed the non-wedding. But to say
that it was uncomfortable would be an understatement. There was an awful lot of
finger pointing in the produce section of our local supermarket and going to
church had me in a sweat every Sunday. I would see Hugh in town from time to
time but always at a distance. The thought of facing him was so terrifying that
I would turn and skitter off long before he saw me. It didn’t take long for
Darcy to go back to Ryan. A few months later they announced they would be
married. Their daughter was born, Dolly, and they were planning a small wedding
ceremony in the Caribbean somewhere.

Once my brother
and I graduated from high school my mom and dad moved to Florida. They always
wanted to live on the Gulf and there wasn’t much left for them in the small
country town in Southern Virginia. After I graduated from college I immediately
found a job in New York City. I kept in touch with my BFF, Julia. She kept me
abreast of all of the important morsels of information from my hometown. She
would tell me stories about old friends and classmates. But more importantly,
she would keep me up to date on Hugh’s dating status, which was really the only
tidbit of information I was waiting for her to share. Oddly, he was rarely seen
with the same woman twice unless you were counting his little niece, Dolly.
According to Julia, they reportedly had developed quite a bond and she was the
only female he doted on. Julia said after his experience with Darcy, he
probably had trust issues. I had to admit, Julia did have her thumb on the
pulse of all of the goings-on in town.

Eventually Julia
was able to turn the combination of her thick skin and talent of spinning a
story into a full fledge career. After she graduated from the local university
she started writing a gossip column. So much for following her own advice of
never being the messenger. Her public announcements were the source of many
grapevines and delivered to the masses twice a week in the Community Section of
the local newspaper.

I finally managed
to open the door to my apartment and as soon as I hit the light switch my phone
started ringing. I was so jittery that I actually threw myself up against my
front door as if the phone was going to jump me. Then I realized I should
probably see who was calling. I threw my keys on my little ice cream table and
picked up the portable out of its cradle to check the caller ID. Julia Harper.
I pressed talk on the handset.

“Hey,” I greeted.

“Holy Beheebees,
Dee. You will never guess what I just heard,” she stated.

“Hugh Rowen is in
New York and he is going to stop by to see me?” I asked pulling the bizarre
news out of not-so-thin air.

“Uh oh,” she
responded.

“Yeah. Uh oh,” I
answered.

There was a brief
pause before her outburst. “So? Don’t keep me waiting,” she said with
irritation as if this whole scenario was somehow impacting her world directly.

“You tell me! I
just got an obscure note from my doorman,” I answered with a hint of hostility.
“Who’s the big wig that runs the gossip column down there? You or me?” I added.

“Now, now, now
Delilah,” her defenses sprung into action. “I just heard this from Tiffy
Johanson. Obviously he was keeping this visit on the down-low or I would have
heard sooner,” she explained.

Tiffy who had
shortened her name from Tiffany worked at the gift shop in town. “How did
Tiffany Johanson find out that Hugh was coming to see me in New York?” I
questioned.

“She’s marrying
Griff,” she answered as if that explained things clearly. I remained silent
because I failed to see how her marrying Griff gave her intimate knowledge of
Hugh’s travel plans. When I didn’t answer she continued. “Griff Douglas is a
travel agent.”

I sighed heavily.
“Still not following, Jules,” I complained.

“He is the travel
agent that handles all of the travel plans for Hugh’s company,” she added
petulantly.

Ah. Now it made
sense. “Well someone ought to tell Griff that he needs to report back to the
town crier a little more quickly next time,” I scolded.

“He doesn’t report
to me!” Clearly Julia was getting offended that I didn’t know how news traveled
on the grape vine. “I dig for my information! You think it’s easy unearthing
all of this shit on people?” Obviously someone was a little touchy about the
trials and tribulations of her work.

“I was talking
about Tiff.” Then I started laughing out loud inexplicably.

Clearly confused
with my newfound discovery of humor on the subject, Julia asked me what was so
funny.

“Tiff is marrying
Griff,” I answered laughing through my rhyme.

“Seriously? Can we
focus please?” Julia had other things on her mind.

