Unfinished Business (22 page)

“What’re you going to wear?” she asks.

“You’re thinking about that? Why aren’t you searching for voodoo dolls online?”

I hear her half-hearted chuckle. “You think I need to? I could break its legs.”

“He’s got to be so out of shape. All those hours hunched over boring ass legal books? You’ll streak past him.”

Stressed silence is followed by, “He works out every morning.”

The dislike I’ve felt for the guy for so long has finally found an outlet and I can’t shut myself up. “So what? You’ve been training on your bike, Riana. You know what you’re doing.”

More silence so I add, “You’re a lot stronger than you think. Okay?”

“So tell me what you’re going to wear.” She still doesn’t sound convinced but I can hear more confidence in her voice so I let my mind wander over to my own problem.

I list my top three choices—pants and top, pants and jacket, and a floral dress—and she insists that I wear the most girlish one. The thing I least want to wear. It’s sweet and I’m sour. At least on this event.

“It’s a wedding!” She’s annoyed with me. “You can’t wear pants to a wedding.”

She’s right but the dress she’s talking about, well…it’s romantic. Pretty.

Due to the circumstances, I’d been leaning toward the beige suit I’d rescued from the clearance rack last spring at Macy’s. It’s been hanging in my closet waiting patiently for its debut.

But if I wear that, I’ll look totally boring. Besides, doesn’t the mother of the bride wear beige? What if the bride wears beige?

Beige is out.

“Hayley,” Riana is nearly shouting, “are you listening to me?”

“Sure, yeah, of course.”

Still, if I wear beige I might blend into the walls and nobody will even notice me. It’ll be like camouflage. Think of all the conversations I could eavesdrop on. Too bad I wouldn’t care what they were talking about.

“…and who knows, you might even have fun.”

“Sure, yeah, of course.”

“Hayley…”

I can tell she’s getting impatient with me but because I haven’t been listening I don’t know why.

“It’s a wedding, it’ll be fun! Your mom and dad and brother will be there, right? And you’ll see a bunch of people you haven’t seen in a while, right? So stop being stupid.”

She has no idea.

“Yeah. I guess.” And I do. In theory going to a hometown wedding is fun. But in my case, it just serves as a reminder of things I want to forget. Like how everyone was excited about the future of my life until I walked away at the very last minute and ruined everything for everyone.

“What’s Nick wearing?”

Nick. My plan is to follow him around everywhere. I’ll glare at anyone who looks as though they may be thinking about saying anything about Waylon and the wedding that wasn’t. “I don’t know,” I mumble, realizing that plan isn’t viable.

Riana’s exasperated sigh whistles through the phone. “What’s wrong with you? Put the stupid dress on, call Nick and make sure he’s wearing something that will look okay with the dress, then go have a good time.”

I’d expect this sort of attitude from Josie. Apparently, Riana is more than a bit stressed.

“Call me tomorrow with all the details,” she says. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

* * * *

Later, Nick and I are sitting in the parking lot of the church. It’s warm for mid-May and we’ve got the windows of his truck rolled down. Little snippets of conversations come from the window when people walk by. These bits of sound break up the unusually awkward silence that is hovering between us.

He glances over at me to ask, “Want to go in yet?”

I check my watch and shake my head. “Let’s wait a couple more minutes.”

“You want to end up in the back row?”

How did he guess? I grin and lift one shoulder. “We’ll get out faster that way.”

One corner of his mouth curves up then he turns away from me to watch twin girls spin in circles, making their dresses flare out. I stare at his profile.

He turns back to me so quickly he catches me staring at him. “You ever do that?” He points to the girls. “Spin around like that and make your dress fly out?”

“Everybody does.”

As always, he doesn’t put up with my attitude. He grins. “I don’t.”

I shift away from him. “We better go in. I don’t want it to look like we got here late. My mom will notice and give me a hard time.”

Without saying anything more, we get out and climb up the steps. There is a mob out front so we get stuck by the second set of doors where the relatives are chattering.

