The Class(y) Acts of Ultimate Snakes

Lalalala, wedding day, wedding day, who's afraid of her wedding day? Me? No, surely not.

I'm excited! There's cake! And friends! And, oh yeah.

That guy.

The one I'm getting married to.

I try not to think of him right now, because he's not actually in love with me and I'm definitely not in love with him. He's not bad. I'm not bad. We just both want things we can't have, and you know what they say. If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

And I'm with this guy, so I guess I can make do. I met him at a dog park, of all places to meet your future husband, and his dog disemboweled my dog, I sued the crap out of him, then my mother bailed him out of jail, we all went to dinner together and it was fun. He bought me a new dog, since my old one was currently residing in the pet cemetery down by the creek, and from then on we had never departed. It made sense that we would get married. That's what my mom wanted. I would never tell her no, and he would never tell her no, so when he asked me I said yes and that was that.

But now the wedding day is here and I am indescribably bored with myself.

My dress is ugly.

My hair is piled up a mile high and smells like I dumped a perfume store on my head.

I can't see my hands because my glasses are gone.

I miss my cat.

I want chocolate.

And most of all, I'm still thinking about someone else.

That's probably the worst of all, right? It's my wedding day and I'm thinking about someone who is decidedly not my fiancé. It's not like I can do anything about it now unless I want the wrath of my mother and her army of  wedding planners. I step out of the bathroom where I've been hiding for the last forty minutes and start walking to go find my mom. She told me to come find her so she could help me with my shoes. There is no way I can tie them up myself, so I appreciate the offer.

I can't wait to eat wedding cake. That's the one thing I got to choose myself, actually. So yeah, can't wait. Too darn bad I have to get married to eat it, though. Boring, boring, boring... oh hey, what's that song that goes like... well, never mind. I didn't get to choose my music, so what do I know about songs?

I keep walking around the big echoey church until I get to the mother of bride's room. Mom! HOORAY!

I knock on the door and there's no answer.

I kick the door and no one opens it.

I bang my head on the wall next to the door and nothing happens.

Fine. I pull the door open and nod. As I suspected, my mother and my fiancé are kissing behind the ugly yellow curtains, hands tangled in hairspray high hair and starched suit coat. 

Cool. 

I back up out of the room and lean against the wall, smiling to myself. Mom and fiancé. Very classy, you two. So very clever.

I open the door again, this time very loudly, and say, "Oh. No. Whatever shall I do."

They jump apart and the curtain rod comes crashing down on both their heads; I hear the sharp crack of metal against skulls and legs thudding against the faded church carpet. Even now, they cling to each other. 

All I can do is laugh as they limp from out of the ruins, begging me not to tell on them like small children begging a babysitter not to tell their parents about eating three cookies instead of one after dinnertime. My mother clutches at my ankles, saying, “Please, don’t say a word about this to anyone. It would ruin me.” 

The fiance, I guess he’s not really mine, never was mine in the first place, is dizzy from shock. He’s holding his nose and the side of his head, both places surely aching from the amount of thick blood pooling on the floor beneath him. “Don’t,” he starts to say, “Don’t tell.” 

I shrug. I could do it. I could tell everyone out in the church auditorium that my mother betrayed me and my fiance followed suit, or vice versa, or I could say it was a mutual event of sinning against the universe. I could tell the world of this appalling event. I imagine the headlines of every crappy checkout magazine reading, “GIRL WALKS IN ON HER FIANCE AND MOTHER KISSING TWENTY MINUTES BEFORE HER WEDDING IS SET TO BEGIN” 

But the thing is, I don’t care. Of course I’m mad at my mom for not telling me, but I’m not jealous of them… whatever they have going on. I think, you know, if that’s what they’re into (see: being snakes) that’s cool. It leaves me to run off and meet the person I actually want to marry. Or at least the person I tolerate the most in the world, who would never kiss my mother, never touch my mother with a ten foot pole. So in a weird way, my betraying surroundings have been a sort of chain cutter. I don’t have to do this. In fact, in would be considered crazy to do this. 

So I don’t do it all. 

I don’t walk into the auditorium, tears streaming down my cakey makeuped face, and tell my guests how I witnessed the ultimate scandal a few minutes ago. I don’t eat wedding cake, because I’m not getting married today. I don’t want to. 

Instead, I shake my mother off my ankles. 

I send my former fiance a not so subtle wave. 

I walk back to the dressing room and throw my wedding dress in the lounge chair and I change back into my soft jeans and favorite orange fall sweater. Cozy now and feeling much better about the day, I walk out the back door of the church. I get in my car and wonder what’ll happen now, even though it doesn’t matter to me. I text my best friend and tell him, 

I’ll be at your house in five, have the tv set up for me please. 

Oh, what about your wedding? 

I get the feeling he knows all too well about my mom and that guy she kissed. I laugh. He probably set the whole thing up. 

Didn’t work out haha. 

Uh, sorry?

You aren’t, and don’t be. 

I pull out of the driveway and don’t have to think much as I drive to his house. 

The roads are just familiar by now; the soft curves of the gravel are as comforting as fresh laundry pressed and ironed and ready for jumping in. 

My mother won’t approve of my choice in men, seeing as this one isn’t her idea of perfection, but I think she’s already proved that I shouldn’t give much care to her approval. 

No, she won’t like the smoky, gun-silver gray of his eyes over the clear blue of the dog park man’s, and she won’t like the toned and tattooed bend of his arms around my back over the flimsy, pale hands that rummaged in her hair. She’ll definitely tell me that I shouldn’t be seeing, shouldn’t be thinking of, shouldn’t even believe in, a man who doesn’t make his living selling cars or selling insurance, who doesn’t make his bed every morning at seven am, who never smells like anything other than shaving cream and lemons. 

She won’t approve of someone who loves me, but she was never looking for someone who did. 

I knock on the door of his house and I’m home.