I wrapped up my
hysteria and forged on. “I don’t know anything else. I just got the note and
stepped into my apartment when you called.”

I heard Julia sigh
really loudly. Clearly she was frustrated that I didn’t have any juicy details
to offer her.

“Well look at the
bright side,” I continued. “At least now I know for sure that it was Hugh.”

“What do you
mean?” she asked with confusion outlining her tone. “You just said you got a
note from him.”

“He didn’t sign
the note,” I responded in turn. “I thought maybe it was Darcy coming for her
slice of revenge.”

“I don’t get it.
How could you know for sure that it is the one and only Hugh Rowen who left you
the message if he didn’t sign the note?”

“Because the
opening line of the message that was left with my doorman said ‘Hello,
Junior,’” I explained.

“Oh, Dear Lord. He
hasn’t forgotten,” she breathed.

Was she crazy? “Of
course he didn’t forget!” I reprimanded. “You don’t forget the person who
announced that your brother is your fiancés baby daddy in the middle of your
wedding ceremony!” I continued my rant. “I mean holy shit, Julia. What are you
thinkin’?” For some reason the hint of southern accent that I had abandoned
years ago infiltrated my speech.

“Don’t you sass
me, Delilah!” Julia didn’t like when I got testy. It was okay for her to get
testy. Actually she was always testy. She said that was just the way she
talked. Either way she was never fond of being on the receiving end of anyone
else’s testiness.

I blew out a long
breath through pursed lips directed at my ceiling hoping to calm myself down.
Clearly I was losing what little control I had left. My eyes honed in on the
newfound crack that I had never noticed before emanating from the corner just
outside of the molding and traveling to the center almost to the light fixture.
It was probably from the new tenant upstairs who jumped rope like an elephant.
If he didn’t come through the ceiling soon it would be a miracle. I inhaled
deeply unhappy with the crack that with my luck would eventually come out of my
security deposit
and
the lack of
information that Julia was able to provide.

It didn’t take
long for the melancholy thoughts in my head to infiltrate my mood. Then I began
to reprimand myself for how quickly I allowed my self-loathing to take flight.
Then I began the familiar process of accepting the yet-undetermined-but-likely-ill-fated
outcome. The process came full circle when I became annoyed with myself at how
quickly I was allowing myself to deteriorate.

So typical of me.

Every molecule of
air left my lungs on a huge sigh. “What am I going to do, Jules? I mean…I made
a complete ass out of myself the last time I saw him. Let’s not forget that I
made an ass out of him too. What can I possibly say to him now?” Julia could
hear the sheer hopelessness in my voice.

“Delilah, do you
hear yourself? You are a sad sack! If Hugh Rowen didn’t want to see you all he
had to do was
not
come to your
apartment. Not that I’ve ever received my hand engraved.”

It must be said
that I had invited her to come visit me when I first moved north and she said
emphatically that she hated big cities. But obviously it bothered her that I
hadn’t asked her since because she mentioned every time I spoke to her. So,
Julia being Julia, she had to make sure she slipped that in yet again.

“But from what
I’ve
heard
New York City is prêt-ty
large. My understanding is that you would never know that he was there.” Julia
was a good friend and more importantly she was the sanity to my insanity. She
was right. There was no way that I would know that Hugh Rowen was visiting if
he hadn’t stopped by and left me a note. “Am I wrong?” she asked knowing she
wasn’t.

“No. You’re
right,” I answered still afflicted with weighty disappointment.

“Delilah. What the
hell is wrong with you?” She questioned. “Hugh Rowen went to New York City,
searched you out and left you a note to tell you that he went out of his way to
see you. You should be jumping for joy. It’s not like you ever got over the
man,” she added passionately.

“Must you rub it
in?” I sighed.

“Well someone has
to. Wake up,” she admonished.

Once again, she
was right. I should be the happiest Virginian in New York. But I’d never
forgiven myself for what happened the day of Hugh’s non-wedding. So I was
unable to understand how he could have possibly moved on and done so without
detesting every bone in my body. Then it occurred to me. Maybe he was visiting
with retribution in mind. It wasn’t like I didn’t deserve it.