Page 12 of Our Big White Lie
“Mmhmm.” She sipped her wine. “Really weird.”
“Do you think that’s going to get better?”
“I hope so.” She paused, gazing into her wineglass. “I feelsuperweird about spending her money on this.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Me too. I… I mean, I get that she wants to splurge on this and make it a big thing. But I still… I feel weird.”
“Exactly.” Tori sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I want to make this amazing for her, but like, I can’t ask your folks to drop that much money on a wedding thatweknow isn’t real.”
“Right?” I sagged against the cushion. “I don’t know what to do. I still want to go through with this—it would break her heart if we called it off—but I don’t know how to navigate the money.”
Tori chewed her lip. She was quiet for a long moment. Then she softly asked, “Do you think you’d go big if you were getting married for real? Like, forget all of this—what we’re doing—and think about the wedding you’d actually want. What would that look like?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know, honestly. Sometimes I think it would be great to have the big fairytale wedding. Sometimes running off to Vegas sounds fine.” I shrugged and put my wine on a coaster on the end table. Absently petting Tucker, I said, “Right now, I can’t tell where it stops being aboutwhat I want—whatwewant—and giving my mom an amazing experience.”
Tori nodded thoughtfully. “Well, your mom is excited about it all, but she wants it to make you happy, you know? She wants us to be happy. So, I think even if we did scale down to something simple and inexpensive, she’d still be thrilled.” Tori slid a little closer and touched my arm. “Remember, she loves the whole mother-of-the-bride thing, but it’s because that means she’s watching her daughter get married. She wants you to be happy. So whatever wedding we want—I think that’ll make her happy. Even if it’s just a handful of people at city hall followed by dinner.”
My throat got tight and my eyes stung. She was right. She was absolutely right on the money. If cancer weren’t in the picture and I really was getting married, Mom would be all about helping me have the wedding of my dreams. Anything I wanted, she’d move heaven and earth to help make it happen, and she’d be thrilled to watch it all play out. If that meant a destination wedding on the beach of some island she’d never heard of, she’d be there in a giant hat and mother-of-the-bride flipflops. If it meant we took off to Vegas with a handful of people, she’d find something gaudy and sequined to match the chapel’s tacky décor and then treat us all to a casino buffet and a few hours of gambling.
That was how she’d always been—she wanted all of us kids to be happy. And I needed to remember that as I tried to makeherhappy with this wedding. She’d be horrified if she knew I was going through with anything just to please her. Which, to be fair, was the whole reason we were doing this, but I needed to play it like this was the real deal. Tori and I needed to make decisions based on what we’d want at an authentic wedding.
I took a swig of wine to push back the lump in my throat. As I put the glass back down, I said, “You’re right. So maybe weshould figure out what we want when it’s just the two of us and we’re not getting anyone else’s hopes up. Get us on the same page, and then we can figure out details with Mom.”
That brought a smile to Tori’s lips that warmed me all over. The guilt—well, most of it—faded away, and I felt more like we had a plan. A direction, anyway.
“Maybe we should start with guest lists,” Tori suggested. “Figure out who absolutelyhasto come, who we’d like to come, and who we’re just sort of including out of obligation.”
I chewed my lip. “I’m so afraid of excluding someone.”
“I know. Me too. But people also understand that weddings are expensive. If you don’t invite your lab partner from high school Biology, I’m pretty sure they’ll understand.”
I smirked. “Weren’tyoumy lab partner in Bio?”
Her eyes lost focus. “Was I? I thought that was Chemistry.”
“You dared me to eat a frog liver in Chemistry?”
Tori burst out laughing. “Oh my God! I forgot all about that!”
“Really?” I giggled. “I thought you’d be traumatized by it.”
“If I’d eaten it, maybe.” She made a face and shuddered. “Ugh.Yuck.”
“Right? Didn’tsomebodyeat something gross in that class, though? Like when we were dissecting the cow eyeballs?”
“Oh! That was Jeff Carlton! I don’t remember what he ate, but yeah, it was during the eyeball lab.”
I chafed my arms, still laughing. “That was so gross.”
“It was. Didn’t get suspended for it?”
“He might’ve? I know he got sent to the office, but I think that was because Mr. Clausen thought he might get sick.”
“Oh, yeah, I thoughthewas going to get sick.”
I laughed, rolling my eyes. “For a biology teacher, he had a really weak stomach.”
“No kidding.” Tori paused for a gulp of wine. “If that had happened in Dr. Hall’s class, she would’ve just been like, ‘Jeff, you dumbass,” and gave him a beaker in case he threw up.”
