Hayes had graduated the year before I had and moved to New York while I finished my architecture undergrad at NC State. Then, not six weeks after I graduated and we were reunited in the City That Never Sleeps, where I would be doing my internship before going back for my professional degree, he got a job offer he couldn’t refuse in Charlotte. A large bank was looking to hire a new managing director of investments, a job which, quite frankly, he was terribly underqualified for. But Hayes being Hayes, he didn’t let that deter him. We wanted to end up in North Carolina, and a job like that was unlikely to come along again. He had to take it.
But I had just started my internship at Abrams Architecture, one of the country’s most prestigious firms, in New York, and it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. If I was going to become a world-renowned architect, like I had always dreamed, I needed to learn from them. Then I would have enough experience under my belt that I could go back to State, complete my one-year professional degree, and sit for my licensure exam. So Hayes would move to Charlotte while I finished my degree. The plan was set.
But right after I completed my internship and moved back to Raleigh to start my last year of school, Hayes had turned up unannounced on my doorstep. He was uncharacteristically disheveled.
“Jules, I can’t spend another moment apart,” he’d said before I even let him in the door. “I need you. I can’t live without you. Please marry me. I want to start our lives together now.”
Honestly, I had expected something grand and intricately orchestrated, so in some ways, a simple proposal like this made it easier for me to say yes. That the proposal came from his downtrodden, miserable heart, that it originated from a place of missing me so desperately that he couldn’t breathe without me, made it more charming somehow.
He looked so hopeful down on his knee.
“Of course I’ll marry you, Hayes,” I’d said. After he had given me the ring and come inside, I’d added, “But you know I have to finish school. It’s only nine more months.”
He had seemed distressed. “Do you really have to finish? I’m on the fast track now, babe. You don’t have to work.”
I guess that should have been a red flag, but we had been apart for so long—I was tired of the separation too. Even though I told him there was no way I wouldn’t finish my degree, I have to wonder if that conversation paved the way for what happened six months later when, even though I was almost to the finish line, I did drop out of school. If I hadn’t known I could run to Hayes, would I have let that one humiliating incident define the rest of my life? Had I ignored my better judgment because I knew marrying Hayes was a ticket out of a tough time?
Now, thinking of how happy I had been working toward my degree, how sure I was that everything in my life was falling into place, made me realize how quickly everything had fallen apart. My dream of being an architect had come crumbling down all around me.
I steeled myself. I had let my dream go. I wouldn’t let Hayes go, too. But had he even left me any other choice?
“Maybe Hayes did propose the same night Chrissy found out about you. I don’t know.” Sarah looked uncomfortable. “I have no idea if this is even true.” She was studying my face. “But now you have all the information I have.”
Chrissy Matthews. “So that video was of her,” I said. “And it definitely wasn’t from years ago.”
Sarah didn’t try to argue with me. We both knew it was true.
I tried to wipe the stunned expression off my face as my parents walked into the bridal room. Fortunately, it was so chaotic, no one was really paying attention to me anyway. “MOB and FOB, you’re up!” Alice called as she followed them in. “Photo time!”
Dad smiled at me and put his hand over his heart. “My little girl is all grown up and getting married.”
“There will be time for all that later!” Alice said, practically shoving him out the door.
“I’m going to go meet the bridesmaids trolley,” Sarah said, giving me an encouraging smile. Then she whispered, “You’re okay. You’ve got this.”
Then there were two. Babs was waiting, smiling, holding the veil. The wedding veil. The heirloom that had given three generations of women in my family happy marriages—and would potentially make me the fourth generation.
“It’s time, my love,” she said softly. I could barely look at her. Last night, lying in bed, all I could think about was the fact that Babs had seen Hayes making out with another girl on video. She was the last person I’d ever want to see that.
I leaned down so that she could reach me, my heart still pounding. But before she put the veil on my head, she paused.
“Jules, may I say something?”
I smiled tersely. “You’re going to even if I say no.”
“I am. I just need you to know something.”
I studied her face, thinking she was going to share an eloquent pearl of wisdom, the secret to her success with my grandfather for all those years. Instead, she said, “Sweetheart, it is not your role in life to fix another woman’s mistakes.”
My eyebrows rose. She didn’t have to elaborate. But how did she know the pressure I felt to take care of Hayes? I had been so humiliated the day before that I didn’t have any choice now but to look strong and act proud, so, to save face, I pretended to be nonplussed. “Babs, I know that.” But inside, I started freaking out. What if it’s up to Therese to fix her mistakes, not me?
Babs didn’t seem to pick up on my anxiety, and simply nodded. “I just wanted to be sure.”
She started to raise the veil to my head, with its yards of lace and tulle, but then pulled it down to her chest again. “I can’t even count the number of times I stood in your mother’s bedroom while you climbed in the back of the closet to pull out your great-grandmother’s lucky veil and try it on, the number of times we talked about the day you would wear it, how it would symbolize all the joy your marriage would bring.” As tears filled her eyes, the weight of this hit me. I loved Hayes, but hadn’t that voice in my head, that gut feeling, been telling me all along that I didn’t fully trust him?
As that veil—with all its family history and symbolism—nearly reached my head, I suddenly knew: Hayes and I would never make it. And if I went through with this, then I would be the one to sully the family wedding veil, to bring an end to its streak of long and happy marriages.
“Stop,” I whispered, then repeated louder, “Stop!”
Babs looked alarmed.
“Babs, I’m not sure,” I said.
She nodded very seriously. “Then let’s get the hell out of here,” she whispered.
I put my hand to my mouth. I’d never heard Babs cuss. “But Mom will kill me.”
“Better an unhappy day than an unhappy life.”
I stopped, feeling stuck to the floor, the train of my gown suddenly so heavy it was in danger of pulling me down.
“Come on,” Babs hissed. “She’ll recover. You might not.” She shook her head. “I have an idea.”
“Sarah!” Babs exclaimed just as Mom and Sarah walked back into the room.
“The trolley is running a few minutes late,” Sarah said. Under her breath, she added, “Because Laney got drunk and lost her shoes.”