The False Flat

CHAPTER 51

LIFE REALIZATION #25: CLOAK WEARING IS UNDERRATED

In less than four thousand seconds, I would be Mrs. Penelope Miles. The mirror reflected a tall woman, hair in soft waves—flat iron, followed by a curling wand I’d borrowed from Deanna—gently pulled away from my face in a classy ponytail and accented on the left with a wiry, bejeweled barrette. A swipe of foundation, blush, lip gloss, and my dedicated eye regimen with added sparkle, and I’d transformed into a bride.

A bride.

Outdoors in December, at a friend’s wooded cabin, with the sun setting between the bare trees and just beyond a smattering of clouds: it felt right. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared. Okay, that was a total lie; I was shaking and nauseated, terrified of the future. But even with my stomach fluttering and a light sheen of nervous sweat on my skin, I didn’t doubt I was making the exact right decision.

I went back into the bedroom, stepped into a white velvet off-the-shoulder number Deanna had picked for me. The dress was hugging my body in all the right places when the door inched open and Deanna walked in.

She put her hands to her mouth. “You look ...”

I turned around. “Button me?”

“The buttons are decorative.” She zipped the dress and spun me back to face her. “Pen.” Tears in her eyes, she threw her arms around me, but then she pulled back and wagged her finger in my face. “Don’t you cry. Your eye makeup is flawless. You’re perfect.”

“I’m not perfect.”

“You’re right. You need the cloak.” She cradled the heavy white floor-length cloak, secured it around my shoulders, and adjusted the sable-fur-trimmed hood.

“Look.” She pointed to the full-body mirror.

I scanned from my hair, down the formfitting dress, to the velvet pooled at my feet. I would’ve felt the same no matter what I was wearing. I was marrying the right man at the right time, even though so many other things were wrong. But I had to admit this dress and this kick-ass cloak made me feel like a woodland princess.

Deanna sniffled beside me. “I’ve always wanted to have an occasion to wear a cloak.”

“I’ll let you borrow it after the wedding.”

“I bought my own. Now, stay right there, and I’ll make sure everyone is in place. And the weather!”

She slipped out of the room. I inhaled deeply, and as I let it all blow out, she returned to the door.

“Come on, sister.” She motioned me out of the bedroom, and we walked arm in arm to the living room, stopping only when the outdoor scene was framed in the large floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of Chuck’s cabin.

My breath stuttered to a stop. Beyond the panes, the forest was dimly backlit by the golden glow of the nearly set sun. Twinkle lights were everywhere, wrapped around the bare trees, strung between the branches, nestled in tulle.

Chairs had been lined up on either side of a pathway, lit by a million flickering candles and strewn with poinsettia petals.

All the faces in the crowd were looking at me through the paned glass. Fred and Doris. Grant’s biking crew. Keyondra and her skinny-ass White fiancé Conner, Mere and Devon, Erin and Beau, Celia and her violin, everyone from the office (Lady Mama’s hair was distractingly shaped into a tree), and Devina.

And then I saw the two people who really made this event surreal. My mother, sitting beside her sister. Grant had tracked Aunt Tif down in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a little over an hour from Nashville. She cried when she’d opened her door and recognized me. I couldn’t believe she was here, at my wedding.

Mywedding.

I wished my father and Brandon were here, but it was almost as if I sensed them, watching, smiling.

Chuck stood under the arch in his plaid suit, waiting to officiate the ceremony, and next to one of the two enormous bouquets of winter flowers—dusty miller with punches of red berries—stood a smiling William, holding ... a chicken, a real, live chicken. My hands went to my mouth. William ... was holding ... wild Gloria, who had a tiny crown of flowers on her head. My wedding was perfect. How could it not be with a chicken, the chicken, as a guest?

The woods, the flowers, the lights, the music, the guests, the chicken—Deanna’s vision come to life—it was straight out of a fairy tale, my fairy tale, which wasn’t a fairy tale at all, just my life.

Every single bit of it vanished when Grant’s eyes met mine. I was vaguely aware of a camera clicking, and I imagined what the picture would show: a beautiful man standing in the forest, looking at his bride just inside a window, everything blurred but the back of her head and the man’s smiling, clean-shaven face. (I knew he’d be even more handsome without the mustache!)

I love you,I said into the room.

And he said it back, and I heard him as if he were standing in the room beside me.

This moment was worth everything that would come. This moment would fill my lifetime. This moment shone, overshadowed, guided, reassured. This moment was me and Grant.

“I want to get out there,” I told Deanna, still holding Grant’s gaze, but she was already gone. I vaguely registered her moving into position opposite William, beside where I would soon stand.

The elongated notes of Celia’s violin drifted into the room and led me outside, into the late-evening air, where tiny glitter-like snowflakes danced from the sky and tickled my face as I walked past the candles and into the arms of the man waiting for me.

Chuck’s voice rumbled beside us, saying the things you always heard at weddings, even though I’d never been to one.

Grant grabbed my hand, eased a forever band encircled with tiny diamonds onto my finger.

“Penelope, oh, my sweet Penelope.” He touched my face. “You are the answer, the answer to every question, the answer to my call, the answer to my prayers. With you as my partner, I have no need for anything else. Not food, not water, not any other person.” He looked into the audience. “No offense.” Everyone laughed. What was he doing? We’d decided, up until this second, to make everything simple, to repeat after Chuck, To have and to hold, till ...

“I love you with everything inside of me. I love who you are and who you have become. And I will love you forever, uninhibited by life or death, before or after, riding on a bicycle or standing still. And every time I look at you, I will be reminded that nothing is impossible.” An icy crystalline snowflake landed on a tear running down his cheek and the two converged, one with nature. Damn him and his humor and his eloquence. We weren’t supposed to be speaking heartfelt, heartbreaking, beautiful words, words held in my own tears and soaked up by the fur of my cloak.

“Thank you for being my wife, for rounding out the part of me I didn’t know needed softening. Thank you for being you.”

In front of everyone, we stared at each other, open, two people looking beyond the surface, diving into each other. The silence was full, full of nature, full of tears, full of promise, full of love, full of life, full of hope.

I smiled. “Jerk. Did you plan that?”

He shook his head. “It just came. When I saw you standing there, I couldn’t let Chuck make all those promises for me. I wanted to make them myself.”

My tears were no longer elegant but streamed down in a wave that threatened to wash me away. Grant held me in place.

I looked down, desperately wanting to say something beautiful in response. A candle flickered, and I gazed into it. “But I didn’t prepare ... all these people ...”

He tilted my chin until our eyes met again. “What people?”

I inhaled, and they didn’t all vanish, but they dimmed. “Grant, with you as my partner, I don’t want anything else. I love you with everything inside of me, now and forever, even without your mustache. You are the ... the spark that lit me. And every time I look at you, I will remember that life is complicated, precious, and worth all the hard work.”

It wasn’t everything, not even half, but it was true. Like the candles burning all around us, I’d been lit, altered, and I couldn’t be unlit. The flame might come and go, but the change was permanent. Together, Grant and I shone, two lights that darkness could not overcome. And I didn’t know what might happen next, but the path forward was illuminated because of us.

Why couldn’t I have said that out loud.

I turned to Chuck. “Say the words.”

He cocked a half smile and said the words.

Gloria let out a congratulatory screech as Grant slipped his arms under my cloak, pulled me against his body, and kissed me like no one was watching.