Chapter 44 Blanca’s Wedding
Blanca’s Wedding
Coco
It’s strange the way autumn has fallen over the city in a matter of days.
Last week I went to work in short sleeves and a light jacket just in case, but today I had to get out all my scarves.
I love it. I’m not a summer girl and especially not after all this.
I think the cool has arrived to cool our skin down from what the heat brought us.
The street is beautiful. I’ve always thought that Madrid is especially pretty in the fall. It looks like a girl with reddish hair, dressed in warm tones, with her lips painted a red that you only get a glimpse of at sunset.
The sun is shining today. Blanca was always scared that today, October 20, her wedding day, it would rain, but no—a warm sun swept the shadows from the pavement, chasing the cars and crowning every person who came out onto the streets this Saturday.
It’s a beautiful scene. The colors, the warmth of the sun already yawning beyond the road, the people milling around excitedly outside the church.
Green, red, blue, pink dresses. Shiny shoes.
Dazzling smiles. Today is a wedding day, and only happy songs will be played until the women stumble barefoot down the hall and the bride and groom stare at each other, spellbound, sharing one last dance. Today is a wedding day.
Loren looks amazing. He tamed his hair with some styling gel and is wearing a beautiful shirt.
Next to me, Blanca smiles and looks down at her shoes, happy.
She says she found them this week in a window display and they whistled insinuatingly at her before they seduced her completely with their evil ways.
In the midst of so much color and laughter, I feel a little gray.
A little more than usual, I mean. Lately, it’s always gray inside my chest.
“So the whole moving-back-in-with-your-parents thing… It’s not that terrible?”
“No. You know my mother. She does her own thing. I have no idea how all five of us survived.”
“It made you strong,” Blanca jokes. “She’s a dragon mother.”
“Dragon mother?”
“It’s a super-tough parenting style that a lot of mothers in China use. I won’t try to explain it any more than that because I’m sure I’ll fuck up some part of it, but google it,” she insists. “It’s fascinating.”
“Thanks.” I pat her knee through her dress. “You look really beautiful today, Blanca.”
“Stunning,” Loren agrees.
“Thank you so much. The day deserves it.”
We look out. People seem eager to start heading to the reception. They’re either really hungry or really ready to make some toasts. Maybe both.
“I’m scared to ask this,” Loren says, still looking forward. “But I guess today is the day. Have you heard anything from Gus?”
“No.” Blanca looks at both of us with a sad smile. “I stopped following him on social media, but…I’ve done a little stalking. Apparently, right after I blocked him, he decided he was going to take a break from Instagram and Facebook. He’s writing a new book, he said. He needed to detox.”
“Yeah, from himself,” I mutter.
“You know something? In a way I would have preferred it if he had kept doing the same stuff as always: the poems, the messages, the calls with some flimsy excuse…”
“Girl, of course. You don’t just get over your vices cold turkey.” Loren sighs. “Look at me with cigarettes. I’d smoke ten thousand cigarettes right now.”
“That’s not why. It’s because…in some twisted way I think this was the first time he proved that he loves me and that I really matter to him. And it’s still hard for me to accept that it all ended so badly.”
“Let’s not think about this today,” I ask.
We turn back to look at the people. One woman is going around with a wicker basket, handing out little bags of birdseed to toss to all the guests.
“Should we go out there?”
“Not yet.” Blanca laughs. “Let me take a breath.”
“Aroa is still MIA, right? We haven’t gotten any proof of life?” Loren asks.
“The other day I got a Facebook invite for a party where she’s on the decks, but I think she sent it to all her contacts and didn’t even realize I was still in there,” Blanca says.
“Well, she unfriended me,” I point out with a smile. “And blocked me.”
“That girl,” Loren cackles. “I swear when she dropped that bomb that she had slept with Gus, I thought I was dying. I thought: That’s it. Tomorrow, we’re gonna be in the news.”
“Yeah.” Blanca nods. “I swear I pictured myself killing her. Deep down, if I hadn’t been holding Marín back, I think I would have taken advantage of the chaos and impaled her with a beach chair.”
“She was so fake… She totally played us.”
“Hey, since we’re putting it all out there…have either of you seen Marín?”
It’s like I mentioned a dead person. Both of them glance at each other and then sigh.
“I saw him yesterday,” Blanca announces. “He told me that… Well, that he wasn’t going to come today because…he didn’t want to create tension. Plus, he doesn’t really understand any of this, even though he wished me the best.”
