Page 1 of Play Along With Me
Chapter 1
The universe has a peculiar way of reminding you that you're not the main character in your own life—usually when you're half-naked in a supply closet with a wedding cake smashed against your thighs and the distinct sensation that the man you've spent three years trying to forget is about to open the door. It's in these moments of exquisite humiliation that I find myself contemplating the true nature of dignity: not the absence of embarrassment, but the ability to maintain eye contact while covered in buttercream frosting.
"Hello? Is someone in there?" The handle jiggles.
My heart performs a complicated gymnastics routine that would earn a solid 9.8 from even the Russian judges. I press my back against a shelf of industrial-sized paper towels, desperately trying to become one with the cleaning supplies. The shelfwobbles precariously, threatening to expose not just my location but the absurdity of my entire existence.
"Just a minute!" I call out, my voice unnaturally high—the vocal equivalent of a cartoon character who's just swallowed helium. I frantically wipe at the frosting with what appears to be someone's monogrammed handkerchief. Of course it's monogrammed. Of course the initials are his.
They say you never truly know yourself until you've faced a crisis. If that's true, then squatting in a closet at my ex-boyfriend's wedding reception, wearing a ridiculous dress and using his pocket square to remove wedding cake from my inner thighs, is perhaps the most profound journey of self-discovery I've ever embarked upon.
"Audrey? Is that you?" The voice on the other side of the door belongs to him—to Daniel. The man whose wedding I just accidentally ruined. The man who still makes my name sound like a question he's not sure he wants answered.
I have exactly three options: pretend I'm not here (impossible given my verbal confirmation), open the door and face him in my current state (unthinkable), or climb out the tiny window above the industrial sink (potentially fatal, but increasingly appealing).
"The thing is, Daniel," I begin, stalling while scanning the ceiling for escape routes, "I'm having a bit of a wardrobe malfunction."
A pause. The kind of pause that stretches time like taffy.
"Audrey, you pushed my bride into the cake."
When presented this way, the facts sound rather damning. Context, I want to scream, is everything.
"It was an accident," I say, which is both entirely true and completely inadequate. What I don't say: I was running from your best man after he recognized me from the viral video where I drunkenly predicted your marriage would end in disaster. What I also don't say: I slipped on a champagne flute while trying to army-crawl under the gift table. What I definitely don't say: I've spent the last three years trying to convince myself I don't miss you.
"Just—" His voice softens in that way that always made me feel like I was melting from the inside out. "Just come out so we can talk."
In my twenty-eight years of existence, I've learned that the moments that change your life rarely announce themselves. They sneak up on you, disguised as ordinary decisions: agreeing to be someone's blind date, choosing the apartment with the blue door, or—in this case—deciding whether to open a supply closet door while covered in someone else's wedding cake.
I reach for the handle, philosophical resignation settling over me like a veil. If life is indeed a comedy of errors, then I might as well deliver my punchline with frosting in my hair.
The door opens before I can turn the handle. Daniel stands there—six feet of perfectly tailored tuxedo and devastating familiarity. His eyes widen, taking in the full catastrophe that is me: one shoe missing, dress torn up the side, hair plastered to my forehead with sweat and vanilla buttercream. The absurdity of the situation hangs between us like a physical thing.
"Jesus, Audrey." His voice is soft with something that might be concern, might be pity, or might be the particular brand of exasperation he reserved exclusively for me during our three years together.
I attempt a smile. "Congratulations on your wedding."
A janitor passes behind him, does a double-take at my condition, and wisely decides to continue down the hallway.
"You weren't invited." It's not a question.
"Your mother sent me an invitation." I wince at how pathetic this sounds. "I think it was her last-ditch effort to prevent this whole thing."
His eyebrows shoot up. "My mother invited you? To sabotage my wedding?"
"Not explicitly," I clarify, attempting to maintain dignity while frosting slides down my leg. "Though she did write 'He's making a terrible mistake' on the RSVP card."
Daniel runs his hand through his hair—that familiar gesture that always preceded either a brilliant idea or a spectacular argument. "And you came because...?"
This is the question, isn't it? The philosophical quandary at the heart of my current predicament. Why does anyone attend their ex's wedding? To prove they're over it? To sabotage it? To satisfy some masochistic curiosity about what could have been?
"I came to return your copy of 'Love in the Time of Cholera,'" I say, which is partly true. The book is in my purse, dog-eared and annotated, a literary time capsule of our relationship. What I don't tell him is that I've read it fourteen times since we broke up, searching for clues about where we went wrong between García Márquez's lyrical passages about unrequited love.
From down the hall comes the sound of concerned voices, including one particularly shrill one that I assume belongs to the frosting-covered bride.
"We need to get you out of here," Daniel says, surprising me by grabbing my hand. The familiar feeling of his fingers interlaced with mine sends an electric current up my arm.
And just like that, we're running—me with one shoe, him in his perfect tuxedo—away from his wedding reception. The universe, it seems, has a sense of humor after all.
