Attachments(30)
Author: Rainbow Rowell

<<Beth to Jennifer>> If you’re determined to see what happened as some sort of universal justice, consider that the lesson here might not be to retreat into cynicism, even if that’s where you feel most comfortable. Maybe the lesson is, rise up.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Well, that seems a bit harsh.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I thought you wanted me to be honest.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> If that’s how you are when you’re honest, I think I’d rather you stick to the usual sentiments, stuff I can file under “Encouragement,” “Cope,” or “Sorry something died inside of you.” I don’t really need “Snap out of it.”

<<Beth to Jennifer>> That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> How is that not what you meant? That’s what you said.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Then I shouldn’t have said it.

CHAPTER 76

From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

To: Beth Fremont

Sent: Wed, 02/16/2000 3:15 PM

Subject: Anyway …

How was the wedding?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Does this mean you’ve forgiven me for being insensitive?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> To be perfectly honest, no. I might not completely forgive you until one of us is on her deathbed. (I can’t help it, I’m fond of a grudge.) But until I make another friend, I can’t afford to be angry with you.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I really am sorry. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me about what happened.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Please. Who else am I going to talk to? Tell me about the wedding.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> All right. But I warn you, it’s a pretty long story. It might take me longer to tell you about the wedding than it did to actually attend the wedding, Catholic Mass included. Give me a few weeks to type it out.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’ll give you a few hours. I suppose I can find something to edit while I’m waiting.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Are you sure we’re cool? Because I can apologize some more. I give great penance.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Just tell me about the wedding.

CHAPTER 77

From: Beth Fremont

To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

Sent: Wed, 02/16/2000 4:33 PM

Subject: To have and to hold.

All right, I actually typed this out in a News document and saved it on the system so that I wouldn’t lose it and have to start over. Make sure it doesn’t get filed for the bulldog edition, okay?

Now, you’re sure you’re ready for this? It’s a really long story.

And you’re sure you aren’t still mad at me? Do you want to talk more about the baby? Because the wedding will hold. (It’s not exactly breaking news at this point.)

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Yes, I’m ready, and no, I’m not mad. Now, out with it!

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Okay, well, here goes …

The wedding itself was perfectly lovely.

As expected, I looked fairly monstrous in my bridesmaid dress. But I seemed to be the only one who noticed, and even I was sick of hearing me complain about it, so I put on my brave face. Which turned out to be far more attractive than the faces most of the other bridesmaids put on. They all wanted “smoky eyes”—“you know, like Helen Hunt at the Oscars.” I’m pretty sure that my sister Gwen and I are the only ones who won’t look like domestic abuse victims in the wedding pictures.

The ceremony had its moving moments, but it was so god-awfully long—a full Mass, like I said— that it was hard for me to concentrate on anything but trying not to lock my knees so that I wouldn’t pass out. (That happened at my cousin’s wedding. One of the groomsmen fell into a chair and cut his ear. He bled all over his rental tux.) I thought that if I fainted into the tiny little Tri-Delt behind me, I might crush her.

Chris was a total trouper. He sat with my parents during the ceremony, and afterward, he met every single member of my extended family. He was so charming, I started calling him Stepford Chris.

And when it was time to take the big family picture with all of the spouses and grandkids, Kiley insisted that Chris be included. She didn’t even give him a chance to protest. “You’ve been around longer than any of these husbands,” she said.

Dinner was delicious—the old Italian ladies from my parents’ church made baked mostaccioli and Italian sausage with red peppers. My sister was so afraid of staining her dress that she wouldn’t eat anything but garlic bread. (Did I eat her pasta? Why, yes, I did.)

Kiley and Brian were adorable dancing to Louis Armstrong. She looked gorgeous. I had to dance with one of the Sigma Chis during the wedding party dance—the theme from Titanic—and he was totally looking down my dress, which was mostly gross, but a little bit flattering. Apparently, I’ve still got it.

