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MERCY
“Esther, where are we at with food?” I call out as I come marching into the pavilion, arms covered in every scrap of fabric I could get my hands on to somehow convert into a semi-elegant tablecloth.
“MaryBeth is working on the cake over at the LicketySplit as we speak, and I’m headed back there to throw everything I have left in the pantry in the deep fryers just as soon as I’m done setting up the buffet tables here.”
I stop short. “Deep fryers?” Somehow that’s not what I had in mind for the menu this evening.
“Listen, much like the kitchen here, I’m about out of food, short-staffed, and I have zero time to prep. If you want any sort of cutesy finger foods for the reception, this is it.” She stops to rethink what she’s saying. “Well, this and whatever I can find in the walk-in to make up some sort of cheese and fruit platters. Plus, my mama’s already making up a big batch of biscuits to slide in the oven, so you know no one’s going to be left hungry and there may even be leftovers for breakfast.”
“Sounds amazing,” said Brenna, who just followed me through the door. “I honestly don’t know how to thank you all enough.”
“If the bride’s happy, I’m happy.” I start my march again. “Fry on, Esther. Fry on.”
I don’t stop again until I reach Camden in the center of the hall, currently arranging all the tables for the reception. “I found tablecloths,” I announce when she peers up at me from under a table, having only just shoved a piece of cardboard under one leg to keep it from wobbling.
“Tablecloths?” she asks, voice dripping in doubt.
“Well, sheets mostly, but tonight, we’re calling them tablecloths.” I drop the load onto the nearest surface and begin peeling the layers of cotton apart. “Also, everyone’s sleeping on bare cots tonight.”
“Cozy.” She makes a face but joins my efforts. “What’s one less piece of comfort when your living conditions are already teetering on insufferable?”
“Hey, these are the things we do in the name of love,” I remind her, draping my first table in a lovely shade of faded rose.
“I hope you don’t plan on making a speech to that effect at the reception. Might dampen everyone’s enthusiasm in wishing the happy couple all the best.”
I shake my head. “I plan to get everyone drunk. That way no one will care if they’re sleeping on sheets, let alone their cots, by the time the wedding is over.”
Camden smirks. “My, my, Mercy. How far you’ve fallen from grace since you ran away from home.”
I reach for the next stretch of cotton. This one is a delightful paisley pattern. “What sort of girl did you think I was, exactly? I know you hated me and all, but I’m starting to think it’s this warped version of me you saw that was part of the problem, if not the entire source of it.”
She simpers. “Mercy, I’ve had you pegged perfectly from the moment I saw you. Still do. And I assure you, mistakes in the matter had nothing to do with my disdain then, any more than it does now.”
“Aren’t you just as sweet as ever,” I grumble under my breath, though I’m certain she can still hear me given our proximity to one another.
“Never claimed to be,” Camden counters, whipping a sheet from the pile. “But then you didn’t really think I was. You’re not exactly blind to my faults either.”
I stay silent after that. It’s a strange place we’re at, working together. Getting along for the sake of someone else’s happiness is one thing, but conversations like these are uncharted territory for us. We’re being unusually honest and, while we’re not being nice, we’re not fighting either. Just having an odd sort of neutral exchange.
Truth is, I never really knew why we weren’t friends. We had plenty of people in common. MaryBeth for one. Even with her loyalties strongly tied to Camden, she never hesitated to be my friend as well. And now there’s the thing with Frank.
But then, part of me always wondered if he was the true source of our friction.
I’m tempted to bring it up, mention his name just to interpret her reaction to it, but then he shows up in person and my interest in pursuing the matter in any way ceases to exist altogether.
“There’s a problem,” he says as he comes to a stop near the tables.
“What sort of problem?” I ask, pulling the last sheet into place.
“The sort where your boyfriend just talked the bride out of wanting to get married.” He presses his lips together tightly, brows raised, eyes bugging out, letting me know there’s more he’d like to say on the matter, though his manners are keeping him from doing so.
“What? No! I saw her like ten minutes ago. She was all the beaming bride you could imagine.”
