Title: But It's My Special Day
Pen name: StupidSuckedinReader
Characters: the Humans
Disclaimer: Language
To see the rest of the entries in this contest, please visit the FML C2:http://www . fanfiction . net/community/FML_Contest_Fics/77195/ (remove spaces for link to work)
AN: Thanks to venis_envy and anthingzombies for beta-ing and louderthansirens for pre-reading.
The officers talked with one another until I overheard one of them say they needed to interview the bride. They turned their heads and looked at me. Yes, that would be me, the one in white with a veil and tiara. They walked over to me to take my statement; they were still unsure if I was going to press charges. I hadn't been the one to call them; the hotel had taken care of that. It was utterly embarrassing. It was the Ritz-Carleton. Things like this didn't happen at the Ritz, perhaps at a Motel 6, but not at the Ritz. Some officer had cuffed the perpetrators and I knew they would want to talk to me find out how this all happened and if I was going to press charges. Of course, I wasn't going to press charges; they were my parents after all.
Most of my friends had outgrown the teenager years of hating their mother and were now close with the women who had given birth to them. I wish I was one of those girls. One would think a wedding would bring us together, but it only seemed to drive us further apart. It would be nice to say I had that mother who bought me piles of bridal magazine and who stood by me and made planning the wedding to the man of my dreams a breeze, but I didn't. Since the moment the 2.5 carat ring was placed on my finger, she was green with envy. I thought once we went dress shopping, she would then get excited; I was, after all, her only child to get married.
No, instead of helping me or even planning it, my mother became the great naysayer. I realized this while gown shopping. She had something negative to say about every gown I tried on. This one was too frilly, that one made my hips look wide, another one looked like I was wearing whipped cream. I lost track of the number of bridal boutiques I bawled my eyes out in. She couldn't give me one day, let alone a tissue to wipe my tears. Never just one day. Anyone else would have stopped trying to include their mother, but I loved her, she was my mom, I wanted her to be there, even if it meant that the dark cloud that hung over her head was in attendance as well.
As luck would have it, the day I found my dress was the weekend she had checked herself into the spa. She liked to get "treatments". Usually this meant minor plastic surgery, Botox, some type of new age wrap promising to rid her body of cellulite. My mother was obsessed with her appearance. Now, other girls in my position would wait to show their mother before buying the gown, but I was so excited and wanted this dress to be mine. So I called my best friend and my father to join me at the bridal boutique to provide their opinion on the gown of my dreams. When I stepped out of that dressing room, they both looked at me with tears in their eyes and told me how perfect it was. It was at that moment, when I saw the tears in my father's eyes, I felt like a bride, finally. While I was changing back into my street clothes, my best friend comforted my dad and I should have seen it then – the way they looked at one another, but I was too enamored with my gown to notice.
Other brides I spoke with online had the help of their fiancés, but for me, without the help of my mother, the rest of the wedding planning rested on my shoulders. Having a fiancé in med school meant that he was my gimp in a tux. His one task for the wedding – to show up; it was all he could handle with his hectic schedule. The online bridal brigade told me he should at least plan the honeymoon, but I didn't mind –together he and I picked a place to go – Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Even though I was working full-time, I didn't mind planning my own wedding. I wanted up to have the perfect day to celebrate our love and our future together; a day about us.
I tried on numerous occasions to extend an olive branch to my mother, but every time I tried to include her in on the planning, she picked the exact opposite of what I wanted. She wanted a polka band, carnations in the bouquets and centerpieces, and orange bridesmaids' dresses. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought she was trying to sabotage my wedding. I overruled her on every decision. I picked a twelve piece band with a horn section that could play hit songs from multiple decades, roses, peonies, and hydrangeas, and pale pink bridesmaid dresses. No, I wasn't going all blush and bashful on my wedding, but I did like the color pink. I had asked both mothers to wear either pink or a shade of silver, grey, or black for their gowns. It was a simple request; there were tons of beautiful mother of the bride gowns out there for her to buy.
When it came to the guest list, it was the one item my mother insisted to be part of. She had to make sure all the right people were there. She had to show off her daughter getting married. Most of these people wouldn't consider her a friend and I often wondered how Daddy put up with her. He did work a lot, but I thought it was because he had long since tuned her out. I should have realized and connected the dots. My best friend was suddenly unavailable, she never returned my phone calls and our sole means of communication was text messaging.
Once my mother had handed off her mile-long list of A-list invites, she headed back to the spa, stating that wedding planning had drained her. She wasn't around to help with the invitations or put together the party favors. No, she couldn't be bothered with doing anything that required manual labor, but she was there to tell me when a stamp was crooked or that my calligraphy looked messy. It was always something with her.
