Chapter 30
30
NOW
DESPITE THE ELECTRICITY BEING OUT, Mom was determined to continue with wedding festivities as planned. If anything, her drive to celebrate reached a new level—sheer joy verging on hysteria.
“I don’t know what planet everyone else is living on,” she said, “but on this planet, my son is getting married in twenty-four hours, and his guests will be here in less time than that, which means we need to get to work.”
The group dispersed to tend to wedding preparations. The frantic atmosphere reminded me of being back in the office. Of the final few hours before a product launch. As if Taz and Helene were a new brand of gluten-free almond milk, and their marriage was a marketing campaign we’d neglected for far too long. With the bachelor and bachelorette parties that night and the Big Day just twenty-four hours away, it was officially All Hands on Deck. Those of us on the decoration committee were to report to the couches in the corner of Sunny Sunday immediately for alignment on Key Performance Indicators and individual task assignments.
Manuel and I were assigned to different groups. When we waved goodbye for the day, I felt a strange pit in my stomach. As if something terrible were about to happen. As if, were he to leave my side, I might never see him again.
—
WE WENT ABOUT THE DAY, busying ourselves with the long list of things that needed to be done. Mom assigned Karma, Shelly, and me to the task of braiding flowers into a long chain, a seemingly endless job given the length of chain that was needed to wrap around the patio. Wendy and Pam worked on flower arrangements and place-card settings. Taz and Helene carried folding chairs up from the boathouse to Sunny Sunday. Clarence and Caleb hauled up coolers full of wine and champagne, arguing the whole way about the correct way to hold the coolers’ handles.
“No fair,” Clarence said after dropping off the first cooler. “How come the girls get to sit around braiding flowers and we have to haul up the heavy drinks? That’s sexist.”
“Yes, it is,” said Karma, “and you can kiss my lesbian ass if you think I give one single fuck.”
One hour turned to two, which turned to four. Still the power didn’t return. Nobody listened to Mom—who does?—and we opened the fridge whenever we wanted, for soda or lunch meat or leftover fried fish. We all thought the same thing. Well, if only I do it… But eventually those I’s started to add up, and a new smell—subtle but still there—began to drift from the dark shelves.
Every time I opened the door that day, the smell gathered power. No matter how quickly I moved, the stench made it out. I held my breath and opened the door and grabbed what I needed and slammed it shut and drew breath, and there it was, a silent belch, that lingering breath of grey meat and rotting vegetables. And there was no way to know if my mom was right, if it was getting worse because we kept looking or if it would have rotted anyway.