The Ceremony started at five. He arrived early and tucked
himself into the back row. Folding chairs faced a pavilion and a quartet played
Air on G off to one side. He busied himself with the program thinking that if
anyone told him this vineyard had existed a few miles out of town he would have
though they were joking. Doesn’t wine come from California or France or
something? The wine was probably terrible, but the views were unfailingly
pleasant. This was certainly someone’s version of ideal, but he’d rather not
have to talk to that person for too long. He wondered if he could still leave,
if anyone would notice, if there weren’t already people wondering why he had
come at all. He stayed out of stubbornness.
Everyone knows you’re not supposed to go the wedding of your
ex-fiancé. He’d only got the invitation out of pity. And he’d hung it up on the
refrigerator as a joke. All his friends thought it was pretty good, but he
wasn’t so sure. He’d drunkenly crossed out Brian’s name, and before he could
stop himself, wrote in his own. He stared at it for a moment and then crossed
out his name and wrote Giraffe.
It was Melinda who insisted he go, not out of therapeutic
value, or trying to be the better person, but just as a middle finger to Brian.
Brian, the one who took his place. Brian, the usurper. The night before the
wedding, Melinda said she would come along. She said she would dress slutty and
they could make out loudly in the back the moment they said, I do. She said
they would get all the cousins drunk and complain about the food and cut the
cake before the bride and groom. Anything for a friend and an open bar.
He showed up at her apartment in her father’s suit. Melinda
certainly wasn’t dressed slutty, which was fine, but she didn’t seem ready to
go at all. When she told him she was just joking last night, he did a bad job
of not looking crushed. He said he was joking too, and walked back to his car,
which took him to the winery.
Veronica looked beautiful in her dress. She always seemed so
girly to him, but even walking down the aisle with her father she looked grown
up. Brian looked like Brian, but in a suit. He had a goober grin on his face,
but there was no way to tell what he was really thinking. Brian seemed more
like an enigma than ever. Yes, they went to college together and had been
roommates for half of it and had spent lots of late night just drinking and
talking. Brian was the one who encouraged him to ask Melinda out. But now,
standing up there his face seemed like a happy blank.
