8. Rebecca
Rebecca
“Oh, you all look so beautiful!”
Beautiful is the last word that I would use to describe the pink monstrosities that the bridesmaids and I are all wearing right now. But I bite my tongue.
Today isn’t about me or my opinions. It’s about Alyssa and her special day. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to open my mouth and say something to dampen her excitement. I’m not that kind of sister. She and I are a united front, a team. I’d do anything for her.
Including lie.
“I love the ruffles,” I say, patting the mass of gauzy fabric bunched at the neckline. “They’re really…”
I drift off, glancing at the other bridesmaids for help.
“Whimsical!” Peyton, a bridesmaid says brightly, her smile looking pained.
“Very whimsical,” I agree.
Alyssa turns away from us and turns, looking at herself from all angles in the three paneled full length mirror.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” She asks for the tenth time.
“Girl, when he sees you in that dress walking down the aisle towards him, he’s going to be drooling,” another bridesmaid pipes up. “Be careful. He might rip it right off of you, right there in front of the minister and everything!”
We laugh.
“Well you know he wants kids right away,” Peyton says to us with a wink. “What do you think? Should we take bets on whether they’ll have a honeymoon baby?”
Alyssa glances at me quickly. I’m not laughing along with the others, but I’ve got the best smile I can muster on my face, disguising the familiar pang of sadness that always hits me when other women talk about having babies.
They talk about it as though it’s easy. As though getting pregnant is as simple as snapping their fingers. It’s such a contrast to my own outlook. And the fact that I’m not able to indulge in the champagne in the bridal suite with the others another unwelcome reminder.
Imagine. A honeymoon baby. Getting married and getting pregnant right away, just like that, basically by accident. I could only dream. With my body, the only way to get pregnant is on purpose. Probably after spending a lot of money, and a lot of time in doctor’s offices.
“Oh, stop,” Alyssa says seriously, waving her hand at the other women. “I don’t want to talk about babies today. Seriously guys. Guys, enough .”
The laughing stops abruptly.
“Sorry, Lyss,” Peyton says with a bewildered look on her face. “I was just kidding around.”
“I know,” Alyssa says, glancing at me. “It’s just I’m so stressed out today…I’ve spent months planning this day. I don’t have it in me to think about anything else, especially babies.”
“Totally understand. No more talk of babies,” Peyton says quickly. “Right, Rebecca?”
“Right,” I say, my mouth dry. I stand up, smoothing the front of my watermelon pink dress. “Excuse me…I think I left something in my car.”
“Don’t let the dress -”
“Don’t let the dress drag on the ground,” I complete my sister’s sentence for her with a nod. “I won’t. Don’t worry.”
She turns back to the mirror, picking an imaginary piece of lint from the front of her dress.
I exit the bridal suite, walking through the narrow back hallway of the church until I get to the side exit. The setting sun’s beams hit my face. I take a gulp of fresh air and brush the hair away from my face.
This day is about Alyssa. The last thing anyone needs is a Maid of Honor distracting everyone with her own personal emotional crisis.
“Hey.”
I look up to see Eric. He looks incredible in a sharp black suit. His curly hair is tamed away from his face, making his hazel eyes stand out more than usual, and he’s holding a single red rose.
“Hey,” I reply weakly. “You showed up.”
“You weren’t expecting me to?”
I shrug.
“I told you I’d be here. And I’m here.”
“Thank you,” I say, smiling a little. “You’re a very faithful pretend boyfriend. Very reliable, too.”
He holds the rose out to me. I take it, rotating it in my fingers and brushing my thumb against the velvety red petals.
“When I tell you I’m going to do something, I mean it,” he says to me.
“I know,” I reply.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you outside,” he says. “Aren’t you the Maid of Honor?”
“Yeah,” I say, glancing at the church door behind me. “I am. I just came out to get some air. It’s…tough, being in there.”
Eric clears his throat.
“Do you need to, uh…talk about it?” He asks uncertainly.
