Barney in the Rubble

The first time they bumped into each other, she was holding a bouquet, and he was giving a bride away. She could feel him looking at her, and she blushed the same color as her peonies and tried not to smile more than the beatific Mona Lisa half-grin she’d had plastered on her face all morning. She'd smiled so much her face hurt. She couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel room and drink alcohol from tiny bottles and frown at her reflection in the mirror in order to flex the overworked muscles in the opposite direction.

It’s never appropriate to flirt with the father of the bride—everyone knows that. And it isn’t appropriate to flirt with the uncle of the bride, and it isn’t appropriate to flirt with any relation of the bride. Except he wasn’t a relation of the bride. He was a stand-in. That’s what she’d heard anyway. The bride was estranged from her family, and so this man was a coworker or a boss or a mechanic, something like that.

Why was Wilma even here? She hardly knew the bride. But she did know the groom, and not in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink way, but kind of in a nudge-wink-nudge-wink kind of a way.

The two had almost hooked up back in college, at a party in which people had come dressed as their favorite cartoon characters and she’d been Wilma Flintstone (because of her name) and he’d been Barney Rubble (because of his) and something about the taboo quality of sleeping with her cartoon husband’s best friend had appealed to her, but it never happened. They’d been too blotto that night, and then the window had closed.

Not that there hadn’t been a little bit of chemistry. But she’d never been great with Bunsen burners.

Instead, they’d become friends. Even though most life coaches, therapists, influencers, best friends, and the occasional used car salesman will tell you that a man and a woman—a Barney and a Wilma, as it were—can never be actual friends. There will always be a pulse between them. But not for these two. Sure they’d been close. Lean-up-against-each-other-whilst-studying close. Hanging-out-on-picnic-blankets-in-a-park-at-sunset close. A-whisper-of-a-spark-but-not-enough-to-fan-the-flames close. So they’d relegated the relationship to the Friend Zone, and look at that, naysayers, you can be friends with a person of the opposite sex.

Kind of.

Before getting engaged, Barney had always been there for Wilma. When she’d broken up with her long-time man and had needed to move out of the apartment fast, he’d shown up with a borrowed pick-up and a lot of cardboard boxes at one in the morning. When she was crying in the bathroom at work, incoherent over a two-night-stand that had gone unexpectedly awry, he’d not only come to her office, he’d shown up in the ladies' room, dried her off, and taken her out to the pier to throw bread crumbs to the seagulls and put her world in perspective.

They were almost like couples in ads you see on TV for medication with too many side effects to say in one breath. Easy with each other.

“Why aren’t you dating?” her bestie had asked.

“Because he’s Barney,” she’d answered, as if that were an answer. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t.

He’d been able to convince his betrothed to include her in the line-up of bridesmaids by saying that if she didn’t, he was going to put Wilma in with his groomsmen. So that’s why she was standing there, although the rest of the pretty maids seemed destined to delude her, dissuade her, shade her. Evade her.

So she stood in a bridesmaid dress the color of wet paper bag, something she thought the bride had chosen especially for her because the dresses were each a different hue and the ones on either side of her were a lovely chocolate and a pretty taupe. Why had she gotten grocery-store-bag brown if the bride didn’t hate her?

The faux father was smiling at her again. He was good looking, not that much older than her, she thought, dark hair, blue eyes. A bit hot, actually. And she wondered if he thought she looked attractive or ridiculous or six of one and half a dozen of the mother of the bride, who was looking lovely in lavender. Oh, was Wilma ever lightheaded. How long were weddings anyway? Why had she agreed to join in? She could have told Barney no, thank you but no, I appreciate the gesture, and also no. Yet her mom had said do it, you love him, he’s your guy.

“You love him.” That’s what her mom had said. You. Love. Him.

Now, standing in a wilting line of maidens in the hot church, she realized something she never had. Maybe she did love him. Maybe that was why the bride had put her in a paper bag. Maybe it’s why she felt so awful, had drunk too many vodkas on the airplane, had gotten him a gravy boat as a wedding gift because it was so obviously a joke to her. Who in the world wanted a gravy boat? Gravy boats were the epitome of the 1950s. But then Betty, his one and only, his heart’s desire, had a lot of 1950s in her. There were doilies on the furniture of Barney’s future, Wilma would bet three months’ salary on that.

The air felt cloying around her. Too much gardenia in the bouquet with the peonies. Had nobody told the bride that it’s best to use mild-scented flowers. That the ones she’d picked were kind of awful. The shower Wilma was looking forward to was going to be very hot with a lot of hotel soap all over to get rid of every last trace of this miserable day.

She hadn’t drunk enough water prior to the event. She realized this too late. But it had been intentional. The idea of needing to take a leak for the entire ceremony had kept her from even a solitary sip before the shindig started. And now it was going on and on, and there was a wasp in the corner of the stained glass. Batting its wings uselessly. In her mind, the wasp wanted to get out of the ceremony as badly as she did. But it didn’t stand a chance. Or buzz a chance. Maybe it was secretly in love with Barney, too.

Suddenly, she had the horrifying sensation that she she might pass out. Her legs felt wobbly. Then the priest began saying those words that they say in movies but she hadn’t realized they spoke in real life, as well. The ones about standing up and stopping the wedding if you had a reason. Like, if you were in love with the groom, but you hadn’t known it until now. If you had pretended you were Wilma this whole time when you actually had wanted to be a Betty. With doilies. And a gravy boat.

Her knees went first, and then the rest of her, sagging almost silently, and that’s when the faux father stepped in and caught her, carried her like a groom does a bride over a threshold to symbolize something we no longer recognize. He had her outside before anyone else could respond, and he was setting her in the shade and calling for a glass of water.

She relaxed as soon as the breeze hit her, as soon as she knew she was out of the hot building, and probably out of Barney and Betty’s lives forever. The stand-in was looking concerned, and she drank the water in a way that wasn’t lady-like at all, the front of her paper bag dress growing damp. He sat back against the trunk of a tree and watched her rehydrate, and only when it was clear she was going to be okay did he put out his hand and say, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Fred.”

“Wilma,” she said, and smiled.