2. Paisley
“You know what your problem is?”Paloma, my best friend and second-in-command at my digital marketing firm, stares at me from four feet away. She raises her eyebrows, one hand on her hip while her other arm extends to hold up her side of the mylar photo backdrop we’re affixing to the hotel room wall.
“No,” I grunt from my side, using a disproportionate amount of strength to push a thumbtack into the wall and wincing at the dull pain it sets off. “But I bet you’re going to tell me.”
She blows a strand of black hair from her face. “You’re the floor.”
I frown as I suck the pad of my thumb between my teeth. “I’m the floor?”
“People walk all over you.”
I hold back my smile. Paloma moved here from Brazil when she was eighteen. She has nearly perfect English, but the idioms and phrases give her trouble.
“I’m a doormat,” I correct. It’s true. When it comes to my family, I have the damndest time asserting myself. It’s far easier to let them walk all over me than it is to address our issues. I view it as risk versus reward. Do I want to tell my family I have thoughts and feelings and opinions and fight that fight, or do I want to keep living across the country and fake it when I visit? I’m all for doing hard things, but maybe not right now. My focus now is on getting through the wedding.
Paloma waves a hand, her painted-red fingernails twirling. “What-ever. Don’t be a doormat, Paisley. Tell your sister you don’t want to be her maid of honor. Tell her you don’t want to be in her wedding at all.”
That would be ideal. At that rate, I might as well not attend. It would save me from another forced outcome I don’t want: seeing our father. They’ll be no avoiding him at the wedding, unless I decide to make a break for Western Europe by free styling the Atlantic. Our relationship never fully recovered after I declared marketing as my major following my short-lived stint in creative writing. Now I see him when I go back to visit on major holidays, where we share a late dinner at a snooty restaurant after he’s left the office. During appetizers he levels remarks that veer more aggressive than passive, and by the time entrées arrive, I count the minutes until dinner is over.
I promised myself I won’t agree to a dinner like that again, but I know I will. I’m not a weak person, or a masochist, but I fear what will happen if I sever the tenuous string holding us together.
Nodding to appease Paloma, I push the final tack into place. We step back to survey our handiwork. Glimmering strands tumble down the wall to a basket holding photo props and inflatables. In a few hours, my sister and her ‘I do’ crew will be here, posing in front of the mylar while effervescent champagne sparkles in their glassware.
Paloma shoulders me. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
“Not at her bachelorette party.”
Paloma’s eyes narrow. “That you’re throwing her.”
“They wanted to come here,” I argue meekly.
“There aren’t any bars in Raleigh? Or Charlotte? Savannah? Florida?”
A sharp ache begins at my temples. “I’d like you to remember,” I say, dramatically swiping the packaging trash off the coffee table, “that I’ve been rebellious in my own way.”
Paloma grabs the inflatable penis from the photo prop basket, smirking. “Kind of, yes. You could have been far more devilish than this.”
I smile unabashedly, pleased at my act of defiance. A cursory glance around the space confirms the hatching of my devious plan.
Penises everywhere.
Sienna is going to lose her mind. She had only one instruction for her bachelorette weekend, and it comprised three words.
Keep it classy.
Here’s what I heard: keep it classy with penises.
Paloma flicks the tip of the phallic inflatable and tosses it into the bin. “What I wouldn’t give to stick around and see your sister’s face when she walks in.”
Paloma doesn’t know my sister well, but she’s heard enough of my stories to know Sienna prides herself on being elegant. What she doesn’t know is that while my sister has a tendency to be vain and egotistical, she can also be sweet and kind.
“You can be my plus one,” I remind Paloma, but we’ve been through this already. Twice I’ve begged Paloma to be my guest at this sham of a bachelorette party, but it’s her dad’s sixty-fifth birthday today. She has strict instructions to be on a video call with her family at eight p.m. Also, she doesn’t want to go, and unlike me, Paloma is excellent at boundary setting and enforcing.
She plucks her purse from the side table near the hotel suite door, ignoring my offer and hitting me with a one-two punch instead. “Speaking of plus ones, you need a date to the wedding.”
I’m shaking my head before she finishes her sentence. “Who’s going to be my date to a wedding on the other side of the country? On an island. For a week?”
Paloma frowns, acknowledging the uphill battle I’m facing. “You’re screwed.”
“Exactly. So I’ll go alone”—cue internal cringe—“and I’ll play up the independent woman schtick. I own a booming marketing company that was recently featured in the ‘companies to watch’ section of Young Entrepreneur magazine. I bought a house last year. I wear high heels every day, dammit.”
Paloma snort-laughs. “High heels?”
“When I was younger, I thought if you wore high heels to work it meant you were someone important.”
“Strippers wear high heels to work.”
