On the Rocks(69)

“Do you mean that?”

“I don’t know. I would have at least talked to you about it instead of having you find out the way you did. I would have asked for your blessing.”

“You have it. It was meant for you.”

“Thanks. You look great by the way. Whatever you’re doing down in Newport, keep it up. I haven’t seen you look this alive in a very long time.”

“I’m trying to go back to being the old me.”

“Is it working?”

“It might be, actually.”

“Good,” she said, and smiled at me.

One final pull and the comb slipped out. I placed it on the chair next to me, letting the tulle fall in a tangled ball on the floor like a giant ballerina car wreck. “There,” I said as I tried to smooth the wayward hairs back into place. She exhaled, incredibly relieved that I hadn’t destroyed her precious bridal hair. I picked up my champagne and took a long swig.

“Can you do the bustle for me?” she asked sweetly as she turned her back to me.

I dropped to the floor and ran my hands around the inside hem of her dress, looking for the small fabric loops fastened to the inner layer of her gown. I attached them all to the buttons and then I fluffed the hem of her gown so that it fell gently around her.

“That should do it,” I said as I sat back on my heels and looked up at her from the floor.

She smiled wide at her reflection. “Time to join my party!” she chirped, grabbing her bouquet off the chair and floating out of the room like a giant, mobile cream puff, leaving me alone on the floor with my flowers and a pile of tulle, just like Cinderella after she helped the evil stepsisters get ready for the ball. Plus the champagne flute. Minus the mice.

I spent most of the cocktail hour slamming mini-grilled cheeses and washing them down with additional flutes of bubbly. I caught sight of my mother in the corner of the room, showing her guests her intricately beaded gown, and wondered if she had even the slightest clue as to how absolutely nuts people thought she was. Other than Katie, myself, and Aunt Patrice, I don’t think anyone really had a full appreciation for how crazy she was, but wearing a wedding dress to her daughter’s wedding certainly gave people a pretty good idea.

When the cocktail hour ended, waiters escorted us into the main dining room. I sat down at my table by myself, looking at all the couples on the dance floor, and realized there was only going to be one way to get through this event alone. I stood and once again smoothed my bubblegum dress over my thighs, then returned to the bar, the only place where a single girl could hide from the couples in plain sight. I was going to take my very full flute and disappear into the ladies’ room while I pretended to fix my makeup again when Aunt Patrice strolled up and lightly hip-bumped me.

“Hey there!” she said cheerily as she patted me on my ass. “How’re you doing?” She leaned her hand on the bar. Her martini sloshed back and forth in her glass, two olives nestled in the bottom of the liquid. We clinked our glasses together and both took large sips.

“I’m great!” I sang as I threw my non-flute-holding hand up in the air over my head like I was holding a pom-pom.

“Well, you look great. Have you been working on being more social like we talked about at lunch?”

“I’ve been trying.”

“Any luck?”

“So far just a whole lot of frogs.”

She bobbed her olive skewer up and down in her vodka and olive juice. I wondered if Bobby would call that a filthy whore or just a dirty slut martini. “Well, that’s okay. Like I said, the frogs can be fun too. What are you doing over here?”

“Hiding,” I admitted. “Not that that’s possible in this dress, but I’m trying my best.” I realized that hiding from anyone became impossible the second I left the house. The days of embarrassing moments living only on the pages of family photo albums were long gone, and I had no doubt that thanks to Katie’s Facebook-and MySpace-obsessed friends, pictures of me in this dress were already splashed all over the Internet for any cyber-stalker to see. It was only a matter of time before some guy Googled me, discovered a picture of me in this dress, and understandably ran for his life.

“You know, no one likes a lady alone at a bar. It looks desperate.”

I shrugged. “Ordinarily I’d agree with you, but I don’t think that sitting alone in the bathroom looks particularly great either. I’m thirty-one years old, and my fiancé ditched me. I look desperate just by virtue of leaving the house.”

“And why are those your only two options? How do you know there aren’t cute single boys in the ballroom? Do you know how many people meet their husbands at weddings? It’s a perfect social situation: it’s a romantic happy occasion, everyone is already prescreened by nature of being invited, and there’s free alcohol. It’s a single girl’s dream! So why aren’t you mingling? she asked. “I thought you were going to try to improve your attitude this summer. You promised me,” she added.

“I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying to meet people and be less negative and go on dates this summer, and every guy I meet has some tragic flaw that I can’t seem to get past. I’m not being too picky either. I’m telling you, some of the guys are moat monsters.”

“Let me ask you this: are you still hung up on Ben? Maybe that’s part of your problem.”