As I sat counting the beads of sweat going down my back I began retracing the steps that had brought me to this point. I thought that something had been a little off but I had been in such a hurry to sit down it didn't sink in until it was too late. My fact-checker kept trying to grab my arm and whisper something but that would have involved her getting too close to my face and I wasn't having it, besides which, she had this tendency to talk to me like she was my fourth grade teacher and I really wasn't in the mood. I just wanted to sit down and get it over with. I probably would have figured out what she was trying to tell me if A: I hadn't been in such a rush, B: I hadn't been so irritable, and C: I hadn't been wearing sunglasses. Because everyone was facing West for this afternoon wedding, the sun was blazing down so hard I felt like I was being interrogated by God; so I was wearing sunglasses. That is, not my prescription glasses. I could've swapped them out for my regular glasses but I would've been squinting so hard from the sun that I would've looked like a Halloween Pirate.
As I kept retracing my steps it seemed my doom was written further back than I thought. I wondered if I would be in the situation I was in if I hadn't hired my fact-checker, Atta. Maybe not, but I don't think that has as much to do with it than the day Atta told me she could take care of the mail for Weapon Mods. Before then it had never occurred to me that someone else could be assigned to take care of mail and it had been something I took care of with my morning coffee, but at the same time I began to see her realizing that working on Thornebelle wasn't as coveted a position as her college peers had told her. So I thought I had better start giving her more to do than checking dates and watering that damned plant outside our office. I acquiesced, mail duty was given up to her and a few months later she brought something to my attention that, had I been doing the mail, would have been deposited into the evening trash.
"You have to go," she breathed, holding the square invitation up to the window like she was showing off the Holy Grail to the pedestrians below.
Something I learned about Atta early on was that my usual defense of, It's really not my thing, didn't work so great on her. There were many subjects of which she thought she might change my mind on, among them, strawberries, cats, stir-fry, dominoes and white wine. To convince her otherwise was to fabricate allergies, allude to safety in cooking practices, all out lying and letting her catch me pouring wine into the house plants. I didn't know how I would explain to her that there was no way in hell I would be attending a wedding, no matter who it was.
To go into any further detail on how I came from not going to a wedding, to shopping for a gift for said wedding, is a bit of a personal defeat for me, so I'm not going to go into it. So we'll just fast forward to the department store, Atta and me standing at some kiosk while it printed a thirty-page gift registry and an employee maked pleasant chirping noises that were intended to make us feel that this is a safe environment in which to spend our money. I had no interest in being there, but I knew if I hadn't come Atta would've spent money out of her own pocket to but a gift and that would've made me feel pretty low. I did explain to her that the people getting married were in no way related to me and I had no intentions of going over a certain dollar amount to purchase some token of acceptance to present to these people that were about to cross threshold, but it was still hard to watch her get excited over some pricey decanter.
If it was clear to me when Atta was holding up the invitation so that the light caught it just so that she had intentions of being my +1 to the wedding, then it must be clear to you, reader. Which was fine by me, because since she was the one who wanted, so desperately, to go, then it was more like I was her +1. But my coming to a state where my intentions of going to this event went from zilch to ok-I-guess-so had nothing to do with the two words, "plus" and "one", it was another two words that sealed the deal, "open" and "bar".
That it finally came time to go and witness this spectacle of the Father's money and Atta still hadn't forgotten about it was not annoying to me. That is was a nice day out, and Atta was good enough to offer to drive wasn't annoying to me, either. What was annoying was that for some reason Atta thought I knew where we were going and that I had had the wherewithal to bring the invitation with the directions on it. That this seemed like something she should have done and I had told her so was not what I would describe as the appropriate time to open my mouth as she frantically punched locations into her phone, the center line weaving out and under from her eco-friendly car as something like a paragraph from The Jungle roiled around in my stomach from lunch.
For the writers of tour guides dealing with the surrounding areas of the city in which Thornbelle is located, it is something of a wonder that fifteen minutes of driving can bring you onto an old country road that looks like it belongs on the set of The Dukes of Hazard more than outside a metropolitan area, and those writers usually use exclamation points to note how special this is. However, it is the careful editor who nudges the writer out of this direction because if that particular guide led the reader out to this area, the reader (then traveler) would come to discover that there is nothing on this road except some wonderful places to shoot a sequel to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
That being said, one fortunate thing about the road is that there really aren't any turnoffs and getting too lost didn't seem possible. So the trick was to keep going until we came to something. Which really did seem like the best way to go about it at the time.
"There, here we go, right on the right," I pointed.
"I think...I'm pretty sure it said left, it'd be on the left," she was titling her chin up, I guess this allowed her to see over long distances.
I said something gruffly about wondering how she would know that since she didn't bring the invitation and then hastily pointed out that there were pink and white balloons all over the sign by the road, blowing all over the place, and furthermore, how many weddings could there possibly be on this particular road on this particular day? She was about to make some, what I assumed to be at the time, wishy-washy comment, but I held my hand up in what I hoped would be, and was, interpreted as "stop" and her mouth made a perfect line as she turned at the sign, obscured by too many balloons and we parked next to a monstrous pick-up truck.
I went around the front of the car to see if the truck was sporting any decals across its windshield, but when Atta asked what I was doing I only swapped my glasses for my sunglasses and tried to pick my way around the mud. I pulled the neatly wrapped box out of the back seat and procedded to the seating area, Atta by my side as we nodded and smiled at the people we passed. Find-it-ok?'s and Need-help-with-that?'s assailed us from different directions and we both smiled and took turns saying things like "It's so pretty out here." feeling generally welcome and the both of us in better moods for being out of the car.
I sat the gift down in the designated area and we headed out to find a seat towards the back when Atta started trying to tell me something. People were behind us, so it wasn't like I was going to stop and listen to whatever she had to say, since we'd be sitting in a few minutes anyways and she could tell me then.
So, there I was, sitting in a white plastic chair, counting the beads of sweat rolling down my back as I finally realize what it was Atta had been trying to tell me all along. What she had been trying to tell me, desperately before we had both sat down and commited ourselves to the groom's share of the chairs. How, if I had listened, just briefly, to what she had to say, to furiously whisper to me, would have gone a long way just then. But the look I gave her then conveyed that I finally understood, and I hope the look was also apologetic.
"Well, let's just hope these people don't end up with two decanters," I offered, resigned to my seat.
What Atta said next I chalk up more to her being angry with me, rather than her views on any of the strangers that had surrounded us, but I will record it here for posterity's sake.
"Dorge, these people don't know what a decanter is."
And also, might I add, that the bride and groom, whoever they were, were quite a lovely couple.
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