27. Fourteen Years Ago
GAVIN
Why am I in Carissa’s bed? Fuck. I was naked and alone. Blurry memories from the night before came flooding back to me.
We had gone out and I had gotten drunk. I started spilling my guts about Penny. Carissa told me she could make me forget about everything for a little while.
Liar.
Carissa stood in the doorway, wearing a kimono.
“Did we . . . ?”
“That has to be the most insulting morning-after statement ever, Gavin.” She looked pissed.
“So . . . we did?”
“No, we didn’t. You wouldn’t shut up about Penny. Total turnoff.”
The doorbell rang and Carissa left the room to answer it.
“Gavin!” she yelled. “Your daddy’s here!”
What the hell?
I threw on a pair of jeans and stumbled over to the door, glancing at the clock on the way. It was eleven a.m. “You look like shit, kid,” my dad said when I opened the door.
“Thanks.” I gave him a quick side-hug.
“You smell like shit, too.”
“How’d you find me? You could have called.”
He smiled sympathetically. “I know you better than you think. You would have pretended everything was fine, but I can see that it’s not. You’d just keep running, like you always do.”
“I’m not running.”
“Listen, I need to talk to you. Throw on a pair of shoes and a shirt and let’s get brunch.”
My dad didn’t do brunch. He meant a burger and a beer. I sighed. “Tell me how you knew I was here.”
“Penny thought you might be.”
Of course she did. “Fucking Penny,” I said. When I turned around, Carissa rolled her eyes at me and sashayed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
I walked over and whispered through the door, “I’ll be back in a bit.”
“No, you won’t,” she said in a muffled voice. “Get your stuff and leave.”
My dad laughed from the doorway. “Nice.” I walked into Carissa’s bedroom, grabbed my bag, threw on a T-shirt and shoes, and met my dad in the stairwell.
“Where are you staying, son?” my dad asked as we walked toward the car. “Not here, I hope? Looks like you’ve been evicted by the little lady.”
I shrugged. “Just couch-surfing. Mike already got a roommate.”
“You planning on staying in Denver and looking for a job?”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”
We got into his truck and he started the engine. Without looking at me, he said, “I’ll float you. Get you set up here until you find work.”
Relief washed over me. “Seriously, Dad, that would help me out so much—”
“On one condition . . .”
Oh shit.
“Penny wants you to be in her wedding. And I told her I would walk her down the aisle.”
“What?”
It had been two months since I’d walked out of Penny’s basement after she told me she was going to marry Lance. We hadn’t spoken since then.
“She’s been coming over a lot. Hanging around, shooting arrows in my backyard. She misses you. She wants you to be in the wedding. It’s in a month.”
“She feels so close to you that she’d ask you to give her away?”
He pulled up at a stoplight and turned to look at me. “Her exact words were, ‘Gavin told me you were sad you didn’t have a daughter to walk down the aisle.’ So this was actually your doing.”
It was true. I remember him telling me that once, and me telling Penny. He wished he would’ve had more children, for both of us, so I would’ve had a sibling.
“And then . . . ?” I asked.
“And then she said she missed you like crazy and wanted you to be in the wedding. Lance is okay with it.” He paused and looked over at me. “You better be there, son.”
“Dad—”
“You better be there, son.” He wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Fine, I’ll be there.”
After “brunch,” my dad and I looked through the local listings for apartment rentals and put down a full month’s rent on a little studio that afternoon.
I slept on the floor for a week until my dad was able to haul my stuff from Fort Collins in his truck. “Don’t forget the terms of our agreement,” he said to me before leaving.
How could I forget?
A week later, I finally called Penny.
“Hey.”
I could hear her breath catch in her throat before she uttered a single word. “Hi.”
“So you want me to be in your wedding? I’ll only accept officiant or ring bearer.”
She laughed. It had been too long since I’d heard her laugh. “I want you to be a groomsman. Will you do that for me? Lance’s sister is going to be a bridesmaid, so we have to even out the two sides.”
