Smoke
The morning of the vow renewal, I’m once again alone in my bed when I wake up. I’m not surprised. I knew Kate would be spending the night with Natalie again, and the kids were once again with my parents. I had to wonder if they were getting sick of that, but I knew they would never complain.
I still don’t really understand why Natalie is making such a big deal out of not seeing Taylor until the ceremony, but she is. It just seems a little ridiculous to me; it’s not like there was a single guest at the first wedding who actually believed that white dress and veil were covering up any real innocence. And now we’re doing that whole charade again.
If it sounds like I don’t like Natalie, well… I don’t. In fact, I really, really detest Natalie. I liked her well enough at first; she seemed nice, harmless enough, and her best friend liked me. It seemed perfect, but I guess it was too perfect. Sometimes I wonder if Natalie ever really wanted Taylor, or just the idea of Taylor. I thought he had figured that out and gotten away from her, but I wrong. She only managed to get her claws even deeper in and she hasn’t let go since.
Okay, maybe the baby wasn’t totally her fault. I mean, Taylor was there, too. I’ll never really understand what he was thinking, going back to his ex-girlfriend and letting that happen. Sometimes, I just don’t understand him at all. Actually, most times I don’t understand him at all. I spend just as much time frustrated with him as I do lusting after him.
But even when I am totally, completely frustrated with him, I’ll do anything he asks of me. Which is why there’s a suit in the passenger seat of my truck as I drive across Tulsa to this big mansion thing where he’s planning to renew the vows he didn’t really stick to all that well in the first place. I’m pretty sure half the reason they’re doing this is because Natalie is hoping the vows will take this time.
The mansion where they’re holding this thing is actually pretty nice. It’s one of those places that’s so fancy I can’t help feeling out of place, no matter how much money I’ve got. It’s not like any of that money means I’ve actually got any class. I feel so awkward walking into this place, my suit slung over my shoulder and no doubt getting wrinkled.
All sorts of workers are bustling around the first floor of the mansion, setting up tables and a dance floor for the reception. I shoulder my way through the crowd and walk up the stairs to the second floor, where two bedrooms have been set aside for the men and women to get dressed. There’s even a little handwritten sign – “Groom’s Side” – on the door. Everyone else is already inside, getting ready. Of course I’m running late; I’m only the best man, and I happen to think that’s a serious misnomer.
I toss my suit down on the bed and glance around the room. Taylor is half in, half out of his suit – perfectly pressed gray pants and a thin white t-shirt – and struggling to get Viggo buttoned into a tiny little white dress shirt. Everyone is so busy with their clothes or hair or whatever that they hardly even seem to notice me. It reminds me all too much of ten years ago, when I felt way too young to even be allowed to be part of the whole thing. I was awkward, sweaty in the awful Georgia heat, and absolutely miserable.
Taylor hadn’t looked much happier that day. I don’t think he spoke two words to anyone until the reception, and I remember thinking he looked so young and so tiny – even at 6’1” – in that tux. He looked like the slightest touch would make him completely crack and the entire day would come crashing down around all of us. If I could have found the right button to press or the right words to say to undo all of it, to break the ridiculous bubble we were all stuck in, I would have. But what could I do? I was just his kid brother, already helplessly lost in my crush on him.
He’s not the same guy now. Physically, he’s softened around the edges, but inside he’s hard and cold. In brief, fleeting moments, I’ve seen his eyes sparkle, but not like they did before this very day, ten years ago. Mostly, all I see these days are the crows feet that prove he isn’t, in fact, immortal. On the surface, he looks happy enough. But I see the bags under his eyes and the way he heaves a sigh and fiddles in his pocket for his cigarettes as soon as he’s finally done dressing Viggo.
I don’t even smoke cigarettes, but I’ve always been Taylor’s smoking buddy. When he and Natalie lived in the pool house, I would see the tiny orange red glow of his cigarettes through my bedroom window, and without fail, I would creep downstairs and join him on the lawn. We never talked during those late night meetings, just inhaled and exhaled, until he had burnt his cigarette down to the filter. Then we went out separate ways.
As he wiggles his hand in his pocket and heads for the door, I find myself following him without even making the conscious decision to do so.
His long legs and nicotine addiction carry him out to the parking lot quickly, but finally I find him leaning against the bed of my truck, shoulders hunched and a Marlboro tucked between his lips. I lean against the truck next to him, but not too close because I don’t want the smell of smoke to linger on me all day and I just don’t trust myself. Taylor’s eyes flicker to mine for a second, then back to some point off in the distance, like I’m not even there.
