The door shut, and Parker sat back down, unsure why he’d stood in the first place. Brock sniffed loudly, then chuckled. “Shit, sure does. Sorry Park.”
Parker waved dismissively. His stomach rumbled and acid coated his throat. The tuxedo was hot and the collar chafed his neck. The air-conditioned office did stink, and it was getting warmer by the second. Too many bodies.
“Crank the AC, huh?” he said. “And find me a glass of water, will you? I’m dying here.”
Brock nodded, handed him the bottle, which was unpleasantly warm to the touch. He went to the straining window unit and turned the temperature knob all the way down. “I’ll be right back. Drink that, relax.”
Parker thought that if he drank the hot whiskey in his hands he’s absolutely, one-hundred-percent, sure-as-shit be puking up his breakfast in the same planter Brock had recently whizzed in. Nonetheless, he nodded to his little brother, his best man.
Brock left, and finally – thank God! – Parker was alone. He set the bottle on the pastor’s mahogany desk and lowered his face into his sweaty hands. He shook his head and moaned, felt revulsion slither through his guts, swimming through intestinal channels of black doubt.
“Parker, Parker… you dumb shit,” he said, the words muffled, the stink and heat of his breath folding back into his face, stinging his nostrils. The stench was bad enough that he finished the thought internally:
Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?
THE GUESTS BEGAN to arrive. Carrie heard a steady increase of voices from the front of the church, where the pastor and – if they hadn’t run off to a bar – Parker’s friends were greeting them. She hoped those assholes were behaving themselves and shuddered at the thought of being related to that mad gorilla Brock for the rest of her life. The halfwit’s bulk was surpassed only by his idiocy and indecency. Twice he’d hit on Carrie… after she was engaged to his brother. When he drank he was a wrecking ball of violence, bad manners and worse decisions. It made her constantly worried for Parker and she could only hope that once they were married, and he was living with her instead of his idiot brother and their clueless parents, things would be better. He would be smarter. More responsible. It was possible, wasn’t it?
“Carrie dear, how are you?”
She turned to her mother and smiled, her (recently whitened) teeth gleaming, brown eyes luxuriously darkened by mascara and eyeliner, lustrous brown hair pulled loosely back, awaiting the veil. “Fine, Mom. Just… you know, ready to get this over with.”
“How romantic,” cooed Trish, as she shoved what must have been her millionth lemon cookie between lipstick-smeared teeth. Carrie supposed she should be thankful to avoid the full eye-roll on top of the dripping sarcasm. “Stop it, you’re giving me the jellies.”
I think you have all the jellies you need, fatty, Carrie thought, then instantly regretted it. She was becoming a cranky bitch, and only in her twenties. It made her sick with fear how much worse of a person she might become as she grew older. She forced a smile at Trish.
“Poor choice of words,” she said. “I’m just… you know… it’s a lot of stress. But I’m happy. And excited.” But Trish had moved on, already going back to Nana’s cookie plate for crumbs.
Beth put a hand on Carrie’s arm. “It’s gonna be awesome, hon,” she said. “I’m so excited for you two. Just focus on how amazing it will be to finally be married!” Beth’s voice rose in pitch as she spoke, reaching a squealing crescendo at the M-word, and Carrie tried to feel some excitement, to unearth some sunken inner thrill to suit the supposed bliss of the occasion.
She had started to reply when Beth’s buoyant face sank into a frown, her blue eyes narrowing and looking over Carrie’s shoulder, out the window. A wrinkle crumpled her brow like she’d caught an invisible dagger between the eyes.
“Oh no…” she said quietly, as if remembering a childhood loss.
Carrie’s smile faltered, and she turned.
Slipping through the sun-splashed corn was a lanky shape she would recognize anywhere, even in the darkest night. His blonde hair was combed – a first – and he wore a brown herringbone three-piece suit that looked short at the cuffs and ankles.
Likely the same suit he’s had since high school… she thought.
And for the first time that day, Carrie’s smile wasn’t forced.
CARS LINED THE edges of cracked pavement that constituted the church’s small parking lot. Relatives close and distant made their way from their vehicles toward the church entryway. A bitter fall wind had picked up and women held onto their hats as men shoved their hands deep into the pockets of Sunday suits. Children laughed and ran in their own moderate finery, enchanted with the idea of being at church when no sermon was imminent. Like attending a birthday party in a classroom.
