Honeymoon Alone: A Novel Read online

  “Um. To recap,” I say loudly into the microphone, gaining all of the attention once more. “Today we celebrate Tom and Marian.” I smile at her with hope, but I think my smile is actually shaking. “Fate brought you together and it brings us here.” I wink at Marian and she smiles appreciatively at me. “Just ask the psychic.”

  A nervous laughter creates a small din throughout the room as a waiter rushes over to refill my champagne glass.

  People spend months and months planning for the perfect day – and in the end, it feels about as long as an episode of Sex and the City – and is filled with as many cosmos, too.

  After a blur of dancing to Culture Club, the Eurythmics, Genesis, Debbie Gibson, and even the New Kids on the Block (I may have stressed about it, but I made a pretty good playlist in the end!), I sit at my table with Mary and look for Ian once again. I finally spot him slow dancing with Courtney to the Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” – one of my favorite ballads of all time. The cat’s basically out of the bag. Everyone knows he’s not really a boyfriend of any kind. To me, anyway.

  “How hard is it to obey one rule?” Mary asks incredulously, gaping at them on the dance floor.

  “It seemed like a good idea in theory,” I say, finally looking away from the couple. “I just forgot to factor in every girl not dressed like Barney.”

  “You’re too good for him. Obviously.”

  Mary says this every time it doesn’t work out with someone. If I’m still single when I’m sixty, I’ll have to explain to anyone who asks that I was simply too good for everyone.

  Ugh. I just should have come alone. So what if I had to bear people asking about my love life at a particularly stressful wedding? It’s a hell of a lot better than saying I have a love life and then letting it explode in front of them so they can look at me like I’m the latest Lifetime Original Movie. I keep getting looks from family members – so many of them – filled with pity. Shock. Outrage. And in a few cases, a look that seems to imply, “I knew they weren’t a real item.”

  I leave the table – and the line of vision to the dance floor and all these family members – and head to the front entrance area. There’s not much going on here. Just the ‘80s photo booth and the psychic station. I am definitely not visiting the infamous photo booth, so I slip through the curtain and into the dark tent where Madame M sits, eyes closed, with her hands on a crystal ball.

  On the phone, her deep voice made me think of a tall woman with black hair, penciled-in eyebrows and turquoise eyes. But before me sits a short, round woman, wearing what looks like pajamas, her hair tied up in a messy bun.

  Was she in bed when I called her?

  “You’re Lucy Gray,” she says and then she opens her eyes.

  “That’s right.” I catch her eyes with mine for a split second and feel kind of strange. Her expression is nearly hypnotic. I’m not sure about her credentials, but she definitely possesses the ability to make people feel strange. That’s a plus, anyway. “We spoke on the phone. Thanks for coming with such short notice.”

  She smiles. She reaches over the crystal ball and touches my hands. Hers feel like cold marble and send a shiver through me.

  “You are waiting for your life to begin,” she says slowly.

  “Oh.” I look at her as she closes her eyes and squeezes my hands tighter.

  “It’s going to happen. Soon. But Lucy, it can only happen if you stop ignoring them,” she says, her voice dropping to an intense, low whisper.

  “Ignoring…”

  “The signs.” She opens her dark, intense eyes and fixes me with a penetrating stare. Her eyes are so dark they seem black. “You talked of fate back there. You talked about fate to all of those people but you don’t understand it at all! You don’t listen. You need to listen. The signs are always there. Lucy –”

  “Listen to fate,” I say, furrowing my brows in confusion. I wish she’d just tell me something direct like I have already met the man of my dreams, so I could simply go home and make a list like Mary will undoubtedly do tonight. What does she mean, listen to fate?

  When I blink again, that intense look in her eyes is gone. Vanished. Like it was never there to begin with. She says nothing more and so I thank her, leaving her tent and reentering the bright reception hall. The brightness momentarily shocks my irises and I squint, feeling very strange.

