Keep Calm and Carry a Big Drink (2 page)

But that realization didn’t happen for a few hours, and first I have to go back a week.…

T
WO

Okay, kids, put away your books, eyes on your own paper, and number two pencils only.

My fingers fly over the keyboard of my notebook computer while I recline on Nic’s guest bed on this quiet Saturday morning. I am mid-rant:

What is a cake pull?

(A) A traditional bridal shower party game originating in Victorian England, now inflicted … Did I say
inflicted?
I’m so sorry. I meant
celebrated!
As in “We’re
celebrating
that yet another friend is getting married before me. We’re
celebrating
that a woman has taken yet another eligible bachelor out of the rotation. We’re
celebrating
that retail establishments have managed to trick a bunch of hopelessly romantic, unmarried women into wasting hundreds of dollars on yet another ceremony designed to lead us to the open bar and into some man’s hideously inappropriate arms for the evening.”

I hit send and then begin to type (B).

My friend Jeff IMs me back, interrupting my rant:

As long as the hideously inappropriate arms are not attached to the groom’s father, I think that could be fun.

He’s such a guy. I can type a hundred words before I even start to make my point, and he can counter me in one sentence.

I continue to type my point anyway:

(B) A bridal shower game that, with the clever use of sterling silver charms that are supposed to serve as little fortune-tellers, can manage to make any woman question any and all of her choices in life, be it in romance, career path, or whether she should have Thai food for dinner.

Jeff IMs:

Honey, all I asked was “What is a cake pull?” Please stop typing a thesis paper on the subject.

I hit send, then keep writing:

(C) A bridal shower game

But before I can finish typing, Jeff writes back:

If you’re going to bitch for this long, can’t you at least pick up the phone?

I immediately type back
—

No.

I hit send, then begin typing an explanation:

I spent the night at Nic’s house getting Seema’s bridal shower ready. I don’t want to wake anybody.

But before I can hit send, my Skype rings. I click the green button on the first ring to see a video pop up of a gorgeous dark-haired gentleman standing in the middle of an empty tropical bar. He is a thing of beauty—slightly tanned, glowing skin, pecs to make a girl swoon, beautiful white (but not too white) smile. Needless to say, such a vision inspires great passion in me. “I told you not to call!”

“Yeah, well, you told me that before our first date,” Jeff (aka the gorgeous gentleman) tells me. “But look at how well that turned out.”

He’s being sarcastic. We broke up more than twelve years ago.

“Besides, I’m not calling. I’m skyping,” Jeff argues. He lifts a beer pint into view and takes a healthy gulp. “And you need to calm down before you give yourself a stroke.”

“Sorry. I’m in a mood,” I admit, grabbing a shower favor wrapped in white mesh and tying a red ribbon around it.

Jeff leans into his screen to get a better look at what I’m doing. “I’m seeing white tulle, red ribbons, and…” He looks farther into his computer’s camera to decipher what I’m wrapping. “What is that? An elephant?”

“It’s a tealight holder,” I tell him as I finish tying a perfect bow and toss it into a pile of favors on the other side of the guest bed.

“It looks like an elephant.”

“It’s an elephant-shaped tealight holder.”

Jeff shakes his head. “I stand corrected. The point is, I’m not seeing a cocktail glass.”

My eyes widen. “It’s seven o’clock in the morning here.”

He narrows his eyes and shakes his head slowly to show a lack of comprehension. “And your point is…?”

I can’t help but laugh. Jeff has many great features: good-looking, loving, smart. But mostly, he cracks me up. “God, I miss you. Promise me you’re still going to be my date for the wedding.”

“I’m shutting down the bar for four days just to come to LA. Be very flattered.”

“I am.”

“Good, because my boss was pissed.”

I roll my eyes at his lame joke. “You
are
the boss.”

“I know, which means I know how lazy I can be.” Jeff takes another drink of his beer. “And I totally didn’t buy my excuse that I was going to my great-aunt’s funeral.”

There’s an urgent knock on my bedroom door. “Mel,” Nic whispers, “I hear voices. Are you up?”

“Hold on,” I say to Jeff, then I yell through the door, “Nic, it’s seven o’clock in the morning. Shouldn’t you be resting in your condition?”

