Chapter 2
TWO
I am in Macy’s, hiding beneath a rack of taffeta cocktail dresses. My head is covered in a hot pink puffball skirt, and I’m struggling to breathe. My feet are still sticking out, and I mutter a little ‘ouch’ every time someone steps on them.
The Christmas music is jingling away in the background, and I’m formulating an escape plan. I can’t stay here forever – the store will close, and I’ll be alone with all the creepy mannequins. If I can make it to the restroom, I can barricade myself in and buy myself some time. All I have to do is survive the next few minutes.
I suck in air, tell myself I can do this, and clamber out. As I emerge, a woman with a toddler looks shocked, grabs her child and pulls her away.
I throw myself into the flood of bodies, caught in the human current. I ricochet between shoppers and rails of clothes and a display of cashmere scarfs, pinging around like a human pinball. I mutter apologies, make myself as small as I can, and finally make it to the restrooms.
I splash water on my face, staring myself down in the mirror. Stop being so pathetic, Cassie O’Hara – this is supposed to be fun . My skin is white and clammy, and my red hair hasn’t coped well with the puffball skirt. I don’t look like a woman having fun. My heart is racing, and my lungs aren’t getting enough air. It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.
I grab my bags, and make the last crazy sprint to freedom, rewarded with a blast of icy rain. I lean against the wall, and try not to hyperventilate. People give me a wide berth, automatically swerving away from me as though I’m contagious. After a few moments, a woman wearing maybe twenty layers of mismatched clothing approaches me. She looks like she sleeps rough, a wild look in her eyes and a Santa hat perched on her head. Her feet are encased in sneakers coated in plastic sheeting, which is practical if not chic.
I root around in my pockets, find that I have no loose change. I mean, who does? Homeless people need card machines these days.
‘Sorry,’ I say, feeling like a louse. ‘I don’t have anything to give you.’
‘That’s okay. I just wanted to check you were all right. You need some help?’
Huh. Right. I must be looking even worse than I thought.
‘Thank you, that’s very kind. I just… well, I get a bit weirded out by Christmas shopping.’
Even as I say it, I realise how lame I sound. I’m guessing this woman’s life holds a few more challenges that mine.
I dive into one of my bags, the one that contains the expensive suede gloves I bought for my sister, Suzie. Suzie hates everything I buy for her, every single year. She’s one of those women who has everything – apart from manners. I once saw a purse I’d given her in the window display of her local thrift store, which was just plain rude – she could at least have donated it to one a few miles away.
‘Here,’ I say to the wild-eyed woman. ‘Take these. Keep yourself warm, okay?’
She takes off the cut-down socks she’s currently wearing, carefully stashes them in a pocket, and puts the gloves on. She smiles and waves her hands around like she’s conducting an orchestra.
‘I’m going now,’ I say, pleased that the gloves will be getting some use. ‘Stay safe, and… um, merry Christmas?’
There are actually five weeks to go, but I don’t think anyone cares anymore. The stores have told us it’s Christmas, so it must be.
I scurry home on a crowded subway and through rainy streets, relieved to finally make it back to my apartment. I put on my favourite green-and-red check pyjamas and my fluffy socks. I grab the cookies I’d baked earlier, and sink down onto my couch.
It’s been a horrible day, and I vow never to repeat it. Next year, I won’t be buying my mother and Suzie gifts at all, I decide. Next year, I’ll be donating to a good cause on their behalf instead. I could get a pair of goats named after them – or even some toilets. I saw an ad for a water charity where you could do that. The Suzie and The Audrey. And even though they might secretly be annoyed, they’d have to pretend to be pleased, because it’s for charity.
That makes me laugh, at least, as I settle down for one of my own Christmas traditions – watching my wedding video. I do it every year, and it’s become part of my festive ritual – a bit like gingerbread or mistletoe or those cute Hallmark movies that make you smile. It wouldn’t be Christmas without it.
I sip my milk, and press play.
It starts with me, up in my room, getting ready with Suzie and my mom. I’m sitting in front of a mirror, the make-up lady behind me. I wave at the camera, looking delighted and freaked out all at the same time.
Having Suzie around wasn’t helping on the ‘freaked out’ front. I’d wanted my best friend June with me, but they hate each other. Mixing them on a day like this would have resulted in death by stiletto heel. Plus if you’ve got a sister, there’s pretty much some unwritten rule that she has to be your bridesmaid, right? Even if she’s the kind of sister who says things like ‘It’s a shame you didn’t lose those last five pounds!’ on your actual wedding day. Suzie hasn’t eaten a carb since 2015, and what she’s lost in body fat she’s gained in meanness.
The video cuts to outside, and the guests gathering at the Plaza Hotel. They pull up in taxis and limos, some walking from the subway on 5 th Avenue. It had snowed the night before, and New York couldn’t possibly have looked any prettier. It was like Manhattan itself had dressed up for the wedding.
