Before we head to LA, I have to break the news to my mother that I’m having a fake wedding on camera. She’s been so excited as Blitz and I plan our cruise. I hope she isn’t crushed to hear I’m having to do vows on the show.
I decide to meet her and my brother at a park between their house and the dance studio. It’s a happy place of memories for me.
I drive my little white car to their part of town. Ted rescued it for me from the besieged house and had to drive for two hours before he finally lost all the press. The crowd has thinned apparently, but there are still at least six photographers camped out on the sidewalk there.
I’ll be glad for this to be over.
My old part of town is quiet, though. Nobody bothers anybody else here, and we go unnoticed in the park, although I do take the precaution of a big beach hat and sunglasses. My little brother Andy laughs when he sees it, but I just ruffle his shaggy brown hair.
“You’ve gotten big,” I tell him.
“I’m supposed to!” he says, then takes off for the merry-go-round.
“He’s growing up,” Mom says. She has more gray strands threaded through her hair than I remember. She still wears her T-shirts and jeans. “You look well. A little skinny still.”
“If I don’t keep up with my ballet, I won’t be for long!” I say.
We walk along the path of the park. Andy holds on to the metal pipe of the merry-go-round and runs as fast as he can along the worn dirt circle that surrounds it.
“You have a date for the cruise yet?” Mom asks.
“We’re looking at October,” I say.
“You decided if you’re going to ask your dad or not?”
I don’t answer. That’s a tough one. I’ve only seen him a couple times since I left home two years ago. In one instance, he threatened to hit me when I borrowed the adoption papers from our church.
But last time, he was better. He stood on the porch when Blitz and I came to take Mom and Andy out for Andy’s birthday a couple months ago.
He didn’t come with us, but he did look at me and nod, as if perhaps he was able to stand the sight of me now.
But that doesn’t mean he’d be a good addition to the wedding. So many of his words echo in my ears, even now. Worthless. The shame of the family.
“I’d at least have to talk to him once or twice to know if he’s really capable of being there,” I say.
Mom nods. “You know, he did go to that recital. The one where Blitz proposed.”
I thought I had seen him, but I wasn’t sure.
“Did he say anything to you about it?”
“Just that he was glad you were going to live an honest life.”
Right. Because getting married is the only way to be honest.
“What do you think?” I ask.
We circle back through the park so that we don’t get too far from Andy.
“He still has a lot of anger in him,” she says, her eyes on the trees as birds flit from one branch to another. “I think he’d be okay, but then I could also see that Benjamin might say something that sends him off.”
“So he’s a risk for wrecking the day,” I say.
“Possibly.”
I appreciate that she’s honest. Now I have to be too.
“There’s something else,” I say.
Mom presses her hand to her chest. “Are you pregnant already?” she asks.
It’s always about that with them.
“No,” I say. “I am not pregnant. It’s about the show. Blitz’s — Benjamin’s dance show.”
“Oh, that.” Her voice goes flat. I know neither she nor my dad approves of the rowdiness of Dance Blitz.
“They’re requiring us to have a TV wedding. Live, I think. It’s a big production.”
Mom stops. “Really? Will they be on the cruise?” She touches her hair. “I can’t do that. And Andy! I don’t want him on TV!”
I can see the panic in her eyes, imagining the cameras on her, half-dressed girls dancing around Andy.
“No, no,” I say quickly. “It’s a separate thing. On TV.”
“Two weddings then?” she asks. Her hands drop down.
“Yes. One for the cameras and one for us.”
“That’s a lot.”
I stand beside her. The wind ruffles the edge of my floppy hat, and I hold on before it’s lifted off my head.
“This should be the end of it,” I say. “Benjamin just had a clause in his contract that if he marries a contestant, the wedding is the property of the franchise.”
“That’s so ridiculous.” She shields her eyes from the glare as she peers across the park to spot Andy. He’s found two other boys, and the three of them race around the equipment.
We walk in their direction.
“I wanted you to hear it from me. They’ll be doing promos for it soon.”
“Well, you know I don’t watch television,” she says.
“Someone might mention it,” I say.
She nods.
We sit on a bench and watch the boys play.
“I guess it will be all right if I go without your father,” she says. I can tell she isn’t convinced, though.
“You okay mom? With Dad? He gets so angry.”
“Sure. It’s fine. I made a vow. For better, for worse.” She still looks out over the park.
“That’s not a death sentence,” I say.
“Neither is being married to him,” she shoots back.
I go quiet at that. Andy and the two other boys dart up the ladder to the slide and disappear in the curving plastic tube. They don’t come out the end.
Mom stands up, alarmed, then sits down again when the three boys fall into a heap at the bottom, laughing.
“He’s ten, Mom,” I say. “Don’t you think he should at least try regular school? So he can make friends?”
“Home school was good enough for you,” she says sharply.
“That sounds like Dad talking,” I say.
She relaxes and pats my knee. “How about I worry about my family and you concern yourself with yours. Will you have a baby with Blitz?”
“Probably someday,” I say. But my stomach turns just thinking about it. I have a daughter, Gabriella. What would I one day tell another child about the missing sister?
“When you have a daughter, you will understand,” she says.
I almost jump off the bench. I did have a daughter. A daughter she and my father forced me to give away.
But like her, I take deep breath and let it go.
Those things are the past.
Blitz and these two weddings are my immediate future.