“Yeah, well. She was,” Frank agrees grimly. “Right up until your boyfriend had a chat with her.”
“There must be some mistake. Chase would never do that,” I scoff. “He’s been doing everything to help with this wedding, why would he turn around and jeopardize it now when we’re so close to being done?”
His brows rise higher still. “You tell me, Red. You know him better than I do.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Camden gasps. “Never mind why he would or wouldn’t. If Brenna is having cold feet, we need to do something about it. Pronto!”
“Any suggestions?” I ask, since she’s so good at winning things and this wedding is suddenly in need of a win.
“Do we know why she doesn’t want to get married?” Camden asks, hands balled in fists on her tiny waist. It’s her get-down-to-business pose, I remember it from high school and the start of every football game she ever cheered at. Any minute now, she’s going to start shouting out letters and kicking her foot above her head.
“I believe her reasons were something along the lines of ‘it’s crazy to marry your first love.’ Apparently, she’s been led to believe you can’t be sure you’ve found love if you’ve only ever loved one person because you have nothing to compare it to.” Frank doesn’t even look at me when he says it.
“Alright, well that’s easy!” Camden claps her hands. I forgot that step in her get-down-to-business process. “You two talk to her.”
“Come again?” I’ve hardly spoken two words to Brenna in over ten years, this hardly seems like the conversation we should get reacquainted on.
“Yes,” Cam insist, “it’s perfect. You two know all about first love. You can fix whatever Chase broke.”
“How exactly do you propose we do that?” Frank asks, looking only slightly less impressed with her idea than I am. “We’re not exactly prime examples of first love being eternal.”
Camden makes a loud pfft sound. Then, she has the audacity to laugh as she turns away from us with a quiet but completely undeniable, “Yeah, okay.”
Awkward silence sets in for an uncomfortable ten seconds until we both attempt to break it at the exact same moment, opening our mouths and blurting things neither of us understand, only making matters that much more ridiculous.
Frank clears his throat. “You go first.”
“I was going to ask you where Brenna is,” I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“Ladies’ room.” He nods toward the right, indicating the hall and subsequent restrooms. “I told her to stay put until I talked to you.”
“And Robbie?”
“With Wade, making the liquor run, still completely clueless.”
I nod, mentally assessing the situation. “Okay. So we can still get everything back on track before we risk total combustion.”
“How do you wanna handle it?”
“I think you should talk to her. And I’ll stand guard at the door while you do.”
His brow furrows and his eyes narrow. “What? No way. You talk to her, I stand watch.”
“You know her better!” I insist. “She trusted you enough to tell you she wanted to call off the wedding, you should be the one to talk to her.”
“I know her better only because I have a geographical advantage. We’re not exactly friends.” He takes a step closer, lowering his voice as he does. “And she didn’t so much confide in me as wail it on the way by while she was running away to hide in the ladies’ room.”
I bite my lip in lieu of a counter argument. I’m running out of ways to get out of this. “Fine. We go with Camden’s plan. We talk to her together.” I hold my hand out with my offering, hoping he’ll accept.
His eyes follow my motion and pause there for a long moment before he finally reaches up, gliding his palm into mine. “Deal.”
––––––––
FRANK
I follow Mercy out of the room and into the hall, repeatedly looking over my shoulder just to be sure no one has noticed anything being amiss. As soon as we’re out of view, we speed up to reach the doors to the restrooms.
“I’ll wait here until you give me the all clear,” I tell her, holding the door for her to go in. “Don’t want to surprise anyone who might be expecting some sense of privacy in there.”
“Probably a good idea.” She takes a deep breath, pauses, then marches in as if going to war.
Even from outside, I can hear her checking to see if any of the stalls are occupied. A few seconds later, she’s back in front of me, thumbs up signaling the all clear. “Just Brenna in here,” she whispers, though I suspect it’s more due to nerves than an interest in secrecy.
“Let’s do this, then.” I gesture for her to lead the way back in, this time following close behind as she goes. I lock the door behind me as soon as I’m in, then take the last few steps around the corner, leading to the ten-sink counter and jungle of stalls beyond. “Y’all get way more toilets than we do. What’s up with that?”
