The Survivors

Chapter Two: Matrimony, pt. 2

When my cell phone started playing Chopin at 9:45 am, what seemed like an eternity had passed.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Corrina’s voice cooed over the phone.

“Hey, bride,” I said. “How’s the best day of your life going so far?”

“It’s going okay,” she said. “It would be better if you were here instead of twenty-five middle-aged women from my family who are poking and prodding me and trying to give me wedding night advice.” She laughed. I knew she wasn’t kidding, though.

“Want me to come over?” I asked. “I will neither poke nor prod, and I surely have no wedding night advice to give,” I said. “Scout’s honor.” As I said that last line, I wondered where I had picked that up. I knew what it meant, but I had no context for it.

“Would you really brave it? There are so many people here!” she said, stressed. It was clear, even over the phone, that she really needed me to come but didn’t want to come out and ask because she knew how I felt about being around a lot of people. Though I was using my talents to know this for sure, I could have guessed it just by knowing my best friend.

“I’d brave anything for you,” I said. I meant that. She smiled, I could tell. She also swallowed to hold back tears. I realized her emotions were running high. It was, after all, her wedding day. “Do I need to bring anything?” I asked.

“Hmm,” she said. “I wonder if… Hold on, Sadie.”

“Okay,” I said, not able to tell clearly what was going through her mind. I couldn’t read things through the phone as well as I could in person. I didn’t realize how much I relied on context and other kinds of communication to supplement what I could read from people until I was on a phone and cut off from my other senses. With the phone pressed between my shoulder and my ear, I walked around my room making sure I had everything ready for the day. I slid into my favorite worn pair ofCitizen jeans, pulled on the low-backed strapless bra I needed for my bridesmaid dress, and layered a Tory Burch tunic over it. I slid into a worn pair of Rainbow flip-flops, and grabbed my giant Fendi Spy bag. I hoped, daily, that no one noticed that I learned to dress half from Vogue and half from the girls at Corrina’s school. I ran my fingers through my hair, dabbed pale lip gloss on my lips, and was ready to go by the time Corrina got back to the phone.

“Play along,” she breathed, almost too quietly for a normal person to hear.

“What?” I asked.

“Have you eaten breakfast yet, Sadie?” she asked, her voice louder and brighter now.

“Oh, I’m good…” I began, but Corrina cut me off.

“Oh, you haven’t? I’ve got some downtime here before we have to go to the salon. But we just ate here, so we can’t feed you. If you don’t mind picking me up, though, I can totally go with you to get something to eat,” Corrina said.

I finally understood and laughed. “Oh good, because I’m so starving and I couldn’t possibly find something to eat in this whole town by myself,” I said.

“You sure you don’t mind having to come out here to get me?” she said.

“Of course not, Corrina.” I was giggling. She had just clicked me onto speakerphone. “I don’t mind at all. I never get to see you, so I want some serious Rina/Sadie bonding time.” Corrina said, “Aww” and a few other female voices I didn’t recognize echoed.

“Now, Sadie, you listen here,” I heard Corrina’s mother’s voice. “Go find one of the boys staying at the hotel and tell them where y’all are going for breakfast. Tell them to make sure Felix does not go anywhere near there! He cannot see Corrina today, or we will call off the wedding, do you hear me?” Corrina sighed in the background, and I laughed.

“Will do,” I said. “Rina, I’ll be there in about ten minutes. I’m already dressed. I just need to find a boy.”

“Wonderful. Cole is in room 323. You could try that,” she said, pushing her agenda. I rolled my eyes. “Tell him to keep Felix away from Finney’s.”

“Got it. Thanks,” I said. “See you soon.”

Grabbing the hanging bag with my dress in it, my giant tote bag full of shoes and other things I might need at the wedding, I threw the Spy bag over my shoulder and hauled out the door. Cole’s room was one floor down, and I took the stairs so I could move more quickly. I didn’t know how long Corrina would last.

I found room 323 and took a deep breath before I rapped twice on the door. A few moments later, it flew open. A very nice-smelling, clean, and still dripping-wet Cole was standing in front of me with only a towel wrapped around his tanned waist. With all my social anxiety, I had seriously underestimated the shape he was in; his body was phenomenally fit. He was gorgeous. He looked as surprised to see me standing at his door as I must have looked to see him half naked.

“Well, hello,” he said, his voice pleasant, almost cocky.

“I have a message for you,” I said as soon as I regained my faculties. Just like the night before, I couldn’t get a read on him. It was so frustrating.

“Oh?” he said. With one hand holding his towel—what I hoped was firmly—in place, and the other on the open door, he still managed to relax his posture and lean against the doorframe. He was flirting! Reading ability or no reading ability, he was definitely flirting.

“Corrina and I are going to breakfast,” I said.

“I see your attempts to claim her for yourself will never cease,” he joked. “Will you stand up and object at the wedding, or will you draw the line at that?”

His joke brought me back to the night before. I smiled, suddenly lighthearted. “I suppose I will let Felix have her,” I said. “We’re going to a place called Finney’s,” I said. “You’re supposed to make sure that Felix goes nowhere near it so they don’t see each other. This is your job. I leave it in your capable hands,” I said.

“Wait just a minute, sweetheart,” he cooed. Sweetheart? “I thought Finney’s was a lunch place.”

“I’ve never heard of it. For all I know, it could be a karaoke bar, but it’s where Corrina told me to keep Felix from going. And, by default, it’s where Corrina’s mom told me to tell you to keep Felix from going. Now can I go get the bride?”

“I suppose,” he said. He shook his head a little to clear the hair from his eyes. Then he dragged one of his hands through his saturated sandy brown locks. It was an absent-minded mannerism I’d seen him do a couple of times already.

“All right then,” I said, turning to go.

“Wait,” he said, reaching out to my arm. I had already turned to walk away, so I couldn’t see but wondered earnestly whether it was the towel or the door he had let go of to catch me. I wasn’t sure which I was hoping for. “If you’re going to play bride’s-right-hand today, and you came to me to control where Fefe goes, thereby sort of making me groom’s-right-hand, have you just made it so that we can’t possibly see each other all day?” he asked. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I hadn’t thought of it any way.

“Perhaps. Or,” I said, throwing him a bone, “maybe I made each of us the point person for our respective teams. That way no one talks to the opposite team except through us. So I may just have made it so that we’re going to see each other all day, no matter how much we wish we could avoid each other,” I joked. I was smiling broadly now. I couldn’t help it. He had roped me in.

“Really?” he said. His voice actually cracked.

“Maybe,” I said, deciding not to commit. It was the safest way. (How the humans were rubbing off on me!) I realized then that he was still holding my arm. He realized it at the same moment I did and dropped his hand.

“Well, see you soon then,” he said.

“Not if I see you first,” I said as I had already made it several doors away from his. I didn’t have to turn around to know that he watched me walk away until I was out of sight.