Page 42 of Best Woman
After a brief nosh on wine and rugelach, everyone departs to Rachel’s parents’ country club for the reception.
I mill around during the cocktail hour, saying hello to relatives I haven’t seen in years, accepting the congratulations and cheek pinches and the odd awkward moment with a third cousin or family friend who doesn’t know if it’s still appropriate to offer a handshake, which I always respond to with a quick kiss on the cheek before moving on quickly to the next relation.
An hour and a half later I’m sitting at the nuclear family table, once again flanked by Brody and Brian.
They’ve both got video game consoles in hand and are playing something where they murder people—a bit on the nose if you ask me.
Aiden and Rachel are directly across from me doing disgustingly sappy shit, like feeding each other bites of endive salad and accepting envelopes likely stuffed with checks from their guests.
should we get married? seems lucrative I text Kyle, attaching a photo of the envelope pile.
fine but daytona is officiating and I want cheating written into the pre-nup he fires back.
Speaking of speeches, it’s almost time for them to begin.
I open the note in my phone to run through my bullet list of embarrassing childhood stories, remembering Aiden’s note to keep it PG-13, and start frantically googling how many times are you allowed to say fuck in pg-13 movies as well as synonyms for love .
Grandpa says the hamotzi and the kiddush in flawless Hebrew, but can’t give up the spotlight without a joke in English. “I hope you’ll be very happy, my darling,” he tells Aiden. “And if you aren’t, I know a good lawyer.”
The meal is welcome after all the champagne I’ve had, as well as a chance to slip my shoes off under the table, something I’ll never tell Daytona.
As we eat, Brody, Brian, and I chat about things we could do in New York.
Across the table, Rachel’s brother and his wife try to get their son to eat, with dismal results.
Derek ends up with ketchup on his shirt, and I pass him the Tide pen from my bag. Brian scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“You’re so Mom .”
Brody shoots him a look and Brian turns sheepish.
“No, you’re right. Just be glad I haven’t asked one of you to run out and get me a Diet Coke from McDonald’s.”
“I think that’s where Dad is right now,” Brian says, looking over at the space beside Mom at the next table. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Randy in a while.
Kim is two tables away with the rest of the bridesmaids.
We make burning eye contact as she licks a spoon.
I want to die but in a sexy way. Then the wedding planner approaches our table with a microphone in hand and I want to die in a very unsexy way.
Aiden takes it and he and Rachel stand to address everyone with some rehearsed banter I’m sure has been sitting in a shared Google doc since the week they got engaged.
Rachel makes several jokes about tying Aiden down, which gives me another unfortunate insight into their sex life.
“We’re so lucky to be surrounded by so many people we love on the most important day of our lives,” Aiden says.
“Not counting the last time the Yankees won the World Series!” my dad heckles. Aiden laughs, but I can see the frustration on Rachel’s face at the deviation. She nudges Aiden to continue.
“Some of those people have graciously decided they’d like to share a few words with everyone, and I’m sure there will be absolutely zero embarrassing stories,” Aiden says with an exaggerated warning look tossed my way.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, loud enough to be heard over the crowd’s polite laughter.
“My big sister, Julia, everyone,” says Aiden, and everyone applauds as I reach across the table to take the microphone.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
“Um,” I say. “Hi.”
The only sound in the room is a burst of static and the scraping of silverware against china.
“Despite his warning, I know how this goes. I’ve seen basically every romantic comedy set at a wedding ever made.
I know I’m supposed to stand here and bring up a bunch of embarrassing shit my brother would kill me over revealing, like the way I used to make him pretend to be the Flounder to my Ariel when we were kids and he got way too into it, or that time he killed my turtle by feeding it paint.
But I’m not going to do that. Oh whoops, guess I just did. ” Pause for polite laughter.
“Only, Aiden has never really needed my help when it comes to embarrassing himself. I mean”—I turn to face the room—“who here who knows my brother, really knows him, hasn’t seen what a doofus he is?”
“ Huge doofus,” Ben calls out dutifully from Kim’s table.
“Exactly,” I say. “I mean, Aiden spent our entire childhood doing stupid shit like sticking a pencil in his leg so he wouldn’t have to go to the dentist, or collecting a bunch of tadpoles from the canal behind our house only to put them in the fridge and freeze them to death.
