The Less Than Perfect Wedding (2 page)

Instead of having to go out into the cold winter air and work on construction, I fortunately lucked out and was given a job in the office, working at a desk in front of a computer, coordinating the various volunteer groups that donated their time. Even better was the fact that, after my year was up, I was offered a full-time job with Habitat. It still wasn't amazing pay, but I got to become a paid party planner, working to create fancy parties where the wealthy could socialize and, once properly lubricated from the open bar, send checks our way.

It was at one of these gatherings that I met Alex.

Despite months of planning, every event that I threw always dissolved into happy chaos by the night's end. Guests would be drunk, the high rollers would be playing with the auction toys for which they had overpaid, and by this point, most of the staff members and volunteers had usually managed to sneak a few drinks as well. I certainly was no exception.

Thanks to tonic, coke, and their friends gin and rum, I had elected to wander out onto the dance floor, awkwardly gyrating back and forth in the circle with my little clique of friends as the band played mediocre covers of the classic pop songs that our big donors enjoyed. I wasn't much of a dancer even when I was sober, but I figured that it was late, my friends at Habitat for Humanity were just as crappy dancers, and I deserved to cut loose.

One of the weird quirks of this gala was that, because it was celebrating a construction nonprofit, the dress code had become a strange combination of construction safety gear and formal wear. Many of the men were dressed in suits with duct tape or caution tape ties, and more feet were in heavy construction boots than dress shoes. I had made my own concession to the theme by picking out the bright orange safety vest from a child's construction costume. It managed to fit snugly around my shoulders, hanging only slightly below the fairly significant cleavage showed off by my low-cut red dress.

As the band's Elvis cover drew to a merciful close, I glanced up and caught the eye of a man in a suit, around my age, on the other side of the dance floor. He was wearing a rather pained expression on his face, and appeared to be trying to keep a rather portly middle-aged man from stumbling out onto the dance floor.

I sensed that a potential disruption was about to occur. That was why I decided to go intervene, I told myself as I crossed the dance floor towards the pair. It certainly wasn't because the younger man was strikingly attractive and it had been quite a while since my last date. Stepping around a group of older ladies, I stopped smartly in front of the older man, who leaned back from my sudden appearance.

"Is something the matter?" I asked politely, my words directed towards both men but my eyes lingering on the face of the younger.

Looking back at me, he opened his mouth, but the shorter, older fellow that he had been holding on to spoke first. "No, nothing's wrong," the man said, his words sounding rather slurred. "Nothing wrong, no. I'm just going to go, um, use the bathroom." Tugging his arm free of the restraint, he tottered off the dance floor, weaving back and forth as he headed vaguely in the direction of the restrooms.

I glanced at the younger man, who now wore an expression of clear relief spread across his face. "What was his deal?" I asked, tilting my head slightly in the direction of the receding backside of the gentleman.

"Oh, it's a whole story," the man groaned, with an exaggerated eye roll. "Let's just say that he's a divorced corporate bigwig who didn't realize that his ex-wife, now married to another corporate bigwig, would also be invited to the same charity function. And now, after imbibing deeply in the plentiful wine, this divorced corporate bigwig has decided that the best course of action would be to yank down his ex-wife's dress out on the dance floor. And since I'm the bigwig's only underling in attendance with the balls to confront him, it became my job to try and dissuade him from that course of action." Speech concluded, the young man ran one hand through his hair.

I smiled, while I tried unsuccessfully to ignore the little voice in the back of my head that pointed out how attractive he looked with his hair mussed like that. "I can help with that," I said, politely extending one hand to lead off the dance floor, towards the bartender's station. "And as one of the organizers of this charity event, I'm fairly certain that preventing a donor's wife from being debagged on the dance floor deserves a free drink."

The man grinned down at me. "That would be the first good thing that's happened to me all evening," he confessed. He held out his hand to me. "I'm Alex, by the way. Alex Wilson, financial planner and voice of common sense to my much-better-paid bosses."

