Chapter FIFTEEN
(Matthew)
There was a bear standing right beside me.
“Now, she’s not a fan of strangers, so don’t make a lot of eye contact. The other thing that you’re not gonna want to do is make any real sudden moves toward her face or muzzle—” the woman with ruddy, freckled skin and her hair in a long braid told me, all the while gesturing quickly in the bear’s fucking face.
The bear was wearing a tiara. This was not how I’d envisioned my death.
“You know, I still think maybe it’s a better idea for you to walk her down,” I said, my voice going up a little as the maid-of-honor hooked a massive paw around my ankle.
“Daisy, no.” The woman snapped her fingers forcefully and the bear released me.
Every blessed atom of my cynicism-honed agnosticism fled my body and the Christianity of my childhood came roaring back. Please, Jesus, do not let me piss my pants in fear at my best friend’s wedding. And also, I would like to not be mauled by the bear. Amen.
Scott approached, the most laid-back groom I’d ever seen. Because it was a beach wedding, the wardrobes had been scaled back. The groom and his retinue all wore white linen button downs with the sleeves rolled up, and off-white linen beach pants folded at the ankle above bare feet. The bridesmaids all wore off-white sundresses… except for the bridesmaid beside me, who’d worn a fur coat.
I focused on the positives of the day. My best friend was about to get married. And in a few hours, I would be absolutely pounding his sister.
“You ready?” I asked, guilt and fear clawing up my throat to constrict the words.
“Yeah man, are you all right?” Scott clapped a hand on my shoulder.
I laughed. “I think I’m supposed to be asking you that.”
“I’m not afraid of anything, though. You’re clearly scared shitless of this bear.” He ruffled the fur atop Daisy’s head, cooing at her in a baby voice, “Hims a scared of sweet widdle Daisy. Hims gonna poopy hims little drawers.”
“I’m letting you get away with this because it’s your wedding and you can’t have a broken nose in the photos.” I cracked my neck. It did nothing to relieve what I considered a sensible amount of bear fear.
Something behind me caught Scott’s eye. His face dropped. “Oh no.”
I turned to see Charlotte, her hair down in a red-gold cascade around her bare shoulders. Her bright purple sundress, held up with thin straps tied in little bows at her shoulders, would be so easy to get her out of. I imagined pushing her into another supply closet and pulling those bows loose, peeling the front of that dress down and sucking her gorgeous—
“How did they not get the dress code?”
Scott’s voice snapped me back to reality and I was finally able to see the problem. All the guests that had been waiting under the biggest canopy the resort could find—I assumed we bought it from a circus—listening to schmaltzy covers of pop hits played by a string quartet? They had all received an invitation with a small card requesting that guests dress in white or very light pastels to “help complete the aesthetic.”
And they had all complied with that card. Except for the groom’s parents and sister. Who weren’t well-liked by the bride’s parents.
“Holy fuck, dude. I am never getting married,” I said, before I could attempt to keep the thought inside my head.
Scott’s mom and dad looked apprehensive and confused as Scott approached them, but even from twenty feet away, I could read Charlotte’s total mortification. I turned my attention back to the bear.
A woman in a headset approached and said, to the bear-keeper, not to me, “Time to get into position.”
The bridesmaids arrived, driven on two electric golf carts. They huddled together for a second when they got off, and their faces were extremely serious.
Something didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t just the bear drool that hit my foot. I hoped Scott didn’t pick up on it. I deftly avoided Daisy’s curious paw as she attempted to grab my ankle again.
Maybe I was imagining that something was going wrong. Maybe I secretly wanted something to go wrong out of some sense of losing my best friend to marriage, or jealousy that despite my numerous engagements, I’d never made it this close to walking down the aisle. But I liked to think I was a better person than that.
And the bear was suddenly anxious, too. Not anxious enough to leave my ankle alone; I had to shake myself free yet again.
I spotted one of the bridesmaids I remembered from game night. Her name started with an S. Sarah? Sydney? Not Susan. It didn’t matter. She’d hung on the arm of my chair all night, so I knew she knew who I was, at least. I raised a hand to wave her over. She made a “one minute” gesture to another bridesmaid and came reluctantly close to me and the bear.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as the string quartet started Pachelbel’s canon in D major. Which meant the wedding had started. Scott was walking his mother to her seat.
And the bride wasn’t here.
“What’s going on, buddy?” I asked the bridesmaid.
“You don’t remember my name,” she accused me.
I nodded toward the cluster of bridesmaids. “Is that the biggest problem at the moment, friend?”
Her face fell. “It’s all going to be fine.”