Nic bursts into my room, her swollen belly coming in a good two seconds before the rest of her. “Please. I’m almost eight months pregnant. I get up every twenty minutes to pee. I’m rethinking a few of the shower games. What do you think of the needle-and-thread game?”

“The what?”

Nic lifts up a glossy bridal magazine to read to me. “Tell the bride to leave the room. Ask a guest to hold a needle, then have the bride come in and try to thread the needle. Make sure the guest slightly moves the needle so the bride can’t thread it.”

“What could be more fun than that?” Jeff says dryly. He downs the remainder of his pint. “And speaking of thread, my drink is empty.”

Nic walks around me to view my computer screen. Her eyes and mouth burst open. “Jeff! OMG!”

Jeff’s eyes widen too, and he imitates her sorority-girl voice exactly as he says, “Nic! WTF?”

Nic laughs. “I’m sorry. I have kids now. I meant, ‘Oh my God!’” Her voice goes up two octaves. “You look fan-fucking-tastic! Superhandsome as always. I hate you!”

“And you’re so tiny,” he lies. “Be honest, is there really a baby coming? Because I want a DNA test.”

“I …
love
you!” Nic exclaims. “Now, what do you guys think of the game?” Nic begins reading from her magazine again. “Tell your guests that the conversation the bride is having with her friend while threading the needle is the same conversation Seema and Scott will have on their wedding night. You know, ‘I can’t get it in. Quit moving.’”

“‘Why can’t you just throw away the sock that has a hole in it, you cheap bastard,’” Jeff continues.

We both look at him on my screen. “Just me, then?” he says, drawing himself another beer from a tap behind his bar.

Nic turns to me. “What do you think?”

I think,
Ick!—
but I’m not going to say that out loud and hurt her feelings. “Well, it’s not as bad as the guess-the-baby-poop game,” I say weakly.

Nic looks up from her magazine. “Word.”

Jeff actually spit-takes his beer, then begs, “Please be kidding.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Nic states.

“Honey, it couldn’t
possibly
be as bad as it sounds,” Jeff retorts.

“You microwave different kinds of chocolate bars into diapers, and your guests are supposed to look inside the diaper and guess the candy,” I tell him.

Jeff looks as if he might hurl. “So Nic’s the one who’s pregnant, but I may be the one to throw up. That’s probably the most disgusting party game I’ve ever heard of. And I’m a gay man.”

“Which is why no one did it at my baby shower,” Nic assures him. “Jeff, do you have any suggestions?”

“Skip the party games, get a male stripper and a lot of booze, and call it a day.”

“Personally, I would love that,” Nic tells him. “But, unfortunately, it doesn’t fit in with the theme of Seema’s wedding.”

“Which is?”

Nic and I repeat the mantra in unison, “Don’t piss anyone off.”

Lately, there seems to be a trend going on in themed weddings. The Monopoly wedding, the Enchanted Forest wedding; I’ve even seen a Star Wars wedding (and all I can say to that is, wow, the bride must really have wanted to close the deal with that guy!).

The official theme for Scott and Seema’s wedding is, and I quote, “Let’s try not to piss anyone off too badly.” I suspect other couples, particularly those where the fiancés are from different cultures or observe different religious traditions, have been in their position.

Scott comes from a nonpracticing Protestant family. You know, they celebrate Christmas, but not so much that they trek out to midnight mass in Connecticut in the middle of a snowstorm in December. Their Easter has to do more with a candy-bearing lagomorph than an everlasting deity. The only wings associated with Sundays are chicken and made to be eaten while watching football. We all know the type. Personally, I am the type.

Naturally, Scott’s mother insisted on a full-blown Christian wedding, complete with a minister, a white dress, and a sermon.

Seema is a third-generation American of Indian descent who was raised Hindu, and in her family’s case that just means that she has a few Ganesha and tealights in her kitchen for a small shrine, and that she celebrates holidays such as Diwali (Indian New Year). But I don’t remember her ever going to temple. Plus she gets to eat meat. (Her dad is Punjabi, and they eat meat.) She grew up in Arizona, puts up a Christmas tree every year, and has attended more than her share of Easters, Passovers, and Hanukkahs.

Since both of Seema’s parents were born and raised in the States, and since they don’t go to temple either, naturally Seema is having a full-blown Indian wedding that’s going to include a henna ceremony, a one-hour ceremony in Sanskrit, several bridal dresses that were made in India, a mandap (the wedding canopy), and a white horse.