“Not exactly relevant right now.” She gives me a poignant glare, then tips her head slightly left and back, indicating the only locked stall in the bunch.
As soon as I spot it, I can hear a distinct sniffling coming from inside.
“Right. That.” I hang back a few feet and let Mercy approach the stall containing our runaway bride.
“Brenna?” she says, knocking softly on the door to coax her out. “I heard Chase may have said something that confused you, and I thought maybe we could talk about it and clear things up.”
“I’m not confused,” Breanna cries through the door. “If anything, I think I’m finally seeing clearly for the first time in my life.”
“After getting advice from some city boy?” I ask, trying to make light of things. “How is that even possible?”
“That’s exactly why it’s possible,”’ she whines. “He made me realize how simple and small-minded I’ve been, holding onto this crazy notion that Robbie and I were soulmates just because we were each other’s first kiss.”
“Come on, now.” I take a step in closer. “You know that’s not the only reason you two are soulmates.”
“Frank’s right,” Mercy adds, “and, more importantly, Chase is wrong. He may have seen and done things you’d never encounter here in Lacey, but that doesn’t mean he knows the first thing about two people being lucky enough to find each other and know with their first kiss that they’ll also share their last.”
The latch clicks and carefully the door creaks open, revealing Brenna with bloodshot eyes and a red, puffy nose, all peeking through her wild mane of blonde curls, which, from the looks of things, has met repeatedly with anxious hands and frantic fingers.
“Do you believe it’s possible?” she asks Mercy, voice quivering with a mixture of hurt and hope. “Even now?”
I suddenly find myself just as eager to hear her answer as Brenna.
“I do.” There was a hint of hesitation so slight, I know I’m the only one who heard it. “Even now.”
“But...” Brenna frowns. “How? How can you still believe it? Your life turned out exactly how Chase said. You had a first love, and you gave it up. You grew up. You made a life for yourself. And you fell in love for real, with the real love of your life, the man you love after your first love.” She winces as if the words are causing her physical pain. I can relate.
“It’s not that simple,” Mercy says, turning her head away and taking an unusual interest in the sinks along the wall. “And you can’t compare the two.”
“Why not?” Brenna asks. She looks almost desperate for Mercy to convince her.
“Because,” I take over, “I screwed it up in a way Robbie never would.” I sigh, shifting my weight from my left foot to my right and resting my shoulder against the stall beside me. Dropping my gaze to watch the floor, the only bearable place to look anymore. “If I hadn’t, we’d be married too. We’d have promised our last kiss to our first, and we wouldn’t have hesitated. It was real. Same as you and Robbie. That’s why she believes. Because she knows.”
I hear the door to the restroom swing open and slam shut. By the time I lift my eyes to see, Brenna and I are the only two people left standing here.
She’s watching me intently, studying me as if she’s trying to piece together the bits no one is actually saying.
“Why’d you do it?” she asks, tears drying on her cheeks as the strength returns to her voice. “Why’d you screw it up?”
“It was complicated.”
“Why?”
“Because she wanted things for herself that she wouldn’t take as long as I was part of the picture. And I couldn’t be in a picture where she didn’t have everything she wanted.”
She swipes her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffs. “Thank you.”
I shift my weight evenly back into both feet. “For what?”
“Proving that first love can be the greatest love there is.” She musters a smile. “Chase is an idiot.”
I chuckle. “I hear that.”
She starts to move toward the door. Looks like the wedding’s back on.
“Frank?”
“Uh-huh?”
“I think maybe there are still things she wants that she won’t take for herself...unless you are part of the picture.”
The Sweetest First Kiss
I used to hang out with a group of friends in high school one male friend unbeknownst to me had a crush on me. Years go by we lose touch and run into each other approximately 10 years later. We started to date at the end of our first date he kisses me and said I’ve been waiting almost years to do that. It was one of the sweetest first kisses I’ve ever had.
~ Barb