It was traumatizing!” Some more laughter.
Oh no, I can feel my cynicism eroding, the magic of the wedding and true love or whatever the fuck washing it away until all that’s left is honest affection.
My brother might be ridiculous and nerdy, have horrible taste in music, and care more about his beauty regime than I care about mine, but I love him.
I’ve loved him our whole lives, and I’m happy that he’s happy.
Like my dad is for me. And sitting beside Rachel, their hands linked together, he’s so fucking happy.
“Despite all that, my little shithead brother managed to grow up to be a pretty great guy, which I know because he’s sitting next to an amazing woman who is now my sister.
” Aiden is smiling at me, a real smile, the kind he used to give me when we were little and I was his hero.
Humiliatingly, my throat gets a bit tight and my eyes burn with tears.
I shake it off with a laugh. “So I guess I can forgive him for the turtle.”
I raise my glass.
“Congratulations, Aiden and Rachel. I’m so happy you found each other.
Cheers!” The room fills with applause and I can’t help but seek out the person I wish were sitting next to me holding my hand the way Rachel is holding Aiden’s.
Kim is sipping her champagne and looking right at me, soft and serious.
Rachel’s dad is next, and he grunts out some well-meaning words about how beautiful his daughter is and how Aiden better treat her right or he’ll wind up in the Everglades being mauled by alligators.
I’m pretty zoned out, still struck by the depth of my own emotion.
I’ve been dreading this wedding for months, years, and now that I’m here, despite how uncomfortable certain parts of it have been, I’m starting to feel like…
maybe it will be fine? I’m surrounded by people who love me, however imperfectly, and Kim is across the room looking so sexy I could cry, and I know that when this is over she’ll take me back to her hotel and peel me out of this dress and do wonderful, evil things to my body.
Maybe I don’t even need to tell her about my little white lie.
She and Rachel aren’t actually close, so there’s little worry she’ll learn the truth there.
We’ll go back to our real lives in New York and leave Florida behind us, go to her dumb party next week and have our first real date, for once not surrounded by people related to me.
She’ll spend the night at my apartment, I’ll make her coffee in the morning and take her out for bagels.
She’ll meet my friends and probably develop a huge crush on at least one of them.
We’ll keep dating, and I can start dropping hints that the wedding was so healing that, miracle of miracles, my family has started to be totally cool about my womanhood.
By the time we visit again for Passover next year, there will be no lie left between us.
Kim will still judge my mom a little, sure, but Rachel judges my mom too, and she’s her mother-in-law!
Maybe, one day, Mom could be Kim’s mother-in-law too…
The crowd is applauding again as Rachel’s dad hands my mother the microphone.
“Thank you all so much for being here,” she says.
“And please bear with me if I get emotional. It’s not every day a mother gets to see her son get married.
” I can count the times I’ve seen Mom cry on one hand, but sure.
“I won’t take up too much of your time, because even though I was assured there would be Diet Coke on tap, they only have canned and that always goes right through me. ”
I giggle, because my mother is very silly but in a totally predictable and endearing way.
“As much as I love my son, I wanted to take a moment today to talk about Rachel.” She looks down at the woman in question, who has a confused little smile on her face.
“Sweetie, the first time Aiden brought you home to meet me, I pulled him aside and told him, ‘You better marry that girl one day or you are the stupidest man on the planet.’?” This is hilariously untrue because Mom loathed Rachel for almost a year after she and Aiden started dating.
“And here we are! My son has a beautiful, intelligent, driven, supportive wife who I know is going to take care of him, stand beside him, and”—she dabs at her eyes, although I don’t see any tears—“be a wonderful mother to his children.”
Across the room, Kim rolls her eyes at me. I hide a laugh behind my champagne.
“Rachel, you are an amazing woman, and I’m so proud to welcome you into our family.” She reaches across the table to lay a hand on Rachel’s. “I’ve always wanted a daughter, and now I finally have one.”
There’s a strange moment of quiet, like the entire room is hesitating.
It stretches longer than it should, and that’s what clues me in and makes me realize what’s just happened.
Because that was obviously the end of Mom’s speech, the moment where there should have been awwwws and applause.
But there’s only quiet, and the rustling sound of heads turning.
Turning toward me.