The Wedding Gift (12 page)

Speaking of pregnancy, I
had not been able to go to the bathroom for an entire week. I think
the last time was right before my graduation six days before. The
situation of me not being able to poop had made me as bloated as
that fat Audrey. I’ll tell you this too, being bloated from being
constipated was just too much to take in addition to being
pregnant. Being constipated made me cry too, and I wanted to go to
Doc Miller about it, but Mama said I was overreacting and it would
all come out in the wash, which in no way applied to my
situation.

The day previous to my
wedding, I couldn’t take how bad my stomach felt, and I barged on
into Doc Miller’s office. He was real nice to me and told me that
constipation was perfectly normal in pregnancy, and then he told me
to try an enema. Well, to begin with I think I will never be able
to look at Doc Miller again after that little conversation, and I
was sure too embarrassed to be asking him how to use an enema. So
the upshot of this is that I had to attend my own wedding
rehearsal, and the dinner afterwards, as a huge gassy, bloated
freak. I looked more like a damned float than a girl who was used
to sitting on top of one of ‘em.

Poor George is not getting
much of a bargain in me. Shoot, even my engagement ring was tight.
Jessie, in order to cheer me up, said that I looked real cute with
a double chin, and I just looked back at her and let some of my
pregnancy gas rip, which made her shut up right quick.

The rehearsal dinner was
going to be at Downey’s. My daddy had to pay for the rehearsal
dinner, so he said we would all go where he wanted. Downey’s isn’t
really a restaurant, but they do serve burgers if you ask for them.
Mama said we would all get ptomaine and be dead before the wedding.
Jessie said going to Downey’s was the best part of the
“
whole horrible idea so
far
.” George, well he just loved my daddy
and seemed to want to hang out with him at Downey’s every chance he
got anyway.

Surprise, surprise, when
Miz Willets found out where the rehearsal dinner was, she made up
some excuse and stated that she will not be attending, though
George’s daddy said he was coming. When George broke the tragic
news to me about his mama being a no show, I decided maybe Jessie
was right after all about Downeys being the best part, though I
felt strongly that she was dead wrong about how me marrying George
was still a horrible idea.

PART II

Chapter 18

Mama sure was right when
she said what a difference a day makes. Today is the day after my
wedding, and I am not in Hawaii at the Diamond Head Beach Resort; I
am not even in the suite at the Mansion in Turtle Creek where
George and I were supposed to spend our wedding night. Nope … none
of the above. I am in the hospital in Oklahoma City.

I spent my actual wedding
night in surgery, so instead of one of my new negligees or bikinis
packed for the trip, I am wearing a hospital gown while I write
about my romantic adventures. My mama tried to get me into a new
nightgown and robe that she brought for me, and to get me to brush
my hair, but all I really want to do, if I am going to be strictly
honest, is lay here and look at the wall, and not the one with the
window in it either.

Yesterday morning I got up
real early, even before Mama, because my stomach was hurting
something awful. I went and sat in the bathroom for about an hour,
and nothing, so I decided I might as well just go on and shower and
start my day, since I knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep again.
Mama heard me and came to check up on me. She asked me if the pain
I was having felt like cramp pain, or like the tummy pain you get
when you have gas.

I told her it was the tummy
pain kind, and she looked real relieved. Then she told me how to
use that nasty enema of Doc Miller’s, which I did, and then a
little later I had some results and I felt enough better to eat
breakfast with her and Daddy and my brother Randy, who just to be
sweet had shown up alone at seven a.m. “
so
we could have one last breakfast together, just us
four
.” Well I call doing that, being a real
good brother, don’t you?

At nine Jessie showed up.
She was filled up with piss and vinegar and insisted on putting on
her Maid of Honor dress immediately. All the dresses were a copy of
Scarlett O Hara’s white and green dress from Gone With the
Wind.

Mama said she had been
inspired by the green sash on my lace dress. Of course she had made
some adjustments and done them all in taffeta, because she had
gotten a lot sale on the fabric. These get ups were topped by huge
leghorn hats, which naturally Jessie had to put on too, but after
Jessie broke the second of Mama’s prized ceramic cows with one of
her head throwing shouts of “
fiddle dee
dee Miz Scarlett, I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no
babies
”, Mama made her take that hat off
and go sit down with Daddy in the living room.

Poor daddy was sweating so
much in his rented tuxedo that Mama had told him just to stay put
in front of the fan. Randy, on the other hand, looked real calm and
real handsome too in his tuxedo. George had asked him to stand up
with him, which at first I thought was being real nice, until I
realized he was just trying to fill out his ranks.

I mean, I had seven
attendants so he had to scramble. Finally he found four which still
made our line-ups look uneven, but not as bad as if it had been
just him and Teddy D standing there as he had previously
wanted.

When I was finally dressed,
and I had left Mama still sobbing in my bedroom, for the sight of
me in that dress had just done her in, it was Randy, not Daddy, who
was waiting at the bottom of the stairs to look up at me. He got
real still when he saw me, and then just held out his hand. I
walked down and took it, and he pulled me into his arms.
“
You know what, Leeann? You really are the
prettiest girl that was ever born in Dalton,
Oklahoma
.” I got a little choked up because
Randy, as I have said, did not say much of anything as a
rule.

About then everyone else in
my bridal party showed up, and there was not near room enough for
all of them inside, especially in those damn bridesmaid dresses,
which after the hoops were inserted under the skirts, well they
tended to be about twenty feet wide.

Then Daddy was there
looking at me and crying, and pretty soon Jessie started yelling at
everyone to get into the cars - George had sent three rented limos
- and then Mama came down the stairs. Daddy put his hand on his
heart, like he was going to faint at the sight of how pretty she
looked.