Nick offers me a quiet smile of encouragement.

“Hayley! Where’s your brother?” It’s my mom with Aunt Sandy, who is clinging so closely to her side that they could be Siamese twins. They’re both wearing pearls and hugely floral dresses and they’re staring at me. “Where have you been?”

“Outside,” I say. But what I’m thinking is that I am—like they are—wearing a floral dress. We’re a bi-generational set of country triplets and it is the worst thing ever.

Aunt Sandy is incredulous but not about the dresses. “The ceremony is going to start in twenty minutes. What were you doing out there?”

Avoiding you two and all my other relatives.

While I’m trying to come up with an appropriate answer, Nick rushes in with a convenient lie, “I was finishing up a call. About work.”

“Oh, well. That explains it.” My mom smiles and steps over to set her hand on Nick’s arm. “I know how busy you must be. I understand. But I’m so glad you were able to take the day off and come.”

I am thoroughly embarrassed by the way my mom is gushing over Nick. Telling him all about our family and friends who come to town for the day. When she starts to describe my high school graduation open house, I know exactly which other event is on her mind.

“Um, Mom,” I cut in and pull Nick away. “We better go sit down.”

Her eyes widen. “Of course. Sit on the groom’s side.” She actually giggles and smiles at Nick. “Of course. You knew that already.”

I let one of the ushers take my arm and escort me down the aisle. Nick scoots in next to me.

“Your mom is pretty excited.”

“Oh yeah,” I reply, looking around us to make sure we aren’t sitting near anyone who might try to talk to me. “I bet she’s taking notes to make sure my wedding is better. Just a bit of friendly competition, you know.”

Crap. Where did that comment come from?

Nick bumps my leg with his. “You’re getting married?”

My face flashes hot. Apparently I’m the one who needs to keep their mouth shut.

“Nobody waiting in the wings?” he asks.

I give him a look.

He shifts around and gets comfortable. “I’ll take that as a no.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Surprises: Bigger isn’t Better

The appearance of a lady wearing a midnight blue dress and seating herself at a piano that has been wheeled to the front of the sanctuary marks the beginning of my cousin’s wedding. I know the piano has been wheeled in, because it’s crammed into a corner no self-respecting volunteer would allow herself to be stuffed into every Sunday morning. Those steady women who play every Sunday must expect better working conditions. As the woman in the midnight blue dress begins playing, I consider this—if the piano has been wheeled in where does the usual accompanist sit? Has the usual organ been replaced by this fancy black piece? Where have they hidden it? The usual organ. Maybe I’m wrong and the volunteers are crammed into the corner like that every Sunday. If I were them, I’d complain. It isn’t right to treat people that way and this is a church after all so people should be especially nice and considerate to each other. They can—I’m not sure I could. Sunday mornings don’t usually work for me. About sixty-five percent of the time I’m not feeling so well. And there’s that whole thing about not liking to get up early. Catholics have Saturday night services. I guess I could be a Catholic. But if I were a Catholic, I think I’d have to have a lot of children. If I had a lot of children, I’d have to get up early. Either that or marry someone who makes a lot of money so we could hire a live-in nanny who would feed, clean and dress the little darlings then bring them into me all fresh and ready for the day. I’d pat their sweet heads and kiss them then she’d take them off to play. So I could… What do good Catholic women do all day? Volunteer work. At the church. Where they would probably want to cram me into a corner.

“Hayley, stand up!”

Why is Nick hissing at me?

He grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet.
Oh!
The bride is coming down the aisle. White satin is swirling all around her and white lace is cascading down the back of her head. She looks beautiful, no doubt about that.

As she passes by, I take a slow, deep breath and wait to see if any of my disgrace or dishonor is going to rise to the surface. Am I overcome with pettiness, with the sudden rush to find something wrong with her dress? Or her flowers?

