Page 6 of My Wife
Reality barrels my way like a meteor on a collision course with Earth, sucking all the air from the room. “Can I talk to him?”
“Obviously, he’s occupied at the moment, Jess,” Pamberlie hisses.
Unsteady, my body freezes over and my teeth start chattering. My pulse thunders. I look around for a place to sit down, but the bridal party surrounds me.
Rory asks, “Was that Cassleigh with Rexlan?”
Amy says, “Why are they in Vegas and not here?”
She must not have been at the top of her academic class.
The shiny, sparkly wedding day world splinters and shatters around me as my eyes brim with tears of embarrassment.
“Rexlan, my fiancé, just eloped with Cassleigh in Las Vegas.” I realize I’ve said this out loud in an eerily calm voice.
The wedding planner says, “We need to take action. Evasive or decisive, your call.”
I’m about to ask her to please make a brief but clear announcement to the guests when Sorsha interrupts. “This is beyond humiliating. I’ll never live this down.” I want to comfort her, but have several feet of satin, lace, and other fancy fabrics along with a mountain of what very much feels like animosity between us.
Then to me, she adds, “I always said you were flaky.”
Well then.
In the recounts of awful mothers of the bride or groom in the wedding articles I read, mom-zilla types would often deflect and place blame.
Turning my attention to the wedding planner, who has been the consummate professional, even when Sorsha requested nineteen change orders. I kept track because I’d sneak a foil-wrapped Dove chocolate into the wedding planner’s purse each time.
Sorsha’s accusatory gaze is trained on me. “You are such an embarrassment. I knew we shouldn’t have gone through with this. I never wanted my son to marry you, anyway.”
Ouch.I wince.
Pamberlie’s eyes narrow. “Mother, I distinctly recall you saying that Jess is better than Cassleigh because the day Rex brought her home after band practice in high school, she was grossed out by the skinks.”
Sorsha says, “I forbid it! Rexlan can not be with that little brat.”
“Too late,” Pamberlie says.
Not only did I just lose my fiancé, this means I’ve also lost my job. There’s no way I can run the Skink Society shop and website now.
Pamberlie continues, “My brother is such a loser. I can’t believe you didn’t see right through him. All the late nights, the trips, and when he dipped out of the elaborate three-month anniversary plans you made because he supposedly just had to go to a modern art gallery opening. Rex wouldn’t know art from his elbow.” She shakes her head as if royally disappointed in my naïveté.
But there’s a difference between wanting to deny reality and facing the aftermath if I confront it.
“Rexlan and Cassleigh sound lovely together,” Rory says with a little flourish at the end of the new Mrs. Coogan’s name like-leighwhich rhymes withday. As in, this was supposed to be my wedding day.
“I thought it was Cass-lee,” Amy says, pronouncing the last part the way Rexlan’s assistant does.
“Does it matter?” Pamberlie asks.
“She’s your new sister-in-law!” Amy says with a cheer.
Everyone else has the decency to remain quiet.
The sadness that threatened to consume me turns hard. I’m not angry, more like resolved.
To leave.
Now.
