The Less Than Perfect Wedding (21 page)

As I reached Sally's step, she turned to me, her eyes wide. "Claire, we have a problem!"

There it was. I knew it was coming. I ought to go to Vegas. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"The groom's gone missing!" Sally turned and looked desperately up the stairs towards Danielle's room, as if hoping that maybe Alex would emerge, wanting one last talk with his bride-to-be before the wedding. "Should we go up and tell her?"

I considered Danielle's current stress level, and then thought about how the news of Alex's disappearance would impact that. "No, no, I'm sure that she's got plenty on her mind already," I replied. I was trying to keep my tone soothing. I didn't know if it worked. "Why don't you go down and check his room again, and I'll duck out into the main area and see if he's just out there?"

Sally nodded, looking slightly less stressed now that someone was giving her orders, and dashed off towards the groom's dressing room on the other side of the church. I tried not to picture a wagging tale coming out of her dress. After she had left, I made my way down the rest of the stairs and headed out into the chapel room of the church.

Most of the guests had arrived and were sitting in the pews, engaged in the normal chatting and craning of necks to see who else was here. At the front of the chapel, standing up on the altar, Alex's groomsmen were in a huddle together, chatting about some guy thing. Probably sports, I guessed. Typical. I wanted to roll my eyes, but there wasn't time. Instead, I made a beeline for them.

"Hey guys," I greeted them, elbowing and shouldering my way into their circle. Just one of the dudes. "Have any of you seen Alex?"

My insertion into their conversation caught them off guard. I caught the end of a comment, "no, man, Danny doesn't know what he's getting himself into, that girl is totally bonk-" before they cut off and turned to look at me. "Not in the last few minutes," one of the guys finally replied.

I forced my eyes not to roll. The effort hurt, but I needed an answer. "Okay, then, where did you last see him?"

One of the groomsmen waved his hand towards the entrance into the church. "Over by the entrance. He was maybe helping one of his relatives come in?" Answer given, the men began ambling away, pulling out their smartphones in the classic guy move to show that the conversation was over.

I turned to head towards the entrance of the church, but paused when I suddenly heard Janice's voice, cutting through the crowd. Trouble. "Where is that stupid man?" I heard her asking to the room at large.

I spun around, my eyes searching across the bride's party on the other side of the altar. I spotted Janice after a moment, standing back behind the other bridesmaids, her arms crossed on her chest as she leaned against the back wall of the church. She was the very picture of frustrated disinterest. Without even thinking, I began taking a step or two towards her, but I then forced myself to turn away, heading for the front entrance. Janice was a perpetual thorn in everyone's side, yes, but getting the wedding back on track by locating the missing groom was more important. Not my problem.

I sprinted down the aisle, cursing my choice of high heels over flats and ignoring the curious gazes that I attracted from the various friends and other family members that were filling the pews. Skidding to a stop at front door, I turned around, looking for somebody to question.

Unfortunately for the young man dressed in all black with a walkie talkie clipped to his belt, he was the first person unlucky enough to make eye contact. I hurried over to him, rudely pushing in front of the elderly woman who was attempting to ask him something about when the church had been built. "Excuse me," I cut in. "Have you seen the groom run past here recently?"

The young man looked a little shocked to be interrupted, but he stopped talking to the old woman and gazed skyward for a moment as he thought. I tried (and failed) not to stamp my high heel in frustration as I waited. "Yeah, he went out to the parking lot," he said after a moment. "I think he had to park one of his relatives cars. Uncle Rodney, maybe?"

Thanking him with a wave of my hand (more than he deserved), I turned towards the lot. However, as I was about to dash out into the lot in search of Alex, I heard a loud scream echo out of the church from behind me. Once again, I was torn - should I go out and search for the missing groom, or did I stay behind and try and keep the wedding from falling apart in his absence?

Dammit. Why did this always fall to me?

*

I sent one last, despairing glance towards the parking lot, but I couldn't tear away from my duties. I yelled an especially violent curse out loud, mentally whispered a prayer that Alex was just helping a relative and had lost track of time, and then hurried back up the steps and into the church once more, my feet screaming at me with every step.

Inside, in the thirty seconds or so that I had been absent, the situation had somehow markedly deteriorated. Previously, there had been muttering and people looking slightly confused about why the wedding was taking so long to get started. Now, everyone's attention was on the front altar, where, like dramatic actors on a stage, Danielle's mother and father were standing on opposite sides and shouting across at each other.

I noticed Sally standing near the back of the chapel room, looking shocked and unsure of what to do. I reached out and grabbed her quickly before she could slip away.

"Hey, duck up and talk to Danielle!" I ordered the poor, confused looking wedding planner.

She looked back at me, her eyes wide. "What? What do I say?"

I wanted to yell at the poor woman, to shake her by the shoulders until some sense came tumbling into her head. She's the wedding planner - she should be better prepared to handle the wedding going wrong! Instead, I racked my brain for something to downplay this catastrophe. "Just tell her that her parents are squabbling, but I'm going to sort it out," I decided. "The wedding might be delayed for a little bit. But everything is fine!"

Sally nodded, turning away and hurrying out towards the stairs leading up to Danielle's dressing room. I turned my attention back to the front of the chapel. One small problem down, one much larger one still to tackle. As if on cue, Janice's pitch suddenly jumped an octave at the front of the room.

"Oh god, Janice, what the hell are you doing?" I muttered to myself as I hurried back up the aisle, trying to work out how in the world to break this up. It would probably be bad to start throwing punches. But at least I didn't have to wonder about the reason behind the fight for too long - Janice's voice carried clearly out over the crowd and to my ears.

"It's just like all men, isn't it?" she shrieked. "You're never responsible for anything! You always think that it's better to just give up and run away!"