I smile when I see June arrive. She stops near the grand entrance to the hotel, then hops around on one foot in the snow as she changes her shoes from sneakers to high-heels.
I see my dad arrive, Mom running over to straighten his tie the same way she’s done a million times before. My grandmother Nora, my favourite ever human, giving a saucy wink to the video guy. My sister’s perfect husband, Stu, with their two almost-perfect sons. My friends from work, from high school and college – everyone I’d ever known.
Next, they’re in the foyer, making small talk and getting to know each other. The video was taken from a position halfway up the stairs, and I am waiting for my favourite part.
My fiancé Ted works at an investment bank, and his friends all look like clones created in a lab – expensive suits, bland haircuts, shiny shoes. En masse at the wedding they kind of resemble a Mafia clan.
Nanna Nora is lurking behind one of them. He’s maybe three times her size, and doesn’t even know she’s there. Her wrinkled little face creases into a mischievous grin beneath her silver helmet of curls, and she gives him a smack on the ass. He whirls around, but she’s already gone – and who would suspect a tiny Irish woman in her nineties, right?
It’s classic Nora. She really was awesome.
The video takes in clusters of guests, June gulping down Champagne, my nephew Michael – the naughty one – sticking out his tongue and getting scolded for it by Stu.
Soon everyone is ushered into the wedding room to the sound of Vivaldi, and I sigh at how beautiful it is. The rows of chairs are dressed in white linens and swooping red velvet bows, and the flowers are lush with white roses, calla lilies and sprigs of holly and mistletoe.
It wasn’t Ted’s deal, the whole wedding prep thing, and he was happy to leave me to it. It made sense – I was an event planner, and this was my very own dream wedding. The culmination of a lifetime of imaginings.
The video shows Ted, breathtakingly handsome in his black Tom Ford suit. He stands at the front looking like a male model posing for a wedding spread in a magazine. His best man, Ethan, is beside him, the two of them looking awkward as they wait for the bride to arrive.
The bride herself – that would be me – is standing outside the glass-paned doors. My dress is a Vera Wang, elegant and simple with a strapless top and a skirt covered in exquisite lace. It was so beautiful I almost cried when I tried it on.
The wedding was only three years ago, but I look much younger on the screen. My face is buried beneath a million layers of make-up and fake eyelashes I will forever regret, but I look like an excited teenager. More like someone going to her prom than a thirty-four-year-old woman about to get married.
I’d had an anxiety dream the night before about the aisle filling with quicksand. As I waded towards Ted, every squelching step sucked me deeper, until I was trapped. I think I was worried about being the centre of attention, but that all fell away on the day and I was blissfully happy.
My arm is linked with my dad’s, and he leans towards me, uttering a few inaudible words. In a heartwarming rom com, he’d whisper something like: ‘Are you sure, pumpkin? It’s not too late to change your mind!’
In reality, what he actually says is: ‘Cassie, I hope this is quick. I drank a glass of Champagne when I got here, and it needs to come back out. Urgently.’
That’s my dad for you – he never met a tone he couldn’t lower. Video-me laughs at his comment, and Suzie makes a last-minute adjustment to my veil as the Vivaldi segues into the Bridal Chorus.
On the day I was too dazed to take much in as I walked up the aisle, but on the video I see the smiling faces, the oohs and aahs at the dress, my nephew Michael picking his nose in boredom. I see June’s little hand-wave as I sail serenely past, my mother looking proud. Nanna Nora with tears in her twinkling blue eyes. And right at the front, waiting for me – Ted. My handsome, clever, super-supportive Ted. The dream groom to go with the dream wedding.
As my eyes locked on him, I was flooded with an ocean of love for the man who had been my partner in life since we met in college. We’d made all our mistakes together, taken all of our firsts together, built our worlds around each other since we were teenagers.
He’d caught me in mosh pits at concerts, and given me piggy-back rides home when I was tipsy. He’d serenaded me on karaoke, singing ‘I Will Always Love You’ so badly he was booed. Once, walking home from a club, I got upset because there were snails on the path, worried they might get crushed. For the entire journey back, he moved every single one to safety, just to please me.
I’d been there for him when his dad died, and when he struggled to keep up with his schoolwork afterwards. We lived on my earnings when he was doing his internships, sharing a dilapidated walk-up in Brooklyn and finding a million and one ways to cook ramen. We had shared so much, and it had all led us here.
All the rest – the swish apartment we moved into when his career took off, the Vera Wang, the fancy venue – was just window dressing. It was nice, but it meant nothing. What really mattered was the man in front of me, and what we were about to do – stand before our friends and family and vow to be together, for better or for worse, for the rest of our lives.
Even now, if I close my eyes, I can almost physically feel that sense of joy – it’s still so real to me even after all this time. It really was the perfect day.
Right up until the point where Ted holds my hands in his, gazes into my eyes, and mutters the immortal words: ‘Cassie, I’m so sorry. I love you, but I just can’t go through with this.’