“Eric Stone, are you asking me if I want to talk to you about my feelings?” I ask, cracking a true smile now.
“Yes,” he replies carefully. “I guess I am. Isn’t that what women tend to do?”
“I’d say most people have a need to discuss their feelings from time to time,” I answer.
“Not just women. But yes, women tend to talk about their feelings. Especially with boyfriends. But you’re only a pretend boyfriend today, so I’ll let you off the hook.
I know how you feel about touchy-feely stuff. ”
He nods.
“You look great,” he says.
“I look like a cupcake at a five year-old’s princess themed birthday party,” I snort.
“I happen to like cupcakes,” he says. “So I’m not seeing the downside of the situation. Beautiful woman dressed up like a pastry? Sounds good to me.”
I lean back against the door to the church and laugh now, really laugh for the first time since I arrived this morning.
“That might be the closest thing to a joke that I’ve ever heard you say,” I tell Eric. “And I’ve known you for seven years.”
“Seven years and eight months,” he replies.
“Seven years and eight months,” I say.
“I’m not joking though,” he says. “You look beautiful. Only…”
“What?” I ask warily as he comes nearer.
His fingers brush against my cheek as he repositions one of the loose curls dangling from my updo, tucking it back into a Bobby pin at the base of my neck.
“There,” he says.
He starts to pull his hand away when I reach up and take it in mine. His body stiffens, and his eyes are on mine.
“What are you doing?” He asks, his voice quiet.
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. “I’m just…not ready for you to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Not ready for you to stop touching me,” I say, giving his hand a squeeze. “It feels nice.”
Eric’s body is still tense, the muscles in his jaw working as he stares me down.
“You look so intimidating right now,” I breathe, not knowing why I’m saying my thoughts aloud.
“I remember how intimidated I used to be of you…back when I first started working for you. I was fresh out of grad school and you were the only person who gave me a call back. After you hired me, I realized why you were were so desperate, why you were having such a hard time finding an assistant.”
“I had a hard time finding an assistant because I have high standards,” Eric replies.
“That’s the reason you tell yourself,” I smile. “But the real reason is because you scare people off. You make it hard to help you, because you’re so intimidating to everyone you meet. People don’t understand you.”
“You do,” he says, surprising me.
I shake my head.
“I don’t think so.”
“You do,” he says.
He takes another step forward so that our bodies are pressed together, and brings his hands to cup my face.
“You understand me better than most,” he continues. “Maybe better than anyone else. Why do you think I asked you to be my wife in the first place, Rebecca?”
I blink at him.
“Do you think I would have made an offer like that to just anyone?” He continues. “To share a life together? I need someone by my side who knows me, someone I can trust. And that narrows down the number of candidates by a considerable amount.”
“Isn’t that lonely?” I ask him. “Having such a small circle? So few people you can turn to?”
I expect Eric to say no, that it’s not lonely at all.
Because surely, men like Eric Stone don’t get lonely. Men like Eric Stone are all business, all stiff suits and dense research papers and late nights at the office, all ambition, with no time for frivolous things like jokes, like happy hours and social events…
Things like real marriages and real love.
But Eric’s answer surprises me.
“It’s more lonely than you can even imagine,” he replies in a hoarse voice. “The amount of time I spend with myself…the amount of time I spend in my own head. I don’t know how to be any other way. I want something more but I can’t reach it. I can’t break through the…”
“The what?”
“The block in my mind,” he says. “It’s like I’m missing something, something that everyone else just has, the thing that makes talking to people easy and natural. Whatever that thing is, I don’t have it. Never have. I’m missing a piece.”
“No you aren’t,” I reply quickly. “Don’t say something like that, Eric.
You’re not missing a piece. You’re whole.
You’re just…yourself. You’re different than most, but that’s a good thing.
Why would you want to be the same as everyone else?
Look at all of the amazing things you can do that nobody else can! ”
“Yes. But that’s work,” he replies dismissively. “I want more.”
“What do you want?” I ask.
“The same thing you do,” he says. “Love.”
