The Bridesmaids Union

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  For Morty

  Chapter One

  Iris arrived at Amber and JonJon’s wedding venue, a genteel estate on the outskirts of Miami, an hour before her hair and makeup slot. She carried her seafoam bridesmaid dress and matching sandals, a box of tealights, and a fat envelope of programs, which she had individually tea-stained and bound with twine.

  In the rose garden, a perfumed breeze enhanced every view like a gauzy Instagram filter. Peach climbing roses twisted around the wrought iron wedding arch, presiding over twin flanks of gleaming white folding chairs. The terraced lawn stepped gracefully toward the bay, spangled in the afternoon sun. Such breathtaking beauty pricked Iris in a tender place, as it reminded her of her own wedding, scrapped six years earlier. She tried not to think about Forrest on Amber’s special day. Weddings were a kind of reunion for married couples, a pep rally for the rite and covenant of marriage, but they demanded a reckoning of single people, and it was impossible not to think back with regret.

  In the courtyard, girded with slender fluted columns, event staff arranged banquet rounds in staggered rows. Iris stepped into the cloister and deposited the tealights next to the tablecloths wrapped in butcher paper and the trays of dishes and glassware stacked in modernist towers. She glanced around. Where were the centerpieces?

  The event planner rushed toward her with panic in her eyes. “Iris, right? Maid of honor?”

  Iris nodded.

  “We have a problem. The florist went out of business—I just found out. We don’t have centerpieces.”

  Iris stared at her in disbelief. The wedding started in three hours. “You must know another florist—maybe they can give us some premade arrangements?”

  The event planner shook her head. “I called all my contacts—no one has that many flowers on hand.”

  A better event planner would have confirmed with all the vendors the week of the wedding, but this woman had come free with the venue. Anyway, there wasn’t time for assigning blame. There wasn’t time for a stray thought. Iris took a deep breath. She could handle this. “Have you told Amber?”

  “I didn’t want to disturb her unless it was absolutely necessary.”

  Iris looked around, thinking of centerpieces from past weddings. Not all of them had been floral. She’d seen candles floating in water and vases filled with lemons, stacks of books and explosions of ostrich feathers. None of those seemed right. Her gaze settled on the ocean, and she had an idea.

  She texted the other bridesmaids and tore off three black garbage bags from a roll. Amber and Iris’s mutual friend Sophia, who was getting married in September, appeared a minute later, and they picked their way down the rocky path to the beach. Into one bag they placed all the pretty stones they could find; into the second, unbroken shells. They filled the third with as much sand as they could carry. In the damp heat, the beached seaweed stank of dead fish. Iris was sodden with perspiration, and her hair reached maximum frizz.

  Iris, Sophia, and the event planner used serving spoons to scoop sand onto the middle of the tables, then planted stones, shells, and tealights into the piles. Iris had purchased the candles to edge the courtyard as night fell, but this was more important.

  The sand drifts could pass as centerpieces, and they didn’t smell, but they looked more haphazard than Iris had anticipated. At the craft store the day before, she had seen dried starfish in neon hues; without a second thought, she and Sophia jumped into their rental car and cleaned out the shelves in a Supermarket Sweep frenzy. In the giddy dash toward the register, Iris tossed in sheets of silver netting with a maritime vibe and another box of tealights for the courtyard walkways.

  The pop of color and texture elevated the sand into gorgeous, artistic centerpieces.

  “This is boss,” Sophia said. “Amber doesn’t know how lucky she is to have you.”

  “She would have done the same thing for me,” Iris said, flooded with relief and excitement. Amber was going to love them.

  * * *

  Once Iris was dressed, braided, and painted, she slipped into the bridal suite, where Amber perched on the edge of a rococo armchair, answering text messages as the makeup artist dabbed at her face. Her hair was done up like a chandelier, and her dress, a sheath of white silk lace, pooled at her feet. Four years living in Miami had darkened her skin and lightened her hair, and she looked radiant.

  “Hey friend,” Iris said, “how’s your last hour of singlehood treating you?”

  “My mom is giving me hell about the heat,” Amber said without looking up. “She literally said that if my grams dies of heatstroke, the blood will be on my hands. As if I could control the temperature. And I’m starving. Everyone tells you not to skip breakfast, but I was afraid the food baby would show in the dress.”

  Iris found a tray of pretzel sticks in her purse—motherhood had transformed her into a mobile snack bar. To keep crumbs off the wedding dress, she snapped the sticks in half before placing them in Amber’s mouth as if giving communion.

  “I need to tell you something,” Iris said. “Everything is fine, but there’s been a change of plans with the centerpieces.”

  “Could you blend that a bit more?” Amber asked the makeup artist. “It’s looking a little clowny.”

  “The florist no-showed,” Iris continued, “so Sophia and I improvised new centerpieces with a beachy theme. I think you’ll like them—I just didn’t want you to be surprised.”

  “Shit!” Amber said, staring at her phone. “My dad thinks he’s too good for the GPS, and now he’s halfway to Palm Fucking Beach.”

