Something Blue

With my chin pressed to my knees, I watched a single black hair on the center of my shin. It danced around in the canned breeze of the ceiling fan and stood out against the other blonde and white strands like black lead from a first-day-of-school pencil. My dad’s legs were covered in thick black hair, and soon mine will be too.

“Wynn, how do you still not have your dress on? We need to leave here in like thirty minutes! Your mom doesn’t pay me for us to be late!” Sabrina said in one breath as she burst into my room.

“It itches under my arms.” I replied as I untucked my chin from my knee, suddenly aware of how strange my fixation might have appeared.

“Beauty is pain, babe.” She grabbed the dress from the back of my closet door and pulled it from its sterile dry-cleaning bag. “You should be excited! There are very few times in your life you get to wear a gown. The next time you wear something this fancy, you’ll be going to Prom.” My mom bought me a white strapless bra from Target, and I tugged it up as Sabrina threw the light blue polyester over my head.

She zipped me in and squealed, “Wynn! You look like an absolute doll!” I saw my reflection in the mirror and wondered what kind of dolls she used to play with. The dress was an inch shorter than I remembered it being in the Macy’s fitting room, and the new length displayed my bony ankles. My hair, which Sabrina had filled with an entire bottle of hairspray not a half-hour ago, was already frizzing, and my arms looked extra lanky in the long dress.

“Are bras always this uncomfortable?” I asked as I adjusted the garment.

“Yes. Yes, they are. Now put your shoes on babe and let’s hit the road.” She sat down in front of my full-length mirror with her makeup bag in her lap. Sabrina is obsessed with being on time. My mom loves it about her, but I think it is her fatal flaw. We showed up an hour early to my field hockey game once, and by the time the rest of the team got there, I already had a sunburn. I kicked the chiffon hem of my dress with the toe of my flat.

“You look beautiful,” Sabrina said, waving her mascara wand through the air for extra emphasis. “Your mom is going to adore that color on you.”

Sabrina is so good at being a girl. Her hair is always neat, and today it spiraled down her back in swirling cascades of strawberry blonde. She has a pink pop socket and a Vera Brady lunch box and a boyfriend named Dillion, who one time brought us Five Guys milkshakes when she babysat me on a Friday night.

“Why are you putting on makeup?” I asked, “you don’t even know my uncle.”

“Okay, punk! Your mom invited me to come to this wedding, so I’m going to look cute! Do you want some lip-gloss?” She held a small pink tube over her head. I took it and smiled at her reflection.

***

The wedding was at an Inn on the edge of a state forest near my house. I recognized the surrounding woods as soon as Sabrina pulled her Honda Civic onto the gravel. When my dad was in his happy times, he would come into my room on Sunday mornings when it was still dark and wake me up with the promise of a bike ride by the river. We slipped silently out of the house before mom could make us go to church with her. During our rides, he would pull over to the side of the path, duck by a small bush or flower, and cup the leaves in his hands. He would recite the Latin name and hand me a leaf to bite on if it were edible. They all tasted the same to me, like dirt and outside air.

Sabrina and I waded through the crowd of people waiting for the ceremony to begin until we found my mom.

“Wynn, you look beautiful” she said, before turning to show me off to her friends. Words like, “gorgeous and grown up” flowed over my head as I marveled at my mom.  I usually only see her in work clothes or sweatpants, but today she wore a long emerald green dress that criss crossed in the back. Her curly hair was freshly dyed at the roots and her bangs were strategically hairsprayed to cover the rivers of winkles that spring out from the corners of her eyes.  

A man with a goatee and guitar played soft music. Guests filed into rows of white foldout chairs. An arbor dripping with pink flowers stood over a small deck at the end of the aisle. That’s where they’re going to kiss. I saw photographer’s butt crack stuck out of the top of his dress pants as he bent to capture my uncle and his friends stationed in a sideways line in front of the audience. The dark blue suits pressed against their bellies. Their uniforms reminded me of the boys at school. Women in matching dresses came down the aisle trying not to swat gnats away from their faces and guests raised their phones at Aunt Lynn. She had pinned her hair back with jewels, and her eyes glittered with tears that fell down her cheeks into her bouquet. Leaves stuck to the train of her dress. She was an impossible pillar of white light in the forest as she walked up to the arch and held hands with my uncle.

They started making promises to each other, and without meaning to, I pictured my parents in their place: standing close together, looking each other in the eyes. The thought of it made my chest feel hallow. The pastor reminded me of church. I wanted to run into the woods and eat the leaves off the side off the bike path, but I wouldn’t. I knew Sabrina would drag me back by my hand, and my mom would cry.

