Chapter 19
By the time I reached her, via a cylindrical glass elevator, Jenn had been restrained and was sprawled on the floor outside her stateroom, being comforted by nearby passengers. I knelt beside her, asking, “Jenn? Where’s Brayden?”
This caused an even more unhinged wailing, from which I could translate the words “bastard,” “pig,” “lying cocksucker,” “fuckhead,” and “love of my life.”
“Jenn, I’m so sorry and I won’t say his name again. But can you tell me what’s going on?”
Jenn wadded her floor-length, pearl-encrusted veil to rackingly blow her nose. She began to scream again but stopped after I took her hand, noticing the presence of her reading lamp?sized engagement ring but the absence of its even more blinding sequel.
“I… I was totally on schedule,” Jenn began.
“I was three pounds under my goal weight, in case of emotional bloating, which can happen in the week before a wedding as a bride’s capillaries expand from anticipation.
My hair was perfect because Martissa, my colorist, and I had treated eight swatches with different formulas, and settled on something we called Maximum Pale Moonlight. You see? You see?”
She’d grabbed a few yards of her softly waved hair extensions, which had attained the white-blond eeriness of a long-dead toddler’s ghostly curls.
Jenn had enough hair on her head for three people, and over half of it had been purchased from entrepreneurial women in China and painstakingly bleached.
“My bachelorette party was a dream—all of my bridesmaids had ranked it on Instagram with twelve bouquets on a scale of one to ten. Brayden said that his bachelor party, in a private room at Soho House, had been ‘stellar,’ and he’s only used the word ‘stellar’ once before, after I gave him a blowjob while he was driving his Porsche to East Hampton to introduce me to his parents.
Everything was set, we had ninety-eight percent ‘Will Attends’ to the evites, and Andrew, your mom told me that you’d totally planned on being there except there was an emergency and you were donating a kidney to Brock, so I completely understood. Are you okay?”
“I’m good, and thank you for being so understanding.”
“I love Andrew’s kidney,” said Brock, kneeling on Jenn’s opposite side. “It’s a mitzvah. Oh my God, ever since the operation I can speak Yiddish.”
Jenn was momentarily doubtful, but yanked the spotlight back to herself: “So I was in the suite at the St. Regis, it was twenty minutes before the ceremony. I was wearing two pairs of Spanx, which I don’t need but they’re like a hug, and I’d just put on my gown, which was custom-made by Vincente of Massapequa, which is the most exclusive bridal atelier on the entire island, and I looked in the full-length mirror and I thought—yes.
This is exactly who I am. My upper arms are fabulous, the fruit acid facial peel had revealed an entirely new layer of skin, like newborn baby skin, no, like the inside of a kitten’s ears, and I was posting on my Insta every thirty seconds so I could include my followers, and the comments were amazing, ‘Jenn, your elbows are like marzipan,’ ‘Jenn, your waist is the size of a neck,’ ‘Jenn, your nostrils look exactly like the sketches on your mood board,’ and then there’s a knock on the door, and it’s Brayden.
And of course at first I say, ‘Don’t come in, it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding,’ and he says, ‘That’s not gonna be an issue. ’ ”
“Oh no. Oh no.”
“And he comes in, only he’s wearing like, jeans and a polo, it’s all Ralph but it’s like brunch casual, and I say, ‘Brayden, you’re not dressed, the ceremony’s in five minutes,’ and he says, ‘Jenn, this is really hard for me.’ ”
“Oh my God,” said Brock, as everyone winced at what was coming.
“And he sits on the bed, and he can’t even look at me, but he says, ‘I love you but I’m saving both of us from making the biggest mistake of our lives.
’ And I’m not processing, I’m refusing to process, because this is my day, this is our day, and there are twenty-five pounds of lobster roll in the hotel kitchen freezer, and I say, ‘Bray, stop. Right now. Because I get what this is. You’re afraid of how right this is.
It’s freaking you out. But I’m freaked out, too, because for the first time in my life, I’ve completed my checklist. Every item.
Hair, brows, lashes, underlashes, self-tanner, the guy, the gown, the hotel, the rabbi, the bridesmaids’ dresses in peach sorbet, it’s the dream, and it’s done.
No more catalogues and websites and Pinterests, we’re doing this, we’re so happy, and sure, the future is scary, because even with injectable filler every other month, those nasal-labial folds will not be denied.
But who the hell cares, if we’re together. ’ ”
Jenn’s eyes were shining, and despite some of the more disturbing aspects of her checklist, my heart was breaking for her.
She was the most focused person I’d ever met.
I’d envied her for being so bedrock-sure of exactly who and what she wanted.
She wasn’t clingy or dependent on Brayden’s approval for her self-worth, but she was in love.
For Jenn, love meant meeting someone she’d let see her after she’d just stepped out of the shower and only applied blush, eyeliner, and tinted moisturizer.
Maybe Jenn had curated Brayden, from choice bits of George Clooney (the just-for-you smile), Glen Powell (the get-over-here squint), and every actor who’s played a hunky emergency room doctor on a Dick Wolf series, but for her, that was what love looked like.
A male version of herself, who was every bit as reliable and forward-thinking as she was.
A guy worth nuzzling in photos for her legion of followers, who call themselves the Jennetics.
“And then he says, and he’s still not looking at me, he says, ‘No, I’m not freaking out or getting cold feet, this isn’t about me.
It’s about you.’ And I’m thinking that maybe I don’t want to hear what’s coming next, but I have to.
Because if Brayden isn’t the guy I thought he was, if he’s going to trash my entire life, I have to hear why.
And he says, ‘I’ve given this a lot of thought.
Because you were the one. The optimal choice.
Not just a finalist, but the winner. The woman who could stand next to me and people would say, “Bravo. Triple platinum. Bespoke fit.” The first wife of my dreams.’ ”
I’d had my suspicions about Brayden, but he’d been hard to read, especially because so many quadrants of his face didn’t move. But my fears were solidifying into scorn.
“And he keeps going, he says, ‘Jenn, I owe you the truth. Because I respect you. And because we’ve always been honest with each other, about areas we need to work on.’ And I say, ‘Like what? Which areas?’ And he says, ‘First of all, the age thing. You’re three months older than me.
I thought I could get past it, I told myself it didn’t matter, but it does. It would be like marrying my mom.’ ”
How dare he. They were both thirty-two, although thanks to their often self-inflicted procedures they existed in some timeless, frozen-browed, chin-implanted Narnia.
“But he’s not done, he says, ‘And there’s your skull.
You’re beautiful, you’re stunning, but we’ve talked about this.
When you pull your hair back I can see it.
A slight asymmetry. You could get a foam skull extender but I’d always remember.
I look at you and I think, So close, but maybe when you were a baby you slept against a wall.
I’ve had my skull measured and it’s like an architect’s rendering of a skull designed by NASA.
And what if we had kids? We could hope for the best, but could we do that?
To a child? Are we strong enough, to raise little trapezoids? ’ ”
If this were anyone but Brayden speaking, I’d assume he was joking. But I’d seen Brayden catching sight of himself in a hall mirror and checking his eyes to make sure they matched.