  Iris was taken aback. This was not the Amber she knew. Real Amber would have kept calm while defusing every crisis with breezy dispatch. Real Amber would have eaten breakfast.

  “Let me talk to him,” Iris said, reaching for Amber’s phone. “So it’s OK about the centerpieces? Sand, not flowers?”

  “Sure, whatever you think is best.” Amber stared into the mirror. “Still way too pink. It looks like a rash.”

  Iris needed to let this go. Amber clearly was too overwhelmed to think about centerpieces. Maybe, when she saw them, she would realize what a huge feat Iris and Sophia had pulled off.

  * * *

  On the flight home the next afternoon, Iris gazed out the window at the nubby carpet of clouds and the metallic sky. The wedding had been flawless, but—was it petty to dwell on this?—Amber hadn’t acknowledged the replacement centerpieces. Those sandy mounds were pure inspiration, and it stung that Iris’s whirlwind save had been ignored. Of course the wedding wasn’t about her. She just couldn’t help feeling erased.

  At the farewell brunch that morning, she had joked that she should start a career as a centerpiece designer. Amber laughed politely and turned away.

  Iris and Amber had been littermates, growing up on the same block in Tenafly, New Jersey. Amber had always been gracious and generous, considerate and composed. In high school, she went out of her way to ensure that no one felt left out, and she sent a thank-you note to Iris’s parents every time they had her over for dinner. But as her wedding approached, she became self-absorbed and demanding—and treated her bridesmaids like hired help. Iris wouldn’t have believed it possible for a person to change so radically if she hadn’t witnessed it more times than she could count. Weddings were a perfect storm of anxiety and scrutiny, and no bride was immune. Nor were the grooms, as Forrest had proven.

  Iris turned to Sophia, watching a Dance Moms marathon on the screen in the seat back. “Random question, but did Amber say anything to you about our centerpieces?”

  Sophia plucked out one earbud. “No. She didn’t thank you?”

  Iris shook her head.

  “You must be pissed. That wedding would have sucked without you.”

  “I’m disappointed,” Iris said. She didn’t get angry the way most people did, popping off at the slightest insult. There was too much anger in the world and not enough understanding. “I mean, I could see she was stressed.”

  “She did yell at me for changing out of those heinous sandals when a strap broke.”

  The sandals had been Amber’s gift to her bridesmaids. Iris wouldn’t have called them heinous, though they were too costumey to wear again. As a gift, they had been a little misguided, a little perfunctory, a little dismissive of the labor her bridesmaids had put into the wedding. “Wow, yeah, they didn’t seem very sturdy.”

  “Now I can’t sell them,” Sophia said.

  “You can sell mine.”

  “That’s really sweet of you.” Sophia sounded so genuine that Iris snorted her water and started hacking.

  But her joy was tinged with sadness. She’d formed close friendships when she was younger, b
ut being a single parent made it impossible to sustain them. The other pre-K moms were all smiles at drop-off and pickup, but they never stuck around to chat, and her coworkers were a definite no. Her life was her terrible job, her wonderful son, and her difficult parents. She hadn’t had a real conversation with either of her sisters in months.

  * * *

  Spike, Iris’s father, picked her up at Newark airport in his orange Corvette with her son in tow. As soon as she unlatched Mason from his car seat, he leaped into her arms and soaked up her kisses. In those perfect few seconds when they reunited, she felt the pain of their separation most sharply.

  “Mason,” Spike said in a singsong, “how much did you miss your mom?”

  Mason wiggled out from Iris’s embrace, stretched his arms wide, and shouted, “I missed you this much!”

  “That’s my man,” Spike said, ruffling Mason’s hair. It was sweet that they’d rehearsed a welcome.

  “Well, I missed you this much,” Iris said to Mason, extending her arms before wrapping them around him.

  As she strapped Mason back into the car seat, she noticed a tablet next to it. “What’s this?” she asked.

  Mason replied, “Grandpa gave me a iPad!”

  Spike was grinning. “Don’t worry, I only downloaded games you already vetted.”

  “Wow, what a generous gift!” she exclaimed, modeling enthusiasm for her son. “Did you say thank you so, so much?” Mason would love it, and it would make travels easier, but she wished her father would have run it by her first. It felt like a power play for her son’s loyalty.

  “Thank you, Grandpa Spike!” Mason screeched.

  “Inside Voice,” Iris said.

  “You’re most welcome, Master Mason,” Spike replied. “And you can use any voice you like with me. Real men shouldn’t be afraid to speak up.”

  “Rawrll!” Mason shouted.

  “That’s the spirit!”

  Iris tried to remain grateful that her father didn’t mind shouting and not become frustrated that he was undermining her rules.

  They headed north from the airport. “Your mother made lasagna,” Spike said.

  From experience, she heard his statement as an invitation. She wanted to spend more time with her parents, to repair the breach that the presidential election had caused—just not when she’d been craving a quiet night with Mason. She’d saved him a fat slice of wedding cake, their tradition when she went to weddings without him. “I hate to miss dinner, but I’m exhausted, and we have to get up early tomorrow.”