“Shut up,” I groan, but I’m laughing.
“Ok, Miss Independent.” Paloma opens the door and sashays out, blowing me a kiss as she goes. “Send pictures of you and the inflatable dong.”
The door swings shut, and my best friend disappears, taking all the good energy with her.
Heavy dread settles into me. Paloma is right. I’m the worst kind of doormat, the kind who knows what they are but doesn’t fix it. It’s my job to keep everyone in my family happy, because I’m a part of why my parents are no longer together. I didn’t keep my father’s lie, and it cost our family.
As much as I feel responsible for the general climate of my family, this bachelorette weekend was not my idea.
It was my mom who arranged that I would be the hostess, and good luck to anybody who goes up against Robyn Royce. She can talk anyone into anything. She’ll take your argument, which you’d previously believed was solid, and tear it to shreds until you’re unsure of what you were refusing to begin with. All it took was a five-minute phone call where my mom lamented I missed the bridal shower due to distance, then claimed Scottsdale was recently named the most popular destination for bachelorette parties and Sienna would just love to have it here. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.
Sienna called later that night, gushing about how sweet it is that I offered to plan her epic weekend of bride-to-be bliss. Then she sent me a picture of our mom’s credit card. Her instruction to keep it classy went through my resentment-soaked listening filtration system, and… here we are.
Dick city, baby.
The theme is ‘Last Rodeo, but make it phallic’. Lined up on the table in the common area are pink fluffy cowgirl hats, the one in the center bedazzled with rhinestones spelling out ‘Bride’. A large sparkly banner announces ‘Let’s Go Girls’ on a cow print background. Six cowgirl boot shaped cups hold six penis shaped straws. The banner over the mylar background reads ‘Same Penis Forever’.
Honestly, it’s amazing what you can find on the internet.
After the bar is set up (rosé, champagne, vodka, and sugar-free mixers), I take a shower and get myself ready. I’m shaking, either from lack of food or the stress of the day, so I mow down a protein bar I threw in my purse before I left my house this morning.
I have done a good (scratch that, great) job of pretending the whole situation is fine with me. My acting skills were good enough that I led my family to this point. If I’d been honest even once about how I felt about my sister dating my ex, I wouldn’t be in this Spanish-tiled bathroom with the lighted mirror, holding back tears while I apply more eyeliner than I usually wear. My olive skin wouldn’t be this pale. Thank goodness for bronzer and blush.
Gripping the edge of the marble countertop, I stare at my reflection and see Sienna by my side. We share the same shade of blonde hair, though hers is highlighted brighter than mine. Our eye color is different; mine a blue-green, hers a toffee brown. She got my father’s round face and prominent eyebrows. My face is heart-shaped, my nose straight and pert, gifted to me by my maternal grandmother.
Sienna and I look alike, but there are differences. It makes me feel a smidge better. Shane is not dating my carbon copy.
I do not still love Shane, but once upon a time I believed I did. He broke up with me because he said I wasn’t the right woman for him (his words). Not that we weren’t right for each other. I wasn’t right for him.
For me, it was out of the blue. He claimed he’d been wanting to do it for five months. I was flabbergasted. He stayed in a relationship with me for five months without actually wanting to be in a relationship with me? That was worse than him realizing I wasn’t the one for him and ripping off the bandage. I felt pathetic.
Shortly after, he was offered a job in my hometown of Raleigh, of all places. He moved. I buried my nose in my work, and I’ve hardly looked up since. I have a lot to show for it, too. Professionally, at least. My personal life resembles the desert in which I reside.
And now, because my sister is not in possession of a fully functioning frontal lobe, and I’m lacking a backbone, soon Shane will be my brother-in-law.
My mother,Sienna, and her flock of three bridesmaids arrive at five p.m. precisely. I hear them in the hall, inserting a key card and shuffling their luggage. Two of the bridesmaids are friends from childhood, one is a college roommate, and all I’ve met at least once but don’t remember with much detail. I’m four years older than Sienna, but it felt like light years when we were growing up. She entered high school, and I was leaving it. She started college, and I had recently graduated. The gap is even bigger for my brother, born three years after Sienna. Spencer feels like a distant relative sometimes. I’ve lived across the country from him for almost half his life. That’s a lot, considering he doesn’t remember his first five years.
I’m waiting a few feet inside the hotel room when the door swings open. Sienna is first, striding in looking fresh from a runway, not a four-hour flight. Her recently highlighted blonde hair is wound in the most depressingly perfect messy bun. Her black silk romper is probably soft but also makes it impossible to use the plane’s lavatory. A white sash wound around her body reads ‘Bride’ in gold lettering.
Classy.
