“Ladies, if everyone could please find their seats,” Aunt Alice called. I could hear the stress in her voice. We were already four minutes behind schedule. Later, I knew, she would say, That Therese with those legs up to her neck thinks she’s above the schedule. She is not. No one is above the schedule.
As we all sat down, a slew of servers swept in with salads, and I noticed that the glasses on the table had already been filled with rosé. While I was chatting there had been, no doubt, a struggle ensuing around me. Babs would have given Alice the eye for having the wine poured before we sat, and Alice would have glared back, silently insisting that she knew it was improper but that it was the only way to save those precious minutes in her precise schedule, and it was, after all, almost noon. I could almost hear her saying: I have to get everyone out of here by two o’clock, for heaven’s sake, if we have any prayer of getting hair and makeup done before the rehearsal at five.
I smiled just thinking about it. A movement caught my eye then, and I popped up out of my seat. Sorry, Aunt Alice. The most handsome man I’d ever known was striding across the lawn in a green hunting vest, shotgun case strapped across his chest. His hair was adorably disheveled from wearing a hat all morning, and he was grinning at me. Even now, after all we had been through, all the times we had broken up and gotten back together, he still made my heart race. And now, I knew he made every woman there swoon when he said, “I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I just had to see my girl.” He kissed me quickly. Everyone was smiling at him, googly-eyed. Everyone except for Aunt Alice, who was glaring.
I was about to ask if he wanted to sit down when a combination of dings, beeps, buzzes, and chirps erupted at the table. Normally, I wouldn’t have looked at my phone in the middle of a luncheon, but as concerned looks passed everyone’s faces, I grabbed it by instinct. There must have been an AMBER Alert. Or a weather warning. Mom’s snowstorm!
Hayes pulled his phone out too, and I watched his face register horror as he processed whatever message it contained. I slid my finger to open my phone screen. It wasn’t a weather alert. It was a group text, from a number I didn’t know, to everyone seated around the table, plus the man I was going to walk down the aisle to the next day. I pressed play on a video. And after a few seconds, before Hayes could grab my phone from my hand, I had seen quite enough.
Babs’s proclamation from earlier flew through my mind. It’s the surprises that direct our path. I couldn’t breathe.
I looked at Therese, as panic washed over me. I thought about that first night I’d ever talked to Hayes, about the tears that stood in his eyes from more than a crushing soccer defeat. That night, as soon as I’d realized his mother had left her only son behind for a job opportunity in a different country, I felt deeply protective of him. I’d been there for him no matter what. But clearly, he didn’t feel the same way about me.
I looked up at Hayes now, humiliation engulfing me. I felt light-headed, like I might faint. My fiancé was on-screen making out with another girl on a dance floor.
All eyes around that table were on me, but it was Sarah who jumped up and put her hand on my back. That was when I came back into myself. The feel of her hand connected me to the real world again. And I ran so quickly she could scarcely keep up.
“Julia! It isn’t what you think!” Hayes called behind me, running after us.
I ignored him, racing through the gardens toward the parking lot. What had previously felt like a magical meadow of tulips now felt like a field of doom.
Once I reached the asphalt, I finally stopped, realizing I had no idea where I was going to go. I had drunk too much champagne to drive. “I can’t imagine where that video came from,” Hayes said breathlessly as he reached me, suddenly looking like a stranger. “That was from years ago. I don’t even know that person’s name.”
“Years ago?” I spat back at him. “We’ve been together for a decade, Hayes! You don’t look sixteen there.”
“Jules, you have to believe me,” he said, stepping closer, trying to take my hand, which I ripped away. “Seriously. It was ages ago. It was one mistake.”
My face felt hot, not from the activity but from the shame. I hadn’t just been humiliated. I’d been humiliated in front of all the women who meant the most to me. I wanted them to believe that I was going to have a perfect marriage and a happy life. If they couldn’t believe it, how could I?
“You don’t deserve her, and you never have,” Sarah hissed, which is when I realized she was still standing beside me.
“Could you please leave, Sarah?” Hayes asked. “This is a private matter.”
“Can I leave?” she asked sarcastically. “Um, no. I cannot leave. And once it’s in a group text it is no longer a private matter, you asshole. People we’ve never even met will be talking about this by nightfall.” I knew she was right. Videos like these spread like wildfire. And it seared through me because tomorrow was supposed to be the first day of the rest of our lives together.
Turning back to me, Hayes looked me straight in the eye. “Julesy, you are the love of my life. I can’t live without you, and I swear to you that video was from so many years ago that I couldn’t even tell you where it was from. I would never cheat on you. You’re going to be my wife. I’m going to treat you like gold.”
I wasn’t crying anymore, but he was.
“I don’t know who in the world would send a text like this, but they clearly don’t know a thing about us. Please don’t let something so stupid ruin our perfect day, Jules. You deserve this so much. We have dreamed of it for so long.” I looked into his eyes and was surprised to find that they looked the same to me as they always had. And that was what made Hayes and me work. To the outside world, he was the cool, handsome, put-together guy. But I was the one he showed all the real stuff to, the one who saw his scars.
It was Sarah who finally spoke. “We’ll consider what you’re saying,” she said as the rest of my bridesmaids started walking toward us. On the one hand, I didn’t really want to see anyone. On the other, Hayes deserved to face the firing squad.
“You can’t take her away from me,” Hayes cried. “She’s the love of my life.”
“The video could have been from one of the times you were broken up,” Ashley, one of my friends from college and ever the optimist, offered.
“What?!” Leah, the realist, practically spat. “Are you just going to stand there and pretend like we don’t all know Hayes is a cheater?”
“I’m not a cheater!” I could hear him trying to protest, but I couldn’t see him anymore from behind my friends, who had all gathered around me.
“This really concerns me, Jules,” Catherine said, as if that was helpful. Hayes finally broke through the circle, taking my hands, looking me in the eye. He showed me his phone.
“Do you see how low-quality this is? No one has a phone old enough to take such a sucky video. It’s clearly from a long time ago.”
There wasn’t a time stamp, and I couldn’t exactly place where it was. It could have been any bar in any city.