This has been fine with me, as I actually get to wear a cool maid-of-honor dress, as opposed to some of the hideous bridesmaid’s frocks I’ve been forced to wear in the past. I mean, what is it with brides and colors like Spam Pink or Sea World Aqua, not to mention the fixation on satin or tulle? Who was the first bride who passive-aggressively hated her maid of honor so much that she decided to wrap her in an explosion of taffeta?

My outfit is a beautiful blue silk, hand-beaded choli (which is a midriff-baring top), and matching lehenga (a free-flowing skirt) that she had made for me in Mumbai. Nic gets to wear a gold silk choli and lehenga with gold embroidery and beading and looks like motherhood personified with her eight-month-pregnant belly ever-so-slightly peeking out of the ensemble.

Their wedding has gone from a small affair for close friends and family to a three-day celebration featuring two different ceremonies—an Indian one during the daytime on Saturday, followed by a Christian one Saturday evening, a rehearsal dinner/henna ceremony the Friday before, and a brunch on Sunday at which they will serve everything from eggs Benedict, bacon, and sausage to Pongal, vada, dosa, aloo sabzi, and nan.

For the most part, people are getting along pretty well, and the wedding is going to be exquisite. I’ve never seen two people so happy while planning their wedding and I’m sure it will go off without a hitch.

But their theme still means that we have to be extrasensitive about Seema’s bridal shower.

“Unfortunately, Seema’s Aunt Hema is coming, so we have to be G-rated,” Nic explains to Jeff.

“And yet thread-the-needle seems like a good idea,” Jeff reminds her.

“The shower’s in less than six hours, and I’m clutching at straws,” Nic admits defensively. “Other than the cake pull, Mel has nixed all of my other ideas.”

“I never agreed to the cake pull,” I remind Nic. “Not after what happened last time.”

Nic waves me off. “Right. Like you’ve ever said no to something that involves cake.”

Her statement sounds insulting, but since it’s spot-on, I’m gonna let it go.

“Nic, can you explain the cake pull to me in a hundred words or less?” Jeff asks.

“It’s a bridal-shower game with silver charms buried inside the frosting of a two-layer cake and pulled out by a ribbon. Each guest pulls one ribbon from the cake, and the charm that is attached to that ribbon is supposed to determine the guest’s future. So, for example, the girl who pulls the engagement-ring charm from the cake would be the next to get engaged, the girl who pulls the baby carriage will be the next to get pregnant, etc.”

“Is there a charm to get Mel to come visit me in Hawaii?” Jeff asks.

“The passport,” Nic answers. “But she’s already asked for the antique phone, which means good news is coming her way.”

“Hmm,” I say, thinking aloud. “Maybe I would like the passport. My last day of school was Friday, and I have tons of time to kill. Maybe I should go abroad this summer. I’ve always wanted to see Paris.”

“Or Hawaii,” Jeff suggests.

“Hawaii doesn’t need a passport,” I tell him.

“And Paris doesn’t have a free guest room for you to stay in for as long as you want.”

Jeff makes a fine point. Those student loans are not going to pay themselves down, and a free place to stay would keep expenses more reasonable. But mostly, it would be wonderful to see Jeff. Since he completely reinvented his life and moved to Maui two and a half years ago, there’s been a hole in my heart I haven’t quite been able to fill.

“Oh, my date’s here!” Jeff says cheerfully, hopping off his bar seat. “Gotta go!”

“Isn’t it four in the morning where you are?” Nic asks.

“I’m a guy. We live to start dates at four in the morning. Love you both. Bye!” And he flickers off.

Speaking of flickering, I have a flickering of jealousy pass through me. Not because he’s my ex-boyfriend, but because I can’t even remember the last time I liked a guy enough to see him at four in the morning. Or even at 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night.

“What do you think about toilet-paper bride?” Nic asks.

I turn to look at her. “I don’t think it would be one of your best looks.”

T
HREE

At noon, I’m all dressed up in my favorite purple Suzi Chin dress (which expertly hides my recent increase in girth) and some modest beige pumps. I sit at Nic’s nicely appointed granite kitchen island, stabbing large cooked shrimp with multicolored cellophane-tipped toothpicks and placing them on a decorative serving tray while Nic places a pile of bingo cards next to me.