  “How about a dance?” my father asks me. I’m not sure if he was waiting for me or just happened to be there, but knowing my dad, he probably guessed I was hiding out and wanted to be sure when I resurfaced that he was the one waiting for me.

  I smile and take his hand and we walk back into the reception hall, straight to the dance floor. My dad says nothing about Ian, and I appreciate it. He simply holds me close and tells me my speech was nice.

  The best thing about coming home on a winter’s night is climbing into bed when every bone in your body feels frozen. I finally peel the purple, polka dotted dress off my body and pull on my steel gray fleece pajamas. Eventually my body begins to feel less like ice.

  Ricky (Ricardo), my adorable tuxedo cat, is happy I am finally home. He jumps onto the bed and curls up next to me, while the black and white glow of TV Land lights my room dimly, buzzing quietly. I rub my feet together, and eventually feel my insides thawing.

  Ricky purrs loudly. He loves the Dick Van Dyke Show. I try to focus on the show but my mind is still buzzing. I think about Ian. He actually left with Courtney. He didn’t say goodbye – mostly because every time I spotted him I made sure to move far enough away that he couldn’t spot me. But it’s not Ian I really can’t shake from my mind. I barely like the guy. Romantically, anyway. Honestly, he’s a little too vain. I catch him checking out his reflection in clean windows all the time at work.

  No, it’s the psychic. The mall psychic. Hired like twenty minutes before the reception! Her words are echoing in my mind. I mean, why did she think my life hadn’t begun? I have a great life. A fulfilling life! A good job. Friends. Family.

  I close my eyes.

  I’ll just ignore her strange insinuations and drift off to dreamland! Perfect plan.

  But the thing is, she said it was going to happen – “it” being my life starting. She said it would happen “soon.”

  Why am I still thinking about it? She was clearly just trying to play a part.

  I close my eyes and try to go to sleep.

  But…here’s the thing: her “soon” kind of made me feel like I had as a kid when I thought I could hear the ocean inside of a seashell – like anything in the world was possible. And when I think about it now, I get this feeling…

  Like something is about to begin.

  * * *

  the wedding of the century

  Posted by: @Delores at 4:24 PM on december 18 on TheGrayBlog

  Well thank God it’s over. Tom & Marian get to relax poolside whilst I - who gave Marian life and also planned her wedding (except for the decision to have a DJ not a band - that was all Tom) - am a post-wedding bundle of nerves. The bride & groom get a honeymoon. The mother should get a spa weekend! Is there a registry for that?

  Everything went off without a hitch. Well - aside from the fact that two people got hitched. L.O.L. Is that how you say it? I’m laughing out loud

  Highlights of the day: My dear husband refrained from doing the chicken dance during the Macarena. And Marian and Tom looked insatiably happy.

  Lowlights of the day: That awful boy who ditched Lucy! And for her own cousin. Everyone noticed. Lucy, if you’re reading this: HE’S NOT WORTH IT. DON’T CRY. STOP EATING ICE CREAM.

  All in all another MAGNIFIQUE Gray family event!

  -Mom

  * * *

  his December Monday brings me back to reality. Romantic scenes set inside cathedrals and insanely unromantic scenes set inside photo booths – that’s all past. That was this weekend. This…is Monday. I look both ways and dash across the street, clutching my hot pink I Love Lucy umbrella tightly (It’s not meant to be self-indul
gent; it’s just a tribute to the greatest TV show ever), and step right into a puddle on my way into Dunkin’ Donuts.

  I immediately look around in all directions frantically. What if the puddle is a sign? I look for a handsome man…or a lottery ticket. Anything in and around the vicinity of this elusive puddle. There’s nothing out of the ordinary here. Except my soaking foot.

  Well, that is probably not how Fate’s signs work anyway. If I stepped in a puddle and fell right into the arms of my very own perfect match, Fate would lose its reputation.

  All thoughts of psychics and signs really fly out the window as I walk up the cobblestone walkway and through the oak-wood doors of the Bradley Fitzhugh-Simms Elementary School. I finish my coffee a few minutes before my third graders begin to walk in and take their seats.

