Resolutions
He hadn’t changed at all. Five years ago, Michael Hayes McAllister could have been the paradigm that all stereotypical geeky guys were judged by, suspended indefinitely in those Fred Savage-like awkward years, charmingly bohemian while at the same time precociously intelligent, obsessed with video-games, hacking into unsuspecting victims’ computers, the truth, damning the man and saving the empire, the kind of guy that would never get a girl like Janie Mitchell. She smirked, narrowing an impossibly dark blue gaze—one that way too many nights of overindulgence in jager bombs and jack and cokes had compelled Michael to confess reminded him of a midnight sky, but without the comforting sparkle of stars, just cold and dark. In that typical tail-wagging desire to please, he had meant it in a dreamy, romantic way, but somehow she always knew it was a true assessment of her character. As he picked his way though the white folding chairs that filled the ballroom like seagulls perched upon the coast, Janie could see his most secret thoughts reflected in that jade gaze that she knew all too well. Slowly, she swung her feet back and forth from atop the table upon which she was perched, her legs dangling like two broken branches into space as she overheard Michael turn to Jason, his voice carrying across the largely empty room. “She looks so different, older, maybe, grownup; don’t you think she looks different?” Trading a conspiratorial grin with Janie, Jason just shook his head.
“Nah, man, she looks just the same.”
They finally came to stand before Janie and she tilted an impish grin, swinging one pointed black stiletto particularly vigorously to crash into Jason’s shin. He muttered a creative expletive that she had never heard before and she bit back a chuckle. Refusing to show any sign that she might be nervous at the inevitable encounter, 3 years after graduation, her voice spread over the couple in a low purr, “Hi boys.”
“Hey. . .uh. . .hi Janie. How’s it going?” Michael offered his hand, abruptly withdrawing it, then stepping forward for an awkward hug, the type that you usually reserve for aunts that smell like medicine cabinets, clutching her tightly for a moment too long. She patted his back softly, cracking under the pressure of maintaining her devil-may-care attitude.
“Hey, Michael. I’m doing really well, how about you?”
“I’m. . .ahhh. . .doing great, working with Jason at the firm, ya know.”
She nodded and, because Michael’s intense scrutiny unnerved her, glanced over to Jason as he crouched, rubbing his shin. Looking up with a grin, he offered his hand and she gripped it, twisting hers around, slapping twice, Fresh-Prince-style. “And how is the great lawyer?”
“Eh, I’m making it. Does Julia know that you’re here? I’m about to go back there, I can send her out.” His attempt to leave the two of them alone was obvious and Janie shook her head.
“Yes, she knows I’m here, and don’t you dare go back there—she’s doing the final fitting of her dress and she’d flip her shit if you saw it.” A look passed between them and Jason sighed, shaking his head.
“I almost didn’t recognize you without a cigarette in your hand.” Michael’s interjection was abrupt, and though he was referencing a habit they used to share, she frowned, the stern lines of her expression hiding the genuine offense that she took at the comment.
“I gave them up for Lent.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s June.”
“Yeah, I gave them up for Lent two years ago.”
“Oh, well, good for you.” She could see the square outline through dark denim of the Benson and Hedges she knew that she could find in his pocket. The silence settled around them, stifling, like hiding under a blanket. Jason covered a cough with the back of his hand and Michael prepared to stick his foot in his mouth once more. “You’re staying at the Best Western, right? With everyone else? There’s this crazy guy staying next to me that looks just like Professor Shafer, remember, from Chem 102? So every morning, or for the two mornings I’ve been there, he gets up at like, 6:00, bangs around his hotel room, plays the guitar for like, two hours, but somehow always manages to be outside in the hall when I come out of my room, no matter what time it is. He’s always putting lotion on his hands, and every time, says he got too much, and tells me to take some.” Michael shuddered and fell silent for a moment, as if realizing that he was rambling. “Can you imagine?”
Janie coughed, while Jason bit his lip to keep from laughing, finally managing, “So you’ve got yourself a 60-year-old admirer, huh, Mike? Better lay off the booze, man.”
Janie laughed. “Yeah, I think that’s a good rule in general. Remember the fourth of July after sophomore year when you drank too much champagne, combined with those all-american popsicles? It was more like red, white and spew.”
Michael fidgeted. “Shut up, Janie.”
“What? It’s not my fault that you ruined the fourth of July.”
“Yeah, well, you ruin the fourth of everything.” He didn’t look like he was joking, and the silence settled once more.
“Well,” Janie said, hopping off of the table, “that’s my cue. Gotta run.”
