There are points in a woman’s life when you would think she would look at herself and think ‘now just how did I end up here?’ But those kinds of questions are for women who had dreams or for women who wake up one morning middle-aged and married to a stock -broker. Those questions, therefore, are certainly out of my league. I have never been middle-aged, nor married, nor carried any sensible dreams for any significant period of life such that they would have either life of their own or the power to make me feel guilt and shame over the life I now lead due to consequences most likely out of my control. Instead, I choose the better suited question of ‘why me?’ It is short, to the point, and allows one to look at the inner workings of the psyche. Put simply, the latter question allows me to blame myself and my inherent lack of self-respect and desirability rather than an un-welcomed state of affairs.

So, why me? Well, I’ve been asking myself that same damn question for three horrible, humiliating days now, and the only answer I can come up with has something to do with the fact that I am a six-hour flight from anywhere I dare elude to as home, I am wearing a dress that could only be considered the color of dog vomit, and somewhere this is the happiest day of someone’s life for some really fucked up reasons.

Day One: The Bridal Shower

I got the invitation on a Thursday when the shower was on a Sunday. Even though I have been in a self-imposed dating hiatus for well over a year now, I generally know how these things work. Most of my friends got married immediately after college either out of fear of being alone or fear of getting fat in their 30’s. In any case, I know these frilly little invitations with the silver bells and embossed lettering and threaded ribbon usually arrive weeks in advance. They also usually follow an engagement announcement harboring a ridiculously touched-up photo of the to-be-wed couple. Since I had received no engagement announcement and no ridiculously touched-up photo, I almost could have guessed in whose honor I would be spending $50 - $75. This invite was rushed, a last thought, an oversight, a push by a mother or an old aunt who still remembered way-back-when. And as I opened the invite, I knew I had guessed correctly, for there in the pseudo-scroll lettering was the name of my nemesis, the harbinger of hell, and my best friend, Amanda Phillips.

We met at castle lake high, a middle class white school in New Hampshire. My parents had just gotten a divorce and my dad had temporary custody while my mom was in rehab. Yeah, that’s a story that will get you a ton of popularity in a new school. I would have had more fast friends if I had said I was running from the law after accidentally killing a kid in a knife fight. Hell, with a story like that I could have been a cheerleader. Unfortunately, I only had a druggy mom and an overcompensating pushover of a father. And then I met Amanda. She was at the time, for lack of a better word, painfully normal. She wore her mousy brown hair straight, had large glasses with pink plastic frames, and carried notebooks and folders in plain colors. Everything about her screamed mass-production. None of her clothes were cheap, but they were wholly unoriginal.

We sat together in English. That was her yellow folder. She had a yellow highlighter to go with it. When class was over, she would exchange the yellow folder and highlighter for the blue folder and blue highlighter. This is how I knew it was time for math.

When I first started going to her house after school, I didn’t think she had many friends. We would finish our homework, have root beer floats her mom made, play with her dogs, and talk about television until my dad picked me up. After a few months of after-school pizzas and sleep-overs, however, I learned a secret about Amanda. She was desperately and faithfully trying to weasel her way into the ‘popular crowd’. Oh yes, THAT crowd. The uniforms on Friday, you can’t sit at our lunch table, we’re all blonde and loving it popular crowd. Why is anyone’s guess. I could psychoanalyze Amanda until I was dead in the ground, but I choose not to. The fact of the matter was her normality. She was a plain girl who wanted something more, as all normal plain girls do. I’m not sure if she really wanted to sit at the cool table or if the cool people told her she did, but in any case she wholeheartedly believed it. I should have bailed out then, but I didn’t. Maybe because I didn’t have any other friends but Amanda and I didn’t want to wait in the band hall until my dad came to get me after work. Or maybe because I myself am deceptively normal in my desires to be one of the hip crowd at school. Or maybe I was just too apathetic to protest. Any which way you look at it, I was along for the ride.

By junior year, Amanda had managed to get invites to most of the parties, even though she was mostly used for filler or background noise. She was on the fringes, but at least they didn’t cover her locker in maxi pads anymore, she said. Jesus Christ, I said, did they really do that? Yeah, she said, but she didn’t mind. They were all different people now. Junior high was ages ago, and she didn’t think any of us were the same people we were. I knew she wasn’t.