  “Miss Gray, how was your party?” Cady asks sweetly.

  Cady is an adorable little girl who wants to be a teacher just like me. So she copies everything I do and asks lots of questions about my life. It’s very sweet, actually.

  “It was a wedding,” I say. “And it was very nice.”

  “Did you wear that dress that made you look like a purple monster?” Liam asks. He’s Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son. Cute face. A little bit evil.

  “Yes, I did,” I say, smiling, reminding myself for the thousandth time since the beginning of the year to better control what I tell the children.

  “It’s my turn to share today,” Cady says.

  I pull my lesson planner out of my tote-bag and begin scanning my class list. “So it is!” I say excitedly. Because of the wedding, I never got around to finishing up today’s lesson plan. A student geography presentation is the perfect way to start the day.

  “Why do we have to do these presentations about places all over the world?” Liam asks.

  “Because someday you might have to go to these places on important business trips or because you’re heading to a destination wedding – or you’ll be on a reality TV show like The Amazing Race and you’ll need to know how to get around so you can win the big treasure. What you learn here might come in handy.”

  “You don’t win treasure on The Amazing Race,” Joey informs me. “You get actual money.” Three years ago, her great grandmother was on a dating reality show about finding love in your seventies, so Joey’s always ripe with facts about all things Reality TV-based.

  “Miss Gray, where have you been?” Liam asks. He looks pointedly at me and crosses his arms.

  “Never mind.” I look down at my daily syllabus. “Okay, Cady. You’re on.”

  I sit in my chair and watch as Cady bounds up to the front of the class clad in a white button down blouse with a gray sweater and a long black skirt – an outfit I often wear to class. I smile inwardly. Her desire to be a teacher is one of the many reasons I love my job. And breaking through to kids like Liam who are a bit rough around the edges makes it pretty pleasing too. I notice that Cady has papers in her hands. Lots of papers, actually. I begin to wonder if she remembered that this was only supposed to be a very short presentation. But as I open my mouth to say something, she clears her throat authoritatively and slams the papers down on the podium.

  “London, England: A Brief Overview, by Cady McGinnis,” she begins dramatically. “The legend goes like this! In 60 AD, London was burnt to the ground by the forces of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni tribe. This was a tribe from modern Norfolk. Queen Boudicca was leading a major revolt against the Roman rule. So they say.”

  Oh dear lord. We’re starting with London burnt to the ground? In 60 AD? I keep opening my mouth to cut in and remind her that she only has to tell us a little bit about her chosen destination and give a few facts about it within three to five minutes. But every time I do, she looks at me with the biggest smile on her face as if to say “this is surely A+ work, right, Miss Gray?” that I lean back and just let her go – reciting what she undoubtedly lifted from Wikipedia.

  “The financial and economic equivalent of the governor was the pro…pro…cure…rator. Procurator. There is evidence that the offices of this official lay somewhere within the city of Roman London…”

  “Oh God, there he is,” I whisper to Mary, quickly slinking behind the column that divides our teacher’s lounge from the coffee station – on the coffee side, of course. I grab a banana from the bar a foot away and then resume my James Bond-esque hiding position behind the column.

  Mary peeks around and fixes me with a disapproving look. She teaches kindergarten. Her kids are the most adorable little angels, not a Liam among them. Already, she’s probably had a wonderful, cute-filled day. She probably didn’t have to listen to a twenty-minute presentation about ancient London and the forces of Queen Boudicca. Her foot’s probably not damp from stepping in a non-fateful puddle near Dunkin’ Donuts. And she probably didn’t just spot the date that ditched her at her own sister’s wedding sitting on the couch in the teacher’s lounge a mere couple of feet away, looking perfect. She should give me a disapproving look?

  “Lucy, you can’t avoid him forever,” she says. “He works across the hall from you and we all share a lounge.”

  “Yet another reason it’s not a good idea to go on a date with someone you work with. It might go badly and then you’re stuck sharing a lounge forever.”

