Thirty Happens (12 page)

chapter
sixteen.

S
o, something really strange seems to have happened to me over the last couple of years.

I used to really love getting all dressed up for a night on the town. You know the drill, full makeup, expensive perfume, high heels that you could use as a weapon or ice pick if need be, skin tight short dress that you couldn’t legally bend over in. That sort of thing.

After two years of khakis and sneakers, I found that I was meant for the life of comfort. I mean, like,
really
meant for it.

To the point that when someone told me that I had to get all fancy for something, I was like a two year old about to throw an epic temper tantrum.

A family friend’s kid had his first birthday party, and my mom told me I was expected to ‘dress up’. Oh man, it was like Chernobyl. I actually stomped around muttering about the fact that the kid was one, and wouldn’t even notice if I came to the party in my sweats and a t-shirt.

So, here I was, standing in my closet muttering to myself as I was looking for an outfit appropriate for this fancy schmancy restaurant.

I had to push past about thirty or so hangers to the dark, hidden area of the closet. You know, the place reserved for things that you could fit into when you were at your thinnest, but then you gained a pound or two and they no longer fit but you held on to the hope of ‘someday’. That’s where things like dresses lived in my closet.

I was able to scrounge up a black dress that miraculously zipped up despite having a number on the label that I hadn’t seen in a while.

Odd.

I looked in the mirror and it appeared that perhaps my little pooch didn’t poof out quite as much. I guess living off of coffee and adrenaline would do that to a person.

I found a long forgotten pair of heels, threw my hair up into a high bun, tossed on some lip gloss and mascara and shrugged at the person looking back at me.

“Guess this is as good as it gets.”

I grinned at myself, batted my eyes, laughed and turned to go catch the bus.

I sat in the front corner of the bus, where it was well lit and I could see everyone and everything, with my body protected on two sides. I never went out without my pink canister of pepper spray, which I held in my hand inside my coat pocket. Call it an after effect of a traumatic experience, I just called it being smart and practicing good personal protection tactics.

I had long ago decided I wasn’t going to avoid going out at night because that meant that James had won. That he had permanently eliminated my ability to
live.

I wasn’t going to say that I wasn’t still scarred emotionally from what happened to me. I had been going to a therapist now for about a year, which I started once the nightmares kept me up for a solid week and it started impeding my ability to do my job. We had worked through my fears, my shame, and got me to the place where I wanted to do things with my friends. She was the one who gave me tactics for feeling safe when going out.

The fact that I still slept with a nightlight on and had to check all locks in my apartment, both doors and windows, about five times before I could fall asleep? Well, we won’t discuss that, now. I had a fun night that I was anticipating with two close friends.

I walked into the restaurant and waited to be acknowledged by the host.

‘Beep’

I looked down at my phone to see that I had a text.

Woo hoo, look at you, sexy beast.

Brian. That brat.

I whipped my head around trying to figure out where my friends were seated.

Finally, I saw Lynnie grinning from ear to ear waving at me from the back corner table.

I wobbled my way on too tall heels, a skill that had long since been forgotten as I internally wept over the blister I could feel forming.

Why, oh why, weren’t sneakers considered appropriate footwear for dress up places?

When I finally got to the table, Lynnie was openly laughing at me.

“Bitch.”

“Oh, my God, Kar, that was the funniest damn thing. When was the last time you wore something other than a pair of sneakers?”

I tilted my head, trying to figure out when that was. After a few moments, I just shrugged.

“No idea. Perhaps I was a little ambitious going for the three-inch spikes, but it was what went with this dress. Besides,
someone
informed me that I was expected to meet certain dress code expectations.”

I raised an eyebrow pointedly at her.

She just smiled back at me.

“Yes, I did. And you have done a marvelous job. Wait… is that
makeup
I see on your face?”

“Shut. Up.”

“Holy crap, you might just be a girly girl somewhere down deep inside.”

“I swear to God, you keep this up, I’m walking.”

“You mean wobbling?”

Of course, Brian had to jump in on this.

“Et tu, Brute?”