Rick, on the other side of the stage, was looking rather frustrated that he was caught in this very public exchange. Despite this, however, he was standing his ground. Normally, I'd cheer for him for standing up to his bitch of an ex-wife, but this was the absolute furthest from the right time to be doing so. "I didn't run away - I'm paying for this entire wedding! Even though you keep on heaping more and more expenses on top, just trying to hurt me!" he roared back, waving his hand around at the various wedding decorations as if to show how much he had given.

"Oh, yeah, trying to make up for your absence by throwing money at the problem!" Janice threw the words back in his face. "Because that's totally the same as being there for your child!"

"This isn't about Danielle, and you know it!" Rick yelled as I hurried forward up the aisle, wishing fervently for my aching legs to move faster. "This is about you being upset that our marriage failed-"

"Over that damn whore!" Danielle's mother screamed. Clearly, Janice and Rick were in their own world; Blossom was sitting in the front row on the bride's side of the church, and I felt a moment of pity at her completely crushed expression. Somehow, I didn't think that Blossom ever quite realized how she fit in to the rather complicated situation between Rick and Janice.

"It's not her fault!" Rick protested, not hesitating a second in his firing back at his ex-wife. I shoved an older lady (great-aunt Gertrude, maybe?) out of the way as I charged. "You were done with me long before she ever appeared!"

Finally, after what had seemed like an eternity, I had managed to fight my way up the aisle and reach the front of the church. Panting, I leaned on the front pews for a moment, trying to catch my breath so that I could stop this. To my astonishment, however, there was someone else who spoke up before I could say anything.

*

"That's enough!" I heard a younger, higher-pitched voice pipe up from behind Janice. I watched in amazement, pulling in deep breaths, as Susan emerged, stepping up between the fighting parents.

"What's the matter with you two?" she continued. "You two should have stayed married, you're both the same - in that you always ruin everything!"

By this point, I had regained my breath, but I didn't interrupt. No one did, in fact. A hush had fallen over the crowd, Rick already looked slightly ashamed, and Janice was standing with her mouth hanging fully open, unable to believe that her younger daughter was calling her out. I was barely able to believe it myself. After all the brattiness she had demonstrated, Susan was going to turn around and be the hero of the hour?

It seemed so. "Mom, this isn't about you!" Susan lectured, pointing an accusing finger at Janice. "This is supposed to be a day to recognize love-"

For a moment, I wondered why Susan wasn't mentioning her older sister, the bride. But then I noticed Danny, standing behind Janice at the same place from where Danielle's sister had emerged, his eyes fixed to her, and I had a slightly better idea of why Susan didn't want this wedding ruined.

"-and you two are doing nothing but poisoning it with hate!" Susan went on. "At least Dad is willing to try and move past this, even if he was stupid enough to bring his new girlfriend to the wedding in front of you, but Mom, you're just clinging onto how your own marriage failed, and refusing to give anybody else a chance!"

Susan stopped, sucking in a breath of air, as the other actors on the altar stood in place, transfixed by this diatribe. "You should all be ashamed of yourselves!" she ended. "Now go to your places, be quiet, and let's get on with this stupid thing!"

It may not have been the perfect speech, but it did the trick. I stood in the middle of the aisle, still staring, as Janice shuffled back to her place in the lineup of bridesmaids with her head down and her gaze aimed at her feet. Rick, on the other side of the stage, looked back and forth for a moment as if he was trying to remember where he was supposed to be. I managed to catch his eye and jerked my thumb back towards the entrance, where he would meet Danielle and walk her down the aisle. He nodded, his gaze not quite meeting mine, and hurried past me.

Susan was still standing in the middle of the raised altar at the front of the church, her hands on her hips and shoulders flung back. For once, I had to admit that she didn't look like her normal spoiled, bratty self. She looked imperious, fierce and intimidating. For once, I didn't want to roll my eyes at her, or maybe slap her. Her face turned to me.

"Well?" she said, daring me to challenge her. "Let's get this wedding over with!"

I nodded. Never before had I agreed with Danielle's younger sister more. "Yes, please!" I agreed fervently. The bridesmaids were taking their places, and the groomsmen were also meandering into position. I climbed the two steps at the front of the chapel up to take my own place as maid of honor, but when I glanced to my left - I saw only Danny, the moon-eyed best man.

Oh yeah. I'd almost forgotten. "Has anyone seen Alex?" I asked the wedding party at the front.

The back door to the chapel room opened, but it was only Sally, hurrying up towards the front with worry splashed across her features. She ducked slightly as she ran, as if trying to attract less attention, or maybe in case someone decided to throw a pie at her for this disaster of a wedding. She came to a stop in front of me, breathing heavily. "Claire, I went up to-" she began, looking up at me, but then stopped, realizing that every eye in the church was now on her.

I stepped down to stand next to her. "Sally, what is it?" I asked, keeping my voice low and calm with every last, frayed ounce of willpower that I possessed. I could feel that final thread slipping away, no matter how hard I clung to it. Father Hemsley had also stepped forward to see what was holding up the wedding. I briefly wondered where he had been hiding when the mother and father of the bride were duking it out. Some priest he was.

"Claire, Danielle's gone," Sally whispered to us. "I think she ran away - the window's open."

This time, I didn't bother to keep the curse inside my head. I had assumed that stealing Danielle's street clothes and shoes would be enough to keep her here, but I had clearly underestimated her determination - or perhaps her desperation. Sally's eyes had widened even more at my vulgarity, and Father Hemsley sucked in air between his teeth in chastisement, but all of that was below my notice now.

For a good minute, I just vented, throwing out curse after curse. I was wickedly pleased to see how some of the other relatives gasped. After I had exhausted my extensive vocabulary, I had to admit, I felt much better. I took one more deep breath, and then let it out. Calm, tranquil. Time to move on.