My mom and the rest of the ‘I do’ crew file in behind her. We hug, kiss cheeks, re-introduce (Wren, Maren, and Farhana), and then I watch with bated breath as Sienna steps into the living room. The suite has a view of Camelback Mountain and the waning sun, but she’s staring at the décor. The moment, horror mixed with disgust, is camera-worthy, but I’ve left my phone in the bedroom. Paloma will be pissed I didn’t capture the reaction for her to cackle over.
Sienna recovers, swallowing hard and forcing her petal pink lips into a smile. “Paisley,” she says, “I should have known you’d outsource the preparations, as busy as you are with work.”
She wraps an arm around me, and it feels like the hug is meant to console, like she’s saying It’s not your fault the place looks like a nude sausage fest. It was those pesky perverts you hired.
I’m not sure what it is about this hug, or maybe it’s not the hug at all. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m the floor and she’s standing on me with those Gucci sandals, but I open my mouth and admit, “This is my handiwork.”
She steps back, surveying me with wide brown eyes, and I almost feel bad about the classy with penises thing. Her left hand lifts to brush hair from her eyes and a pear-shaped diamond the size of a mythical giant’s teardrop blinds me with its brilliance.
Never mind. Not sorry.
I gesture out at the room, looking at the bridesmaids and my mother, who are standing at the edge of the living room, waiting to follow my sister’s cue. “Work came second today. These decorations are courtesy of yours truly. And mom’s credit card, of course.” That rectangular piece of plastic and fifteen digit code also paid for this hotel room, and is already on file with Obstinate Daughter, the restaurant where we have reservations tonight.
It’s a trendy restaurant, with beautiful emerald green tiled floors, textured ivory walls, and copper accents. A hot spot with live music, it also serves a full dinner of upscale comfort food. The people-watching is superb, and that’s my favorite part. If I don’t see a sixty-year-old millionaire parsing through a group of twenty-somethings for his next ex-wife, I want my money back. Later, after our bellies are full, we’ll move on to a second place for more drinks, and dancing if that’s what Sienna wants.
My mother picks up a penis straw and glares at me. I bite back a grin. I don’t know why this offends her so deeply. There are phallic shapes in all corners of everyday life.
Like, ahem, the plane she flew on to come to Scottsdale for the weekend.
Her eyes widen, accusing me, like she’s saying You knew what you were doing.
My mouth opens, a habitual apology at the top of my throat, but I swallow it down. My jaw clenches as Paloma’s words float through my head, and I find I don’t want to apologize. I don’t want to be a doormat. I want to get through this weekend, and then one week on Bald Head Island, and skedaddle my way back across the country where I will only have to see my sister and Shane on major holidays. Maybe. I hear St. John is lovely at Christmastime.
Sienna recovers, smiling brightly.
A whoosh of relief dips through me as she takes it in stride. I wasn’t aiming to ruin her bachelorette party, only push her buttons a little.
She snatches the inflatable penis from the prop basket and pretends to kiss it. “The number one rule for this weekend, no posting pictures of me with this thing!”
The tension breaks. The bridesmaids leave us to deposit their luggage in their rooms on the same floor, and my mom and Sienna settle into the other room in the suite.
I sit on the bed and watch them unpack.
“How’s Ben?” I ask my mom. Sienna rolls her eyes behind our mom’s back.
Ben is my mother’s boyfriend, fifteen years her junior. She tends to make inappropriate comments about their sex life, and Sienna probably hears more about it because they live five minutes apart and spends the most time with her.
A smile lights up my mom’s face. “He’s the best. Sweet, kind, generous”—her perfectly shaped eyebrows lift—“if you know what I mean.”
My cheek muscles work overtime to keep from making a face.
Sienna rolls her eyes a second time, giving me the You knew it was coming look.
I grin. So does she. Something in my chest fractures. I needed this interaction, this dose of sisterly bonding. I’ve built her up in my head to be the marrier-of-ex’s, but she’s still my little sister.
Sienna pulls two dresses from where she has recently hung them in the small closet and holds them out to me. “Which one?”
This is the time-honored female tradition of asking for fashion advice as a way of determining the climate of a relationship. It says I’m not a threat, are you?
I point left. “The white, obviously.”
She nods happily. The sisterly warmth returns, and a well of hope springs up inside me. Maybe the weekend won’t be so bad after all.
Maren, Wren, and Farhana return from their rooms, freshened up and dressed in their dinner clothes.
They’re nice, but it’s clear I’m on the fringe here. They know Sienna in a way I don’t, and I can’t help the stab of envy in my heart. If I’d never left North Carolina, stubbornly refusing to go the path my dad laid out, would Sienna and I be closer?
My mom plays bartender. She hands me a glass of champagne, and I force myself to sip when I want to gulp. By the time we’re ready to leave for our dinner reservations, everyone is tipsy and drinking champagne from penis straws.