Page 3 of A Very Irish Christmas
Having Suzie around wasn’t helping on the ‘freaked out’ front. I’d wanted my best friend June with me, but they hateeach other. Mixing them on a day like this would have resulted in death by stiletto heel. Plus if you’ve got a sister, there’s pretty much some unwritten rule that she has to be your bridesmaid, right? Even if she’s the kind of sister who says things like ‘It’s a shame you didn’t lose those last five pounds!’ on your actual wedding day. Suzie hasn’t eaten a carb since 2015, and what she’s lost in body fat she’s gained in meanness.
The video cuts to outside, and the guests gathering at the Plaza Hotel. They pull up in taxis and limos, some walking from the subway on 5thAvenue. It had snowed the night before, and New York couldn’t possibly have looked any prettier. It was like Manhattan itself had dressed up for the wedding.
I smile when I see June arrive. She stops near the grand entrance to the hotel, then hops around on one foot in the snow as she changes her shoes from sneakers to high-heels.
I see my dad arrive, Mom running over to straighten his tie the same way she’s done a million times before. My grandmother Nora, my favourite ever human, giving a saucy wink to the video guy. My sister’s perfect husband, Stu, with their two almost-perfect sons. My friends from work, from high school and college – everyone I’d ever known.
Next, they’re in the foyer, making small talk and getting to know each other. The video was taken from a position halfway up the stairs, and I am waiting for my favourite part.
My fiancé Ted works at an investment bank, and his friends all look like clones created in a lab – expensive suits, bland haircuts, shiny shoes. En masse at the wedding they kind of resemble a Mafia clan.
Nanna Nora is lurking behind one of them. He’s maybe three times her size, and doesn’t even know she’s there. Her wrinkled little face creases into a mischievous grin beneath her silver helmet of curls, and she gives him a smack on the ass. He whirlsaround, but she’s already gone – and who would suspect a tiny Irish woman in her nineties, right?
It’s classic Nora. She really was awesome.
The video takes in clusters of guests, June gulping down Champagne, my nephew Michael – the naughty one – sticking out his tongue and getting scolded for it by Stu.
Soon everyone is ushered into the wedding room to the sound of Vivaldi, and I sigh at how beautiful it is. The rows of chairs are dressed in white linens and swooping red velvet bows, and the flowers are lush with white roses, calla lilies and sprigs of holly and mistletoe.
It wasn’t Ted’s deal, the whole wedding prep thing, and he was happy to leave me to it. It made sense – I was an event planner, and this was my very own dream wedding. The culmination of a lifetime of imaginings.
The video shows Ted, breathtakingly handsome in his black Tom Ford suit. He stands at the front looking like a male model posing for a wedding spread in a magazine. His best man, Ethan, is beside him, the two of them looking awkward as they wait for the bride to arrive.
The bride herself – that would be me – is standing outside the glass-paned doors. My dress is a Vera Wang, elegant and simple with a strapless top and a skirt covered in exquisite lace. It was so beautiful I almost cried when I tried it on.
The wedding was only three years ago, but I look much younger on the screen. My face is buried beneath a million layers of make-up and fake eyelashes I will forever regret, but I look like an excited teenager. More like someone going to her prom than a thirty-four-year-old woman about to get married.
I’d had an anxiety dream the night before about the aisle filling with quicksand. As I waded towards Ted, every squelching step sucked me deeper, until I was trapped. I think I was worriedabout being the centre of attention, but that all fell away on the day and I was blissfully happy.
My arm is linked with my dad’s, and he leans towards me, uttering a few inaudible words. In a heartwarming rom com, he’d whisper something like: ‘Are you sure, pumpkin? It’s not too late to change your mind!’
In reality, what he actually says is: ‘Cassie, I hope this is quick. I drank a glass of Champagne when I got here, and it needs to come back out. Urgently.’
That’s my dad for you – he never met a tone he couldn’t lower. Video-me laughs at his comment, and Suzie makes a last-minute adjustment to my veil as the Vivaldi segues into the Bridal Chorus.
On the day I was too dazed to take much in as I walked up the aisle, but on the video I see the smiling faces, the oohs and aahs at the dress, my nephew Michael picking his nose in boredom. I see June’s little hand-wave as I sail serenely past, my mother looking proud. Nanna Nora with tears in her twinkling blue eyes. And right at the front, waiting for me – Ted. My handsome, clever, super-supportive Ted. The dream groom to go with the dream wedding.
As my eyes locked on him, I was flooded with an ocean of love for the man who had been my partner in life since we met in college. We’d made all our mistakes together, taken all of our firsts together, built our worlds around each other since we were teenagers.
He’d caught me in mosh pits at concerts, and given me piggy-back rides home when I was tipsy. He’d serenaded me on karaoke, singing ‘I Will Always Love You’ so badly he was booed. Once, walking home from a club, I got upset because there were snails on the path, worried they might get crushed. For the entire journey back, he moved every single one to safety, just to please me.
I’d been there for him when his dad died, and when he struggled to keep up with his schoolwork afterwards. We lived on my earnings when he was doing his internships, sharing a dilapidated walk-up in Brooklyn and finding a million and one ways to cook ramen. We had shared so much, and it had all led us here.
All the rest – the swish apartment we moved into when his career took off, the Vera Wang, the fancy venue – was just window dressing. It was nice, but it meant nothing. What really mattered was the man in front of me, and what we were about to do – stand before our friends and family and vow to be together, for better or for worse, for the rest of our lives.
Even now, if I close my eyes, I can almost physically feel that sense of joy – it’s still so real to me even after all this time. It really was the perfect day.
Right up until the point where Ted holds my hands in his, gazes into my eyes, and mutters the immortal words: ‘Cassie, I’m so sorry. I love you, but I just can’t go through with this.’
THREE
By the time June buzzes at my apartment, I am a snotty, teary mess. I don’t bother trying to make myself look better while she jogs up the steps – she’s seen it all before – but I do at least blow my nose. A girl’s got to have standards.
She knocks on my door, using the rat-a-tat-tat code we’d established when we were kids and had contraband to hide. The contraband started as candy Nanna Nora had snuck me, and changed over the years – make-up, padded bras, the romance novels we stole from my mom’s bookcase and read out loud to each other. We couldn’t resist the cover pictures of muscular Regency earls who owned half of England but could never afford a shirt.
Worse than Mom finding us, it could have been Suzie. After I sawThe Exorcism of Emily Rosewhen I was sixteen, I became convinced my sister was possessed by a demon. I still have my suspicions that if I slipped holy water into her wine, she might burst into flames.
When I hear the knock code tonight, it brings a huge sense of relief. June is the best friend ever, and I wouldn’t have survived the aftermath of that day without her.
