Trying the Knot (12 page)

It was a perfect, day, not too hot or too
humid. Billowy cumulus clouds lingered overhead creating brief
reprieves from the shining sun. What no one else appreciated about
the little town of Portnorth was its simplicity. Purely
unadulterated and uncomplicated simplicity seemed such a cutting
edge notion to her; she loved her adopted hometown as much as
Evangelica despised it. With September being the kindest month, it
was especially perverse that Vange should linger comatose, unaware
in a black hole of timelessness.

Chelsea was doubtful Evangelica would try to
kill herself without calling anyone for help. Had she incoherently
dialed the numbers too wrecked and weary to save herself? She
wished more than anything Vange had called her during such her time
of perilous vulnerability. It took no stretch of imagination for
Chelsea to conceive how thoroughly desperate and alone Evangelica
must have felt.

In all probability, Chelsea was certain she
was the last person Vange would ever think to call. Chelsea always
eschewed Kate’s flamboyant grade school best friend. It was for
Kate’s benefit that Chelsea had ever talked to Vange at all, but
eventually Kate also ceased speaking to Vange after she seduced
Nick at the senior year Christmas party, never mind Chelsea had
been dating him at the time. So twisted and tangled, she thought.
It was the sum of their shared history, a web ensnared with virtual
strangers.

She regarded Nick and Kate as positively
mundane due to their premature descent into domestic oblivion. The
mere thought of becoming Nick’s wife turned her stomach. No one
ever made Chelsea feel quite so worthless as Nick. Before he dumped
her for a few meaningless trysts with Vange, Nick had told Chelsea
he ‘respected her too much’ and that she was ‘too good for him.’
Remembering those words only made her feel desecrated yet
again.

Chelsea became sickened whenever she looked
across the room and saw Nick standing there. In her mind, his
entering the medical profession was a mistake because his true
calling was politics. Her reasoning being he was devoid of
humanity, and that is what allowed him to be everyone’s best
friend, whether it was a hick, slut, nerd, jock, or an uptight
bitch he found respectable.

Presently, Chelsea wished she had cultivated
a better relationship with Evangelica. The coma victim seemed
infinitely more interesting than the abysmal bores who littered her
own socioeconomic stratosphere; especially Kate, who would remain
forever blinded by the trappings of denial, unless she was provided
the truth and an opportunity to free herself.

It was immaterial to Chelsea that Vange never
left Portnorth. Rather than opt for a promise of financial success,
she had become a jaded, manic-depressive small town waitress.
Evangelica at least had personality, but it was more than that, she
was a personality – to the point of becoming a rural, folk-legend
of sorts.

Alive, Vange was held in contempt for her
complete lack of humility, and her total disregard for excuses.
Shamelessly flaunting her individual beauty and talent failed to
win the hearts of friends and minds of neighbors, who always valued
sameness over uniqueness. However, in death the town would
undoubtedly mourn Vange as the tragic girl whose father killed
himself and whose mother was anything except maternal, and despite
those setbacks she had been equipped with a voice which could have
made her a star under more nurturing circumstances. Chelsea thought
it unjust and cruel if Vange should survive and remain the slut who
could sing. Maybe the world was destined to only love Vange from
afar.

Chelsea’s body ached dully, but she pushed
herself past the threshold of her endurance. She ran hard and fast
until her legs and chest screamed in pain. As she came to a halt
and doubled over with her hands resting on her knees, she vomited
up the injustice and hypocrisy festering within for too long. Bent
over near the water she felt empty and free. The cleansing aroma of
pine trees saturated her lungs with astringent sap, and the waters
of mighty Lake Huron beckoned her to explore its murky
comforts.

Falling into the cold water, she submerged
herself in blueness. Seagulls fought nearby, and she splashed to
rid herself of their screeching disturbance. She wanted to be
alone. Gasping the fishy air lingering over the lake, her
exhilarated mind implored of Evangelica, “Come back and swim
against the current. Don’t opt for the safety of death, and a false
promise of reverence!”

Floating on her back, Chelsea thought, screw
everyone who had ever called Vange white trash or found herself to
respectable to screw. Suddenly emancipated, Chelsea found herself
rolling in the sea amidst a fit of laughing fits. She struggled to
tread water as the alluring liquid pulled her deep within its
grip.