He holds my face in place, pinning me to the door behind me with his body pressed against mine. I’m watching him, watching my boss bring his lips to mine and pull me into a kiss that sets my heart on fire.
Love.
He wants love. But he can’t give it to me. And prior to now, I didn’t think I’d be able to give it to him either. But in the blink of an eye, my perspective on this man has flipped upside down.
Eric isn’t the robot everyone makes him out to be.
He has feelings, he has a heart. It’s all inside of him, it’s always there. But the walls around it are tall.
Lonely.
Eric Stone is lonely.
Right now he’s kissing me with so much passion, so much soul, that I’m ashamed that I could have ever believed my boss to be soulless.
“Ah!”
The door behind us opens and I fall backwards, with Eric tumbling after me. We land in a heap on the floor of the church hallway, with my mother standing above us.
“Oh, I wondered where you went,” she says, looking at Eric with glee.
“Eric, it’s so lovely that you were able to come today.
When I told my friends that the Eric Stone, of the Stone brothers, was coming to my daughter’s wedding, none of them believed me.
You simply have to let me take a photo with you later. ”
“Yes,” Eric says, standing and helping me to my feet. “Of course. I’d be happy to.”
Liar .
Eric hates photos. It’s why he dodges every press event and charity ball he gets an invitation to. I know, because I’m usually the one on the phone with them, giving them an excuse from a wide variety of excuses in rotation.
“Well, I better take my seat,” Eric says, glancing at his watch.
“I’ll see you after the ceremony?” I ask him.
My mother looks from Eric to me.
“Of course,” he says. He leans forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek that lacks the same fiery passion as our kiss from before, but even this brief peck sends sparks shooting through me.
Once he’s gone, I go back inside, ready to walk back to the bridal suite and help my sister. But my mother stops me.
“Wait,” she says.
“What is it?”
She looks at me with narrowed eyes and I shift my weight from foot to foot nervously. I’ve never been great at lying to my mom. But could she really pick up on my fake relationship with Eric?
“When I first saw you two at lunch the other day, I had my initial concerns,” she says. “I didn’t want to say anything but…seeing that display of affection just now, I feel I have to.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Rebecca, dear, I know that I’ve been hounding you about finding a man,” she says. “And heavens, maybe you were just taking my advice when you got into this relationship with Eric! But I’m beginning to worry that he might not be taking you very seriously.”
I frown.
“Mom, what are you saying?” I ask. “Just get to your point, please.”
“I’ve told you before,” she says. “Men are always going to look at you differently because of your…figure. It’s not fair but that’s just how the cookie crumbles. They’ll have a tendency to see you as temporary fun, and you have to be on guard for that.”
Oh. My. God .
My mother doesn’t think our relationship is fake. She thinks Eric is leading me on. Using me, in other words, for sex.
It’s not the first time she’s given me this speech. Like the lecture about cardio, I’ve heard this speech frequently since my teen years. In my mom’s mind, men don’t take fat women seriously. They don’t date them, and they definitely don’t marry them.
Because men don’t want to commit to fat women. They just want to hook up with them.
If only she knew that a week ago, Eric proposed marriage to me.
“Why are you laughing?” My mom snaps. “Why are you laughing? Stop that. Rebecca Loren, stop laughing at me this instant.”
“Mom, I’ve got to go,” I say, putting a hand on my stomach as my laughter comes to a stop. “This was a great talk, though. Thank you for looking out for me. Truly, it means a lot to me that you have my back and are defending me from any…what did you call them that one time? Chubby chasers?”
“I have never uttered those words in my life,” my mother sniffs, tilting her chin up.
“Sure,” I reply with a wink. “Of course you haven’t. Anyway, I have to hurry. We have to be walking down the aisle in ten minutes, and there’s a feathered headpiece in the bridal suite with my name on it.”
I pat my mother on the arm as I squeeze past her in the narrow hallway, walking back in the direction of giggling feminine voices coming from a door at the other end and thanking god that I don’t have to endure this wedding date-less.