As soon as my official duties as bridesmaid were done, I put on my cardigan and felt a million times better. I was in a fantastic mood, actually, relieved that the hard parts were over and truly excited to spend the rest of the evening with Chris. I felt as madly in love with him as I’d ever been.

First of all, he looked dangerously handsome. He was wearing the charcoal jacket that I bought him with a floppy, blue satin bow tie-ish thing he’d found somewhere. It made him look like he should be writing French poetry. (Expressly to seduce virgins.) My mom asked him if he was wearing a scarf.

And second, I knew that he was being so engaging only because he loved me. As a favor to me. I felt like his good behavior was overwhelming proof that he cared. I shouldn’t need proof, but proof can be very reassuring.

During dinner, Chris went outside to smoke and get away from my family, and when I found him outside the back door, he acted as happy to see me as I was to see him. “Are you mine now?” he asked.

He told me I looked beautiful. He kissed me. He told me to take off the cardigan. “Let’s go home,” he said.

I told him that I couldn’t go, that I’d promised my sister that I would dance. She didn’t want one of those receptions where only toddlers dance, so all the bridesmaids swore to stay on the floor at least until the Chicken Dance.

“Then I guess we’ll dance,” he said, and he took one last drag of his cigarette. He has this way of tilting his head down and looking up at me as he inhales; I get why 12-year-olds think it’s cool to smoke.

So we went back into the reception and danced to every song. Sort of danced. It was mostly holding each other and swaying and Eskimo kissing.

Remember when I was obsessed with that little Lithuanian restaurant downtown? And it was only ever open when the grumpy old woman who ran it felt like opening? I’d stop by every day for a week with no luck. And then, when I’d pretty much given up on ever tasting Napoleonas torte again, I’d drive by and see the open sign in the window.

Well, being with Chris is like trying to date that restaurant. I never know when he’s going to be there and how open he’ll be to me. Almost never is he all there, all in. Almost never do I get the Chris that I got the night of Kiley’s wedding—open sign, cold cucumber soup, rouladen, poppy seed kolaches.

I found myself thinking that this is how I would want to dance at my own wedding. (Minus all the Dixie Chicks and Alan Jackson songs.) The kind of dancing that’s more like touching to music. That’s more like closing your eyes and trying to think how you would tell someone that you loved him if you didn’t have words or sex.

Chris had one arm around my waist, and he was winding his fingers in my hair. He kissed my forehead, smiling. He looked at me, straight into me, and I felt like I was in love with the sun.

And then—it will be impossible for you not to laugh at me now—the deejay played the song “Rocky Mountain High.”

I f**king love “Rocky Mountain High.” I don’t much care for eagles or lakes or Colorado. But “Rocky Mountain High” is what euphoria sounds like. When you hear John Denver sing, “He was born in the summer of his 27th year …” how can you not feel your heart open to the cosmos?

So “Rocky Mountain High” came on, and I started kissing Chris like I couldn’t wait to get to the chorus, all adoration and vulnerability and “I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky.” And Chris kissed me right back. And when he pulled away—about the time that the songwriter is admitting to a life that’s full of wonder, but a heart that still knows fear—Chris said, “Beth, I love you. I love you more than I ever meant to. More than I ever say.”

And I started to tell him that I loved him, too, but he stopped me, kissed me and said, “Wait, I’m not done. This is important.”

Will you think I’m foolish if I tell you that I thought he might be getting ready to propose? I wasn’t sure of it. I probably would have bet against it. But if he were ever going to propose to me, there could never have been a more likely—a more perfect—moment.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I love you so much that I can’t stand it. Sometimes, I just don’t have the energy for it, to have something this big coming out of me. And I can’t stop it or turn it down.

Sometimes, I get tired just knowing that I’m going to see you.”

I wasn’t ready to let go of my reverie. I was thinking, “Good tired, right?”

“I’ll always love you,” he said, “but I need you to know that I am never going to marry you.”

