Michelle tried to put it all out of her head as she rode the taxi down the street toward the train station.  Most of all, she tried not to remember the anger, horror, and shock on Julie’s face when Princess explained the situation in her newly-revealed broken English.

Instead she focused on the buildings as they grew smaller, and then at the small towns and the countryside that rolled and undulated, bringing her eventually back home.

It was a Friday night, and her father picked her up from the train station.  It had quickly become a routine, this journey, and they traveled the familiar roads back to their family house in near silence.

She interacted with her parents the same way she interacted with the customers at The Caribou; smiling at the right time, speaking the right words to give the impression of interest.  She didn’t hear most of what they said to her during dinner, but she nodded and made conciliatory gestures by saying “Really?” or “Yeah” at intervals.

Her mother, old, jowled, moved her food around her plate before taking a bite and saying, “Honey, we may need you to pick Jakey up from the airport tomorrow morning.  Can you do that?”

Michelle swallowed and coughed.  “Tomorrow?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Browne.  “He’s coming in about one in the afternoon.  Can you get him?”

“Uh, sure.  He’s coming alone?”

Mrs. Browne nodded, cinching her eyebrows in disapproval.  “Rachel’s stuck in Chicago till Tuesday.  Some last minute work thing.  Can you imagine that?  A woman so unconcerned with her own wedding?”

Michelle shrugged and shook her head.  She cut a piece of tofu steak and dipped it in soy sauce.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of it.”

In the crowded airport he stood lean and stubbled, slouching as if he hadn’t slept in a week.  The first thing Michelle did was throw her arms around him.

“Hiya, Big B,” she said loudly enough that three other travelers looked her way.

“Ouch,” Jake said, stepping backward.  “Do you have to yell?”

Michelle stood unembraced.  “God.  Sorry.”

Jake shook his head, rubbing his temple with one hand.  “I’m sorry, T.D.  I just – it was a long flight, and I have a wicked hangover.”  He looked at her sideways and smiled.  They walked together out to the parking lot.

“Where’s your luggage?”

“This is it,” he said.  “I just brought a carry-on.  I hate over-packing.”

“Even for your wedding?”

Jake grinned.

“But don’t you have a suit or something?  A tuxedo?”

“Picking it up here.  See?  Always plan ahead, and it makes life much easier.”

They threw Jake’s bag in the back of their mom’s SUV and drove through the maze-like parking garage until they found their way out into the daylight.  Michelle got on the ramp for the freeway.

Jake looked out the window at the grey scenery.  “Hey, T.D., you hungry?”

“Uh, I guess.  Why?”

Jake scratched himself under his arm.  “The plane food sucked, and I didn’t eat breakfast.  You wanna go somewhere?”

“Uh, sure,” she said as she passed the exit to their parents’ house.  “Where d’you wanna go?”

“Eh, I dunno.  Anywhere I can get coffee.”

Jake slumped into his end of the booth, his slender body bending like a bow.  He was wearing a tight, thrift-store t-shirt and oversized shades.  His dark hair was dirty, and around his mouth grew a dark shadow.  The chunky waitress, eager and rosy-cheeked, stood by him.

“Coffee, eggs, bacon, biscuits, and gravy,” he said.

“How you want the eggs?”

“Sunny-side up and runny.”

The waitress smiled at him.  Michelle rolled her eyes.

“And you?”

“Um, buttermilk pancakes with strawberries, please.  And… coffee.”

The server jotted the order in fanatical scribbles and disappeared.  Jake let out a long sigh and folded his hands over his stomach.  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“Don’t have anything to say to your sister after not seeing her for six months?”  Michelle asked.

“It’s not that.  I told you, I got no sleep last night, and I have a hangover.”

The coffee came.  Both drank it black.  It burned Michelle’s tongue and she set it back down.  “What’d you do?”

Jake swallowed the entire cup of coffee without stopping.  He clacked it back down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  “Never, ever have a bachelorette party,” he said.  “I was more wasted than I’ve been since college.”