“I want to be on your side.”
“Gavin, I want you to be in the wedding. This is what I’m asking, and it would mean a lot to me if you said yes, okay?”
“Okay.” I’d do anything for her. “I’m wearing Converse, though. I’ll do the suit, but I’m wearing Converse. Okay? No arguments.”
“Come barefoot if you want. I just want you there.”
“Aren’t you ready to pop?”
“I’ll be very close on the big day. Don’t laugh at how I look.”
“I would never.” I was lying. I planned to devote the entire day to making jokes about Penny wearing white over her gargantuan belly.
PENNY’S WEDDING WAS in a cheap hall where they held senior dances and Bar Mitzvahs. The centerpieces were decorated with fake flowers and the whole scene just screamed “shotgun wedding.”
I showed up with my dad an hour before the ceremony and found Penny sitting in a backroom on a couch: legs spread, giant belly making her already-huge dress look silly. “My mom picked everything out. Can you tell?” she said, laughing.
She tried to sit up to hug me, but I reached my hand out and said, “No, you stay there. How’s your knee?”
“Hurts like a motherfucker.”
I looked around the backroom, with makeup and curling irons strewn about. “Where are the bridesmaids, and who’d you partner me with? Please say Ling.”
“Don’t kill me. We just did it based on size. You’re so tall, and Ling and Kiki are so short.”
“Well, who the hell is left, Penny?”
“Lance’s sister, Isabelle. She seems nice. Really pretty. Looks like Christina Ricci, but taller.”
For I moment I thought it didn’t sound so bad. All I had to do was walk down the aisle with her arm linked through mine, and if she was cute . . . but then I remembered she was Lance’s sister.
“Whatever.” I plopped down next to Penny on the old floral couch. “Where are they anyway? Aren’t they supposed to be back here, giving you moral support or primping you or something?”
“They’re on a far more important mission: buying me ice cream.” She smiled wide and then turned her body toward me and rested her bare feet on my lap.
I laughed. “Okay, so what’s up with the dress? It’s not Penny-like at all. Why all the taffeta and tulle?”
“Because I was lazy, and I told you, I let my mom do everything.” She shivered. “Ahh, he’s rolling.” She put my hand on her belly.
“What’s this?” I said, feeling a hard spot.
“It’s a foot or something.” I felt a forceful movement in her belly. It was freaky but magical.
Why can’t this be our baby?
“So it’s a boy?” I asked.
“Yes. We’re naming him Milo Liam Stone. What do you think?”
Sadness overwhelmed me but I wouldn’t let myself cry in front of her. “It’s a great name.” I held her swollen feet in my hands and massaged them.
She let her head fall back, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.
When the girls came back, no one batted an eye at me on the couch, rubbing Penny’s feet, except for Isabelle, who raised an eyebrow.
Penny’s mom spoke up first. “Isabelle, have you met Gavin?”
“No.” She looked right at me. She was cute-ish.
I stood up and shook her hand. “I’m Gavin. I’m—”
“—a family friend,” Anne interjected.
“Right,” Isabelle said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Eat fast, Penny, it’s almost time,” Ling said, passing a pint of ice cream to her before turning to me and hugging me. “Hey kid,” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to be with the groomsmen?”
“Do I have to?”
“I think you do in this case. Your dad’s already over there.”
I left the girls and walked through the ceremony space where most of the guests were already seated. An event coordinator directed me to the room where Lance, his groomsmen, my dad, and his dad were waiting. I walked directly up to him and smiled. “Congratulations, Lance.” We shook hands.
“Thanks, man. How’s she doing?”
It was strange how he knew that I went to see her first. “The girls just brought her some ice cream so she seems happy. Not nervous. Stunning. You’re a lucky man.”
“I am.”
My dad patted me on the back as I tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
“Hey, Gavin, I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but Penny hoped you’d give a little speech since you’re close to her family. You know, in lieu of her dad,” Lance said.