When her arms and legs regained their
underwater dance, she called out sadly to no one, Come back,
Evangelica, come back. I need you to be my friend.

By the time Chelsea entered her mother’s
obsessively immaculate home, she had nearly dried off from her
spontaneous swim. She trailed beach sand from her ankles through
the doll-like house teaming with fresh cut flowers and delicate
trinkets. It appeared a modern day Southern Belle might reside
there. Even the antique furniture looked fragile and easily
destructible, but Ginny Norris never entertained more than a few
carefully select guests at a time.

Chelsea enjoyed eating ice cream and reading
fashion magazines or practicing various yoga positions in the
middle of the airy living room on the hardwood floor. Yet
surrounded by the over abundance of bric-a-brac breakables
inevitably put her on the edge. Like a bull in a china shop, she
felt so trapped it was as if her flesh tingled electrically, and it
was all she could do not to flail about until everything lay
shattered at her feet. Initially, it was in this living room while
anticipating leaving for university the combination of Ben and
Jerry’s Cherry Garcia and trendy magazines sent her scurrying to
the bathroom to induce vomiting.

Most of the time, Chelsea found herself
cornered between envious and embarrassed, and ultimately resentful
of Ginny’s indolently flirty disposition. The senior Ms. Norris was
so carefree her daughter could not help but grow increasingly
neurotic whenever she spent any time in her mother’s presence.
Chelsea often wondered if anything actually mattered to Ginny,
because nothing whatsoever seemed to affect her languorously calm
demeanor, but perhaps her unhurried savoring of time passing was
the secret source of her sex appeal. Chelsea had always
expressively forbidden what few dates she ever had to enter the
house without her for fear they would fall under her mother’s spell
and never leave.

Standing before the open refrigerator,
Chelsea gulped bottled water and lingered in the comforting chill
that washed over her hot tight muscles. Hurried footsteps
approached from behind, and they did not resemble Ginny’s easy
graceful stride.

Chelsea jumped with fright.

“Sorry for scaring you.” Kate yawned and
rubbed her deep-set eyes, which were surrounded by purplish rings.
“It feels as if I’ve been asleep for weeks. I should be checking
last minute details, but I don’t feel like doing anything except
hitting the sack.”

Chelsea giggled uneasily and cherished the
thought of spending the rest of the weekend in bed.

“I just had the weirdest dream,” Kate began.
Her ordinarily cautious and calculated veneer was clouded by fuzzy
sleepiness. Chelsea often thought Kate’s automatic niceness made
her seem untrustworthy or mechanical, but the sedative had a
positive effect, and she appeared more authentically real.

“Is an interpretation in order? My
post-feminist, revisionist grasp of Freud is a little shaky,”
Chelsea said.

Not yet wide-awake, the Valium was still
working on her defenses. “All of us were in it – you, me, Nick,
Thad, Ben, and Vange. We were all competing in a contest. Remember
the director of the Miss Portnorth Pageants?”

“Of course, who could forget Nyda Czerwinski,
the Home Economics teacher from hell?”

“Well, in the dream she spoke to us over a
giant movie screen. We were eliminated from a contest one by one,
and dropped into a dungeon under a stage,” Kate explained. “It came
down between Vange and I, and she won.”

“That’s it?”

“No, then it turned out Vange was really
Nyda, like in the Wizard of Oz, except she sentenced us to death
rather than granting our wishes.”

“What were the wishes?”

“You wanted to go home, Thad wanted courage,
Nick a heart, and Ben a brain. And my wish was to be just like
Evangelica. Isn’t it odd?”

“Sounds like Vange’s revenge.” Chelsea nursed
the bottled water and asked, ”Have you decided what to do about
being short a bridesmaid?”

“I’m sure my cousin, Alexa, will stand in if
Vange is unable, I mean if she doesn’t recover by tomorrow.”

“Kate—

The bleary-eyed bride-to-be plopped herself
dejectedly down on a barstool. “Oh, who am I kidding? Thad said
Alexa would do it, but it doesn’t feel right, you know?”

“Of course it doesn’t, how could it?”

“Oops, one bridesmaid’s in a coma, let’s just
fix up the dress and stick someone else in it.” Kate’s sunken eyes
were swollen with sleep, and it looked as if she wanted to either
bawl or scream. “Can things get any worse?”