As the guests filed into the foyer, Parker’s friends were there to shake hands, a mixture of bourbon and mint on their breath. Henry and Tuck twisted wrists and smiled sheepishly at the older men and women, most of whom had scolded one or both of them at some time or another during the boys’ childhood years.
Brock waved at a few familiar faces but made no attempt to engage. He stood like a immense bulwark near the door of the pastor’s office, inside which his big brother brooded in solitude. Brock’s dull eyes lit up only once as he watched the guests fill into the foyer, their happy chatter cluttering the space between heads and ceiling with inane remarks and forced reconciliations, overly-enthusiastic greetings for those they had lost contact with or secretly didn’t care for in the first place.
When Eli entered, whispers intensified and eyeballs darted beneath floral hats and greased comb-overs. The boy was taller than most and his neat stack of blond hair was a furred golden bob resting atop a darker pallet of browns and blacks, a dark sea of heads. He smiled as he made his way through the throng, saying hello to those that held no animosity toward his peculiarities, his gossiped history as an oddity, as a close friend to the bride.
Brock’s wide brown eyes became drunkenly alert and followed Eli as he made his way through the cluster. He scowled, jaw muscles bunched, teeth grinding behind meaty cheeks. He waited until Pastor Willard, with the help of those two toadstools Tuck and Henry, began ushering folks into the chapel for the ceremony, then pushed himself away from the wall, wobbling slightly. He belched acid and tapped the flask resting in his coat pocket for strength and reassurance. He was eager for another drink, but held off for the moment, savoring the sweet anticipation of feeding the dragon, the liquid lizard with whiskey-brown scales that lay coiled in his guts, one that whispered: All will be well, Brock old boy. Just stick with me and we’ll do great things.
Great. Things.
Brock snorted and walked down the short hallway that led to the pastor’s office. He opened the door without preamble.
He needed to have a chat with his big brother.
CARRIE OPENED THE door a crack, the width of an eye and a lightly-rouged cheek. She noted the faces of the guests, most of whom she knew immediately, a few she had never seen before. Her mother was hidden away along with her nana, the two of them holed-up in a cramped nursery waiting for the first chords of the opening music to signal it was time for them to be led down the aisle and seated. Carrie, Beth and Trish had wanted a few minutes alone (presumably to have some private girl talk) before meeting up with the older women via an antiquated bathroom the vestry shared with the nursery.
The real reason for their delay was to secure a moment for their own pre-ceremonial toast using the three airplane bottles of vodka Trish had tucked away in her purse.
“Are we gonna do this or what, sunshine?” Beth said to Carrie’s back, holding her uncapped bottle aloft as if releasing a genie.
Easy, you lush, Carrie thought, and continued to scan the crowd, most of whom were now finding seats within the worn wooden pews – some for the bride, some for the groom. Frantically, she continued to search the chapel, knowing time was running out…
And then she saw him.
He entered, laughing and lightly touching the shoulder of Widow Brewer, the beatific old lady who had fed them slices of pie, cookies and great icy glasses of lemonade from her back porch on hot Saturday afternoons after they’d worked up a dirty sweat running through the fields, climbing trees, or playing in the creek.
Carrie watched as he helped the old woman sit down near the front on the bride’s side. She studied his face, looked for signs of pain, of discomfort, of something dark hidden behind that cordial smile. In the end, it was the eyes that gave him away. They were constant whether he was laughing or studying the pews for an appropriate seat. She saw the sadness there, saw the void in those eyes she knew better than her own. My blue eyes.
Beth chirped from behind with increased urgency. “Carrie, we’re running out of time.”
Carrie dropped her eyes, let out a breath. She closed the door and turned, her smile strained. “Yes, of course. Here…”
She reached out as Trish handed her one of the small plastic bottles.
“To Carrie,” Trish said grandly, “may she be happy forever.” The three girls tapped the plastic necks together, and drank.
Carrie downed the liquor in three swallows and gasped happily, staring at the empty bottle as if it held magic. “Whoo-boy,” she said, and they all laughed.
The alcohol burned her stomach pleasantly, lightened her head. A warm calm spread through her as she looked past her two friends and out the window that faced the fields. The September sky had turned a deep-sea-green and clouds were building like ink-stained cotton above the acres of stalks. The jostling crowd of plants waved gently, as if saying hello, or demanding her attention.
“Looks like rain,” she said quietly, and the gentle push of alcohol released the tether tying her memories to the old wooden dock of her past. And, so released, the memories drifted through the seaway of time, into her present.