By college Amanda gave up. I think she finally realized that the popular thing wasn’t getting her anywhere, and I was secretly relieved. Although we talked for hours and hours about what we could have done differently, just said one thing right, just avoided one embarrassing moment, and we could have been in, I was jumping for joy that she had given up on the idea. She hadn’t however, given up on the idea that she would somehow be better than other people. She was now taking the intellectual route, reading a lot of Kant and Erica Jong. While, in her mediocrity, she didn’t understand most of it, she felt it gave her some kind of excuse to be cruel to people who didn’t read it. And the people she was cruel to encouraged this behavior by believing her.

And this cruelty is the first thing I step into as I step off the plane from Phoenix. I see her from 30 ft away. She is wearing a tan and tailored business suit and staring intently through Ralph Lauren frames at the arrival board. I am suddenly very nervous. Why did I decide to come here? Am I looking for nostalgia or punishment? Is this what guilt does to a person?

Just say hello, I keep telling myself. And don’t squeak, don’t freeze, don’t croak – just say hello. But I don’t get the chance, because before I can manage a word, Amanda’s arms are a whirlwind of beige around my face. At first I think she is trying to attack me; then I realize she is trying to hug me. They are basically the same thing anyway.

“So,” she says in the car, “I am so glad you came because I have something very important to tell you.”

What? I think. You’re pregnant. You’ve got cancer. You’re a prostitute. You won the lottery. For god’s sake, WHAT?

She gives sufficient Upper East Side dramatic pause and then says, “Look, I know we’ve had our differences.”

“What differences? I’d say we are quite similar in ways you choose to forget.” My answer is a reproachful glare.

“ANY-WAY, I know we’ve had our differences, but I’ve been talking a lot to my psychologist”

“Oh god.”

“And he says that the only way to move forward in life and start anew with Jacob is to confront my past mistakes”

“I’m a ‘past mistake’? Jesus Christ, Manda”

“And make peace with them so they die.”

“So kill me.”

“Noooo, silly, I want to make peace with you. I want to share this day with you, so you can see how in love I am and not resent Jacob for it.”

“I have no problem with Jacob, YOU are the one I resent.”

“Look, I just need this, okay? Dr. Hillman thinks this is a fabulous idea.”

“Your killing me?”

“No, Trish, you being my bridesmaid!”

“I’d rather you kill me.”

“Do this for me, please? You were always the one who supported me no matter what. We were best gal pals. You do everything with me. Please Trish, PLEASE?”

Before I can begin to expound all of the reasons for the word ‘no’, the car has stopped in front of a large brownstone with pseudo-antique exteriors. I am first pulled out of the car, then shoved up some stairs, then greeted in an over-sized entryway by a chorus of screaming banshees, none of whom I am familiar with.

“Heeeerrre she is!” Exclaims a delighted Amanda, as if I am a long-lost sister who has come home after a stint in the Peace Corps. Someone takes my bag from me, someone kisses my cheek, and everyone starts throwing insincere exclamations at me so that I am forced to nod and smile through the whole thing. One woman asks me if I am married, another asks me how long the flight was, and someone in the corner asks me if I’ve seen the dresses yet.

Of course I haven’t seen the fucking dresses. What the hell is going on here?

I am quickly ushered into a back bedroom where a detached rack has been slid in front of the windows. Hanging on the rack are what could only be described as death shrouds for Gap workers. They are short, tan with brown speckles, and for some ungodly reason, sequined. And this is when I begin to realize that the joke really IS on me.

“Oh love,” Amanda says. “I ordered yours according to your college size. It doesn’t look like it will fit. We need to take you to the tailor’s as soon as possible!” Oh yes, the joke is most certainly on me.

As I look to the sky for either the hidden camera or the lighting bolt that will put me out of my misery, I am again ushered into the living room where gifts are being opened and last minute plans are being made. I am a trapped cat who will scratch for escape. Lucky for them, they avoid me like I truly am feral.

I seem to make it through the shower without killing anyone, but somehow I never seem to convey the message that I have no desire to be a bridesmaid in Amanda Phillips’ wedding, no matter how much it will ‘help her through the process of reclaiming her past.’

Day Two: The Rehearsal Dinner

Fifteen old high school and college ‘friends’. Two mothers, looking pointed. Two fathers, looking broke. One grandmother ignored and farting in the corner. One bride-to-be looking cold and keen. One groom-to-be looking hornier than hell. And me, trying to drown my self-loathing in wine before I ended up drowning each of them one by one in the bathroom sink.

