The Show Must Go On

Chapter Twenty-Four: Like I Used To

Chapter Twenty-Four Soundtrack: Like I Used To by Sharon Van Etten

'That was your fucking first dance song,' Mei says, much too loudly. A great-aunt standing nearby gasps.

'Language,' I hiss.

'Oh sorry Mum, I forgot that we're living in the 1800s.'

The great-aunt moves away with a foul glare and, against my will, I glare back. I'm in a hostage situation with Mei here and the collateral is my reputation with old ladies.

'If I were you, I'd burn the whole place down.'

'I believe you would,' I tell her.

'They're nicer to me than you' she sighs, 'and I don't even want to be here.'

'You ought to want to be here, really,' I tell her. I take a long, slow sip from my champagne flute. I remember it being fuller. Did I drink it all?

'Now you sound like Gabriel.'

'It's his sister's wedding, Mei.'

'You and Gabriel have the same problem. Your families are both so awful that you forget how to be treated well.'

'Not. So. Loud,' I hiss.

'My mum got him what he asked for for Christmas. Some wireless headphones. He couldn't believe it. His mum took him to their pastor's cellar and wouldn't let anyone leave until she heard the voices of their departed ancestors forgiving them.'

'You're exaggerating.'

'Ellie, I could not make that up.'

Sadly, I believe her. Ben and Gabriel always understood my need to escape, to sink into the anonymity of city life and burn away my family ties. They never managed it. Their mother is capricious, compulsively kind but erratic, unable to let her children live their own lives. In the time I've known her, she's been in two MLMs, briefly became a medicinal marijuana dealer, taken up Catholicism and then renounced it, and sold their family home to buy a yurt. My mother is demanding, too, but rigid in her needs and critical to a fault: Ben's mother was smothering, snaking tendrils around him and moulding him to fit whatever shape she had taken.

She liked me, once. Now, she blames me for his loss. If I doubted it before, I discovered it with certainty today. I overheard her, as I emerged from hiding in the toilet: 'And that girl, flaunting herself in that dress! She has to make our family events about her. You know she still won't stop talking about Ben? Like she owns him or something!'

I know grief when I hear it. I understand her desire to compress Ben's memory into something simple, like a marble in her palm, in the hope that only she knew him in his entirety and that he couldn't have taken form outside of her. I have wanted that, too. I understand that to her, the grief of a fiancée is nothing to the grief of a mother. Maybe it isn't.

But I was invited. I planned this wedding. I was once welcome in their home.

I loved their son and I cannot pretend otherwise.

Mei takes my hand, pulling me from my thoughts. 'Fuck, Els, I'm sorry. That was so thoughtless.'

'Don't worry,' I smile. 'Just tell me the high table cake was as bad as it looked.'

My jaw dropped when, partway through the buffet, a lifesize replica of a swan, carved in buttercream frosting, was carried to the high table. I saw Mei choking on her laughter until Gabriel pulled her in for a hug, playing the devoted brother to hide his fiancée's mirth. As the room applauded, the swan's neck drooped lower and lower until, with a catastrophic thud, it snapped clean off and fell to the floor. I ate the sheet cake anyway, feeling a bit like a Tudor monarch.

'Rubbish, Ellie. Driest thing I've ever tasted.' She pauses. 'It's ironic, really. She always preferred you as a daughter-in-law.'

'Well, she bet on the wrong son then.'

Mei surveys the dancing couples. The room sways eerily under the fluorescent lights. 'She told Gabriel that the wrong son died, you know. Right afterwards.'

'Oh shit, Mei. She didn't mean it.'

'She did.'

'She's such a bitch. I'm sorry. She shouldn't take her grief out on you.'

'Why are you sorry?'

I groan. 'That's what weddings are for. Drinking too much and apologising.'

She clinks her orange juice against my empty flute. 'Cheers to that.'

The band is slowing now, into an old Lionel Richie song, 'Easy'. I see the drummer, a gorgeous twenty-something with an undercut, roll her eyes at the opening bars. Mei catches it too.

'People love this song at weddings,' she groans. 'They don't realise that it's about giving up. Stupid, really. I guess that's weddings all over.'

'Why are you getting married if you hate weddings?'

'We all have to do things we hate.'

Ain't that the truth.

Gabriel lopes across the dance floor. He nods to me but his attention, like a laser beam, is directed only at Mei. I know a man in love when I see one: maybe the only one in this entire room, in fact, for all the gushing speeches and slushy songs. He pulls her away with a smile for me and I watch the room sway in and out, pink and green. The ruined cake smells sweet and sticky.

If only I had someone here, beside me. But what kind of bitch would bring a date to her dead fiance's family wedding?

What kind of bitch would even think of dating at all?

My phone pings.

Can I ask you a work question?

It's Nas. Against my will, my mouth curves into a smile.

Shoot, I reply.

Ah sorry, that's incorrect. I'm not allowed to ask work questions on your day off.

Even work is better than here. Stuck at a wedding. Ben's family. So much weeping.

Do you need a rescue? I'll call in a favour.

Stand down soldier.

When are you back?

Tomorrow morning. Then I'm throwing a party so I'll be worthless on Monday.

I turn away from the dance floor and pull my phone closer to my chest. I'm not hiding anything. I'm just... not publicising it. And it is just work, after all. Not that I'll be asked. Not that I've done anything wrong. But he's just my colleague.

I text again, You could come if you wanted?

There's a long pause, and then he responds, Can I bring a +1?

If you can convince someone else to spend an evening in your company, sure.

Just a thumbs up in response to this, but I'm still smiling as I tuck the phone into my clutch.

I glance around, maybe hoping that someone will acknowledge me, say hello, ask how I am. But I only see a crowd of recent strangers and old acquaintances: no one I knew then, no one who cares to know me now. I see myself in the centre of the dance floor, swaying with a ghost, illuminated in the gentle glow of the past. And I turn around, push open the fire exit, and walk away. 

*

do you like weddings or hate them?

i have never been at a wedding without some drama occurring. worst one was when my ex got so drunk that he shit-talked my whole family and i had to leave early to drive him home, and i kept pulling over so he wouldn't throw up in the car (it was my mum's, only had two doors, and always smelled like plastic. we were 18). 

but i also love drama so i do love weddings. 

some more light-hearted scenes incoming! house party nonsense feat twister...