There was a brief silence at our table. It was a misleading silence, as I could see Lynnie starting to bounce in her chair, biting her lips closed.

Ugh.

“What?”

She just started laughing.

“You’re a pretty, pretty princess.”

“Okay, seriously, keep it up. I could cut a bitch tonight.”

Anyone listening to us would probably think we hated each other, but this was the type of awesome friendship we had. We gave each other shit and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Our laughter ended drawing stares from the other tables. You see, this was one of those places where the patrons looked down their noses at any form of emotion. With the level of Botox that undoubtedly had been utilized, I wasn’t so certain emotion was even possible at the rest of the tables.

“You guys are too much. I swear.”

I exhaled a breath to try to get the laughter bubbles under control.

“So, what was so important that you had to drag me out on a work night and make me look like a human being?”

They looked at each other, grinning like fools, as Lynnie slowly put her left hand on the table.

Oh. My. God.

There was a perfect, clear, solitaire diamond on
that
finger.

“Does that... Is that… Are you…?”

I couldn’t quite form a sentence.

“Damn, Jensen, how the hell did you ever get a reporting job?”

Brian was laughing at me, his eyes filled with pride as he reached over to hold Lynnie’s hand. She leaned into him and turned her head to give him a quick kiss on the neck.

They were
that
couple.

You know, the one that nauseated you but at the same time made you feel super jealous, all at the same time?

“Okay, I’ll put my amazing reporting skills to work. When did he propose, how did he do it and have you already picked out a date?”

“He popped the question last night. I was going over to his house for our standing takeout date. When I got to the door of his apartment, it was unlocked and there was a note on the door. It had a date on the outside, and when I opened it up, all the note said was ‘we met’.

I pushed the door open, and called for him, but he was nowhere. So I walked in and saw on the coffee table another note. There was another date on the cover and inside it said ‘we started’.

I heard music coming from the little balcony patio thingy, so I started walking that direction and found another note on the dining room table. Same thing, a date on the outside, opened it up and it read, ‘in love’.

By the way, at this point, my heart is beating out of my freaking chest. The curtains are pulled across the sliders to the balcony and taped them was a note with yesterday’s date on it. I flipped it open and just saw ‘TBD’.

I pushed back the curtain and there he was, on one knee with a ring held out.”

Damn.

That was pretty freaking romantic.

I reached forward and put my palm up to Brian.

He laughed and gave me the requested high five.

“Dude, props. That is maybe the best proposal I have heard in a long time.”

“Thanks, Karyn. It only took me about a year and a half to figure out.”

“Isn’t that about how long you’ve been dating?”

“Yup.”

Swoon.

I mean, really. Swoon. This sort of stuff makes me wish I had a boyfriend. I hadn’t had one in… Hm. Let me get back to you on that one. That’s going to take a while to figure out.

“…so will you?”

Uh-oh. Was in my head a bit and didn’t even realize that Lynnie was talking to me. Bad best friend.

“Um, will I what?”

She let out an exasperated sigh.

“Seriously, Kar, this is important. We have decided not to wait too long to get married. So we’re thinking small ceremony in about three months. Will you be my maid of honor and help me pull this together?”

Three months? Three
months?

“Uh, sure. Lynnie, are you pregnant?”

WHAP.

“Ow, that
hurt
.”

I held the side of my face where she’d whapped me and rubbed it, glaring at her.

“You should know better than to ask a stupid ass question like that.”

“Well, most people plan out their weddings, I don’t know, like, a year in advance or something.”

“Haven’t you figured out yet that we are not like most people?”

“Truth.”

I held up my wine glass.

“To Lynnie and Brian, may you have over fifty years of wedded bliss and at least twelve little brats for me to spoil, sugar up and send home.”

I took a sip of my wine, grinning. They held back on drinking to that toast, a look of horror on their face.

“I’m not sure I’m going to let you give a toast at the reception.”

chapter seventeen.

F
ebruary 14, 2011.

It was a really pretty day, thank goodness.

Although very chilly, it wasn’t windy. It wasn’t snowing. And the sky was a perfect blue.