The quiet murmur of Julia and the seamstress talking behind the closed door was comforting as Janie slid along the wall to the ground, stretching long legs across the expanse of the hallway. However many years ago, she and Julia would stretch across the hallway in their freshman year dorm in precisely the same way, popping pixie sticks and trading secrets, large and small. Janie chuckled at the irony; back then, most of the secrets had been about Julia’s doubts concerning Jason, wanting to break it off every other week, and Janie’s constant pragmatic advice that she had to make up her mind for herself—the world would still be there tomorrow, no matter what she did. To be here, at Julia and Jason’s wedding was surreal, like everything that had followed graduation; Michael and Jason were always best friends, but it seemed unlikely that they would end up at the same law firm, and after four years of the best political science classes around, Julia had chosen to open a tiny boutique catering to the despondent housewives of Eagle Lake, Texas and their teenage daughters’ prom dresses. Janie shook her head in amazement at how people can change, their relationships can shift. At one point, Michael had been Ozzie to her Harriet, and now they could barely stand to be around one another—she could foresee this wedding becoming a disaster waiting to happen. Above the low hum of Julia behind the door, she could hear Jason and Michael testing the microphones on the wide platform serving as a stage in the ballroom, their voices echoing across the empty room with the exuberance that centered around humour that was nine years old, jokes from freshman year. With nothing better to do, Jason had set one of the microphones to echo everything that was whispered into it three or four times, the sound waves cascading around the large space with no apparent destination, and he spoke low into it in his Darth Vader voice, making their laughter bounce around the room in echoes, hitting the walls and spilling into the hallway where Janie was hidden. If she listened very closely, she could hear their low conversation, and she was sure that they didn’t know that it was projected by the sound system around the whole building. “It’s just unreal, man, seriously. She looks so grown-up, so professional, but yet. . .so much like my Janie, the one that used to sneak out in the middle of the night to lie in the middle of the road, drink Bailey’s, and eat Oreos.” Michael faltered, and Janie shifted to the other side of the hallway to be able to hear more clearly, nearly pressing her ear against the wall. “She even smells the same, except without that hint of cigarette smoke. You always think of smokers smelling like an ashtray, but it would always combine somehow with her perfume, so distinctly Janie.”
“Listen, Mike. You’ve gotta snap out of this. She’s moved on, and you’re just going to get hurt.” Jason’s words, soft and low, creeping over the floor to where she sit, tugged at Janie’s breath, making it catch. Had she moved on? As if they realized their words could be heard, they moved further away from the microphone and Janie shook her head quickly. Year after year, month after month of convincing herself that Michael had been nothing but bad news seemed to fade in the presence of a few compliments; she was losing her mind, curling her fingers into the fibers of the carpet to keep from running into the ballroom and telling Michael exactly what she thought, how angry she was that he would force her resolve to falter, how much she missed being so close that she could feel him breathe, his own combination of laundry detergent, Irish Spring soap, and cigarette smoke marking him as the only boy she had ever loved.
Before she could agonize over the thought any longer, the door to the dressing room burst open and the seamstress came spilling into the hallway, still shoving scraps of fabric and measuring tapes into her basket, shaking her head. “That woman is crazy.” Janie tilted her head, watching the squat graying woman waddle down the hallway, the soft sounds of sobbing breaking her reverie.
Rising from the floor and stepping into the dressing room, her eyes scanned the pale blue room, decorated less-than-tastefully with eggshell loveseats and knock-off tiffany lamps, finally spotting Julia sitting in the corner, her wedding dress spread about her in concentric rings of white lace. “Shit, Julia, what’s going on?” Kneeling before the sniffling bride, Janie frowned in confusion, absently smoothing a hand over the rumpled lace as if by soothing the fabric, she could soothe its owner.
“I can’t, can’t do this,” Julia sobbed, trying to catch her breath, brown eyes rimmed with red. “I just can’t, I don’t want to, I shouldn’t have to.”
“Shhhh, Julia, calm down. It’s just pre-wedding jitters, right, cold feet? You love Jason.”
She shook her head furiously, as a small child might, her bottom lip bordering on pouty. “No, no. I don’t. I convinced myself that I did, but, I can’t.” Her breath caught again and a fresh cascade of tears washed down her face, spilling off of her chin onto the dress, creating bluish-grey pockmarks there. Janie’s damage-control instincts snapped into action and she grabbed a box of tissues from beside the fake tiffany, probably there for this very reason.
“Okay, it’s okay. You’re going to be fine.” Janie dabbed at the trails of tears as Julia started to calm down again. “You look so beautiful; this wedding is the most special thing that will ever happen to you. Jason is out there, so excited.”
Julia shook her head once more, her gaze locked on Janie’s, for the first time, completely lucid. “I can’t do it, Janie. Remember all those times that I knew he wasn’t right for me? I was right, I knew all along.”
Janie took a deep breath, glancing toward the door. “Well, what do you want to do?”
“I have to get out of here,” Julia whispered, and Janie could tell she was more serious than she’d ever been.
“Just. . .leave?”
“I have to, Janie. I can come back and explain later, I mean, the wedding’s not until tomorrow. I just have to get away from here.” She looked so peaceful in her resolve, as if in the midst of her engagement falling apart, she had finally found sanctuary.
Janie nodded slowly, looking around the room. “There’s no simple way out, we’re going to have to go through the ballroom.”
Julia just nodded, rising calmly, smoothing the while silk over her hips. “I’m ready.” Janie didn’t know if she was. Thirty seconds later, they walked quickly across the large room, hands clutched tightly between them, ignoring Michael and Jason on the stage. Janie’s heels clicked against the wood resolutely, with no hesitation. Looking over her shoulder, Janie met Michael’s confused gaze, offering a look that expressed the resolution she had finally come to, and her regret that she had to walk away from it. She looked away.
Jason’s panicked voice reached them as they opened the door to outside. “Wait, wait, wait. . .where are you going? What’s going on? Julia, Julia, Julia!” The microphone made his plea echo absurdly around the room, bouncing off of pristine ivory centerpieces and crystal punch bowls, each word fading into the next, dissolving them into unintelligible confusion and panic. Julia never looked back, and the door shut behind them with a perfunctory click.