I am stunned to realize that the bridesmaids have already gone by in their tea-length sea-foam attire, and I haven’t even wrinkled my lip at them. I have to admit that last summer, during the annual string of post-graduation weddings, I did on more than one occasion say an unkind thing or two about the dresses, tuxes, flowers, cakes, invitations, food, music, reception locations, reception decorations, rings, drunkenness of the mother of the bride, lack of alcoholic beverages, general stupidity of guests and annoying children relatives dancing.

Oddly, today, I feel no nastiness. I’m actually happy for my cousin that he has found the woman of his dreams and is starting a new life.

Is that sincere happiness for someone else I’m feeling? No petty jealousy? No skepticism?

What has changed? Certainly not my maturity level. As if.

After a while, I give up paying attention to what’s going on up front. It isn’t as if we’re all watching a movie. We all know how this bit of business is going to end. Mr. and Mrs. will smile their way down the aisle and the rest of us will get one step closer to the food and I’ll get to see what, if any, decent beverages are going to be made available. A few glasses of something will be in order if I’m going to make it through this night.

As they exchange rings, Nick grins at me. What’s he got to smile about? I quirk my eyebrow at him, he keeps smiling.

Maybe he’s thinking—
Thank God this is almost over and they better have something good to eat because I’m starving.
I want to tell him that he is sure to be disappointed because I don’t think they’ll be serving pork rinds, then I think better of it. Talking at weddings is so rude.

Several rows up, my aunt is sobbing and my uncle is murmuring to her. My mom looks weepy too. Me? No problem. I’m still shocked that I’m not taking nasty notes to report back to Riana and Josie. But this is a problem. I’ve got to have something to sidetrack them with when they ask if Nick had fun?

I take a quick look around, hoping to find something mildly interesting, something—or rather—someone catches my eye.

It’s a tiny man in the back row. He’s wearing a snazzy single-breasted, brown suit and glossy cowboy boots. I have a good view of the boots because he’s leaning negligently back with one ankle resting on the other knee. The sun has streaked his wavy, overgrown hair so that it glows and sets off his deep tan.

Hmmmmm…
Actually, he’s a bit of a hottie.

Crap.

He’s spotted me staring at him.

Instead of politely glancing away, his gaze lingers, talking to me as he flashes a sly grin. His perfect white teeth glimmer between his lips. ‘Yeah, I know,’ his eyes say, ‘all the girls think that. They all want me.’

I scowl and spin away. I don’t want him. I just want to find something stupid so I’ll have something catty to tell my friends.

Everybody starts clapping because the couple has been united in holy matrimony. Well, some people are clapping because of that, some of us are clapping because it’s over and we get to move away from the rude guys leering at us.

Nick and I turn around as the bride and groom bustle by, and I see that the miniature cowboy is still watching me. Like everyone else, he stands up as the bride and groom rush out of the door.

Nick starts chuckling and leans in to whisper, “Check him out, Hayley. He wants you.”

My face flashes red. “Shut up. He does not.”

“Then why is he looking at you like that?”

Because I was checking him out first?
“I don’t know. He just looks like that kind of guy.”

Nick is laughing at my one size fits all response. “Whatever. But you better be ready to tell him why you don’t want to dance with him.”

I grab Nick’s hand. “I’m with someone!”

“I don’t think his kind of guy cares about that.”

“Let’s go find my brother. I bet he’s got some Wild Turkey in his car.”

Anxious to get away from anyone who might want to talk to me, I drag Nick through the side door. Sure enough, we find my brother sprawled against his car with Dorst, one of my other cousins. I know neither of them care at all about my wedding that didn’t happen.

Their heads are bobbing to Insane Clown Posse. Even though Nick casts me a why-the-hell-are-they-listening-to-that-in-the-church-parking-lot look, I’m not surprised because in my brother’s case, he’s unable to be polite.

I introduce Nick then—always glad to fulfill my duties as the bossy sister—ask, “Did you even go to the ceremony?”

“Yeah,” he answers over the inane lyrics. “We came late so we sat at the back.”

Dorst’s head stops bobbing long enough for him to add, “Behind some little dude.”

“Yeah, before it got started he was cleaning his fingernails with a knife.”