“How is he?”
“Skinny. And with big bags under his eyes.” Loren grimaces. “Subdued.”
“Looks like shit.” Blanca looks at me. “I think that’s the best description.”
“Yeah, well. Another one who’s doing what was asked of him.” I take a deep breath and let it slowly escape through my lips.
A silence falls over us.
“What did we expect?” Blanca asks in a thread of a voice.
“Because after ‘surviving’”—she makes little air quotes—“the most unique bachelorette party in history, I think the next logical step would be being recruited by the CIA to become secret agents and give us ridiculous code names like ‘dish towel,’ ‘spoon,’ and ‘urinal.’”
“It’d be better if we win the lottery.” I smile.
“Now, seriously… Now what?”
“Now?” I look at her. “We fight to be happy, kids. It doesn’t come for free.”
“Aren’t we already?” Loren replies. “Being happy is just a handful of moments, and every once in a while we have brushes with glory.”
All three of us smile. I guess he’s right.
Even if things are still so weird between us, even if we talk a little less than before and it’s hard for us to get back into our old routines and it’s taking a little effort to follow the new, unbreakable rule of never lying again, we’re still lucky.
Not everyone comes out of something like that trip in the camper even stronger.
And me? Am I lucky? Roughly speaking, of course.
I’m free. I’m healthy. My life isn’t in danger.
I can chase my dreams without anybody holding me back.
I was born in the bosom of a family that may be a little eccentric but nothing serious.
I have a job. I have friends. So, yes, every day, when I wake up, I have piles of reasons to appreciate the life I have, even if I forget them—because even though our little dramas are nothing more than first-world problems, they’re still our dramas.
That’s what happens when your basic needs are covered: Problems just change out of their shirts and put on a flamboyant costume, full of feathers and sequins.
Mine waits for me every day, dressed up like a ridiculous carnival queen, with way too much makeup and heels she can’t stand, sitting at the foot of my bed.
I find myself dangerously close to thirty, and I just moved back into my parents’ house, to my teenage bedroom.
In the wardrobe, I still have a Jonas Brothers poster from back when the littlest one wasn’t even hot yet.
I could afford an apartment for myself, but right now I don’t feel ready to live alone, and going back to having roommates is something I never even considered.
Not to mention the worst part: I miss Marín.
Fuck, I miss him. Every day. Every hour.
He’s still the first person I think of when something happens to me, the first thing I think about when I wake up, my first wish when an eyelash falls out, and…
the first image that floats into my head when I close my eyes and try to sleep.
They say it’ll get better with time and that one day I’ll smile when I think of all this…
It’s not that I don’t believe them; it’s just that I’m still so far from that point.
If he hasn’t come back, it’s because nothing has changed. Because he doesn’t love me enough to have swallowed his fears. And that’s not something that is going to make me happy.
So am I lucky? Yes. But my life is still under construction because I knocked down a load-bearing wall—a wall I had built part of my dreams and aspirations on.
But, look, I’ve learned something very valuable: Never build anything of your own on a third party because, one way or another, they always leave.
“Come on…” Blanca says. “I think now is the moment.”
All three of us stand up from the pew where we were sitting and head to the door of the church. Someone hands each of us a bag of birdseed, and we smile conspiratorially.
An explosion of cheers and shouts of joy greets the newlyweds as they come through the church door.
All three of us, dying of laughter, infiltrate the guests, throwing fistfuls of birdseed so the couple will never lack anything in the journey they’re starting today.
No, we have no idea who they are, but we still wish them the best. These people, the happy couple who made the most of the date Blanca’s wedding cancellation opened up, are a symbol for us, something that shows that, maybe through poetic justice, maybe through karma, one person’s pain can end up being someone else’s happiness.
And you never know which side you’ll be on.
We scamper off before any of the guests notice that we’re crashers.
Anyway, there are always so many people at weddings that you never know who invited them, but we don’t want to take any risks.
As we dash down the sidewalk, we laugh and make plans for the night.
A few glasses of wine in Lavapiés and then grab dinner wherever.
We’ll see. The important part is that there’s much more to Madrid than Malasana, which holds so many memories.
“Hey,” Loren says, furrowing his brow. “Haven’t you wondered how these two had time to organize a whole wedding in so little time? It was barely two months ago when you canceled yours.”
Blanca laughs. “A good wedding planner.”
“Don’t be like that,” I grumble. “It’s a love story, and thanks to the universe, some things don’t have an explanation.”
Right?