On the Rocks(57)
Vodka Is Everyone’s Favorite Orphan
MONTHS HAD PASSED, but I dreaded going back to Vera Wang the way I dreaded calling the pizza place down the street once they started to recognize my voice. I really shouldn’t have complained about Katie wanting me to do this one maid of honor task for her, especially since I hadn’t really done a single thing to help her plan her wedding. I figured as long as her fiancé showed up at the church, there wasn’t really anything for her to worry about. Katie took my disinterest to mean that I was jealous and resentful of her for getting married before me, which was partially true, but it wasn’t the only reason why I didn’t want to sit with her while she tasted thirty versions of chocolate cake. At the time, I had been busy. Really. I was. I had a lonely carton of Cherry Garcia in my freezer probably going through some epic separation anxiety.
The second week of July I walked down to Newbury Street and paused in front of the bridal salon. Hello, old friend, I thought as I peered in the window. I never meant for things to end this way. I was trying to be a good maid of honor, and more important, a good sister, so I made sure that I had left with enough time to stop by the lingerie store, aptly named “Intimacy,” and pick up Katie’s bridal underwear for her like she asked. I knew picking up my little sister’s bridal undies would be painful, but I was ready for it. I was prepared. What I was not prepared for was for the salesgirl to mistake me for the bride, stare at my rear end, inform me that the size small would most likely not fit, and suggest that I buy a full-coverage granny panty instead. There was nothing quite like the unique humiliation of having to explain that I was not the bride, but only the fatter, older, jilted sister of the bride, so the size small panty would be just fine for my size small sister and her size small ass. That was nothing short of excruciating.
I took a deep breath as I prepared to enter Vera Wang, when Grace called. I figured she was calling to reassure me that my return to Vera wouldn’t be as mentally torturous as I was expecting it to be. Not exactly.
“Thank God you called,” I said. “I need a pep talk before I go back into this store. I think I’m breaking out in hives or something.” I scratched at the skin on the back of my neck. I knew it was going to mess with my head being back in Vera Wang. I didn’t think it would mess with my skin too, but it felt like my neck was on fire.
“Abby, I need you to help me,” Grace said as she sobbed into the phone with such choking spasms I had a hard time understanding her. “You have no idea what just happened to me.”
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” I froze as I waited for her to answer, terrified that she had been in some kind of accident or that someone had died. I glanced at my watch and realized I was already fifteen minutes late for Katie’s appointment. It didn’t matter. She’d have to wait.
“His wife just called me at the office,” she whispered, and I could hear the panic and the fear in her voice despite the fact that I could barely hear her at all.
“Oh my God. What did she say?” I said calmly, hoping somehow that this wasn’t as bad as I knew it was.
“She told me to stay away from her husband and called me a home-wrecker. She asked me if I knew he had a wife and kids at home and said only an evil woman would come between a man and his family.” Grace was hysterical.
“I don’t know what to say.” I didn’t. Neither of us had any experience with this type of situation. It was complicated, and Grace may not have made the best decisions where Johnny was concerned, but it crushed me to hear her this upset. We had known that if she had an affair with a married man, she was going to have to deal with the fallout, but deep down we were hoping it wouldn’t happen. I wanted to be with her, and I glanced at the bridal store and wished that I didn’t have to go inside. I would have stayed on that corner and talked to her forever if she wanted me to, the same way she had talked to me when I needed her. That’s what friends are for. The problem was, I had a sister in a wedding dress who needed me too. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. I listened to her scream at me, and then she hung up. What could I even say? I’ve never felt this bad in my life,” she wailed. “How did I end up here?”
Then I repeated the words she had said to me months ago. “I wish there was something I could say here to make you feel better. I know you’re a good person, but this sucks. Are you sure this is what you really want?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that he told her he’s going to leave her, and that’s what you wanted, and I’m happy that he’s finally doing what he needs to do to be with you, but that’s not going to change the fact that this woman hates you and is going to make it her life’s mission to ruin you.”
“I love him. I know the timing was horrible and I did things I’m not proud of, and I have to live with that. But I love him and I want to be with him. Why does it have to be so goddamn hard? Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with someone who was single like normal people?”
“Because love isn’t rational, and sometimes you can’t choose it. It chooses you.” I glanced up at the store window again and realized that so many people associated bridal salons with the happiest times in their lives. I associated them with one of the worst in mine, and now in Grace’s too. It was clear that for some reason this store had very bad mojo. I decided I’d try to avoid walking by it going forward.