I’ll be fine as long as no one asks me any questions.

“So, Trisha, are you seeing anyone right now?”

Fuck.

“Oooohh mooooooom,” coyishly croons the ever-present bride-to-be, of course Trish isn’t seeing anyone. “Remember what I told you, she’s an l-e-s-b-i-a-n.”

“Oh my god dear, I’ve totally forgotten. Forgive me, will you, Trish, honey? I mean, not that it’s anything to be ashamed of, but my dear, you must be so lonely. I read an article today that said all lesbians either stop having sex or break up after the first two months. My dear, you must be heartbroken. I’m so glad we found you when we did.”

Is anyone going to shut this woman up?

“Now, mom, I’m sure Trish isn’t lonely at all. Last I heard you were sleeping with what, four different women? I mean, that’s not lonely, is it mom?”

You conniving bitch.

“So you’re popular then, darling? With the...um...the ladies, I mean? I mean, they can’t take care of you like a man could, but if you’ve got plenty of dates then maybe you could at least.”

After dinner, I pull Amanda aside and ask in the nicest way possible what the HELL that was about. “What?” she says with an innocent batting of her eyes. When we were together, all you ever wanted to do was tell people we were lesbians. Now you’ve got your wish.” Doesn’t miss a beat, does she?

I am at once torn between my desire to keep some dignity and my urge to bring this entire wedding down in a heap of burning salmon croquettes and lily centerpieces. I opt for the former, thinking my reputation might be a little better if I go with grace than with gunfire. You see, I’ve already had plenty of that in my relationship with Amanda, both literal and figurative. After college, I moved to Phoenix. Well, what would be more correct would be to say I moved to New York, then to Chicago, then to Detroit, then to Phoenix. We could also call those moves Elizabeth, Katy, Allyson, and Sam because they were all the reasons I ever moved to such god-forsaken country as New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Phoenix. Each one of those ladies offered me something I desperately needed; a place to live and more and more distance between Amanda and I.

I was very definitely running in those days. I was running from the sense of failure that college graduation and no job allotted me. I was running from the knowledge that I had never really stopped following Amanda into whatever scheme she cooked up to make herself look better. And I was running from Amanda herself; from the first woman I ever slept with, from the first woman to ever keep our relationship a shameful secret, from the first woman who told me via a semi-automatic to the back that I had better get out and never come back. But I’d better not tell anybody, no ma’am. Amanda still needed to be better, more envied, more desired than anyone else. She needed to break free of her normality and become somehow instantly perfect. In image anyway. Obviously, this wedding proves not a lot has changed.

Seeing an opportune moment at dinner to sneak out on the celebrants, I go outside to get some air. ‘Air’ turns into my hailing a cab and asking to be taken to the nearest gay bar. After a 15 minute drive, we pull up to what could only be described as a neon fitz and floyd. Great, I think, yuppie business dykes in DKNY. Not really my style, but I am in some serious need to blow off some steam.

I go straight to the bar, order a vodka tonic, and slink off to a dingy corner to drown my sorrows and ask that ever-present question. As I am staring ahead, however, my night gets one hundred per cent more interesting. I spy, in a booth on the far side of the bar, the groom-to-be himself, locking lips with a buzz-cut leather-clad fashion homo.

Well now, isn’t that interesting?

Day Three: The Ceremony

Breakfast is at 7AM sharp. Just us girls. Giggling. Or whatever. I am surprisingly calm. It might be the 3 mimosas, or it might be the polaroids I have stashed in my handbag.

A limo picks us up from the hotel and we arrive at the Bridal-Shower-Brownstone. I am crammed into my beige tragedy while everyone vomits compliments. I seriously consider taking the two xanax in the aspirin bottle also stashed in my handbag. No time for that now, I have business to attend to.

We arrive at the site, a garden in the middle of a catholic church. None of us are catholic. The men still haven’t arrived yet, so we ladies are told we are free to mingle about the premises. I am quite drunk now, having imbibed over a bottle of champagne by myself. I walk brazenly over to the bride where she is conversing with some friends and relatives. I think she is making introductions, but everything is starting to sound far away. I’d better do this quick or I’ll pass out before the deed is done.

I see her trepidation in her stance as I approach. She knows there is no controlling me once I’m drunk. She’s hoping. She’s praying. I love her when she’s like this.

