I found Andrew at the table with all the other pink Barbies and groomsmen. He was draped comfortably and casually in a chair, arm slung over the back as if he’d settled in. Beer in one hand, laughing and chatting away with everyone as if he’d known them for ever. I watched him for a while: the ease and grace he did things with reminded me of an angelfish. The way they glided through the water with such seamless elegance. Synonyms likerefinement, sophisticationandmagnificencewere also apt.
‘Hey.’ I took a step forward and tripped over my foot. Andrew’s arm shot out, and he grabbed my elbow and steadied me. I, on the other hand, was not an angelfish. I was a big, bulbous goldfish that had no ease and elegance at all.
‘You okay?’ he asked as I tried to straighten the stupid dress I was wearing.
‘Fine. Just . . . you know.’ I sat down and tried to smile at everyone at the table. They were all looking at me.
‘We’re getting to know your boyfriend here,’ Delia chirped.
‘We didn’t know you were seeing anyone,’ Tertia added.
My smile faltered. I wasn’t sure why they needed to know whether I was seeing anyone; they were my cousin’s best friends, I only ever saw them at functions like birthday parties and graduations. It’s not like we rang each other and chatted on the phone. This assumption that they had some kind of right to know about this intimate detail of my personal life struck me as somewhat befuddling.
‘And a pilot!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you guys work on the same flights? Is that how you met?’
‘I’m an air traffic controller, not a flight attendant. I work inside the airport, not on the flights,’ I qualified to Delia,again.She always seemed to get these two confused, although I never knew why. There was such a large difference between the two it led me to believe that either she was a little slow to catch on to concepts or she was never really listening to me when I talked. The latter was probably more plausible, since she seemed to have grasped what Andrew did perfectly and hadn’t needed any prompting there.
‘We met because she’s one of the controllers that helps navigate my plane down,’ Andrew explained. ‘We’d been speaking to each other almost every day for about six months before we met.’
Both Delia and Tertia leaned in now. This story always seemed to have this effect on women. I’d noticed this at my reunion too. They leaned, their features going soft, so soft that they looked like they might slide right off their faces, like warm, melted butter. Their eyes usually lit up too, and it had nothing to do with environmental lighting factors.
‘And then one day I was buying coffee at the shop and I heard this familiar voice,’ Andrew said, continuing with the story that garnered all the soft features and glittery eyeballs.
‘That’s so cute,’ Tertia said.
‘It’s like a movie meet-cute,’ Delia added. She was a self-professed romance junkie and whenever I met her she would always talk about the latest movie or book that I should be watching or reading. I’d tried one of her recommendations once. I’d made it through the first chapter and then given up. The sex scenes had been rather good though, I’ll give it that, and I’d skipped ahead to find them. But the majority of the book had left me feeling awkward and uncomfortable. Anything romantic made me feel that way. The way people lay in bed and told each other their most intimate, personal things, or the way they stared into each other’s eyes and uttered romantic words in hushed tones. Romance was a strange, cringy creature that I did not understand. Sometimes when a scene got too romantic in a film I had to physically put my hands over my eyes because I was so embarrassed for the actors on the screen. Suddenly this conversation was giving me the same feeling, so I quickly changed the subject.
‘Andrew is a very good pilot,’ I piped up. Delia and Tertia looked at me as if disappointed. As if they’d been wanting more melty-butter meet-cute stories. ‘He has an impeccable safety record,’ I added, hoping this additional piece of information might waylay their disappointment somewhat. It did not. ‘But yes, it was a very cute meet-cute,’ I said, and their faces instantly softened again. A loud clink of a glass brought the chatter in the room to an abrupt stop. I was grateful for this, and we all turned and settled into listening to the speeches.
The best-man speech made everyone laugh a lot, even Andrew. I didn’t laugh. The father of the bride’s speech made everyone all teary-eyed. I did not get teary-eyed, but when Delia and Tertia looked across at me I picked up a napkin and dabbed my face in an attempt to fit in.
The whole pomp and ceremony of the thing, all the traditions, seemed silly to me. I’d never understood why smashing cake into each other’s faces was funny. It was messy, and just a little bit gross, if you ask me. But everyone seemed to like it, and three glasses of champagne in, I suppose I didn’t mind it as much as I thought I would either. The dance floor had been opened up to the father–daughter dance first, and then over to the couple’s first dance. They’d chosen one of those songs that you know all the lyrics to but can’t name the band or the title of song. It was one of those songs that is only ever played on occasions like these. After their dance, the dance floor was free to everyone. I did not dance. But apparently Andrew did.
‘Come on.’ He stood up the second the music came on and people began heading for the dance floor. I shook my head.
‘I do not rhythmically move my body to the beat of music in a crowd.’
‘We could dance in the corner away from everyone?’
‘Um . . .’ I looked at the corner he was pointing at. I did, from time to time, enjoy flitting around the house with my AirPods in, jumping about to a tune, but the idea of being in a crowd dancing – bodies bumping together, arms touching, sweat beads being exchanged – that thought simply alarmed me.
‘Everyone’s drunk. No one will care or even notice that we’re in the corner,’ he said. ‘Or is it a case of “you can’t put Baby in the corner”?’
‘Who?’
‘Baby?’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked.
‘You haven’t watchedDirty Dancing?’
I shook my head.
‘Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Gray?’
‘Who are they?’
‘Oh my God, Pippa!’