I shouldn't have been as shocked as I was when the RSVPs came back, the number of 'yeses' far exceeded the nos'. Everyone wanted to be there for what had been deemed the social event of the year. I would be lying if I said it wasn't what I wanted. Finally, the attention was on me, it was all about me and my special day – or so I thought.
With the RSVPs in, I finalized the details with the Ritz-Carleton Seattle. My father and best friend joined me for the tasting. I was so perplexed picking the best sauce for the chicken, I didn't notice him licking sauce off her finger, nor did I notice they were holding hands under the table. Perhaps I did see it, but it never registered in my head. She was my age and he was my father. The thought of them together, sexually, made my stomach churn.
Maybe other people noticed it last night at the rehearsal dinner. I didn't. I was too busy passing out my bridesmaid gifts to my girls and talking to relatives from my side and the groom's side. We were making it through the dinner and I even managed to eat the lasagna, well a few bites, until my mother made a comment to me about not being able to fit into my dress. Fighting back the urge to punch her, I dropped my fork and got up to speak to some friends. She wasn't going to ruin this for me. I swore she wasn't.
I woke up in the bridal suite and ordered room service for breakfast. It was, after all, my special day. Soon after, the glam squad arrived. My bridesmaids and I were poked, prodded, and calqued with make-up, hairspray and other products. I probably would set off a metal detector with the amount of bobby pins holding up my complicated up-do. My mother also got her hair done, even though it was cut short and there wasn't much to it.
Prior to the wedding, she had refused to show me her gown, telling me it was a surprise. I assumed it was in one of the colors I specified, and she hadn't corrected me when I said so. So I had no real reason to be suspicious. My jaw dropped the floor when my mother waltzed into my suite decked head to toe in none other than a white gown. It was more of a wedding gown than a mother-of-the-bride gown. As soon as I saw her, I rushed into the bathroom with a gaggle of my bridesmaids following behind. I swore to myself I wouldn't cry and ruin my face, but it was hard fighting the tears back. One of the girls told me she'd accidently drop her red wine on my mother's dress later tonight; that made me feel a little better. My best friend handed me a Xanax, instructing me that it would keep me calm but I shouldn't drink. I just didn't understand how my mother could wear white on my wedding day. She was supposed to be in either black, grey or any shade of pink. No, she was in white, but I knew people would know how crazy she really was, and I found comfort in that. No one could spoil this day unless I let them, I kept repeating to myself. It was, after all, my special day.
After being helped into the gown by my best friend while my mother asked if I had put on weight, we made our way downstairs for pictures of the wedding party before the service. My wonderful groom had done what was asked of him, he was waiting for me, dashing in his tuxedo. The next few hours flew by, pictures, the ceremony, and cocktail hour. My photographer was smart and kept my mother and I on opposite ends of the group photos and the ones we took of just the two of us, were taken from the neck up, only. She wasn't going to win.
My mother may have been the star drama llama, but there was more going on at my wedding that I should have been aware of, and I was so overwhelmed with how quickly this day was going, to realize it. I should have known my father was in love with her. When he was walking me down the aisle, he kept staring at her. I thought he was just too emotional to look at me, but it was her his eyes kept being drawn to. It was her that made his lips turn up in a smile. I knew he was happy to see me marrying the man of my dreams, but in hindsight he was a man in love.
I barely ate all day. In fact, I did have a few pigs in a blanket during the cocktail hour. We were taking more photographs of the two of us; pictures that would hang on our mantle. The hotel's wedding coordinator made sure that we both had plenty to drink and even made us a small plate of food. I did get to try all of the wonderful food I had selected, except the baby lamb chops.
The band announced us as husband and wife, even remembering that I was married to a doctor. I did hear a few snickers from the guests when they called the groom doctor. It infuriated me. He was technically a doctor. From our entrance, we moved into our first dance. I had carefully selected Olivia Newton John singing I Love You. It was magical, but of course it was; it was after all, my special day.
The band kept the party moving and people really danced, a lot. I hardly had a chance to sit down between dancing and mingling with guests. The hotel wait staff brought out the first course as most of the guests boogied to the Kasey and the Sunshine Band cover. Once finished, the band announced a break, and the meal was served. I headed back to my table where I sat with my groom and our bridal party.
In between courses, my father took to the microphone to thank the guests for coming. He then stood up and walked to the center of the dance floor with a champagne glass in his hand. It was time for the toasts. I looked over at my groom and gave him a kiss on the cheek; we had passed on the word not to do the glass clinking thing.
