The setback, p.29
The Setback, page 29
“Why? I think he’s a pretty good-looking horse.”
“He’s an idiot,” I say. “Clearly the trailer’s fine, and he’s just being stubborn.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because you’re saying I’m like him. I’m not. I’m not running from you. I just don’t ever want to get married or have kids. It’s not the same thing.”
“Okay.”
“What?”
“I said okay,” David says. “Is our connection bad?”
“But you’re clearly likening me to that horse, and I’m angry about it.”
“I’m not,” he says.
“You are.”
“Okay, so let’s say I am.”
“I knew it.”
“I didn’t say you needed to get married or have kids.”
“Then what’s my trailer?” I ask. “Just tell me.”
“It’s me,” David says. “You’re happy to invite me back to a hotel. You’re even willing to say I’m your boyfriend, but everything else spooks you.”
“Everything else?”
“I love you, Helen Fisher. I think I’ve liked you for a long time, but when you bought your sister an ultrasound machine? And then when I found out you were banned from using the freezer, that sealed the deal.”
“Who told you that?” I ask. “That was a misunderstanding. Plus, Abby’s kidding about it. I’m not really banned.”
“You love your family,” David says. “And I love you for that. I just want you to love me as much as you love them. That’s the trailer, and I’m willing to wait until you’re ready to climb into it.”
26
Amanda
Donna’s wedding was lovely. She walked down the aisle, got puked on—I was a little thankful in that moment that it wasn’t me—and then she and Will got married in front of the entire town.
Eddy’s parents might have loved that.
I would have hated it. Not because of some misplaced dislike of small towns. Manila has actually really grown on me. It’s a little awkward to buy tampons from someone who knows my first and last name. Last month, Venetia actually said, “I thought I’d see you a week ago.” And winked.
I did not explain that I’d run out after my period ended and I was stocking up for the next one. It’s none of her business.
But even so, I don’t really know everyone, and it would have felt like a spectacle to me, like Eddy and I were performing, just like it felt when I married Paul.
My mom’s betrayal was terrible.
But in some ways, maybe I owe her a thank you. I mean, she was the last push that made me delete my social media account, and other than a few moments of panic in the first two weeks, it has been the best thing I’ve ever done.
I have a women’s wellness center that’s coming along right on schedule, and I have two backers who are both intelligent and financially solvent. They’re paying me a salary with the intention that I’ll run it once it’s up. Mandy and I are still, albeit slowly, remodeling the properties she’s been renting out for decades, and then selling them off at huge profits. I don’t have the need for financial support that I used to have, so letting go of the uncertainty of public approval has been the most healing thing I’ve done since Paul died, I think.
My unpaid therapist—Abby—agrees.
But she has also been pretty busy, what with being stuck on a baby monitor, and then with a newborn in the NICU, and now having a baby at home who’s hardly eating.
And that doesn’t even include Maren’s cheer competitions or Emery’s play she just performed in. She got the role of Annie, which was perfect for her. Once all that shook out, it was already the beginning of March.
All I’d done was pick a new dress.
This one is everything I wanted, because I went shopping like a normal person and bought the one I liked. It’s also off the rack.
The horror.
But I don’t have to worry about what the glitterati might say, because they won’t be privy to the details of my wedding. In another month or two, no one will even remember who I am. Actually, I’m probably flattering myself to think they might still remember or care now. Social media moves fast. You continuously feed content into the shredder, or you disappear.
When I asked Emery and Maren, they had one weekend that was clear for the next two months. This one. So I called Donna. She said she and Will could come. Eddy called his parents. They’re never doing anything, so that was really more of a courtesy than anything else. His sister had a date, but she rescheduled. Mandy’s always free, unless she has plans with me, Donna, or Abby. Or, you know, if she’s planning to fake her own death.
Whatever.
I call Abby, hoping against hope that she and her multitude of children will be free.
“Hello?”