It was a perfect, if not cliché, day for a wedding. I kinda thought holding the wedding on a Monday evening was odd, but it was what the bride wanted.

Putting this wedding together was super easy. It was just me standing up for Lynnie, and Ryan, Brian’s best friend, standing up for him. Because they didn’t want to put too much burden on Lynnie’s parents, they decided that it was going to be just
very
close family and friends. While there was a little bit of anxiety over the guest list, they successfully whittled it down to a total of twenty guests, outside of the wedding party and parents.

Her parent’s immense gratitude was obvious by the fact that the venue they suggested as a result was a beautiful, historic mansion on Beacon Hill, the ritziest street in the city. The brownstone was from the turn of the century, and as you looked around you couldn’t help but picture elegant ladies with petticoats and gowns as well as dashing gentlemen in top hats with canes.

Despite the age of the venue, there was no weird mustiness. Apparently, they had installed a state of the art, hospital grade HEPA filtration system, which also aided with dampness, to protect the original wallpaper on the walls.

Yes, I had asked how come it didn’t smell like a musty old museum when we went through the tour. Lynnie looked as if she was trying to figure out if she would be able to push me out of the window.

Anyway, despite the modern convenience, this place had really retained all of the beautiful charm of the past, which was really impressive for the era that it was from. I’d seen a lot of places that when they attempted to modernize the building they took away everything that made the place amazing.

I saw it all the time on those home improvement channels, which were a guilty pleasure of mine. I would see these couples buy a house that was over a hundred years old, gut the main floor so that it was ‘open concept’ and put in a modern kitchen with granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and a funky mosaic tile backsplash. It infuriated me that they would do that to a perfect, beautiful old home.

Someday, I wanted to own an old fixer upper. One that I could restore back to what it was meant to be when it was built in the seventeen or eighteen hundreds.

“Karyn, earth to Karyn.”

Lynnie’s slightly annoyed yet somewhat amused voice broke through my renovation dreams.

“Sorry, Lyn.”

I turned to look at her, resplendent in her wedding dress.

She had gone for a simple, classic look, which suited her personality and the venue to a ‘T’. It was a sleeveless, halter design with a lace overlay. The dress was apparently cut on a bias, so it flowed to the ground like a waterfall, giving the illusion of being a skin tight dress, while actually loosely swirling around her legs as she walked.

The lady at the dress shop we had gone to tried gallantly to get Lynnie to buy a tiara and massive headpiece thing so that she had something glitzy and off the wall, but Lynnie stood firm.

I still remember the look on the poor sales clerk’s face when she was ever-so-gently told it wasn’t happening.

“
I spent too many years without hair, having to wrap scarves around my head to be presentable in public and comfortable in my own skin. I want to show off my hair, not my rhinestones.”

I looked over, taking in the simple, fingertip length veil that shimmered in the lowered lights in the small dressing room we were afforded. It attached to her hair by a single comb. That was it.

And her hair. Her beautiful, chestnut colored hair swirled in light waves around her face. It was meant to give the illusion that it just fell that way naturally, but Lynnie and I both knew that there were some pretty damn awesome products holding it all in place. I know she’d hoped it would be longer by now, but it was past her chin and just above her shoulders.

She glowed.

Positively glowed.

I tried to summon up an image of her in my mind from the first time we met, and I couldn’t. I knew that the sweet girl with the million dollar smile and laughter in her eyes with the technicolor head wrap was the same person as this elegant beauty queen in front of me. I knew that in my head.

But, dayum.

Some day she would look back on the pictures of her perfect day and sigh happily. Because she looked as if she should be on the cover of every wedding magazine known to man.

“Are you ready, sweetheart?”

Her dad walked towards her, a sheen of tears misting his eyes at the vision of his daughter.

“Yes, Daddy. I’ve been ready for a couple years, now.”

She hooked her arm in his as he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

When he straightened, he looked away quickly and coughed to clear his throat. He was trying to pass off as if he had something in his throat, but we all knew that the only thing clogging his throat was the emotion of seeing his little girl all ready to walk down the aisle.

Three years ago, she was fighting for her life.

Now, she was living it.