I must have looked like I wasn’t getting it because he repeated himself. Emphatically. “Beth. I am never going to marry you.” He was still looking at me with soft, loving eyes. If you were watching us from a few feet away, and you saw his face, you might think that he did just propose to me.

What I found myself thinking, at least immediately, was that there was a certain violence to putting it the way he did. That he wasn’t going to marry me. Couldn’t he have said that we were never going to get married? Couldn’t he have implied that it would be a shared decision? Wouldn’t that have been a bit more polite?

And then he tried to kiss me, to continue our kiss actually, with all the love and passion and John Denver that we were sharing before his pronouncement. But I felt like there was more to talk about. So I pulled back and said, “Do you mean that you’ll never get married? Or that you’ll never marry me?”

He thought about it. “Both,” he said, stroking my hair, “but mostly the latter.”

“Mostly that you won’t marry me.”

He nodded. “But not because I don’t love you. I do love you. I love you too much. You’re too much.”

I pushed away from him then, and started to walk in a weird circle around the dance floor. I kind of wandered through the dancers and eventually out the front door. I walked around the parking lot for a minute before I realized that I didn’t know where Chris had parked and that he still had my keys. (If I were the sort of person for whom falling in love meant eventually getting married, I would let my bridesmaids wear dresses with pockets.) I looked back and there he was, standing in the VFW doorway. “Don’t do this,” he shouted.

“I’m not doing this,” I said. “You are.” And then I decided I would be damned to hell if I took one step toward him. So I told him to throw me my keys. He wouldn’t, he said he was going to drive me home. And I was like, “Don’t come near me. Throw me my keys.”

“I knew you wouldn’t get this,” he said. “I knew you’d take it wrong.”

How was I supposed to take it?

He said I was supposed to see the truth. “That I love you enough to be honest with you.”

“But not enough to marry me,” I said.

“Too much to marry you.”

Even in the state I was in, I managed to roll my eyes at that.

“I wasn’t built for this,” he yelled. “Look at me. You know it’s true.” And for the first time, maybe ever, he didn’t sound cool. He sounded a little panicked. And a little angry. “I don’t want to love someone so much that they take up all my head, all my space. If I knew I was going to feel this way about you, I would have left a long time ago, while I still could.”

I kept yelling at him to throw me my keys. I think I called him “a great horrible bastard.” Like I was swearing in a second language. He threw me the keys, and they hit the car behind me like a baseball.

“Don’t come home,” I said. “I don’t want to see you.”

“I have to come home,” he said. “I need my guitar.”

Have you ever seen The Goodbye Girl? Don’t watch it if you still want to enjoy romantic comedies.

It makes every movie ever made starring Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock lash itself in shame. Also, don’t watch The Goodbye Girl if it would trouble you to find Richard Dreyfuss wildly attractive for the rest of your life, even when you see him in What About Bob? or Mr. Holland’s Opus.

I n The Goodbye Girl, at the very wonderful end, this character (Marsha Mason, looking like a bruised pixie) who has given up on true love after being abandoned by a string of loser actors, realizes that the Richard Dreyfuss character really is going to come back to her like he promised he would because he left his guitar in their apartment. That’s how she knows that he really, truly loves her.

When Chris brought up his guitar, that’s when I knew he really, truly didn’t love me. That’s when I lived that Marsha Mason scene in reverse.

I got in my car and drove until I thought he couldn’t catch up with me on foot, even though I didn’t really expect him to try. Then I pulled into an Arby’s parking lot and attempted to cry, but I was still too dumbfounded. I was still stuck in that split second after you get punched in the gut, when you don’t have enough breath to say, “Holy crap, that hurt.” I felt tired, overwhelmingly tired, and like I couldn’t go home; I was pretty sure Chris would be there. And everyone who would let me spend the night was still at the wedding. So, I checked into the Holiday Inn across from the Arby’s and watched free HBO until I fell asleep.