A wave of nausea hit me. Why hadn’t she asked me something so important herself?
“You can do it,” my dad said behind me.
“Okay,” I said, though my mind was racing. What was I supposed to say, Congratulations, you got the girl, dick?
When the event coordinator came to get us, we filed out of the room and took our places in the processional line next to the bridesmaids. Isabelle flirted with me the entire time as we waited our turn.
We walked down the aisle to Pachelbel’s Canon in D emanating from a speaker overhead—definitely Anne’s choice. I wondered why Penny hadn’t asked me to play something for the ceremony. I had my guitar in my trunk and I’d planned a song for her, but I was hoping to play it only for her.
Once we reached the altar, I went to the right to stand with the groomsmen and Isabelle went to the left to stand with the bridesmaids. We waited a beat before Penny emerged at the end of the aisle and wobbled toward us on the arm of my very own dad. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
My father kissed her on the cheek and handed her off to a smiling Lance. Penny looked yellow. She was beautiful but not the radiant, blushing bride I imagined if she and I were getting married that day. A judge officiated the ceremony, and when it was over, Penny and Lance gave each other an awkward kiss before turning toward the crowd and bowing. I thought that was weird, but maybe it was in Penny’s nature as a dancer.
Afterward, everyone scattered from the ceremony area to the reception space for the cocktail hour. My father and Anne chatted each other up easily. I knew there was no attraction there, but they were friendly. After Liam’s death, our families had become intertwined—and would remain that way for the rest of my dad’s life.
Isabelle clung to me near the bar while I did shot after shot. If I could have put the whiskey in an IV right then and there, I would have. I needed liquid courage for the speech.
Lance’s best man, Roger, gave some stupid speech he had copied off the internet, and implied that Lance had been some kind of player before he met Penny and settled down. I laughed at the absurdity of it.
Lance got on the microphone next and said, “That’ll be a tough act to follow. Thanks so much, Roger. We also have a family friend of Penny’s here to say a few words on behalf of Penny’s family and her recently deceased father, Liam, who we all wish were here right now. But before that, let’s have a moment of silence to say a little prayer for Liam.” God, he lays it on thick. Fucking Eddie Haskell.
I put my head down and looked up a moment later to see Lance gesturing for me to come up. There’s nothing more sobering than giving a speech, especially at a wedding for the girl of your dreams.
“Good luck,” I heard Isabelle say behind me.
Penny was smiling at me as I took the microphone. “Hi, I’m Gavin, Penny’s friend from college. On behalf of the Pipers, thank you all for coming. Though I haven’t known Penny for long, her family has welcomed me with open arms, and I know they’ll do the same for Lance.” I heard Kiki snort behind me. “Penny and her dad were very close, and I know that if he were here, he’d tell Lance how lucky he is, and he’d probably say something like, ‘Take care of my Sweet Pea.’ Liam loved to watch Penny dance, and he was her biggest fan. We all wish he were here.”
I looked over to a tear-soaked Penny and smiled. She smiled back, though she looked crushed. I tried to change the subject. “She’s a good friend and a good person. And from my family and hers, we wish you both many years of happiness. Congratulations! Please raise your glasses and toast this beautiful couple and the little one on the way. Cheers!”
I knew it was a pathetic speech, but I think I did what Anne and Kiki couldn’t. Everyone clapped and then the dancing began.
I danced with Anne and Kiki first. Kiki was in full rebellious preteen mode and had chopped off her hair, as well as part of her bridesmaid dress; it looked like a miniskirt in the front, with a long train in the back. Her mother wasn’t amused but she’d been giving Kiki more freedom since Liam had passed. Truth be told, Penny probably would have done the same thing if she weren’t eight and a half months pregnant.
