“When are you thinking for a wedding?” I knew the answer, but still wanted to ask the right questions. “And where? What did your mom say?”
“June. Somewhere outside, maybe by the water. But not destination. It’s just too much of a strain on people. She was thrilled, obviously!”
I grinned. Caryn’s news was possibly the only thing that could put a smile on my face first thing on a Monday morning.
“Will you be a bridesmaid?”
“Of course.” I was genuinely flattered. She might have been my best friend at work, but we didn’t exactly run in the same circles. “You didn’t have to bring me coffee for that!”
Caryn laughed. “Let’s see if you still say that after you meet the other bridesmaids.”
I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t met her high school friends, but I had heard the stories.
“I was in all of their weddings,” she said with a small shrug. Which was totally ridiculous as reasons went, and she knew that too. Caryn’s fiancé was the brother of the worst of them. Their family had more money than they knew what to do with, which explained the enormity of the rock on Caryn’s finger. I never understood why Caryn was so desperate to impress this one particular group of girls, especially because Caryn herself came from money. But as a peasant, I didn’t understand the ways of the extravagantly wealthy. And I knew that the fear of not living up to these other women’s standards was the primary source of anxiety in her life.
“Bring it on. Just tell me I don’t have to wear anything floral.”
“In the wedding?” Caryn asked, horrified. “Oh no. Solids only for bridesmaid dresses!”
“What was I thinking?” I smiled. “I’m honored, really.”
“Thank you.” She hugged me. “I’m going to need you for this.”
The next to fall was my college roommate, Sharon. Her engagement was no big surprise—in fact, she probably would have freaked out and not given him an answer if Josh had surprised her. Sharon didn’t like being put on the spot. She and Josh had been living together for two years already and she knew he had the ring before he asked. “We’re just going to do city hall,” she confided when she called me. “I’ve never wanted a real wedding. I mean, you can come and all, but I don’t want to do a bridal party or anything like that. You don’t mind, do you?”
I assured her, quite honestly, that I did not. I would go anywhere for her, but at my age, I was past feeling that being a bridesmaid was a necessity. I was happy to do it, but would my feelings be hurt if I didn’t have to wear a puffy dress and bride-selected shoes? No.
City hall was also not much of a surprise. Through the dozen-plus years of our friendship, she had been adamant that if she ever got married, her dream wedding was Rabbi Elvis in Vegas, with random witnesses off the street. Which made sense, if you knew Sharon. Not that she was the Vegas type at all, but her mother was so domineering and overbearing that if she knew a wedding was happening, Sharon would have zero input into any part of it.
But once there was a ring on her finger, Sharon couldn’t not tell her mom, who apparently had strong opinions other than city hall.
Sharon called me in hysterics three days after the engagement phone call. “She said she’ll disown me if I don’t have a real wedding,” she wailed. “She said I’ll be dead to her. She’s going to sit shiva.”
“She wouldn’t do that. She’s bluffing.”
“Have you met my mother? She’s serious.”
I sighed, having lived through many soap-operatic dramas between Sharon and her mother. Would she go through with sitting shiva? Possibly. Would she also recant as soon as the first grandchild was born? Of course. But it was a moot point because if Mrs. Meyer pushed hard enough, Sharon always caved.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“She already booked her rabbi to marry us.”
“Will he wear an Elvis costume for you at least?”
Sharon laughed and then hiccupped. “Probably not. He’s like a hundred and fifty years old.” She paused. “I hate to ask. I know I said you wouldn’t have to be in it—”
“I’m happy to, Shar.”
“You mean it?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” she sighed in relief. “I don’t know how I could get through this if you said no.”
When I met my best friend, Megan, for happy hour a few weeks later, she kept her left hand deliberately hidden when I showed up.