Toss the Bride (22 page)

“We're not doing this together. You've got the down payment, the agent, and the—the—newspaper already.” I sound like an idiot. What is wrong with me?

Avery grabs his car keys off of the kitchen table. “You know what? You can have the newspaper. I'm going home until the real Macie returns. Give me a call when she does.” He pulls the front door closed behind him.

“You are impossible!” I say to the empty room. Stomping out of the kitchen, I run back to my bedroom. I throw open the new suitcases and start pulling out clothes. The sundresses are rumpled and will have to be cleaned. A thin line of sand rests in the bottom of one bag. A sob catches in my throat. I am the one who is being impossible.

I had such a fuzzy idea of being engaged when I was on the other side of it only a few days ago. I thought the hard part was planning the wedding and making one hundred details line up in a row. Now I am seeing that the more important piece is joining one man and one woman's lives together.

Sweet, lovable Avery appears to have worked through his issues prior to offering me a ring. It pains me to think I am acting like such a confused, moody girl who says she wants one thing but really wants another. The truth is, I really, really want Avery. I decide to tell him that right now.

Calling his cell is no help. I just get his voice mail. I leave two sweet, desperate messages. Then, there's nothing to do but wait. I think about calling Iris, but she is looking at potential commercial spaces today. Her new loan was approved while I was at the beach, so she is ready to move forward with Cake Cake to Go Go.

I pace around the apartment, putting sunscreen lotion back in the bathroom wicker cabinet and sandals in the closet. I pick up the phone and then sit it down again to check if it was off the hook. Avery has not called back. It serves me right. I cannot act like there is something wrong with him because I am having fits. I need to figure out why I am going bonkers, but that's another honest moment I will have with myself later.

I grab the phone again and flip back through the caller ID numbers to see if maybe Avery called but somehow the phone did not ring. I scroll past Tika's name. I wonder if Maurice received a similar phone call from her. I do not want to be the one who breaks it to him that we were fired, but he should know sooner than later. And I still haven't talked to him about getting engaged. I try his cell, get voice mail again, and then hang up. I decide to call his home, something I rarely do since Maurice always answers his cell phone.

Evelyn picks up on the first ring. “Yes?”

“Hi Evelyn, it's Macie. How are you?”

“Just peachy, thank you.” Her voice is brittle. It must be a bad time.

“Ah, I just got back in town and I wanted to touch base with Maurice, but I can't get him on his cell. Is he there?”

There is silence on the other end of the phone. I think I hear Evelyn take a drag on a cigarette, which is odd because she does not smoke. “No, Macie, Maurice is not here because he doesn't live here anymore.”

“What?” I am stunned. The woman I am talking to sounds nothing like smooth, polished Evelyn, who is an echo of smooth, polished Maurice.

“Yes, that's right, dear Macie. Maurice has decided he wants a little fling with a Parisian barmaid named Elise, and there's not a whole lot I can do about that, now can I?”

Evelyn begins crying. I would bet there is a liquor bottle on the other end of the line. “I am so sorry, Evelyn. I had no idea.” I rewound the last few weeks in my head. Maurice's car at Elise's café. Their coziness at Carolina's fitting. All in all, not a lot of damning evidence. I did not see this coming. I feel a rush of anger toward Maurice.

“And the worst part about it? He wasn't planning to leave me. No, no, he was having his fun and then coming home. I was the one who found him out.”

“Evelyn, you don't have to tell me this,” I say.

“No, Macie, you need to know how piggish men can be since you are getting married yourself. Maurice told me you were at the beach, picking up your little sparkly. Well, how nice. Young love; it must be sweet,” Evelyn says with a bit of a slur.

“Well, if there's anything I can do—”

“So, there I was, minding my own business on Monday night. That's my book club, once a month, like clockwork. Sherry D.—we call her that to distinguish her from Sherry K.—insisted we stop for a drink after our discussion. I tried to beg off because I have little tolerance for wine late at night, but there was no stopping Sherry D., let me tell you.” Evelyn pauses to catch her breath.