I accepted the offer, shaking his hand. "Danielle Jansen," I said, "event planner, peace enforcer, and woefully underpaid in the nonprofit sector." We both grinned as we shook hands, and the bartender slid two cups of beer over to us.

After taking a long drag of beer, Alex eyed me up and down, his expression appraising. "Did you steal that construction vest from a small child?" he asked. "Tell the truth, now."

I met his gaze, a mock glare painted across my face. "What about you?" I shot back. "I don't see any construction details on your suit at all! Didn't you hear the theme?"

Alex smiled, tugging his suit jacket open. I gasped with delight - Alex had fashioned a pair of suspenders out of bright orange nylon webbing! "I love them!" I exclaimed.

Letting his jacket fall back down on his shoulders, Alex picked up the beer again and, in a couple long pulls, drained the cup, setting it down on the bar with a satisfying thump. "It sounds like the band has a few more songs still," he observed. "Care to join me on the dance floor?"

Without even waiting for a response, he reached down and grabbed my hand, urging me along. I quickly set down my beer and allowed him to lead me out onto the dance floor. Sure, my moves were as terrible as ever, but Alex was beaming at me the entire time, laughing along with me as he showed off his equally cheesy dancing skills. By the time the band finished its last number, we were both sweaty, out of breath, and unable to stop laughing at each other.

Alex had to leave with his boss, making sure that the drunk man made it home safely, but he left with my number in his phone, and I wore a smile through the entire shutdown process after the patrons had left. We hadn't even officially started dating, but I already felt the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, every time that Alex's eyes fell on me. I knew that I was in love. I had no idea, however, just how crazy things would become.

*

Nearly two years later, I was luxuriating in a hot shower, clouds of steam filling the bathroom. Just as I had hoped, Alex had called the next day and asked me out. One date led to another, and scarcely a year later, we had decided that we were ready to take the plunge and move in together.

After weeks of apartment hunting, we finally found a place, conveniently close to both of our workplaces. Before putting down the deposit, I had stopped and looked into Alex's eyes. "Are you sure that you want to do this?" I asked, holding up the check in one hand. "We can still back out."

Without taking his eyes from me, Alex reached out to take the hand holding the check, guiding it down to the counter. "We're doing this," he said, his eyes never leaving mine as a slight grin danced around the corners of his mouth.

And things had gone amazingly well. Our friends had been impressed at how well we clicked together, and I had heard the word "soulmates" thrown around on multiple occasions. We had settled in perfectly together, and even as I lounged beneath the wonderful stream of hot water, I knew that Alex would be waiting for me in the bedroom, kindly keeping the lights on until I was lying there next to him.

After I had toweled myself off from my shower, I padded down the hall to our bedroom. Alex was in bed already, his face illuminated by the glow of his iPad. The little furrow in his brow told me that he was focused on whatever he was reading - probably some financial brief - but he blinked and looked up as I crawled into bed beside him.

"Honey, I've been thinking," Alex said, as I snuggled up closer to him to absorb his body heat.

"Mmm, that's never a good idea," I murmured back, refusing to open my eyes as I pressed against him.

My boyfriend refused to rise to this jibe. "You know, Christmas is coming up in a couple of weeks," he observed.

"Yes, it is," I agreed, not sure where this was going. Wrapping one arm over Alex's chest, I squirmed until my head was nestled into his warm armpit. I pulled in a deep breath, catching slight hints of the smell of his deodorant.

Alex reached over with his arm, tucking it around me so that I better fit against him, but he was still sitting up, still considering his same line of thought. "Hon, I think we should spend this Christmas with your parents."

That was not what I expected. I hauled myself up, pulling out of Alex's embrace to stare down at him. "What?" I exclaimed. "Are you crazy?"

