Threesome

Next up in my fictional essays no one wanted: a toast to the Basic Brides.

via Pinterest

Lizzy only went to Kristen’s Pinterest board of a wedding out of curiosity. She hadn’t spoken to most of the guests since graduation ten years ago, and hers was not the kind of graduating class that could get it together to plan any sort of reunion, so she was using the wedding as that. This would probably be the last time she’d see most of their faces, and she wondered if they’d still look like the people she once knew. 

“Where’s Sadie?” Lizzy asked Haley after the ceremony and before the first dance. They were sitting at a table with the rest of their high school soccer team (well, the ones Kristen had deemed worthy, which included Lizzy, much to her own surprise) in the farthest back corner of the barn they’d trudged through an open field in cocktail dresses and heels to get to. 

Sadie was Kristen’s best friend. They grew up blocks away from each other and got matching tattoos after graduation. For as long as Lizzy knew them they were a threesome: Sadie, Kristen, and Missy, Kristen’s maid of honor.

Haley’s eyes went wide and she choked on her Prosecco. “You don’t know about Sadie?” She reached over and smacked Bella, who was on Lizzy’s other side.

“Ow!” Bella said.

“She doesn’t know about Sadie,” Haley said to Bella.

“You don’t know about Sadie?” Bella asked Lizzy, turning in her seat so she was fully facing her.

“I guess I don’t know about Sadie?” Lizzy said, confused and a little excited. Her two former friends had serious looks on their faces. 

“It was assault,” Haley said in a stage whisper, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. 

“That’s a little hyperbolic, don’t you think?” Bella said at full volume. Haley shushed her. Bella rolled her eyes.

“There was a party, and everyone spent the night. Sadie woke up and Missy’s boyfriend was looking down at her,” Haley said. 

“Like, he was on top of her?” Lizzy asked. 

“He wasn’t on top of her,” Bella said. “Their bodies weren’t actually touching. It was like he was…crouching above her, on the air mattress.” 

Haley directed Lizzy’s attention to a man with a blond buzz cut coming out of the restroom. “That’s Tom,” she said, and Lizzy realized that he was a groomsman. She’d watched him standing up with Kristen and her fiancé as they said their vows less than an hour ago. She’d thought he looked like a cop standing there with all the other waspy groomsmen.

“How long had he been there?” Lizzy asked. 

“Who knows,” Haley said.

“We weren’t actually there,” Bella said, which made Haley roll her eyes this time. “This is just what Sadie told us. She said he sort of…startled when she woke up and saw him like he’d been hypnotized and was just as surprised to find himself there as she was, and then he went back to the bed Missy was asleep on in the other corner of the room.” She took a small sip of water.

Haley looked annoyed. “Sadie tried to say something to Missy in the morning when Tom was out getting them all coffee, but Missy shot her down completely,” she said, glaring at Bella as she did. Bella shook her head and turned back around in her seat, folding her napkin on her lap. Lizzy looked to the head table and saw Missy sitting alone, looking at her phone. Kristen was making the rounds with her new husband, chatting with her guests. 

“Sadie said it was weird how easily Missy denied it, like she’d done it before,” Haley said.

“That’s a reckless thing to say,” Bella said, shooting Haley an angry glance. Lizzy and Haley adjusted themselves in their seats and touched their wine glasses and cutlery, feeling scolded. Tom was now at the bar with a few of the other groomsmen. Haley saw Lizzy looking at him and then she looked at Lizzy and nodded solemnly. 

“He was jerking himself off when his girlfriend was asleep feet away,” she said, her voice low now so that Bella couldn’t hear them. “He was hovering above his girlfriend’s drunk best friend, jerking himself off. That’s what Sadie told me. Bella made up the part about him startling when she woke up—she was completely conscious, terrified. He was looking right into her eyes the whole time.”

Lizzy looked over at Bella, who was laughing at something her date was saying while she picked at her grilled chicken breast.

“Then this happened, this wedding,” Haley said. “Kristen had to choose between the two of them for maid of honor. She was forced to pick a side.” Kristen was two tables away and getting closer. “So, that’s why Sadie isn’t here.”

Lizzy watched as Tom walked over to Missy and handed her a hard seltzer. He leaned down to kiss her, and Missy kissed him back without closing her eyes. 

“That sucks,” Lizzy said, but Haley had already turned her attention to the approaching bride. The twinkle lights draped over their heads made everything look yellow and slightly sickly. The steak on Lizzy’s plate was undercooked, sitting in its own blood. 

Suddenly there was the sound of bells. It was Tom clinking a knife against a glass. Everyone joined in and the racket was deafening. Kristen blushed and turned to her groom, who grabbed her by the waist and dipped her until her coiffed hair practically touched the splintery floor, planting a kiss on her squealing lips. 

Lizzy hated these people. She hated them in high school, too. Nothing changes. She threw her napkin onto the table while everyone was distracted and scooted out of her chair without saying goodbye. If she’d looked back while walking out, she would have seen Missy clapping mindlessly, watching her leave.