I walked ahead of her, slow and precise in my footsteps that were set in time to a string quartet playing “Bless the Broken Road”, a song made very popular by the country group Rascal Flats a few years ago.

I turned and faced Brian, but he didn’t see me. He didn’t see any of us.

His jaw was slightly open as he took in the image of his bride gliding down the aisle on her dad’s arm. I saw a tear or two trace a path down his cheek and prayed that the photographer had a picture of his reaction upon seeing her. There would be a million photos of that day, posed ones, candid ones. But this moment was a one-time thing.

“Who presents this woman to this man in marriage?”

Her father cleared his throat one more time before choking out, “Her mother and I do.”

She turned to him, grinning as he touched her cheek and pulled her into a bear hug. Oh man, that was my undoing.

Judging by the sniffles and stifled sobs from the audience, I was not alone.

What
was
it about daddies and their little girls?

He pulled away after a moment, smiled at her, then placed her hand in Brian’s.

A twitter of watery laughter floated through the room when he playfully glared at his son-in-law to be.

Man, I hope the photographer got that, as well.

The four of us turned expectantly to the officiant.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here this day with an amazing level of excitement. Today, we see a relationship that started as friendship solidified into something wonderful. Something permanent. Something forever. We see a young man who stood by a young woman, and held her hand and supported her through some very dark times. Now he holds her hand and they will support each other through each other’s happiness, sorrow, elation, and grief.

Three months ago, Lynnie came to see me for her routine visit. In case you didn’t know, I have been side by side with Lynnie and her family while we traveled the road to good health together. She asked me something none of my patients had ever asked before. Would I marry her?

I was flattered, of course, but having already been married for twenty-two years, I had to gently let her down.”

He paused at that moment for the laughter he know would be coming.

“She grinned that famous smile of hers and held out her hand. On her hand was a diamond that dazzled like her eyes. I pictured her when we met, the strength that I sensed in her, that I knew would pull her through the darkest times. Shortly after Lynnie and Brian started dating, he would be at all the visits with her. He had learned everything about her illness and asked questions. He wanted to know what he should do to make things better for ‘his Lynnie’. I was not surprised when I saw his ring on her hand. It was fate. They were meant to be.”

And we were all back to sniffles again.

“Lynnie and Brian have prepared their own words of love for one another. Ladies first.”

Lynnie nodded and turned to face her groom.

“Bri, from the moment you tapped on my shoulder, I have seen forever in your eyes. Before we were an ‘us’, I had a feeling of home by your side. You have always looked at me and seen me as a whole person, not a sick girl, not someone in recovery. You have always seen me. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my existence with you.”

Brian smiled softly at her, the tears that had been threatening to make an appearance since she walked toward him were breaking free and rolling down his cheeks.

“That was lovely. Brian, it’s your turn.”

‘Lyn, your presence fills a room. When I first saw you, it was like seeing sunlight for the first time. Happiness and joy are everything that surrounds you.

If I was a new age hippy, I would tell you that your aura was rainbows and glitter. You make my heart smile. You make my soul content. Love is where you are, and that is where I absolutely have to be until the end of time.”

Ugh. I was a mess trying to hold it together, trying to keep in mind that there were photographers everywhere.

I had said it before and I’ll say it again. They were
that
couple. If I didn’t love the two of them so much, I would have to hate them.

The remainder of the ceremony went on, words of love and repeated tradition and ‘I do’s’.

“By the power vested in my by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Brian, you may kiss your beautiful bride.”

A look of triumph, relief and tenderness crossed my friend’s face as he gently stroked Lynnie’s left cheek with his hand. He stood there for a moment, not going in for his kiss but just staring at her.

“
You are absolutely incredible and I adore you.”

I heard him whisper to her just before he leaned forward to gently press his lips to hers.

Although there were only twenty witnesses to their marriage, the cheering was loud enough that you would have thought you were watching Big Papi round the bases for the Sox. I abandoned appropriate maid of honor decorum and joined in, jumping up and down and waving our bouquets in the air.

This was what a wedding should be.

This was the ultimate celebration of love.

Damn.

This was what I wanted.