On this point, unfortunately, my boyfriend didn't seem to be willing to back down. "We spent Christmas last year with my parents," he pointed out in what I felt was an unreasonably calm and logical manner. "It's only fair that we alternate whose parents and families we visit."

"You've met my parents before!" I argued. "You know what they're like! If we spend Christmas with them, we'll just end up being constantly caught in the middle of their constant arguments."

Alex was nodding as I spoke, but I recognized the gesture. This was his 'understanding' nod, the comforting, sympathetic movement that he would use to put his clients at ease before delivering bad news. "Maybe, if we're there, we will distract them from their squabbling," he offered, using his extra-reasonable tone of voice.

I kept on trying to protest, but I knew, long after I admitted it to Alex, that he had won this argument. He had picked his battlefield well; I was warm and sleepy after my shower, and my eyelids were sagging from the moment that I crawled into bed.

Eventually, Alex was able to extract a sleepy agreement that, two days before Christmas, we would pack our bags and make the hour-and-a-half drive to my parents' house. Even as I finally slipped off into sleep, I couldn't figure out why in the world Alex would want to see my parents, much less for three days. The weird, strained relationship between my mother could drive anyone - Alex included - up the wall with frustration.

The next few weeks passed fairly quickly, possibly fueled by my dread of the approaching reunion. I called my parents to announce our plans, and was immediately met by a giant wave of guilt-inducing commiseration from my mother.

"Oh, I'm so glad that at least one of my daughters will be able to come and see your poor parents!" my mom enthused on the phone, making me wince from the sheer psychological weight of her emotional spear thrusting from the receiver.

"What about Susan?" I asked. "She never misses coming home for Christmas." Mainly for the chance to upstage our parents by making an even bigger scene, I added inside my head.

My mother sniffed loudly into the phone. "Apparently, she would rather spend her winter vacation partying with her friends," she complained. "Someplace slutty, I'm sure. Florida, or Mexico, or the Caribbean, someplace where two scraps of clothing is considered fully dressed."

I made the appropriate clucking noises into the receiver, working for her to work through her griping. In the back of my mind, however, I was feeling a spurt of jealousy - mingled with a hint of grudging admiration. My younger sister would definitely enjoy this Christmas more than I would.

"Well, we're going to drive out to your house two days before the twenty-fifth," I announced, trying to steer the conversation back on track. "The spare bedroom will be open for Alex and me, right?"

"Yes, I'll have your father move his things out," my mother said. "If need be, he can always sleep on the couch."

"Wait, what?" I broke in before she could go on further, my tone conveying the shock that I felt. "Is Dad sleeping on the guest bed all the time? I know that you two argue sometimes, but I didn't realize that it was that bad!"

"Oh, it isn't that bad. Rick is just often up later than me, and it's easier for him to just lay down on the guest bedroom so that he doesn't wake me up," my mom said quickly. Her reassurances sounded hollow to my ears for some reason, however, and I felt the sudden need to distance myself from the conversation.

"Well, great," I said, searching for an out. "Is Dad around? I could say hello to him."

There was a rustling sound from the other end of the line as my mother lowered the phone. "Rick!" I heard her bellow, the call repeated a second time a second or two later. Another rustling, and her mouth was back at the phone. "He must not be around, dear," she said.

"Where would he have gone?"

My mother made a rather vague noise. "Oh, he tends to disappear off every now and then," she commented. "I think he's probably just sneaking out to the back shed, or off to the local bar, to grab a drink and sit for a while. I don't usually worry about it."

I wrapped up the conversation and hung up, but my mind was anything but at ease. Occasionally, one of Alex's evening meetings with clients would end up running late, and I would be in bed and half-asleep by the time that I heard him opening the front door of our apartment. Despite the lateness of the hour, though, I'd never had a problem with him crawling into bed beside me. But I forced the thoughts from my head. For as long as I could remember, my parents had squabbled and argued. In fact, my entire family was dysfunctional in my eyes; I was glad that I had managed to escape.