Chelsea countered, “Trust me, things can
always get worse.”

“This morning at the hospital, the first
thing I thought was why now? Why not after the wedding? That must
sound incredibly cold, but it really was my first thought. Then
when I saw her laid out like a corpse, I didn’t know whether to hug
her or slap her.”

Chelsea sighed and mustered the energy to
whisper, “You’re right, it does sound incredibly cold.”

Lost for words, Kate shook her head and
looked away from Chelsea’s judgmental gaze. “I always imagined my
wedding day being so wonderfully perfect, like a fairy tale.”

“Everyone does. No one anticipates anything
like this.”

“I wonder, what Emily Post suggests doing
about a comatose bridesmaid, who just happens to be my
stepsister?”

“Isn’t she supposed to sing at the
ceremony?”

“We’re using prerecorded vocals, so she could
be in the bridal party,” Kate said sniffling.

Chelsea contemplated out loud, “What’ll they
do when they hear her voice?”

“Maybe we should light a candle for her.
After all, we’re lighting one for my mom. While we’re at it why not
light one for my granddad, and Vange’s dead father, Shayla’s first
husband?”

“It could be the first wedding crashed by
dead people,” Chelsea said, injecting humor into the dire
scenario.

Kate rose to her feet and paced the length of
the kitchen. “I need another Valium.”

“Or Prozac. Pour us a drink while I brush my
teeth, and I’ll drive you home,” Chelsea called from the
bathroom.

“I can’t go there – take me to Nick’s. I
don’t have the energy to deal with my dad or Shayla.”

Chelsea returned to the kitchen with a
toothbrush in hand. While brushing her teeth, she stood near the
telephone and checked the antiquated answering machine for
messages.

“Good morning, Katie, it’s me – Nick. Give me
a call when you’re able —beep—Hey, Gin, this is the love of your
life. I’ll be in the embalming room all day, so see yah tonight
—beep— Hey, (hiccup) it’s Shayla Hesse. Ed and me we’re heading out
to the cottage for a Labor Day weekend BBQ. Just wanted to remind
you, we’ll be water skiing and what not. Come out for a wiener
roast if you get the chance – beep.”

With toothpaste dripping from her chin,
Chelsea scampered from the kitchen. Kate poured two tall drinks,
and from the bathroom Chelsea hollered, “What about your brother,
how’s he handling all this?”

Kate sipped the vodka and cranberry juice,
unsure if anyone had told Jack about Evangelica’s condition. Unsure
where or how to locate him, she stared out the kitchen window
across the gravel parking lot at the lounge. Everyone would meet
there later, and she suddenly thought it was a mistake to have the
church rehearsal before the dinner. Her father and stepmother would
arrive and make drunken fools of themselves in front of Nick’s
relatives.

The water running in the bathroom reminded
Kate of rain showers, and she prayed the weather remained
cooperative at least. Perhaps even that was too much to hope for.
Her big day was predestined to be an abysmal disaster, or so it
seemed.

chapter seven

As the ecru colored Chevy Malibu pulled onto
the highway, Kate tapped her foot to the beat of the music.
Driving, Chelsea was buzzing slightly from the drink Kate had made
too strong. The car was half-packed as she was supposed to be
heading to the U of M Law School on Monday. She was enjoying
coasting down the tree-lined highway, but she imagined their
destination was anyplace other than the Paull’s beachfront estate.
Chelsea could brainstorm a hundred better ways to spend Labor Day
weekend.

Her favorite long distance drive was always
the road trip home from Chicago at Christmas time. Blaring classic
rock music, she sped past the snow covered evergreens and hilly
fields and whizzed through small towns comforted by the knowledge
she was headed home to Portnorth.

Kate gnawed on her index finger knuckle to
keep from chewing off her manicured nails. She sat mutely alongside
Chelsea whom she suspected was drunk. For whatever reason, Chelsea
chose to take the long way. Kate crouched down in her seat as they
rode onto Main Street, which ran the full length of the town,
approximately three and a quarter miles. Teenagers cruised this
stretch all weekend long. The car wash and church parking lot were
turnaround hotspots. It was a monotonous unending ritual
culminating in either finding a buyer to purchase alcohol or
directions to a kegger, which was usually held in some deep-wood,
off-limits hunting camp.