“You had a bachelor party?”

“Yeah.  Some of the guys in Chicago – friends from work, Rachel’s brothers, a couple others – they took me out.  It was wild.”

Their food arrived.  The waitress set the plates down in order, Jake to Michelle, plop, plop.  Jake broke his yolks and spread them over the rest of his food.  Michelle covered her pancakes in syrup.  As she spoke her lips smacked with sticky sweetness.  “So, what’d you guys do?”

Jake was mopping up in a slow circle a yellow-brown mixture of yolk and gravy with a biscuit.  “Went to some clubs.  They were all buying me drinks.  I was annihilated.  My friend Kevin rented out a private room in a strip club.  It was fucking ridiculous.”

The bite of pancake in Michelle’s mouth seemed suddenly too large, and she gagged for an instant before fighting it down her throat.  “You went to a strip club?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, his mouth full of yolky mush.  “Crazy.  You ever been to one?  It’s nuts, man.  Those girls are fucked up.”

Michelle laid her fork down.  “How so?”

“They just are.  This one gave my friend a hand job for fifty extra dollars.  And another one was obviously high out of her skull.  I mean, a couple of them were pretty hot, but they were just… desperate.  I mean, what kind of girl does that?”

“Maybe they like it.”

“Yeah, right.  I mean, I wasn’t complaining.  They did pretty much anything we wanted.  I just can’t see any of those women having any self-respect at the end of the day.  This one girl was totally covered in bruises.”

“She was probably just new.”

“What?”

“I said… it’s sad what some people do.”

“Yeah.”  Jake followed his eggs with a fresh cup of coffee.  “I guess I can’t really feel too bad about it.  It was fun.”

Michelle swallowed another starchy, sweet lump.  “You liked it?”

“Sure.  I’m a guy.”  Sounds of forks and knives scratching plates.  Sounds of chewing.

Jake paid the bill when both plates were empty.  They walked into the bright afternoon postures reversed, Jake tall with shoulders back like a ballerina, Michelle slumped, arms crossed, and scowling.

“Thanks, T.D.  I feel a lot better now.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

As they drove back to their parents’ house, Jake napped in the passenger seat.

Back home, Michelle lay on her bed with Tiger as familiar music played over her stereo.

At seven o’clock, someone knocked.

“Come in,” she called.  She was lying face-up on her bed, her arms and legs spread out in a girl-sized X.  Tiger was resting in the crook of her arm and purring.

“Michelle, what are you doing?” her mother said, entering the room.  “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine.”  She didn’t change position.  “Just resting.”

“I’d think you’d want to spend some time with your big brother.  He’s going to be married soon, you know.  This might be the last time you have to really see him.”

Michelle’s stomach turned to knots.  She propped herself up on one arm.  “Mom, what do you want?”

Her mother turned back toward the door.  “Oh, nothing.  I just wanted to tell you dinner’s ready.”  She left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Michelle sat up on her bed.  She ran her fingers through her hair and looked across the room into the full-length mirror.  The girl she saw looked tired.

“Fuck,” she said quietly.  She picked up Tiger and went downstairs.

At dinner her mother gave her marinated chicken breast, brown rice, and steamed broccoli.  The plate-sized diner pancakes sat in Michelle’s stomach still.  She sat hunched over staring at her food, not eating it.

“What’s wrong Michelle?” her mother asked.  “Aren’t you feeling all right?”

“Fine, Mom.”  She sat still staring and shrugged.  Pushed her food around with her fork.  “Just not that hungry.”

“I’m going to make you an appointment at the doctor’s tomorrow.  We can’t have you sick for Jakey’s wedding.”

“I’m not sick, Mom!  I’m just… I’m on a diet, okay?”

Mrs. Browne squinted.  “Oh, you are?  That’s good, I guess.  But you should still eat a little something.  You need energy for auditions.”

Michelle grumbled at nothing, which her mother interpreted as concurrence.

The scraping of plates.  The chewing of food.  A cough.

“So, what time does Rachel get in on Tuesday?” Mrs. Browne asked.

