The colossal, ornament of a door opens slowly into the main area of St. Mary’s. I have never seen the inside of a church before. This room seems too big to be real. The cathedral opens up to a high vaulted ceiling. Painted glass windows surround the entirety of the church from front to back. The windows look as though they have angels in various poses on them. They’re absolutely beautiful. The pews are the same mahogany the door is made from and not any less decorative. They send an off limits vibe. The walls are an off-white that seems to have been stained with time. Everything looks antique. Everything seems incredibly untouchable. I should not be here. I’m just waiting for the hall to burst into flames.
Ali looks back at me with a fake smile and I see a tear run down her left cheek. Before turning back around to complete her stroll, she looks helplessly at the crimson velvet carpeting and stops smiling completely. “She’s given up,” I say to myself in the abyss that is my current state of mind. I hate when she looks like that. Deep down inside, all I want is to be next to her to tell her that everything will be okay and that we can still move forward with our original plans and ideas. But, I can’t because I feel like it’s never going to be okay.
Walking down the aisle to the minister-- I’m honestly not sure what to call this man, and he is, in fact, a man-- and my future husband is like walking to the gallows and the executioner. My life is over. There’s no question about it now.
I let myself fall into a daydream about when Ali and I were younger and in high school. There was this one day that I remember most fondly. It was after school and we sat in the meadow out beyond the football field. The grass gave us enough cover to hide from the rest of the world. Nobody would ever be able to see us there. This was one of the only spots where we could be ourselves.
We’d bring notebooks, pens and cameras that printed photos on the spot. Ali and I would write stories about our future selves. We would get caught up writing poetry to and about each other. I still treasured the scrapbooks we made each other for our birthdays. When we went to college together, that all stopped, but we still had other means of sticking together for our best friend time. College meant that we didn’t need to sneak around to be together.
The only other place I could think of as wonderful would have been the beach off Lake Michigan. Hanging around the dunes all night was just as fantastic as the meadow by the school. The only people that went out there late at night were the ones that wanted to get away. They were our people, even though we never spoke to them. They were just like us.
The smell of the sea air is my most valued recollection of that time. Any time I’ve ever had the opportunity to smell it, I close my eyes and I’m immediately brought back to those days. Now, it just makes me sick with aching and longing for those times to come back to us.
I’m not a kid anymore. There will be no sneaking out with Ali to sit on the beach dunes, talking until the sun peeps up at us over the horizon. There will be no sneaking Ali into my room at night when my parents are asleep or away. There will be no more Ali and I alone together at any point in time. My life, as I know it, is truthfully over.
I snap out of my reminiscing and back into my real life issues. This is horrible. What is it that I used to love writing in my notebooks? “Reality is a lovely place, but I would never want to live there,” I think to myself. How fitting that phrase is for today?
Tom stands there smiling his big, tacky smile. His shit-eating grin makes me shudder in disgust. His teeth are the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. They are absolutely unreal. He has the fakest smile I’ve ever witnessed on any human being. I guess it helps that he’s pretty well known. People clamor over him to get his teeth that clean and picture-perfect for movies and photographs. The funny thing is that his face is nowhere near as perfect. It’s a phenomenon what special effects and makeup can do. It is such a waste of time and money.
My very own personal procession comes to a stop long before I do. Each woman stands in their designated spaces to the left side of the smaller, more arched shelter on the stage. I have to keep moving forward to my position about ten feet in front of us. I trip slightly on the tulle beneath the dress. I catch myself from falling and continue on. I’m so freaking clumsy.
The lights go dim and the music halts sharply. The silence is overbearing. I can actually hear people breathing in the pews. The only bright lights in the entire church are the ones focused on us, and the single spotlight concentrated on the crucifix just behind the man about to sentence me to a life of marital misery.
This may be blasphemous to think, but Jesus looks like he’s crying and mourning for my soul just as much as his own. For a moment, I feel bad for him. Then I remember where I am and what’s about to take place in my own life. Now, I feel bad for myself and I begin to pray that this all ends as quickly as it started. What’s funny is that I never pray for anything. If there is a God, maybe he’ll grant me this one wish.
I sit and wait for my prayer to be answered. But, nothing ever happens. No sign is shown. I’m screwed.
We both look at the priest and he solemnly begins his speech in an eerily robotic voice. You know the one. It’s all too excruciating to listen to or repeat.
I tune him and everything around me out as if nothing else in the world exists. I pretend that none of this is even happening and put Ali’s face where Tom’s is in my mind’s eye. This magnificent image gets me through until Tom interrupts my thought process with a gruff cough. I guess it’s my turn to repeat those dreadful words. We echo after him and he orders the man to kiss the bride, totally and utterly sealing my final fate as Tomas Espinoza’s wife.
Tom lifts the white, lacy veil from in front of my face. His smile has faded into a forced, narrow gaze. He deliberately leans in with his eyes confidently closed. His smug façade inches closer, ready to slap his smooth, glossy lips on mine for the first time. Yes, he’s about to kiss me for the first time ever. How on God’s green Earth could we be getting married if we’ve never even smooched? That’s not the first absurd red flag in this series of events.
I shoot a quick glance at Ali. My movement catches her eyes. As if she’s reading my mind, she throws her bouquet towards the crowd of onlookers and races towards me, snagging my hand in hers.
It’s all as if it is in slow motion. Time seems to freeze while I watch her come at me. We yank each other back down the aisle towards the russet door, losing both pairs of our shoes on the way out. I hated those things, anyway. I am much more comfortable with my feet touching the ground beneath me.
People try to corral us away from the exit. They attempt to block our paths. People try to snatch us by our gowns, but we let our dresses tear nearly clean off our bodies in order to ensure that we liberate ourselves from this mess. We flash by each pew of people as we run for our lives. I can feel my mother’s stare drawn down on the back of my neck. I’ve never felt so petrified in all of my life. It takes all of the energy I can muster to endure and carry on.
We push through the giant front doors of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. Thankfully the limo is right where it was when I left it. I trip and fall to my knees just after stepping from the last step of the stairs that lead away from the church door. Ali yanks me up and we dive head first into the parked limo. Ali cries to the driver, “Paul, go! We have to go!” The doors lock as the driver, Paul, looks back at us in confusion. This is the first time my life has ever fallen into such chaos.
Once the car starts progressing down the street we sit back and attempt to relax, watching the people filing out of the ever-shrinking church behind us. Former friends and family run after us as we break away from the curb. The ladies desert their position in the mad pack first. The men chase us for another block and slowly start dropping out of the race. Eventually, they all stop running after us. Looking back again, I see that there are a lot of phones to ears and thumbs twitching and sending texts. I immediately switch my phone to the off
position.
Ali and I look at each other. She grips my gloved hand and we bust out with the hardest laughter our bodies could possibly create. We fall over each other’s laps as tears of joy and celebration stream down our makeup-packed faces. This is the worst day and the best day of my entire life, all solidly rolled into one. Maybe my life’s not over after all. Is that even possible?
CHAPTER 5
Shall We Head Out?