Page 139 of How to Walk Away

Was somebody coming?

And then I saw.

Somebody was coming, all right.

The wedding party.

Twenty-eight

THEY GATHERED BYthe bridge at the top of the steps to the taxi stand like a pouty spread inVanity Fair,at the very spot where I had just been. I got my first good gander, and it was so strange to see all the guys who would have been our groomsmen—Woody, Statler, Murphy, and Harris—paired up with a flock of female strangers. Just as I thought that, a breeze rose up and caused all the bridesmaids’ gowns to billow in slow motion.

Then the group parted, and I braced myself for the appearance of the bride and groom. But the couple that appeared were not Chip and the Whiner, but instead, Jim and Evelyn Dunbar. Chip’s folks.

I had seen Evelyn several times since the day we’d fought in the hospital, of course. She was our next-door neighbor, after all.

But I had not spoken to her. Not once, in all this time.

At first, if she popped by, I hid. I felt like I couldn’t face her, and I gave myself permission not to. As time went by, I stopped caring about avoiding her. But by then, she and my mother had begun their secret rendezvous.

We didn’t work to avoid each other. It just happened.

After a while, my mother insisted that Evelyn had “entirely forgotten”our little “tiff” at the hospital. But I suspected that she’d long ago made me the villain of the situation: the desperate, broken girl who’d tried to manipulate her perfect son into giving up his perfect life out of guilt. Evelyn had never been the kind of person to face her son’s limitations head-on. She could be very selective about her facts.

Hence, the “omission” of my name on the invitation.

It was fine. I didn’t care. Except for one thing: She was coming my way, and I had no escape.

As she walked closer in her pale blue mother-of-the-groom suit and pearls, I wondered how she would react to the sight of me.

Not well, it turned out.

I have a theory that we are at our meanest when we feel threatened. People really seem to do their worst when they think you’re out to hurt them, or steal from them, or take something that’s rightfully theirs. And I could tell the minute Evelyn Dunbar’s eyes met mine that she immediately thoughtall of the above.

She must have thought I was there to ruin the wedding. In her shoes, I might have thought the same thing.

She stepped into the boat, and froze when she saw me. Mr. Dunbar walked on to chat with some guests, but Evelyn bent toward me in my seat and dropped her voice about an octave. “What are you doing here?”

Other guests looked our way. No way was I discussing theParent Trapplan in public. I shrugged instead. “Kit got sick, so I took her place.”

She glanced around. She arranged her face into a smile. “You were not invited.”

“I noticed that,” I said.

“We thought it would be awkward.”

“It would have been.”

“But here you are.”

“My mother thought it was an oversight.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I’m not going to cause any trouble,” I said at last, lifting my hands in a gesture of innocence. I meant to deescalate, but that just made her madder.

“How can you do this?” she hissed.

It seemed like an overreaction. “Do what?” I asked.

---