Truly(106)
Anybody could have a reception at Brett Favre’s Steakhouse or the Holiday Inn. It took a couple with a little verve to throw a party at the train museum.
Plus, Matt was kind of a train nerd.
Her mother was determined to turn the assembled plastic tables and chairs into a romantic getaway for two hundred and fifty people. Allie had to applaud her dogged determination, however misguided.
A bright pink and orange decal on the entry door said ALLIE AND MATT in flowing script, and the tables were covered with linens in matching orange, pink, and yellow. May and Ben had beheaded hundreds of fake daisies and scattered them artfully around the white china. Mom had made a garland of daisies for the gift-gazebo-thing, which she was fastening in place with twist ties. Allie was stuck with rosette-making duty.
The stapler struck the ribbons with a satisfying bang.
Rosettes were for women who gave a damn about beaded bodices and lemon-chiffon frosting. They were for giggling girls who fainted with happiness at the idea of hundreds of guests clinking their champagne glasses with forks, demanding that the Princess and her Prince Charming engage in PDA.
Allie was not one of those girls. She didn’t care about ribbons. She cared about dogs and long hikes in the woods and Matt. She cared about him deeply, but she didn’t love him the right way.
She’d thought May would tell her that was okay. That sometimes love wasn’t balanced. That passion never lasted, and stability mattered.
She’d thought May would say that Matt was good and lovable and he’d treat Allie well for the rest of her life.
But she hadn’t said it. She hadn’t said anything.
May’s loud laughter echoed through the reception hall. She and Ben were on the other end of the room, setting buckets of daisies on the tables. The laugh was new—since she came home, May had been quiet the way she got when something was eating at her, and Ben was as tightly wound as he’d appeared in the cell phone picture May had snapped for her.
But they had this heat between them. Allie didn’t get how it was possible that nobody saw it but her.
Maybe they did see. Seeing but not speaking was how her family rolled. They needed a Latin motto that meant If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.
“Don’t forget the medallion, hon!” her mom called from across the room.
Allie picked up the shiny silver circle from the table and sneered at it. It said “Allison and Matthew” in black script, and it was supposed to go in the center of the rosette.
Brandishing the only weapon she had, she stapled the living shit out of it.
“How’s that coming along?” Mom asked.
“Great!” she shouted. “You’re going to love it.”
Her mother would be appalled. All the guests would look at Allie’s misshapen, mangled rosette and wonder what had happened, but no one would say anything, because she was The Bride. She’d discovered that the status gave her an odd sort of power.
It’s your day, her mother kept saying. Whatever you want!
She wanted doughnuts for breakfast.
Sure! You’re the bride. I’ll send one of the boys to pick them up.
She wanted to do her own hair, because when she’d suggested at the wedding-hair practice session that she was thinking of wearing it in a beehive for the ceremony, the stylist had looked at her with actual pity.
Allie didn’t want to be pitied. She wanted a beehive.
Of course, darling! her mother had said. You’re the bride. I’ll cancel the appointment.
Allie was starting to feel invulnerable. Maybe even invulnerable enough to say something to May.
Hey, May? Is Ben planning to stick around for the wedding? Because that will get a little awkward, what with Dan flying in a few hours from now, plus the pack of lies we told Mom and all. I think you’d better send the boy toy on his way before your ex arrives in his monkey suit, is all I’m saying.
But May knew the score. She just didn’t care. Or she did care, but not enough to do anything about it.
And meanwhile Mom wouldn’t shut up about Dan. When Dan was coming. How May really needed to talk to him—Have a nice long talk, okay? Okay, May?
May kept saying I’ll talk to him, but don’t get your hopes up. Only Mom wasn’t really listening. And when Mom pleaded with Allie to step in and say something to her sister?
She couldn’t. She simply couldn’t, even though the definitive end of Dan-and-May rang in Allie’s head like the death knell of Allie-and-Matt.
She wasn’t mad at May. Not really. She had been, briefly, when she’d realized it was too late for her to sequester her sister somewhere for the heart-to-heart conversation that would somehow effect the rescue Allie needed, liberating her from her own feelings.