“Hey, so I know it’s short notice, but what’s going on for you tomorrow?”
Abby hmmms into the phone for a moment, and then she says, “Hair appointment. It’s been like six months. People are asking me if I’ve gotten an ombré.”
“But those are in right now,” I say. “Save some money and cancel it.”
“What? Have you seen my hair? It’s not an ombré. It looks horrible.”
“Well, Eddy and I were thinking of driving out to the Gorge tomorrow.”
“Amanda. I have a newborn. I think I’ll pass.”
“But I really want you to come,” I say.
“It’s March.”
“The snow melted.”
“Take a photo for me,” she says, clearly getting annoyed.
“I thought maybe you could take some photos of me,” I say. “Since I’ll be wearing my new wedding dress.”
“What?” Her spluttering is very satisfying. That was fun.
“Can you and Steve make it? The weather is perfect this weekend, the nicest weather we’ve had, and I’m actually hoping Beth can take some decent shots.”
“Steve’s working the overnight tonight. What time were you thinking?” She snorts. “And can he wear scrubs?”
“If he throws a jacket on over them for photos, sure.”
“I’m kidding,” she says. “He can change.”
“Let’s do sunset. That’ll give him time to sleep.”
“Oh, Amanda. That’s so exciting.” She wails. “But oh, no. My hair will look terrible. Maybe I can move that appointment to like, eight a.m.”
She must get it moved, because when she shows up for the ceremony, her hair looks perfect. Actually, when Eddy and I pull up to the gorgeous overlook my sweet fiancé found, most everyone’s already there.
Abby brought flowers. A lot of flowers. There are buckets and boxes and vases everywhere. Steve’s holding Nathan, and Abigail’s unloading them.
“You’re early,” she says. “Helen should be here any minute with the frame.”
“The frame?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”
“We got an arbor,” Abby says. “You can’t just get married on a rock with rocks behind you. It’s nice as a backdrop, but this is a wedding.”
Helen pulls up in a really nice Mercedes SUV, which I have never seen her drive. That woman buys luxury cars more often than most women buy handbags.
But the driver isn’t Helen.
It’s David Park.
I still struggle to see how he might actually be dating her. I mean, sure. She’s slim. She’s pretty, in an obvious, Kate Beckinsale kind of way. But who wants to date someone who bullies people with her intellect and bulldozes them with her billions?
Pass.
But somehow, they’ve been dating now for months. At first I thought it was fake, but then I stumbled around the corner from the barn and saw them standing on Abby’s front porch when they thought no one was watching. They were whispering like teenagers and David kept kissing her on the side of her face, her ear, and her neck. I almost couldn’t sleep that night, I was so disturbed by Helen acting affectionate and cute while David, just, ugh. I can’t think about it.
But the arbor she apparently helped Abby plan is breathtaking.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t want to ride in on a horse,” Steve says, peering over the edge of the overlook. “Because one little scare, and. . .” He waves at the edge, like he’s waving goodbye to someone falling over.
“No horses for me, thanks,” I say.
“I know,” Steve says. “Eddy told me how disappointed he was.”
I roll my eyes. “But he is disappointed I vetoed bringing all the dogs.” I can’t even imagine. “They just hit twelve weeks, and we can finally send them to homes, and now he’s finding reasons to delay.”
“Wait, you can send them to homes?” Steve turns toward Abby. “Where’s ours?”
“We have to go pick one,” she says. “I told you that last week.”
“It’s hard to remember anything with a new baby.” Steve yawns.
“I bet.” Eddy wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Well, there are two puppies that are my favorites. You should take one of those.”
“I want the other one,” Ethan says, popping up over his mom’s shoulder. “Here. I’ll take Nathan. I’ve got a bottle for him.”
Steve passes him off without thinking.
“Excuse me?” Abby asks. “You have no objection to Ethan also wanting a dog? One puppy is more than enough, thank you very much. We don’t need two.”