“And we end up at this little café in Midtown. I had never been there. That area has changed so drastically, I hardly recognized any of the streets. Anyway, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and when I did, I nearly ran into a couple necking like barbarians in the hallway.”

My heart sinks. What a way to find out your husband is cheating. Shivering, I think of Avery. Could he be capable of something like this?

“Well, I kicked him out right away, even after he begged me to understand, asked me to forgive him. Ha! I think not.”

Evelyn continues on for some time. After I hang up, my mind spins with this new information. Maurice, of all people. He is awash in the world of weddings every day. New love, new beginnings, new vows. One would think he would have a more romantic view of things. And having an affair with Elise? She was too, too something. Oily? Practiced? Creepy?

I am now faced with a delicate situation. I need to get back to work, but my boss is unreachable. Maybe he checked into a downtown hotel on Peachtree Street. Perhaps he was shacking up with his lover. Whatever the case, Maurice has brides coming out of his ears. Anywhere from ten to twenty women could be mad at him right now. It was only a matter of time before they took it out on me. I reflexively check my cell. No voice mails or text messages so far. Good.

I pace around the apartment, unpacking less from necessity and more to give my hands something to do. I pile T-shirts, shorts, underwear, and socks into the laundry basket. As I work, my mind keeps slinking back to Avery. I have acted like such an emotional boomerang. This should be a time of excitement and wonder before our upcoming wedding, but so far, my contributions are fairly pathetic.

Emptying out my traveling cosmetics bag, I dump my brush, comb, and hand lotion into a basket beside the sink. I unpack my razor, hair mousse, lemon-scented body lotion, and pink nail polish, thinking about poor, loyal Evelyn. Maurice's betrayal seems too unbelievable to me, although I have no reason not to trust her story. Evelyn has always been Maurice's rock, available for brainstorming ideas and helping plan five-star weddings. It was Evelyn's idea to marry a bride named Bernice at the High Museum of Art and give guests smocks and acrylic paints. With the help of a team of professional artists, the guests created a huge mural that the couple later installed in their vacation home. Evelyn dreamed up simpler themes, too, for couples like Cole and Emma who were dedicated organic gardeners. Each guest at their wedding entered a quaint, outdoor chapel bearing gifts such as an eggplant and cantaloupe they then deposited near the altar. The minister blessed the couple, the fruits of their labor, and their future pursuits.

I wonder where Evelyn and Maurice had gone wrong. Obviously, he made a horrible decision, and it destroyed their careful life together. They had married a little later in life, had no children, and seemed devoted to each other. A chilly finger of fear tickles the back of my neck. If a stable, seemingly happy couple could run headlong into ruin, it could happen to Avery and me.

Sitting at the hand-me-down kitchen table, I try to gauge Avery's cheating chances. He is loyal, attentive, and honest. To my knowledge, he has never lied to me or dated other girls after we started seeing each other. He is not like those guys who check out other women in front of their girlfriends. Avery acts proud to hold my hand and starts sentences like, “Macie thinks…” or “My girlfriend, Macie, is really good at…”

I draw an imaginary heart on the kitchen table with my index finger. Avery clearly is not like some of the fiancés I have seen in my time with Maurice. We know of men who cheated on their brides right up to and during the wedding week. We have seen with our own eyes the roving eyes and wandering hands of some—not all—men who were weeks away from slipping a wedding band onto their bride's manicured hand. It was disgusting, of course, but ultimately none of our business. We had a job to do and it did not involve marital counseling.

What was it that made some women blind to the obvious shortcomings of their men? Evelyn obviously did not see Maurice's affair on the horizon. I feel like I can honestly judge Avery's weaker points, and I am reasonably sure he can judge mine. The wonderful thing is, with all of our faults and imperfections, we have still managed to make things work, and to plan a future.

On second thought, planning a future has hit a bit of a snag. I want to marry Avery, but I feel this huge weight tied to my feet. If I jump into setting things in motion, I am afraid I will get sucked down into something powerful, something huge. If we buy a house, we have to buy furniture. When we buy furniture, along come sheets and towels. After that, you might as well pop out a couple of babies to fill the spare bedroom. It's all too much. I plop my head down on my arms.