“Is it?” I demanded. The women had to close ranks to protect their friend; I understood and respected that. I needed to protect my friend, though. “Because if it’s not, you need to tell me right now, before Scott makes a fool of himself.”
“No, I’m sure it’s fine. She’s running a little bit late.”
“Here.” The bear handler pressed the leash into my hand. “Don’t let go of that.”
“If it tries to eat me, I’m letting go,” I warned, side-stepping Daisy’s paw again as the woman moved off, leaving me alone with the fucking bear while I tried to figure out where the hell the bride was.
“Is she coming?” I snapped at the bridesmaid.
Her face went pale.
I looked back at the canopy, under which my best friend now stood proudly in front of the driftwood altar, awaiting Benedict Lauren.
“Jesus.” I ran a hand through my hair. The bear was no longer the scariest thing in the general vicinity. “So, do I go tell him or—”
“No, no, no,” the woman insisted. “Don’t say a thing. She might change her mind.”
“It sounds like she did change her mind.” I had no loyalty to Lauren, no reason to protect her. On the other hand, if she changed her mind back and came zooming over the horizon dangling off the back of a golf cart before anyone was the wiser, what good would come of telling Scott about her second thoughts?
How long did one wait before breaking the news to a groom that the bride wasn’t coming?
This was going to ruin his life.
I made my decision fast. “Get her on the phone right now. Tell her to get her spoiled ass down here or I will make a rug out of this god damn bear!”
It was a bad time to find out that Daisy understood English. With an annoyed growl, her massive claw slashed across my calf. Blood splattered on the sand and sidewalk and the bridesmaid beside me screamed. The bear handler was back in an instant, but to tend to the bear, not the guy bleeding out on the sand.
“Oh my god!” another bridesmaid screamed, and that got the attention of everyone under the canopy. There were shouts and horrified gasps, and Scott jogged back up the aisle and out to help me.
“Are you okay?” he asked as I limped toward him, blood flowing down my leg. At least, I couldn’t feel the pain.
Oh wait. There it was.
I gritted my teeth against what felt like a rush of fire consuming me from the ankle up. “Scott, you need to—”
“Holy shit! Hey, someone call nine-one-one!” Scott shouted, waving his arms.
“I don’t—” I began, then remembered that hospitals had morphine. “Yeah, probably a good idea.”
Some of the wedding guests had exited the canopy to view the carnage, which didn’t help with the bear situation. Daisy, the big, cuddly, harmless grizzly bear that had laid my leg open to the bone, broke free and lumbered off toward the sea, while guests flung themselves out of her path.
“And animal control!” I shouted. “Call them, too!”
Then I sat down. Not out of choice. Even my non-injured body parts stopped working.
“Matt!” I heard a familiar voice shriek.
“He’s okay,” Scott assured Charlotte as she ran up to us.
I looked up at her and tried to smile reassuringly. Instead, I opened my big, stupid, woozy mouth and my blood-starved brain ejected, “Scott, if I die… I’m sorry I had sex with your sister.”
And then everything got intensely wavy.
“I’m gonna… rest,” I declared, and had the brief sensation of my head thumping the ground.
* * * *
(Charlotte)
The emergency room waiting area had much better air conditioning than the beach and I was freezing.
My family’s attitude toward me was equally frosty. I rubbed my bare arms and suffered in silence.
“I can’t believe you had sex with my best friend,” Scott said, bouncing his head lightly against the wall.
“I can’t believe you let a bear maul your best friend and ruin your wedding!” I shot back at him.
“Right, like I planned this!” he said, his voice rising above the acceptable murmur for a public waiting room.
“Children!” Mom snapped at us in warning, and we both straightened our posture.
“Lauren ruined the wedding,” Dad said calmly. “By not showing up.”
“And by bringing a bear,” I added morosely. I knew I wasn’t the aggrieved party here. Not by a long shot. But I still indulged in private petulance that my awesome sex night had been ruined.
The big button-operated doors to the emergency department opened and a nurse in blue scrubs came out. “Charlotte?”
I looked guiltily at my brother and parents and pointed to myself in question. And the nurse nodded. “Your friend is asking for you.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Scott muttered.
I rose slowly, head hung in shame. It should be Scott going back to comfort his friend. Although Scott needed comforting, too. Then again, he had our parents. Matt didn’t seem to have anybody. At least, nobody close by.
“He’s very drugged up,” the nurse warned. “They put him under light sedation for the procedure and he’s had some IV pain killers.”
“Should you be telling me this?” What about doctor-patient confidentiality?
“He gave us permission to share his information with you and a Scott Holmes. Is that your husband?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, my brother. Matt is his best friend.”