Aunt Lynn and Uncle John promised to stay together until they died, and I believed them. They won’t get divorced. Aunt Lynn doesn’t have a yelling voice. Uncle John does, and that’s probably why he had to get married again. When the priest said, “You may now kiss the bride,” a phrase I had only heard in movies and play pretend before this moment, they kissed in front of everyone. I flinched and had to look away. Why would you kiss someone you aren’t related to with everyone watching? It seems so embarrassing. My eyes found my mother, who was crying a little bit too hard. Her chest silently shook as she looked from the couple to her feet. A year ago, seeing her cry like this would have made me worry. A year ago, I would have tried to hug her or softly pat her hair to calm her down. But things have changed. The tears usually start over small things. The other day she cried when the lawnmower broke.  

The rest of the night was largely defined by endless Sherly temples and dancing that made me painfully aware of how awkward my legs could be. When “Single Ladies” started playing, the DJ spoke over the opening measures in a booming voice, “Oh-kayy! Let’s get all the single ladies to the dance floor! It’s time for the bouquet toss!” Sabrina and a gaggle of other girls rushed dance floor and formed a group behind Aunt Lynn. They jumped and laughed as Aunt Lynn paraded around with the small bouquet. She threw her head back and mouthed the song’s lyrics into the roses as she mimicked the dance in the music video, popping her knees out one at a time. When Beyoncé sang “now put your hands up!” she turned her back to the girls, bent her knees, and launched the bouquet straight over her head, into the crowd. It flew through colored strobe lights into a sea of jumping bodies and grabbing hands.

***

“Why was everyone fighting over it?” Sabrina and I were the only ones sitting by the bonfire set up in the clearing behind the Inn. The cool wind rustled the leaves above us and made me regret refusing to bring a sweater like Sabrina had suggested.

“It’s a good luck charm.” She stuck her nose into the bunch of flowers. “Someday, I’ll get married.”

“Does that make you lucky?” I asked.

She turned her head and gazed into the flames. “I guess so.” The fire popped and spat up sparks. Sabrina treats me like we’re best friends or sisters. Every afternoon when she picks me up from school, she asks me about my day, my crushes, and what the girls in my class thought of my new sneakers or scrunchy. Sabrina and I talk about everything, but we don’t talk about my dad. I don’t know if my mom asked her not to bring it up or if she used her perfect girl instincts to know it’s a sensitive topic. She never got to meet him. He left, and mom hired Sabrina after a month full of denial and take-out food. “What do you want your wedding to be like?” She asked.

“I don’t want to get married,” I replied.

Sabrina’s hypnotized expression broke away from the flames. “Really? Why not?”

“Well, if you get married, you have to have a baby, and that would really hurt. I also don’t want doctors looking at my private parts. That’s where babies come from. Out of your vagina.” Sabrina nodded. “Also, the person you marry could leave. Then, you would be all alone again.”

Sabrina returned her gaze to the fire. The blonde strands of hair that framed her face turned vibrant red in the glow of the embers. She took the bouquet from her lap. “Well, what do you think we should do with this thing then?”

I took the flowers with both hands and held them at my waist like Aunt Lynn did. I was surprised that the stems stuck out of the bottom. I imagined the bunch would have a plastic handle like a pompom or a claw foot like a fancy bathtub. A glass top pin and a pink ribbon were the only things holding the flowers together. I pressed the tip of my finger into a rose to make sure they weren’t fake like the ones at the dentist’s office. It crumbled into my palm.

I got up to stand next to the fire. The music from the dancefloor was soft and far away as I raised the bouquet to the center of my chest. I imagined stepping into the flames and drowning in cracking sounds of burning wood.

I picked a petal off one of the flowers and dropped it into the embers. It fluttered down and welcomed soft blue flames before shriveling up. I repeated the movement a few more times but, at some point, I got impatient and started to grab bunches of the blooms in my fists and push them into the fire. I ripped a head off a rose and watched it catch around the edges, and burn towards the middle, till the heat left only a crumpled pile of ash. Sabrina sat silently but I could feel her watching me. My eyes welled with tears and blurred my vision. When every flower was gone, and there was nothing more to throw, I laid the handle down in the flames and watched the plastic ribbon shrink into gross lines of melted gray. It looked so ugly.

“I don’t want to get married,” I repeated, not to Sabrina and not to the flowers, just into the night air.