Page 60 of Fathers of the Bride
“How can I promise if—”
“Just promise!”
“Okay, fine, I promise.”
That was bizarre and off-putting. Suddenly, there was music everywhere. A disco version of “I Will Always Love You.” I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it was the most disturbing use of the Dolly Parton classic I’d ever heard. A flash mob began the hustle. Raj gave his phone to a young woman in the crowd to record and joined the dancers.
The choreography was good. Very good. I shouldn’t have been surprised since I could see one of my clients in the back who’d had several dance videos take the Internet by storm. In fact, I could see a couple other clients. Why were there more of my clients at the party than there were friends of my daughter? I had the nasty feeling my boyfriend might have had something to do with that.
And why had Raj started the flash mob without Kelly and Avery? Wasn’t the point to do it in front of the bride and groom? Then, out of the gathering crowd, a little man wearing a frantic look on his face, called out to Pudge and Lissa, “You don’t have a permit! You can’t ride an elephant on the pier without a permit.”
Pudge and Lissa ignored him and kept waving at the crowd. They had stiff smiles plastered onto their faces. Oh, they were not happy. Would this cause trouble between Avery and Kelly? God, I hoped not. She seemed so—
The elephant looked miserable. Not that I was an expert on elephants, it’s just that it seemed to be swaying from side to side in a way that couldn’t be good.
Then I noticed that Raj was dancingatme. That was weird. Why was he doing that? Everyone was looking. People were holding up their phones. I was leaning over to tell Raj to knock it off when the song stopped, and the flash mob struck a pose. All eyes turned to me. Was I supposed to have gotten Kelly? I didn’t even know where she was.
The little man was still yelling at Pudge and Lissa that they needed a permit. They continued to ignore him and wave at the crowd. I looked down and Raj was on his knees in front of me. He had a pained expression on his face that reminded me of the time he got food poisoning from a chicken restaurant he’d promoted—
“Andrew Lane, will you marry me?”
Honestly, I was tempted to say, ‘Are you kidding me?’ but I remembered he’d made me promise to say ‘yes’—which in itself made it hard to take any of this seriously. People didn’t usually need coaching before a proposal. Something else was going on here and I didn’t have time to figure it out because everyone was staring at me. So, I said, “Uh… yeah, I guess.”
And then, I was uploaded to the Internet by half the guests there. Raj jumped up and kissed me. I nearly bit his lip. I mean, seriously, he didn’t believe in marriage. He said so all the time.
And that’s when I saw Miles standing about twenty feet away. Oh God, the look on his face—well, he did just see his husband agree to marry someone else. He turned away, and just as he began to hurry off, he stepped on a pile of elephant dung and slipped. His arms flew up, he wobbled attempting to get his balance, and then he fell flat onto the pier. He lay there, clearly stunned, wind knocked out of him, for a long moment.
Then the unhappy, restless elephant shifted again and the boards beneath its foot broke, its enormous leg sinking into the pier, the boards Miles lay on flew upwards, catapulting him off the pier into the Pacific Ocean.
23
Miles Kettering-Lane
As I’ve gotten older,I’ve noticed that life’s big questions come more and more into focus. Why does love end? What is the point of life? And, most importantly, which is worse: watching your husband become engaged to another man or being flung into the ocean by a tangle-footed elephant. I can’t decide, can you? I suppose we’ll have to leave it to the philosophers. It is a quandary, after all.
Anyway, flying through the air on my way into the Santa Monica Bay, I assumed I was about to die. But rather than my life flashing before my eyes, I got headlines: “Host ofThe Happy HomeMeets Unhappy End” and “Style Guru Goes Permanently Out of Fashion.”
Though landing in the water was like being hit with a board and the water temperature was cold enough to cause nearly instant hypothermia, I managed to survive. Valiantly, I popped my head out of the water, gasped a few times and then—as though prompted—remembered to swim. I freestyled it for at least five minutes—or maybe thirty seconds, one or the other—feeling like I was getting nowhere. The waves would propel me forward and then pull me back.
Then I remembered I was wearing Versace. Vintage Versace. That I personally paid for. I’d bought the shirt on a trip we took to Vegas to celebrate the tenth season ofThe Happy Home. Kelly was with me when I bought it. I think she was around eleven and there wasn’t much else for a child her age to do than watch her daddy shop. And now it was ruined. If the water and salt didn’t destroy it, the pollution and seagull poop would.
Ooops, I went under. Almost didn’t come back up. Then I was thrust against a piling. I clung to it like it was Brad Pitt. I lowered my feet and found that I could touch the ocean floor, just barely. I’d lost one of my dress Ferragamo moccasins. The evening was an absolute tragedy.
A flash mob?! How could Andy agree to marry someone who proposed with a flash mob. And that song! Yes, I love that song, but have you actually listened to the words? It’s a breakup song. Seriously, if you’re going to propose to someone you should listen to the whole song and not just the chorus. I mean, it’s like asking someone would you like to marry me and live happily ever after—and by the way, listen to this song about someone leaving and never coming back. I mean, isn’t that a classic mixed message?
A giant wave came in and I was peeled off the piling, dipping underwater and nearly drowning. Well, not nearly. I got very wet and struggled back to the surface. I found another piling to cling to. I didn’t care what this one looked like. There was no way I was letting it go. Ever.
24
Andrew Lane
I ranto the edge of the pier, bent over the railing, and screamed out, “Miles!” I began to climb over the railing to jump in after him, but Raj pulled me back.
“What are you doing?”
“Miles just fell off the pier. He needs help.”
“Yes, but I proposed, and people are filming. You can’t go running after your ex. Not right now.” He turned and smiled to whoever was taping. Pudge and Lissa were screaming at the elephant’s trainer to get them down.