“First,” Ethan says, “they’ll play. So two will be easier than one.”
“Spoken like someone who has never had either a puppy or a child,” Abby says.
“And second,” Ethan says, acting like he didn’t even hear her, “in another few months, you guys are all packing up and heading to Steve’s. Who will keep me company then?” He turns toward me. “I want one.”
“They’re two thousand dollars,” I say.
“What?” Abby blinks.
I laugh. “I’m kidding. I’d pay you to take one. Have you ever seen a border collie puppy?”
“They’re adorable,” Eddy says. “Cuter than you can imagine.”
“And they chew on everything.” Maren scowls. “I’ve lost three pairs of shoes. Mom’s not kidding. You have to buy them, because I need to recoup my losses.”
Finally Mandy pulls up. She was the only person who hadn’t yet arrived. I wave at Donna and Will, who are on kid-watch, making sure none of the younger boys goes very close to the edge. Small boys are the dumbest members of the entire human population, I’m absolutely convinced.
Mandy has all the food in the back of her truck in coolers, but we won’t need that until afterward. She’s late, because she brought the pastor.
“What a lovely arbor,” Mandy says as she climbs out. “It looks just as good as you said it would.”
“Wait, you knew she was bringing flowers?”
Mandy tilts her head. “Girl, it was my idea.”
Abby shakes her head behind her.
“Or, at least, it was my idea to use those big red and blue hydrangeas. They’ll bring out the color in the Gorge, mark my words.”
When the pastor gets out on the passenger side, my jaw drops. “Who’s that?”
“Pastor Wesley was sick,” Mandy says. “He called a friend.”
“I’m Pastor Paul.” The man who just hopped out of the car waves.
“His name’s Paul?” Eddy looks irritated.
That makes me laugh. “His name could be Paul Brooks and I wouldn’t care,” I say.
“Isn’t it kind of weird, though?” Eddy’s brow is furrowed. “I mean, I don’t really want you thinking about your first wedding right now.”
I lean forward and kiss him right on his delicious mouth. “Honey, no one could think about anyone but you when you’re right in front of them. Trust me.”
Steve clears his throat.
Abby laughs. “He definitely looks better in a suit than Paul did.”
“That’s for sure,” I say. “And Paul would never have worn this cowboy suit.” I love what Eddy picked—a black suit with pale pinstripes, and gorgeous Lucchese boots he had to buy after Steve got a pair. But for his tie, he has a bolo tie, with two leather strings. Then holding them together, there’s a big hunk of sky-blue turquoise.
“You’re wearing Pa’s tie slide,” Eddy’s dad says. He sighs. “It sure looks nice.”
“You look really handsome,” his mother says.
Eddy tilts his head toward me, his eyes wide. “Did they just agree on something?” he hisses.
It’s a wedding day miracle.
“Any moment now, a bird’s going to fly over and poop on someone,” Donna says.
“Or someone’s tire is going to go flat,” Abby says.
“Or it’ll start snowing,” Will says.
But none of their predictions come to pass. Even though it started raining at Abby and Steve’s, and there was Cheeto puke at Donna’s, nothing bad happens at my tiny wedding at all.
Unless you think the pastor being named Paul is bad, but that doesn’t even rate in my book. He does a pretty nice job, too. He talks and talks about the importance of always putting God first—okay, dude. Save it for Sunday—and then he spends quite a bit of time talking about the blessing that marriage is in our lives. But other than the pontificating, the wedding’s just exactly what I wanted.
The pastor turns toward us and says, “You can share your vows now.”
We agreed to keep our vows as short as our invite list. “I’ll go first,” I say. “I promise that I’ll always give you the benefit of the doubt.”
That makes Abby and Eddy laugh. They both know exactly how bad I’ve been at that in the past.
“And I promise that even if I don’t always agree with you, I’ll just let things go whenever I can.” His worst fear is that we’ll turn into his parents, fighting about every little thing.