  “Mom made a vegetarian version just for you,” Spike said, not looking at her. She bristled at the guilt trip coming on.

  “Can we do it next weekend?”

  “I didn’t have to pick you up at the airport,” Spike said. “I didn’t have to buy Mason the iPad, either. A family isn’t a buffet. You can’t pick and choose the pieces that are convenient for you.”

  “OK, fine,” she said, massaging her temples. Inside every request lurked a demand. Inside every suggestion, a threat. She was practically thirty, and whenever she asked for the slightest autonomy, her parents treated her like an ingrate. Which was doubly painful, because she craved closeness with them in a way that her friends seemed to have outgrown. “Is Jasmine home?” Iris couldn’t decide whether she wanted the answer to be yes.

  “She’s out with her boyfriend tonight,” Spike said.

  “Boyfriend?” Surely their mother would have mentioned this development. Once the girls had graduated from college, Connie Hagarty saw her primary role as a cheerleader for marriage.

  “Nobody tells me anything,” Spike said, briefly taking his hands off the wheel to hold them up in surrender. “But apparently, Jazzy really likes this one. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got a buck or two.” This was a variation of his favorite maxim, “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.” He’d say it as a joke, and yet it wasn’t one, not exactly.

  “It’s been a while since we’ve spoken,” Iris admitted.

  “You should call her. She’s really taken life by the reins.”

  Iris looked out the window. She couldn’t imagine calling her sister.

  “You need to forgive her,” Spike said with a tender glance at Iris. “‘For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.’”

  “Maybe you should preach to her,” she said. “She hasn’t called me, either.”

  “Your friends will come and go, but you’ll always be sisters. Don’t spurn that gift.”

  * * *

  After a long but peaceable dinner at home, Spike dropped Iris and Mason off at her apartment in Yonkers, past Mason’s bedtime. She dragged her luggage inside, then went to fetch Meatball, her escape artist of a cat, who had darted into the hallway. Pickles, Meatball’s brother by another mother, sniffed the luggage. Her retired neighbor Marilyn had left a note on the dining table. We mist u soooo much, Mommy! she had written. Antee Maralinn sez we was good kitteez. She’d signed it with paw prints. Iris chuckled at Marilyn’s LOLcat spelling.

  She changed Mason into pajamas and tucked him into bed—it was too late to worry about brushing. His baby teeth were going to fall out anyway.

  “Mommy?” Mason asked, his eyelids drooping. “Is it cake time?”

  “It’s too late for cake tonight, but tell you what. You can have a little with breakfast. Deal?” It was a small disappointment, forgoing this tradition, but after devoting her entire weekend to others, it made her want to cry.

  “Deal,” he said, already cradled by a dream.

  Iris finished unpacking, poured a glass of box wine, and scrolled through Facebook on her phone. Amber had shared a photo of her and JonJon boarding the cruise ship for their honeymoon, their heads tilted together in connubial bliss. Iris didn’t understand how everyone but her had found love. What was she doing wrong? She no longer blamed herself for Forrest’s disappearance, but no one else had come along to take his place—and help raise his son. She needed to recommit to dating. Plenty of single moms found time for romance.

  Sophia had already sent an email with the subject line “FINAL STRETCH!” It was a list of bridesmaid assignments for her September wedding. Would Iris mind “heading up the gift sitch?”—in other words, soliciting giveaways from local businesses, ordering custom favors, and stuffing all two hundred bags. In Iris’s opinion, gift bags should be optional. No one went to a wedding for the swag. She had already volunteered to embellish the masquerade masks for the photo booth, and she wasn’t even maid of honor; Sophia’s sister was.

  Exhaustion pulled Iris deeper into the sofa. She’d been in at least one wedding per year since she was twenty-four, and who knew who might walk down the aisle after Sophia? The twenty thousand dollars she’d spent on bridesmaiding had piled up so much credit card debt, she couldn’t bear to think about it. As much as she loved weddings—the comforting formality, the beauty, the joy of the betrothed—being a bridesmaid was sucking her dry. Sure, she didn’t have to accept every invitation, but it never seemed OK to turn them down.

  She hit Reply and wrote, Absolutely! So excited for your big day.

  She needed to vent. It didn’t feel right to gossip about Amber and Sophia to any of their mutual friends, and she couldn’t imagine breaking her silence with Jasmine to complain. And their older sister Rose…! That was funny to consider.

  As she stared at her phone, a thought occurred to her. An online community of bridesmaids might understand the frustration of saving your best friend’s wedding without her acknowledging your work, of receiving gaudy sandals as a bridesmaid present, or of being asked to rustle up needless parting gifts. Iris googled “bridesmaid horror stories” and found an article recapping the most egregious situations from a subgroup on Reddit. According to one bridesmaid, the bride had demanded she lose ten pounds before the wedding. Another had handwritten all the table cards at the bride’s request, only to discover at the wedding that the perfectionist bride had hired a professional to redo them all. A third caught the groom kissing the bride’s mother. Reading these posts, Iris felt understood. She refilled her wineglass and navigated to the original Reddit page, created an anonymous account, and began to write.