Often, I’ve wished this were a movie. Because if it were, in this next scene, Meryl would explain that her tears—which were growing louder and more unstoppable—were tears of confusion. That she was having real doubts about today. Did she really want to get married today, did she even remember the reasons she had chosen Josh, did she not love someone else, a little bit more too? And I would get to listen to her. I would get to listen while she explained she wanted things he didn’t, things that he never really wanted to give her or share with her: a high-profile career, a permanent life in Los Angeles, the chance to travel around the world. Then she would hug me, and decide it was all okay. That it was better to know this now than ten years from now. And she’d wait for Josh to get here and they’d call the whole thing off and lock themselves in this fake bridal suite and have one last drink of fancy champagne before wishing each other well.
But this wasn’t a movie. It was someone’s life, and this woman whom I loved and who had watched me grow up and whom I’d been withholding from for the last seventy-two hours because I’d picked my brother over her—she was crying because she loved my brother, more than ever maybe, and because she knew that there was something very, very wrong between them.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The last thing I would want to do is put you in the middle of this. You know I wouldn’t want to do that, right? You know I would never want that?”
We were sitting on the sofa now in living room 1, or really, I was sitting by her feet. Meryl was lying down in an attempt to force the tears upward—toward her forehead—not down her cheeks, where they were quickly creating makeup track marks down the sides of her face.
“Maybe the two of you just need to talk. If any two people should be talking here, it should be you two. Let me call him.”
“No.” She shook her head, tears spreading outward. “I don’t want to hear anything he wants to tell me right now. I don’t want to hear anything that he is going to use as an excuse, that’s for sure.”
I looked at her in total confusion. An excuse for what? For what he was feeling? It seemed to me that was the best possible thing she could hope for here—that any one of us could hope for. That someone would tell the truth.
Meryl blotted both of her eyes with a tissue, as she tried to get ahold of herself again.
Then she sat up. “I know, okay?” she said. “I know there was someone that last year he was in Boston. Of course I know that. He basically told me himself right after he came out to Los Angeles. He tried to make it sound like it had happened and it was over, but those things don’t end. Even if he wasn’t seeing her anymore, I knew it still mattered to him or he wouldn’t have felt the need to tell me at all. How can he think I don’t know that about him? I know everything about him.”
“Then what are you doing here?” I said. But as soon as the words were out, I was sorry—sorry, and worried that they sounded too harsh. I hadn’t meant them to sound that way. It just all seemed so much sadder to me, sitting here and listening to her. Everything about the promises that were about to be made today felt that much worse.
“It’s just that things stop being that simple,” she said. “I still believe I’m the person he’s supposed to be with. Those first few years, Josh wanted to marry me any day of the week. I just had all these ideas in my head about waiting longer, or waiting until we were settled financially or something. You wait long enough, and it’s harder for a guy to make a commitment. Not easier.” She shrugged. “I think I waited too long. And I know you think I sound like an idiot now and I’m just making excuses. But I’m not going to be the one to call it off. If Josh wants that, he’s going to have to do it. Because I can see it being right between us. I can see it turning out okay. More than okay. And if he didn’t see that too, why would he be here?”
I shook my head. “He wouldn’t,” I said.
“That’s right,” she said. “He wouldn’t.”
She sat up taller, almost as if she’d reached a new resolution. And I wondered how many times she’d been in this position before. Knowing what she knew, and pushing it away. Waiting until she calmed down enough to keep going. To do what she thought she needed to do.
And then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t only seeing her anymore. I was seeing myself also. All of this time, I had seen similarities between Josh and me, which was part of the reason that I felt so mad at him, so angry and upset thinking he was screwing up his life too. But similarities were right here as well. Between Meryl and me. If I had stayed with Matt, this could be my wedding day too. I could just as easily be the one pushing aside what I didn’t want to know, so I could move toward where I wanted to be. With him.
In how many hours was I going to see Matt again? And, just like that, was I going to fall back in? What made me think it would be any different this time? Because he said so? Or because—still like Meryl—I wanted to believe what I needed to believe? That this time, he wouldn’t stop loving me. He wouldn’t start seeing someone else or get distant or disappear on me in all the ways that really mattered most. He wouldn’t make it all about him.
Meryl started to stand up.
“How can I help you?” I said.
“I have to finish getting ready,” she said. “I should go and start putting my dress on.”
“There’s about five million buttons in the back of it,” she said, heading toward the bedroom. “Of the dress. It looks beautiful done up, but it’s a total nightmare getting there. I’m going to need your help. It’s a nightmare like you wouldn’t believe.”
I stood up to follow her. “Just show me what to do,” I said.
Statistics from a ten-year Princeton University study on the nature of modern marriages and domestic partnerships indicate that over 75 percent of the time it is the woman who ends a marriage or a long-term living situation. The man may do something to make her want to leave—he may be unfaithful or lie to her or push her away—but ultimately, if she doesn’t leave him, he will stay also. After time, he will want to work it out and be good to her again, and try to make things better. And if that’s what the woman really wants—if she just stays still long enough—in the end, she’ll get her wish. Psychologists who conducted the study said the reason for this was the same across the board: men don’t want to be the bad guy. They don’t want to make a mistake they can’t unmake. They want, only, for someone else to decide.
I couldn’t help but think of this while I waited in the living room for Meryl to finish getting ready. Wasn’t that precisely what was going on here, after all? She had waited it out, and she and Josh had made it. They were about to more than make it, actually, embarking on the next big step together.
Meryl called out to me, for the third time, that she needed just a couple more minutes.
“I’m getting nervous to show you,” she said.
“Maybe that means you’re supposed to,” I said.
I had no idea if this was true, but it sounded good. And I was getting a little tired of sitting in the living room by myself. I had turned all the fans off so they wouldn’t blow on her, but even with the air-conditioning set on full blast, it wasn’t exactly comfortable in there—the air more milky-warm than anything else. I was ready to go downstairs, where Bess and my mom and Mrs. Moynihan-Richards were waiting, and where, hopefully, everything was a little cooler.
I went into the kitchen to get our bouquets out of the refrigerator: small white lilies for me, one long orchid for Meryl. It was then—a bouquet in each hand—that I heard a knock on the suite door. I assumed it was Bess, who I
could only imagine didn’t at all like being relegated to the downstairs waiting area for so long.
But when I got to the door, standing there before me with his tuxedo on—his white bowtie already tied around his neck—was Josh.