August 2005, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

By Kelly Austin

“So, do you think they’ll hire a stripper?”

Visions of middle-aged women hooting at a muscular man in a G-string dancing in a local dive bar flashed in my mind. I cringed and then actually gagged.

My best friend from high school and I were driving leisurely up toward Cape Cod to attend the wedding of our other friend’s father. It would be his second marriage, after a long revisited bachelorhood.

About 10 years after his divorce from Marissa’s mother, he met Diane, a Lily Pulitzer-wearing, Cosmopolitan-guzzling giggler from Palms Springs. The two became a pair of veritable legends in the small Cape Cod town in which they lived. Now they were finally tying the knot, and we were on our way to a three-day celebration in honor of the happy couple.

Upon arrival, Diane virtually jumped us, squeezed our cheeks and called us, “her girls,” even though our social interactions up until then had been quite limited. She asked for help with her outfit both that night - the night of the bachelorette party - and the next day for the ceremony.

We exchanged wary glances. Something about helping a woman we had only really met put on her wedding gown seemed inappropriate at best. Wasn’t it a sacred act, to be witnessed only by her closest family members?

“I only want my girls to be there,” she said, grinning like a silly child.

Only later did we find out that Diane had a child from one of her two previous marriages, a daughter named Kim with whom she had a falling out years earlier, the circumstances having since been locked away with other family secrets. It does not take a Freudian-savvy mind to make a connection between Marissa’s young female friends and the young daughter Diane had lost.

The bachelorette party was a gin-soaked evening with the bride-to-be returning home later than the rest of us, my companion and I too deep in intoxicated sleep to even hear the car on the gravel driveway.

The next morning, Diane and her husband-to-be grilled us with questions concerning Marissa’s love life: who would she bring as a date? Would it be Steve, the boy with whom she was cheating on her boyfriend, or Mark, the boy with whom she was cheating on Steve? I took leave of the conversation to vomit and came back only to retreat again, when I saw that the morning’s activity involved mimosas.

By the evening’s post-rehearsal banquet, to which all the guests were invited, I had sobered up enough to engage in some small talk and even indulge in a glass of champagne. Unfortunately, the small talk involved witnessing my friend being harassed by a local mother insistent that her daughter go to Harvard.

“I’d really like you to talk to her because she doesn’t want to go, and I think you could tell her how great it is.”

“Well, I mean, she’s 12, so she’s got time,” my friend replied.

“No. No, she doesn’t.”

And then I got into a fight with Marissa’s godparents, self-proclaimed “SUV lovers” who were angry that their sons didn’t get into the University of Texas because of all the “Orientals.” If I remember correctly, our argument, about the nature of national tragedies versus international ones, ended with me stating that “dead bodies floating in the water are dead bodies floating in the water” and them making an awkward and fast exit.

As the guests were leaving, Diane witnessed a very drunk Marissa fall on the steps of the house. The former scolded the latter, who ran behind the barn and cried while we listened to Diane go on a tirade about her soon-to-be stepdaughter.

“It’s all about the money for her,” Diane said. “She needs to learn that it’s not always about her!”

We agreed hesitantly before hearing a slight whisper urging us to go behind the barn, where Marissa was going off on her soon-to-be stepmother, whom she had adored until just recently.

“I just hope my dad signed a prenup,” she said, slurring through sobs.

At the end of the night, her father told her Diane wanted to have a drink with everyone to “mend the family fences.” Oddly enough, that included us, even though we weren’t part of the family.

We dutifully sat through the painful conversation, Marissa barely coherent, Diane touching our arms constantly and being unabashedly sappy. My amusement at the situation turned to anger at the fact that we were expected to play roles for which we didn’t know the lines, to bear the criticisms of our friend who would then flee during awkward moments to make out with her mongoloid summer love, to be the daughters someone never had and the friends someone else didn’t appreciate. When the time came to pass out, I was grateful even for a hard mattress.

By the time of the actual ceremony the next morning, we were exhausted. We virtually crawled to the golf club down the street, praying to get in an accident along the way.

Guests trickled in. We sat in our chairs, mouths shut tightly, too furious and tired to mingle. Then, from a near corner of the room, I heard a man ask Diane’s mother, sitting stiffly beside Diane’s sister, if she was excited for her daughter.

“No,” she replied. “This is just another day. I’ve seen this before.”

My anger faded from black to ashen and then dissipated. I imagined hearing my mother say such a thing, having her and my only sister stay far away from most of the festivities. They had both been blatantly absent physically and emotionally.

I wondered how it would feel to have a roomful of people wonder if you deserved all the hoopla of a wedding or if they really could be sure it was worth it because, you know, it didn’t stick those other times. Doesn’t the bride deserve to be unequivocally admired, even worshipped on that day? And isn’t it special regardless of what came before it or what will come after it?

I stopped criticizing Diane in my mind after that. I didn’t think about her constant slurping of girly cocktails, the fact that she seemed like a twentysomething who refused to grow up. I beamed at her when she said her vows and congratulated her and even patted her shoulder when she hugged me too tightly. I wanted her to know that she was special that day, no matter what, even though the next day, we would flee like refugees, drive away at breakneck speed.

Kelly Austin is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Manhattan and is currently working on a memoir. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 | Email This Post

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