Jake swallowed his chicken and washed it down with a sip of beer before he answered.  “About noon.  I’ll have to leave here about eleven to pick her up.”

“Such a nice girl, really.  You know, your father and I really couldn’t be happier about this whole thing.  I know Michelle is thrilled, too.  When you walk down that aisle your old mother is going to have crocodile tears in her eyes, you know that?”

“That’s—”

“She reminds me so much of myself when I was a girl.  I was so excited to marry your father.  I just glowed for months beforehand.  People thought I must be pregnant, but I told them, ‘No, I’m getting married!’  Everyone told me how lucky I was to have a man like your father.  And look, thirty years later, and we’re still together.  Doubters be damned!”

Michelle’s father looked up and for an instant, almost smiled.

“I certainly hope you and Rachel are as lucky as your father and I have been.”

“Yeah,” Jake said.  “Me too.”

After dinner, Jake helped their mother clean up the dishes and Michelle and their father sat at the table, staring at dirty placemats.

“What are your and Michelle’s plans this evening?” Mrs. Browne asked.

“Huh?” Jake said, jerking his head up from hypnotic, rhythmic scrubbing.  “Oh, we haven’t really talked about it yet.  But I guess we could go out somewhere.”  He looked at Michelle.  “What do you think?”

“Huh?  About what?”

“D’you wanna go out somewhere tonight?”

Michelle rubbed her cheek, then her eyes and forehead.  “Um, somewhere?  Like where?”

“Why don’t you go to Corrigan’s?” their mother offered.  “You and Rachel had such a nice time there the last time you visited.”

“Corrigan’s?” Jake said.

“It’s new,” Michelle said.  “They’ve got art on the walls and stuff.  It’s really trendy.”

“Trendy good, or trendy bad?”

Michelle thought.  “I guess it depends on who you are.”

Michelle and Jake stood with their backs against a wall in the red light of the bar, both slouching with one hip cocked, one arm folded beneath the other elbow as they held their drinks with loose wrists.

“This place seems pretty cool,” Jake said.

“I guess,” Michelle answered.  She finished her first whiskey and ducked through the crowd to get another.  When she returned, Jake had found a table.

They sat in a small booth in the back of the bar.  Cleverly, the seats were made from old church pews, and the lamp hanging down over the table looked like it was taken from a poker parlor.  Michelle said nothing, just let her head lilt, watching the way the dim light caught the sleeve of her brother’s shirt and the contours of his upper arm.

“So, you ready for this wedding thing?” Jake said at length.

“Hmph.”

“You all right?”

“Yeah.  Sorry.  I mean, yeah.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I’m ready for the wedding.”

“Oh.  Right.”

Silence stretched for about a minute, then Michelle drank the rest of her whiskey and said, “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Ready.”

“Oh, that.  Yeah.  Sure.  I’m ready.  Everyone gets cold feet.”

Cold feet.  The cliché of the words caused a prickling sensation up Michelle’s spine.

“I’m gonna go get another drink,” she said.  “You want one?”

“Sure.”

At the bar, Michelle ordered the drinks and an extra shot of whiskey for herself.  She took the shot and leaned on the bar.  The bartender looked a little like Mina.

“Lemme tell you something,” she said to the Minaganger, “Never care about anything, ever.  Never ever do it.  Ever.”

The woman sighed.  “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the matter?” the barmaid asked, glancing back to Michelle’s booth.  “Is that your boyfriend?”

“Huh?  Oh, no.  He’s getting married.”

“To someone else?”

“Yeah.”

The bartender nodded.  Michelle tried to hand her cash for the drinks, but she pushed the money back.  “It’s on the house, honey.”

Michelle put the money back in her purse.  “Oh, thanks.”  She felt a strange fleeting remorse that the real Mina never expressed enough concern to offer such generosity.  She gathered the drinks and went back to the booth.