"Every father loathes the day when a young man comes and asks for his daughter's hand in marriage, but when there is nothing but pure love between the couple," my father wasn't looking at us, no – he wasn't looking at my mother – he was looking at her. "It is a marvelous thing. Love. True love, not 'oops the condom broke, we should be responsible' kind of love; it's the most wonderful thing in the world. You want to shout it from the rooftops – I'm in love!"
"You bastard!" Everyone, all three-hundred guests, turned and saw my mother in her sparkling white gown standing and walking toward my father.
She walked onto the dance floor and slapped him across the face. "You, cheating son of a bitch. In front of my face with all of our friends here too. You were cheating on me." She continued to rant over the microphone for close to thirty minutes as the dinner was served. Every time someone came and tried to grab the microphone from her, she would shrug them off and cry, "No, I will not be made a fool at my own daughter's wedding." My father stood their dumbfounded until my mother began verbally attacking the object of my father's desire.
He mouthed over to my table, "I'm sorry," but it wasn't addressed to me. My mother witnessed this and with all of her time spent with her personal trainers, brought her hand into a fist lunging it directly at my father's face. The blow caused him to fall to the ground.
I buried my face in my hands. This was supposed to be my special day and it was ruined. It couldn't get much worse, could it? And then it did.
"Stop it. Get your hands off of him," I heard the voice of my best friend call out to my father as she rushed on to the dance floor. She shouldn't have done that, but the damage was done. My mother grabbed onto her long blond hair and started pulling on it.
One of my husband's fine fraternity brothers yelled out, "Cat fight!" and thus all the men began to crowd around to watch as my best friend and my mother duked it out over my father. Another one of the guys, thinking it would be funny, dumped a pitcher of water on both of them, but instead of cooling them off, they were now fighting with their gowns soaked. My groom tried to comfort me, but even he couldn't turn away from two women fighting.
Where was my father through all of this? He was still on the dance floor; every time he tried to stand up, she would knock him back down, just as she had done for the past quarter of a century. He finally was able to scramble to his feet, but it wasn't my mother he ran to; it was her. He pulled her away; blocking my mother who was near hysterics. He grabbed on to her, kissing her forehead, but as they walked away, my mother came back at them. Thinking back on it, it makes me sick, but it had all happened so quickly, I couldn't stop it.
No, she didn't come back at them with her fists. No, she had scooped up handfuls of the wedding cake that had been prominently displayed next to the band, and started throwing it at them. Bad idea. Drunk, overgrown frat boys, seeing one person throwing cake, decided to join her. Suddenly, my wedding cake, instead of being served as the dessert, was now covering a large percentage of my guests.
"Mrs. Newton?" I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Mrs. Newton? We've called the police. They should be here shortly," the headwaiter told me. He was judging me as if this was my fault.
I couldn't take it anymore and the bile rose into my throat as I ran to the ladies room. Only not making it and staining my dress with regurgitated pigs in a blanket. I couldn't go back in, but I had to. I knew I had to.
I opened the doors to the ballroom. Half the guests, mostly the older ones, were seated at their tables shaking their heads in judgment. The younger guests, mostly those with penises, were still throwing around my beautiful wedding cake. The cake we never got to cut into.
My groom, who was dumbfounded, sat there in his seat staring at the scene around him. I sat down next to him and put my head on his shoulder. "Should I go see if anyone is hurt?" he asked.
"Mike, dear, you're a chiropractor. I'm sure no one needs an adjustment at this exact moment." He wrapped his arms around me and held me. That is when you guys came in.
"So you see officer, I can't exactly press charges against my parents and I wouldn't do that to Lauren, even if she did have an affair with my father. You see, my mother is an evil harpy, so it is no wonder why my father would fall for my best friend. Can you at least take her to a holding cell until the end of the night? The band is supposed to play until midnight and I would love at least one hour without drama at my wedding."
The officer shook his head as he finished writing down my statement. "This is so fucked up," he muttered under his breath. He shut his small notebook and nodded to the other officers to lead my mother from the ballroom.
Mike grabbed my hand and dragged me out onto the dance floor, nodding at the band. They apparently had a sense of humor because the first song they played was Ballroom Blitz. We danced and enjoyed ourselves, despite our lack of wedding cake, a crazed mother-of-the-bride now being held at the local police station, a father-of-the-bride with a black eye, and the bride herself with puke stains down the front of her gown. It was horrible, and a complete disaster, but it was my special day.
Prompt: Today, my parents had a huge fight because my mom found out my dad was cheating on her. They screamed for half and hour. Right in the middle of my wedding. FML