And if I had to say what I
was feeling right then … well I was happy I guess, but somehow I
also felt a little like I needed to laugh in that wild way that
Muffin did. I figured it must just be the gas, though, and there
was no time right then for any deep thinking because we were off to
the church.

I don’t remember much of
the actual ceremony. I was awful nervous, and that just made my
stomach hurt worse. We had to have us this darned long Catholic
service, though, on account of all the Willets being so devout
(don’t make me laugh). So, because of it being all Roman Catholic
and old school, George and me were stuck down on our knees for
about three days, it felt like, and the whole time I was a nervous
wreck, but not because of getting married.

I was real pre-occupied by
how bad my stomach hurt, and I was thinking what if I explode and
disgrace myself for the next fifty lifetimes right here in this
church? I didn’t, but I was sweating pretty bad by then. I still
thought it was gas pains combined with nerves, and so I just worked
on concentrating on holding myself real still and trying to at
least look like I was listening to the priest. Then he finally got
around to saying "
You may kiss the
bride
".

George had to get all
theatrical and about broke my back bending me way back to kiss like
they do in old movies. Then we were kind of galloping down the
aisle, because we both wanted to get to the reception real bad,
George so he could have a drink and me so I could try to go to the
bathroom; my stomach was about to kill me dead by then. As we went
by the pews I glanced at Miz Willets who was crying so hard you’d
have thought she was at a double funeral, not a wedding. Seeing her
act up like that, it made me want to kick her, but there wasn’t
time because we had to kiss about fifty people before we could even
get into the limo.

There was one thing,
though, that brought me up short. In the back pew, just sitting
there like he was king of the world, was Donny Readle. Of course I
knew he had been invited, he was an old family friend … I just
hadn’t thought about what it would be like to see him. It’s funny
Carlene wasn’t with him. He was just sitting with his Uncle Hank;
he was wearing a gray suit and the sun coming in through the
stained glass window shot his hair up with light making him gleam
far brighter than any gold I ever saw. I could barely look at his
eyes; oh they were just like green glass, and he was staring at me
with the funniest expression on his face. I gave him a little smile
and a wave, but he didn’t even nod, he just sat there looking at
me, with that face of his. I had always dreamed of this day, me and
Donny in church on my wedding day, so maybe I let myself get lost
there, just for a tiny second imagining things was different. I
guess I might have even felt a little shocked when my arm got
pulled by George, but that was fine 'cause then it all came clear
again real quick. Yep it was my wedding day for certain, but not to
Donny. George, he was the one who was my dearly beloved now, and
who I belonged to, and he was tugging at me wanting me to get going
so we could head to the reception.

There for a minute between
how bad my stomach hurt, and the sick feeling I got seeing Donny, I
thought maybe I would pass out right there, but I didn’t … not
then. I stayed on my feet and made it outside to the
limo.

The reception was naturally
back at the Dalton Country Club, scene of my bridal washout
luncheon, only this time, for every dozen or so white roses for Miz
Bethany, there were a dozen lavender roses too. I felt warm then.
George, he could be the sweetest man alive and he had insisted on
them purple roses 'cause he knew I loved them best.

Instead of a little three
piece combo there was a full band, and when George and I walked in,
having had to sit in the damn limo like fugitives for half an hour
first so everyone else could get inside, the band broke into 'The
greatest love of all'. That’s about the most pathetic song I can
think of, so obviously Miz Bethany must have chosen it.

Later when Jessie and I
were in the bathroom, me in a stall trying to relieve my stomach
pressure, and her at the mirror, she said that was probably the
song Miz Willets sang when she looked in the mirror. That made me
laugh so hard I almost fell off the toilet. Then we had to put on
our dog and pony show. First there was the new couple dance, then
the father-daughter dance, and the mother-son dance, where Randy
and Mama looked real sweet and George and his Mama looked real
scary. Then we had the cake cutting, which got all messed up
because Miz Willets included herself in that part of the ceremony,
so that somehow it ended up with George putting a bite into her
mouth before mine. I could not wait to hear what Jessie would say
about that!

And then everyone got real
drunk the way they always do at receptions and made asses out of
themselves doing the chicken dance and so forth.

I threw my bouquet. Lurlene
caught it after tripping Jessie to disarm the competition, and then
I got led to a chair so George could take my garter off and throw
it to the single men.

This part gets real cloudy
for me, but what I do remember is sitting down and the men yelling
“
use your teeth, George
.” I was laughing too, I think, when George pushed up the
skirt of my perfect lace dress. I know he winked at me, because I
had on matching lace stockings, but then his face got funny. George
was kneeling between my legs, and all of sudden he started backing
away so fast that he fell over onto on his back, and I sat there
looking at him and laughing like what the hell? And then I saw it
too … blood, there was blood all over my pretty lace stockings. I
don’t think I made a sound, but someone did. I heard 'em screaming
“
Oh my God, look at all that
blood
” and somebody else yelled
"
Dial 911
", but by
then I was sliding off the chair, and that’s all I do
remember

Chapter 18

When Jessie came into my
hospital room, I did exactly what I had been doing with everyone
else - Mama, Daddy and George - I turned my body right over to face
the other way. Doing it hurt me quite a bit; I felt like there was
no place anywhere on me from my shoulders down that wasn’t beat up.
I had been in surgery for four hours and had had two blood
transfusions.

I guess I had something
called an ectopic pregnancy, where the baby is in your tubes and
not your uterus where it belongs, so all that pain I had, the pain
my Mama and I and even Doc Miller thought was from constipation,
was the baby getting too big for my poor tubes and getting ready to
explode or something.