As she continued to sip her fourth whiskey, the young man sitting across from her began to resemble less her good-ol’-staying-up-late-watching-TV-sneaking-booze-from-their-parents’-liquor-cabinet-doing-impressions-of-Freddie-Mercury-with-a-hairbrush-as-a-microphone big brother and more some hideous missing link.  Ridged forehead, Neanderthal grunts, mouth agape.  What had minutes earlier been a five-o’clock shadow was now Sasquatchian facial fur.

even him oh shit fuck even him now who the fuck does he think he is anyway men god who the fuck I mean really he doesn’t have a fucking clue not a fucking clue who is he to judge them or me men think they can fucking judge the whole fucking world and god he has no idea I mean who knows what those girls have gone through and he doesn’t even think about that does he how the fuck did I ever think he was different what’s wrong with me I’m such a fucking retard I just fucking hate it hate it hate it

As she slumped into her pew with eyes burning at Jake a waitress approached the booth and picked up empty glasses.  “Can I get these out of your way?” she asked.

“Sure,” Jake said, handing her a glass.  “We’re on a marathon.”

The waitress laughed and he smiled, caveman teeth showing.

“Damn it, Jake!  What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Michelle shouted, slamming her hands down on the table and shaking it.

Jake and the waitress looked at her.  “T.D., what are you—”

“You’re getting married in less than a week!  How the fuck can you hit on this girl when you know you’re getting married?”

“Honey, no,” the waitress was saying, “he wasn’t…”

“Shut the fuck up you slut!”  Michelle gripped the edge of the table and tried to steady herself as she rose.  She stumbled out of the booth and pushed the girl.

“Hey, watch it!” the waitress shouted.  A glass fell spinning to the floor and shattered.

Michelle pushed her again before Jake grabbed his sister’s arm as the waitress backed away.  “You need to leave,” she said, and left to speak to the bouncer.

“Michelle, what the hell was that?” Jake said through his teeth as he led her toward the exit.

“Get your goddamned hands off me!” she screeched, ripping away from him.  Everyone in the bar was now watching as her eyes streamed tears, sloppy fists vainly trying to pummel her brother.

Before she was aware of it, a large man with a shaved head was dragging her through the crowd of gaping, well-dressed twenty-somethings.  As she glided past the bar, she saw the woman who looked like Mina shaking her head and frowning.  A brief wave of deja-vu passed through her.

“Don’t come back here,” the bouncer said as he deposited her on the sidewalk.  Jake followed, hanging his head and covering his face with his hand.

“What was that about?” he asked as he helped her up.  It was disappointment more than anger that was audible in his voice.

Michelle held back her tears.  As soon as she was standing she jerked away from him and began stumbling down the street.

“Michelle!  Wait!”  Jake called, chasing her.  “You can’t walk home from here!  Just come back and I’ll drive you home!”

Michelle stopped.  She huffed and turned around, and with arms tightly crossed, she followed her brother wobbling to the car.

She rode in the passenger seat turned so that her entire body faced away from Jake.  She watched out the window trying hard to ball herself up, to make herself tiny and invisible, and to keep back her tears until she reached her own room.  They rode in silence.

In her childhood bedroom, she shut and locked the door.  She fell into bed in a fetal position, clutching her pillow like a life preserver, and cried.  “I hate him,” she heard herself say in a whisper.  She said it again.  “I hate him.”  She said it again and again until she screamed it.  “I HATE HIM!”  The house rustled.

After a few moments, there was a knock on her door.  “Michelle?” whispered her mother.  “Are you okay?”

Michelle sniffed the mucus back into her nose.  “Fine, sorry, Ma,” she called.  “Just had a bad dream.”

She thought she heard her mother mutter something and walk away.  Silence filled the room again, and she didn’t cry anymore.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but at four in the morning she woke to a pounding headache and a need to vomit.  She ran out and barely made it to the bathroom in time.  Still in her clothes, she knelt by the toilet and threw up until she was exhausted, then she leaned against the tile wall and fell back to sleep.

Filed under: Jake, Marriage, Michelle, Michelle's family, alcohol, food, wedding by Jade