He blows out a hard little puff of smoke and, still not looking my way, asks, “Can you believe this shit?”
I don’t have to ask to know he’s talking about the vow renewal. I eye him carefully. “So why are you doing it?”
“Give me another option,” he says with a strangled sort of cough-laugh hybrid.
“There are always other options.”
Taylor turns to face me, not even seeming to care that he’s blowing smoke right into my face. “Like what? Did I have another option ten years ago?”
His eyes are neither hard nor cold; just empty. I don’t understand why he’s suddenly looking to me for answers; I’m the younger brother and he never helped me understand my own shit. What comforting words could I possible have for him?
“I don’t know,” I say softly. “But now. Don’t you have other options now?”
“I thought I did, but…” He sucks hard on the cigarette, his cheeks hollowing, like he’s trying to force back whatever words he almost said. “Should have learned my lesson by now.”
My brow furrows as I stare up at him. Once again, Taylor’s train of thought has jumped the tracks and gone off in a direction I couldn’t have predicted and don’t understand.
He does that not quite laugh again. “I can hardly leave her when she’s pregnant again, can I? And she knows that.”
It feels like all the air has been stolen from my lungs, and I don’t think I can blame Taylor’s cigarette for that, although it definitely isn’t helping. Pregnant? Again? I’m not delusional enough to think that Taylor was actually sleeping with everyone in the world but his wife, despite all the times it’s seemed that way. So this shouldn’t come as such a surprise, but it does.
When I find my bearings again and look back at Taylor, it seems that he’s shrunk back into that scared child I saw at his first wedding. His lip trembles ever so slightly and I fear he’s going to let the cigarette fall. “It’s not like I don’t know how this keeps happening or that I… well. Anyway. She didn’t want to tell anyone because she’s just a few weeks along, but so much for that. They’ll all know soon enough.”
Even though he hasn’t gotten remotely near the word sorry, it somehow feels like all his rambling is supposed to be an apology. I don’t really understand what he’s apologizing for – getting his wife pregnant? The kiss? The blow job? I don’t know and my stupid mouth won’t let me ask. Instead, I’m the one who apologizes. “I’m sorry, Tay.”
“It’s definitely not your fault,” he says, and for a brief second, I think I see the sparkle return to his eyes.
“I know, but…” My hand twitches at my side, aching to reach out and touch Taylor, somewhere, anywhere, as though it can express how I feel better than my words can.
He holds up a hand to stop me. “Don’t. It’s just my life, you know? I should be used to not getting what I want.”
In an instant, the hard, cold look is back in his eyes. He sucks down the rest of his cigarette without a word, each exhale short and angry like he’s trying to purge something from his body along with the smoke. I stare at the ground in front of my feet, knowing that even if I did have any more words for him, they wouldn’t matter.
Taylor throws the cigarette, which is now hardly more than a smoldering filter, onto the ground with such force I almost jump back. His grinds it into the ground with his shiny dress shoes and all I can think is how Natalie will surely chastise him for the scuffs. I can predict her behavior almost as easily as I can predict Kate’s, but I still didn’t see this – this pregnancy and vow renewal that seem to form a plot to keep Taylor in her web.
He coughs hard and takes a few steps toward the building, then turns back to me. “The florist should be here soon. I think it’s your job to get all the bouquets and boutonnieres and shit where they need to go.”
I nod and watch as he walks away. Only the slight slump of his shoulders gives away that he’s not okay. To anyone else, he might just look a little tired, but I know.
It’s unbearably hot outside, but I know it’ll be stifling in another way if I go back into the mansion. I decide to stay by my truck and watch for the florist; might as well make a passing attempt to do my job as best man.
If I were a better man, I would have had some real advice for Taylor. I would have asked him how he can stay when he knows what she’s done and what she’ll do every time he starts to stray farther than she’s willing to overlook.
And if I were a smart man, I’d ask myself how I can stay when I’m not sure I’m any happier than Taylor is. In four years, our roles could easily be reversed. It’s going to take all of my strength and whatever tiny bit of acting ability I have to walk down the aisle arm in arm with Kate today, and that’s just in a supporting role. The thought of doing it all again, pledging myself and my life to her again, steals the breath from my lungs and leaves me clinging desperately to the side of my truck. I can’t do it. I won’t do it.
There are always other options, I told Taylor. Maybe he can’t walk away now, but I think I can. I don’t have as much to lose, and I might have even more to gain.