Beautiful Day(88)

Anyone who had listened to that laundry list of marital disasters would have been scared.

“Hello?” Jenna said.

Margot thought, Oh, honey, please don’t. It’s not a deal breaker. Stuart is just like everyone else, but you and Stuart, as a couple, are different. You two are going to make it.

She thought, Mom? Help me?

“Stuart?” Jenna said. “I love you, Stuart. You jerk, I love you!”





OUTTAKES


Finn Sullivan-Walker (bridesmaid): She hates me. Jenna Carmichael, who has been my best friend since we were eating graham crackers, drinking apple juice, and watching Barney, hates me. I went to the salon with Autumn and Rhonda at eleven o’clock. Just the three of us because Margot and Jenna were AWOL. I asked Autumn if she had heard from Jenna, and she pretended to think about it, then she admitted that no, she hadn’t talked to Jenna since the party the night before. Autumn went back to the groomsmen’s house with H.W., where they had wild, drunken sex, which she then described in lurid, pornographic detail to Rhonda, who lapped it up. Tell me more, tell me more, was it love at first sight? I thought maybe Autumn was being bitchy to me because she was jealous—she hooked up with Nick herself at Jenna’s graduation from college a bunch of years ago. I tried not to care about Autumn or Rhonda or even Jenna. If being with Nick means losing Jenna, then I guess I’ll have to live with that, because my feelings for Nick are overwhelming. It’s like they’ve existed forever but I’ve only allowed myself to acknowledge them this weekend.

I was in the chair having my hair twisted into a chignon when Jenna and Margot walked in. Everyone in the place started to applaud. The prodigal bride! Frankly, I didn’t understand Jenna’s disappearing act. She’s not usually one for drama.

I, on the other hand, am a magnet for drama. My mother always told me I was so flighty and so hard to please that she was sure I would end up married at least four times. She told me that on my wedding day, and I think that was what jinxed me.

When Jenna got to the salon, I thought she might apologize or try to make things right, but she didn’t come anywhere close to my chair. She didn’t look in my direction. I thought, Fine. I don’t care. I won’t be your stupid bridesmaid, I won’t wear the god-awful green dress, I’ll go home and you never have to see or talk to me again. Find another best friend, make Autumn your best friend even though she’s a documented superslut. Make Rhonda your best friend or buddy up with Francie or Chelsea or Hilly or any one of the “womyn” you teach with at Little Minds. I won’t stand up for you, my spot will be blank, my place at the head table empty.

A hand on my shoulder. The stylist.

“Honey,” she said. “Why are you crying?”

Beanie (sister-in-law of the bride): I was left in charge of six kids for most of the morning, and whereas normally they’re a breeze to watch—they all hang out together and make up their own games, they only come to me when they’re hungry—it’s no surprise that something went awry. Brock, my youngest, is serving as the ring bearer, and hence Kevin was appointed “Lord of the Rings.” He was in charge of holding on to Stuart’s platinum band and Jenna’s platinum band embedded with fourteen ethically mined diamonds, to represent the number of months they were together before Stuart proposed. The rings were side by side on our dresser in chocolate velvet boxes. The boxes appeared to be untouched, but when Kevin opened them at two thirty this afternoon—two and a half hours before the ceremony—he found that the box with Jenna’s ring was empty.

Autumn (bridesmaid): H.W. is a grown-up frat boy asshole, which makes him exactly my type. He likes to drink a beer with a shot of Jameson, which I could have predicted the second I laid eyes on him. He’s a Carolina fan; he has a tattoo of a panther on his ankle. He works as a salesman for a liquor distributor in Raleigh, meaning he hangs out with bar owners and gets free tickets to everything. He plays poker every week with a group of guys he went to NC State with, and the best vacation he’s ever taken, he says, was to Cancún, which he won for having the most lucrative Patrón accounts in his region. He had a girlfriend for a while but she got too clingy so he broke up with her via text message while he was in Cancún, at which point she stalked him and tried to hack into his Facebook account. All he wants this weekend is lots of sex and someone to drink and dance with. I promised him that, come Sunday at 3 p.m., he would never see or hear from me again.

Nick (brother of the bride): I never get myself into situations I can’t handle; that is a Nick Carmichael trademark. But I think Margot might actually be right this time. I think I might be in over my head. Can I have a mulligan, please?