  “I believe that was one of the arguments I made when you told me you were going to ask him out,” she says, crossing her arms.

  “You’re going to give me an I Told You So right now? Really?”

  “Well…I did.”

  “Lucy,” Ian says, peeking around the column, hands in his pockets and an uneasy smile on his face. I jump when I see him, and try to look like I was just leaning back, eating a banana, listening to Mary like she’s the most fascinating person in the world.

  “Ian, hey,” I say casually. “How are you?”

  “I want to apologize about the other night.”

  Mary walks away quickly, and I look back at Ian. “The other night…the other night…oh you mean the wedding?”

  “Yes,” he says – and he actually has the decency to look sheepish about the whole thing.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “Really.”

  “I just met Courtney and…I guess, well…you see, she’s completely my type and it all happened so fast and unexpectedly. When I met her, something went off inside me.”

  I’ll bet it did. I nod understandingly all the same, wondering for the thousandth time in my life: what’s so great about types? People act like we’re all born with a predetermined prototype for our eventual match.

  Ian Walker is predestined to end up with Type 242: leggy, dark-haired, turquoise-eyed damsel-in-distress who’d run over any one of her friends to get a guy to notice her.

  I’ve never been a fan of the whole ‘type’ argument. It takes all the unpredictability out of the chase. Where’s the fun in that?

  “I think I really fell for her,” Ian is saying. “If, you know, something like that can happen that quickly, which I believe it can. The only thing is,” he continues, “and I hate to ask you this, Lucy, what with the way our date turned out – “

  The way our date turned out? You mean when almost everyone I know saw my would-be boyfriend making out with my cousin at my sister’s wedding?

  “But do you have her number? I never ended up getting it and—”

  Irritation courses through me and I feel my face flush completely. “Sure,” I say. “Let me get my phone.”

  “Lucy, you really are the best,” he says.

  I walk back to my purse and grab my phone. Mary narrows her eyes at me. “You’re not giving him her number.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “Who am I to stand in the way of…whatever that was.”

  Mary rolls her eyes. “You’re too soft.”

  I sigh, texting the number to Ian, knowing she’s right.

  Instead of sitting next to Mary on the sofa in the lounge, I walk over to the globe in the corner. I place my forefinger on the map and look at all the colors
and places, oceans and countries, islands and nations facing me and in one quick motion I spin it. As it turns, I hear Liam’s question from earlier reverberate in my mind – where have you been?

  The world spins before me – and all around me – and I’m here. Always right here. Standing still.

  It’s a relief to walk out of the school with just four more days to holiday break. The crisp air, the dirty snow, the empty parking lot behind the building. It’s all very quiet and nice until my cell rings.

  “Lucy, we’re on our way to the airport. I need you to do me a favor! Quiet Tom, I can’t hear Lucy! Lucy? I need a favor!”

  “Wasn’t my stellar performance as maid of honor enough?” I ask Marian, who apparently needs a favor.

  “You need to go to our house. I think I left the door unlocked and the stove on,” she says.

  “You did not leave anything on, babe. We didn’t even cook today. And I locked the door myself!” Tom says in the background. I know only too well that his assertions will do nothing to calm her paranoia. After the whole booking two reception halls, churches and honeymoons fiasco, he totally knew he was marrying a woman with obsessive compulsive behavior. I don’t know why he’s acting like this is at all shocking.

  “I don’t think either of us locked the door, honey,” Marian says. “I just have this feeling that the door’s unlocked and someone’s going to break in and take something like our beautiful new china.”

  “Personally, I think they’d gun for your sixty inch TV,” I add, getting into my car.

  “Very helpful, Lucy,” Tom says.

  “Either way, you should go and check things out,” Marian says. “And water my magnolias! I forgot to water them today. Could you do that every three days until we’re back?”

  Twenty minutes later, I unlock (read: it was locked) Tom and Marian’s door and walk in, shaking my head. I check the stove. It’s off, of course.