I hear the trail end of the conversation. Some old woman is saying how fantastic everything looks.

“Yeah, Looks” I say. “Let’s just hope Jacob makes it back in time from the gay bar with enough money left for the honeymoon! You know how Amanda hates it when her appearances are spoiled by the truth!”

And by their faces, I know for a moment I have won. Then I feel five sharp, perfectly manicured nails digging into my arm. I am too woozy to resist, and Amanda leads me forcefully into the waiting rooms.

“You think this is about appearance, you stupid little whore?” Amanda nearly spits at me through grinding teeth. “You always think you have everything figured out in your trampy little world where everything is just beneath what it seems to be. Well let me tell you just what this is about. It’s about money – money you are about to steal from me if you say one tiny insignificant syllable about what you saw last night.”

“But...what...what money?” I know I am stammering and she can tell she caught me off guard, which makes her smile just a little even though she doesn’t let go of my aching arm one bit. Now I am just where she likes me to be: one step behind her.

“My grandfather’s inheritance, idiot. I only get the money if I get married, and we both know that’s not going to happen. So I told Jacob I’d give him a cut if he kept his dick in his pants long enough to marry me.”
“I’m not going to let you go through with this!” I nearly cry. “You’re just a liar!” Okay, now I’m shrieking. Calm down and don’t let her get the best of you. And for god’s sake, don’t let her know how much your arm is hurting.

“What the fuck do you care, ms. run off with every meal-ticket who offers you a permanent address? We’re both whores, honey. The only difference is I’m about to split six million dollars with a no-talent jerk-off and I, unlike you, don’t have to move afterward. So keep your fucking mouth shut.” She finally lets go of my arm, and the blood returns to my fingers. I can see everything now. She just needed me as a collaborator. She was counting on me to come back and be a bride’s maid so SHE could out me, provoke me, and play me off like a crazy woman starting rumors. We never had an affair. I’m the sick lesbian. She’s the perfect woman marrying the perfect man. For the perfect sum of money. Here I am again, getting dragged along as an accessory to whatever Amanda thinks is best.

And for the first time in my life, I feel like a prostitute. But this time, I’m not going down easy.

This time I spin around and nearly grab the veil off her head. I dig my fingernails into her neck so hard she starts to pant, and I can see the anger welling in her eyes.

“I want a cut.” I say.

“What? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Look, bitch, I am tired of getting used by you. I am tired of being your backup. And I am damn sure tired of being your bride’s maid in this sick performance you call a wedding. So either you split the money three ways, or when Father Gerald asks who objects, I’m going to litter the aisles with pictures I took of your happy little ken doll and his perky little playboy doin’ the nasty in a back ally last night.”

I don’t so much let her go as push her away from me. For a second or two I think she’s going to lunge at me, and I brace myself for the blow. Here it comes, I think. Here is where it all caves in on me. People who ask ‘why me’ aren’t supposed to stand up for what is rightfully theirs. They are supposed to bend over and take it. And now Amanda was going to make me take it one way or another.

But I just kept staring at her as music swelled in the background and a cool breeze blew by. It really was the perfect day for a wedding. Her face returned to that perfect glaze, and I heard that one word, spit out from the lowest point of hatred. The point where you know you are trapped.

“Fine.” She said. And the deal was done.

The ceremony truly was beautiful. The bride looked like the image she’d hoped for: virginal and delicate. The groom, although anxious, played it off like true anticipation for a night of romance. The flowers were lovely, and when it came to that part of the ceremony I had been bought out of, I merely coughed. Just a little, so I could laugh about it later.

We all adjourned to the outdoor reception in the spring sunshine. Everyone was happy. Everyone was beautiful. And Everyone had their money.

I know throwing that bouquet to me would be just the kind of malicious thing that manipulative bitch would do. Grow up, she’d say. Be a real woman, she’d say. Join the rest of us here in the functional world of liars and backstabbers. It’s her way of being kind, of reaching out, of sending the elevator back down. And once again, I’d have to say fuck her. If that bouquet lands in my hands, I swear to god I will leap right onto that podium and punch the bitch in the face. But whatever she does, it doesn’t matter now. Because in two hours I will be on a plane to L.A. with 2 million dollars, a dog-vomit dress in a garbage bag, and an out-of state meal ticket that will never end because she wasn’t smart enough to ask for the pictures when she gave me the check. This may end up being the happiest day of my life yet.