Isabelle came to dance with me during all the fast songs. “You’re a good dancer,” she told me, so I turned goofy on her and did The Running Man, The Sprinkler, and The Bus Driver. I threw an imaginary fishing line out to reel her in and she played along, giggling. It’s not like I had anything better to do. I definitely didn’t want to count the number of times Lance rubbed Penny’s belly while posing for the photographer.
During the money dance, my father got into Penny’s line so I stood behind him. I watched carefully as he danced with her. They talked and smiled and laughed as though it were our wedding, and he was her new father-in-law. When I asked to cut in, he happily offered her hand to me. I tried to shove a twenty down the front of her dress, but she swatted at me, laughing and pointing to a little bag around her wrist.
“We’ll have to do some special maneuvering around your massive belly,” I said.
She punched me in the shoulder. “Thanks for the speech, by the way. It was really nice. Maybe a little too nice.”
“You’re welcome” was all I said. She nuzzled up to my neck. “You shouldn’t do that. It looks too intimate,” I told her. She pulled back a little.
As she looked up at me, I saw worry in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Gavin.”
“For what?”
She shook her head and looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Hey, after the garter toss, meet me in that little room. I wrote you a song, but it’s just for you.”
“Are you going to try to make me cry myself into labor?”
I smiled. “Wouldn’t that be funny if your water broke right now and you had to go to the hospital in your wedding dress? Amniotic fluid all over it? How would you explain that one to Milo?” She laughed. “Are you going to tell him the truth when he’s older?” I asked abruptly.
She pulled back for a second. “I don’t know, Gavin. That’s a weird question on my wedding day.” She flicked a glance behind us. “I’ll meet you in that room, but you have to move on. I have many gentlemen waiting to dance with me.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
I looked back at the long line. “Yeah, no surprise there.”
AFTER THE MONEY line dances and the garter toss, Penny met me on the dusty floral couch in the side room where I was already poised with my acoustic guitar.
“So this is an original?” she asked.
“Yes, just for you, Little P.”
I strummed a few chords and then went into the regular rhythm of the song. It was slow and easy to play.
Tonight as I watch you from afar,
I sit outside and pray,
Seeing all the things that made me love you
All the things that made me stay.
A minute turned to forever,
A kiss left on your lips to remember.
I’m your lover, I’m your friend.
You’re mine.
You were always my lover, for a lifetime in my mind.
It’s all within our grasp,
No more longing, angst or anger.
Because you’re too afraid to ask,
We’ll let go, come back, imagine.
Our present becomes our past.
Growing old like this . . . letting go, coming back again.
Telling tales like this . . . of how it all began.
I’ll hold your hand and your babies, I’ll watch your children grow,
And one day you’ll say, “Howdy, old chum.”
And I’ll say, “No, I’m your lover . . . remember? And you’re mine.”
It’s been this way forever. I’ve always been your lover . . . for a lifetime in my mind.
Penny was a blubbering fool by the time I was finished singing.
“Did I make you sad?” I asked. It was hard to tell because she was smiling and crying hysterically.
“Is that a song about longing?”
“No, it’s a song about lifetime friendship.”
“I loved it. It’s our song,” she whispered. Reaching up and hugging me she said, “So you forgive me? You’re still my best friend?”
“Always. Now let’s go get our groove on.”
“Deal.” She wiped away the tears.
I led her onto the dance floor just as the Talking Heads song “This Must Be the Place” came on. She wasn’t dancing goofily and neither was I. We were just kind of swaying to the music, bobbing our heads, circling each other and smiling at one another, thinking about the word home in the song, and what it meant. True to the lyrics, we would have to make up our story as we went along because we refused to let go.
Twirling her, I said, “Isabelle is shooting me googly eyes.”
“You gonna tap that?”
“You’re so ladylike.”
“You love that about me,” she said.
“One of the many things, P.”
Moments later, Lance showed up. He looked a little sauced and had no rhythm at all. He was trying to dance seriously, but Penny was just laughing at him, poor schmuck. Moments after that, I was fucking his sister in a bathroom stall. I had to find some way to cope.