“I promise you that I’ll do my very best to never disagree with you,” Eddy says.
“She’s always right,” Steve says. “Remember that, and you’ll be fine.”
Everyone chuckles.
“But in all seriousness, I have spent most of my life thinking that one mistake sort of ruined my future. It wasn’t until you came along and your sister-in-law did some snooping, that I realized that my mistake didn’t ruin my future as much as I just stopped trying. You helped me learn to dream again. You helped me want things, and yearn for success that I had given up on. I know we’re not kids anymore, but when I’m with you, I feel like a colt that’s out for a run. I made another big mistake, this one much worse than the first, and that was losing my focus. I should always have been looking at you. You forgave me, and I promise that I’ll spend the rest of my life chasing you around, wherever that leads.”
“I now pronounce you—”
“Wait.” Emery waves. I can see it out of the corner of my eye.
“We have vows, too,” Maren says.
“You’re not marrying anyone,” I say. “Hush.”
“But he’s joining our family,” Emery says, “and that means we’re involved.”
“Let them,” Eddy says.
I brace myself. This could be really bad.
“Dad wasn’t really the best husband,” Maren says. “And from what I remember, he wasn’t always the best dad, either. When Mom dated guys, she usually only made it a few dates before kicking them to the curb. I was fine with that, because, like, the last thing I needed was another guy who would ignore us.” She kicks at the dirt, and the end of her cute little yellow high heel gets dusty. “Only, when we moved out here, you met Eddy. He wasn’t like the other guys.” She flashes a smile. “He was way better looking.”
Everyone laughs.
Except for David Park. “Rude,” he mutters.
Which gets another round of laughs. Maren’s slaying it, surprisingly.
“But for reals, me and Emery liked him. And more than that, he showed up.”
“Showed up to what?” Eddy whispers.
“I mean that you did what you said you’d do,” Maren says. “You made my mom happy, and you aren’t too bad with us either.”
“Although,” Emery says, “Steve bought Abby’s girls horses.”
Everyone laughs again.
“I’m just saying,” Emery says.
“I have two horses,” Eddy says. “You can have one.”
“I call Otis.” Emery’s not usually that quick off the draw. “Maren, you can have Noodle.”
“Pass. He’s the crappiest pony ever.”
“He’s not a pony,” Eddy says.
“He’s barely a horse.” Steve sounds like they’ve discussed this before. “I told you he was too small. Buy a horse for the girls. Don’t try to force them to take that twenty-year-old rescue who keeps trying to lie down whenever you saddle him.”
“So this is just a shake down.” Eddy’s grumbling, but he’s clearly not uphappy.
“At least they did it honestly,” I say. “They didn’t just call the press and bolt.”
“Mom hasn’t had the easiest life.” Emery’s eyes are as kind as ever. “I didn’t think she’d ever find someone who would really value her. But more than that, you also help bring out the best in her, just like MSG!” Her eyes light up and she smiles.
“Great, I cause migraines,” Eddy says.
“Some people like MSG.” Steve’s eyes sparkle.
“Not you, though.” Eddy chuckles.
“I mean it, though.” Emery doggedly presses on. “You make Mom better than she is without you, and she’s happier than she ever was alone. So please don’t ever leave her side again, okay?”
“Yes, because I doubt she’d believe I was really dead a second time,” Mandy says.
“Everyone’s a comedian,” Eddy says.
It kind of feels that way, actually. Like we’re here, promising our love, while surrounded by the people who really do love us.
“I love you, Eddy.” Emery’s lip trembles. “I’d like to call you Dad, if that’s okay. That’s my vow.”
“Me, too,” Maren says.
I don’t have the heart to tell them that it’s not really a vow.
“I’d love that.” Eddy doesn’t correct them either.
And when Pastor Paul finally pronounces us married, instead of Eddy being able to kiss me, Emery and Maren leap toward us, pushing us into some kind of strange, four-person group hug.