The phone rings. I glance at my handset and see it is Iris. I grab for the phone, happy to chat with her after being away a week.

“Hello!” Iris says. Something metal bangs in the background. I hear men shouting.

“Where are you?”

“Oh, this new strip mall up in Sandy Springs. I'm getting the royal tour, but we had a break and I wanted to see if you could get together later. I have to hear all about your week of romance.”

To my horror, I start to cry. “Iris, I screwed everything up and now Avery is mad at me, Maurice is cheating on Evelyn, and I think I don't want to get married.”

With alarm in her voice, Iris says. “Okay, hold on right there. I am coming over. It will take me about thirty minutes, but you hang tight.”

Although embarrassed, I am grateful. Sometimes, the only way to see things clearly is with a best friend.

*   *   *

Iris hears the entire story, both mine and the Maurice saga, without uttering much more than a sympathetic murmur now and again. Luckily, we have some goodies on hand since she swung by her studio to pick up a dozen chocolate-cinnamon cookies. In between a few tears and sighs, I munch a little.

“And that, pretty much, is the disaster that is going on right now in my life. I have pushed Avery away after he did the one thing I really wanted—ask me to marry him—and my boss is missing while cheating on his wife, which makes me ask the question: Are all men like this? Will Avery cheat on me?” I sink back against the futon cushions. Iris, sitting beside me, reaches for a cookie and takes a bite.

“Needs a little more butter, I think,” she says.

“What?”

“Oh, sorry,” Iris says, taking another nibble. “I'm self-editing. These need a little more oomph, maybe a touch more fat.”

“Got it,” I say. “So, what do you think?”

Iris tilts her head to the side and pauses for a moment. I glance at my cell for the hundredth time to see if I somehow missed a call from Avery. I have not. I wonder where he is right now. Maybe he has gone in to Chattahoochee Chocolates. I haven't called his house because I do not want to talk to my future in-laws. Just thinking of the word
in-law
makes me squeamish. How do I become this new person? A person who has parents who are not really hers, but belong to someone else. I will have to memorize two more birthdays and think of additional witty things to say around the dinner table.

“Macie, are you spazzing inside your head, because from where I sit, your mouth just started working and your face got all scrunchy. What is going on with you?”

“I've just told you. Avery expects me to buy a house tomorrow—”

“You're exaggerating.”

I blow a lock of hair out of my eyes. “You're right. But what about Maurice? Avery could end up like him and I will be alone and heartbroken.”

“That is not going to happen. Maurice is all flash and Avery is very down-to-earth, even with all his parents' dough. There's something else going on here, and you need to figure it out. I don't think it's the house or the money or the in-laws. Or even Maurice. You have some serious fears that are not going to be resolved by a well-meaning best friend and a plate of cookies.” Iris stands up.

“Where are you going?” I wail.

“To get back to my real-estate agent. I'm signing a lease on the Sandy Springs property.”

Suddenly reminded that the world does not revolve around my problems, I put on a brave smile. “That's great, Iris. How long until you open?”

Rolling her eyes, Iris says, “I'd like to think two months, but it will probably be longer.”

“I'll be there to help you every step of the way, you know.”

“I'll be counting on it. And if you know of any crack pastry chefs, send 'em to me.”

I walk Iris to the door and follow her out to the hallway. “Thanks for listening. I really needed that.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. You have homework,” Iris says. “I want you to write down every detail of what is scaring you.”

“Well, I know that. I told you what was bothering me,”

Iris puts her hands on her hips. “No, you told me the
symptoms
of what is bothering you. Moving from this dump to a nice house. Planning your wedding instead of talking about it. Having in-laws after you are married. I want to know why those things are striking a nerve. Get it down on paper.”

Giving Iris a hug, I promise to write my list. We agree to meet for lunch later in the week. I walk back into my apartment and lock the door. It is time for dinner, but I am holding out hope that Avery will call and we can eat together. I don't feel like going to Tang. Pancakes or waffles would fit my mood better. If I know Avery like I think I do, comfort food will top his list as well.