A look of relief crossed the nurse’s face. Oh god, what had Matthew been saying under sedation?
The nurse pushed back the curtain around a cubicle, revealing Matt lying flat on an ER cart, his leg propped up on pillows. He rose on his elbows and the nurse admonished, “Head down.”
“Oh, right.” His voice was sleepy and peppy at the same time. He gave me a big grin. “Charlotte. There’s my Charlotte.”
Your Charlotte? I let it slide, since he was on drugs. I pulled one of the plastic chairs up next to the head of the cart. “How are you feeling?”
“I got to be in the trauma bay.” His eyes went comically wide. “Did you hear I got attacked by a bear?”
I couldn’t help but giggle at him. High-on-anesthesia Matt was adorable. I smoothed his hair back; usually it was combed and, I suspected, full of product. Now, a dark curl stubbornly flopped over his forehead.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” He reached up for my hand, and I noticed the IV in the back of his. The tube was dark red and snaked up to a small bag of blood on the stand attached to the bed.
The nurse moved around him unobtrusively, consulting the monitor that displayed Matt’s vitals.
“We’re going to be late for the wedding,” Matt said suddenly, rising up on his elbows. The monitor started to beep.
“Head down,” the nurse repeated firmly.
“Right, head down.” Matt closed his eyes. “I’m gonna miss the wedding. I’m the best man.”
“There isn’t going to be a wedding,” I said, trying to make the sentence sound soothing. But there was no good way to break the news. “Lauren is M.I.A. She left Scott a letter but he wouldn’t tell us what it said.”
“It said ‘I’m a cunt,’” Matt declared loudly.
I shushed him. “Hey. Language. Other patients can hear you.” Then, quieter, I added, “But yeah, it should have probably said that. It’s the only excuse for leaving someone at the altar.”
“The altar was ugly.” Matt turned to the nurse. “Don’t you think the wedding was ugly?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said breezily. “But I do know if you don’t keep your head down, I’m going to have to keep it down for you.”
He saluted her. “Yes, ma’am.”
To me, the nurse said, “They’re going to keep him overnight to observe him. We’re waiting on a room. There’s a real risk of infection from wild animal attacks.” She paused. “How did he get attacked by a grizzly bear on the island?”
“It was the maid of honor in an aborted wedding.” It was the most succinct way of putting it.
“Ah ha,” she replied, in a tone that clearly conveyed, rich people have too much money for their own good.
“I’m sorry, I can’t fuck you tonight,” Matt said, squeezing my hand. “I have to be in the hospital. Did you know I got attacked by a bear?”
“I’m going to leave you two alone,” the nurse said, tapping something into the computer on the rolling stand at the foot of the bed. She took the whole stand with her and closed the curtain behind her.
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “There will be other times.”
I had wanted that time to be tonight, but unforeseen bear circumstances…
“I think Scott’s onto us,” Matt whispered.
“He’s definitely onto us,” I confirmed grimly. “You kind of shouted it at the whole wedding party.”
“No!” He covered his face with his hands, then abruptly dropped them. “Will you look at my leg? I don’t want to know if it’s really bad.”
I didn’t want to know, either, but I peeled back the thin woven cotton blanket. Pink had seeped onto the sheet below it. His entire calf was bandaged and there was a surgical drain full of fluid. I quickly dropped the blanket.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Matt had been so badly wounded. I’d expected to see some stitches, maybe those white butterfly bandages. One grizzly bear swipe could do a lot of damage, I guessed.
“Tell Scott I’m sorry,” Matt slurred, his eyes drifting closed. “He hates hospitals.”
“I know he does.” I hated the reminder of my brother’s childhood illness. I hated the fact that I was only alive because of my brother, hated the fact that the only reason I was sitting there at Matt’s bedside was because of my brother.
“No, he hates them.” Matt’s eyebrows lifted in lieu of his eyelids. “He loves you, though.” He drew out the “love” and punctuated the sentence with a sleepy laugh. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Okay, that’s enough talking right now.” I kissed his forehead. I didn’t know why, but it felt right.
“We’re still going to be pen pals with benefits, right?” he asked, and sounded far more lucid than he had the entire time I’d been with him. “I don’t want to get attacked by a bear and lose you in the same day.”
“You haven’t lost my friendship with benefits,” I promised. “Go to sleep.”
Matt mumbled something that sounded like, “Take care of Scott.”
“I will.” It was surprisingly difficult to walk away.
“I’m gonna call you!” he shouted after me as I pushed back the curtain. “And we are going to have sex! Whoo!”
That made it much easier.