Me Vs. Me

“Where’s Cam?” she asks, post-routine, getting comfy on her white velvety couch. “Doesn’t he want to spend every second of your last day with you?”

“We broke up.”

Her jaw drops. “You didn’t! What happened? He wasn’t into the long distance?”

“Kind of. You see, he proposed—”

“What?” she shrieks and throws a pillow at me. “And you said no?”

I recount the whole story, and she stays quiet throughout. Lila has always been a very good listener. She has this way of never making me feel judged. She’s a very soothing person. Like chicken soup without the salt. Almost bland, but in a good way. But Lila also thinks Cam is the best boyfriend ever. She constantly tells me how lucky I am. “Don’t you think it was wrong of him to give me an ultimatum?” I ask. “Stay or go? Why does he get everything and I have to give something up?”

“I suppose,” she says, nodding.

“I had no choice,” I say.

“I don’t know about that. You had to give something up and you did. Cam.”

Gave up Cam? Is that what I did?

She sees the expression of despair on my face and pats my knee. “You’ll be fine. Really. You were never sure if Cam was right for you anyway.”

I wonder if this is true. I didn’t want Cam to be Mr. Right because I was planning on moving. But is he? Was he?

“Finish packing and I’ll order us some dinner. Pizza?”

We order, we eat, we watch TV. We rehash the whole Cam thing. The phone doesn’t ring all night. My dad lives in L.A., although he’s currently working in Australia, and while my mom lives here, she’s working in Florida these days. There must be someone to call to say goodbye to. Although, my social life has mostly revolved around Cam and his family for the past year. Calling them to say farewell might be a little…awkward. There’s Bernie, my old news director, but he’s still a bit pissed off with me for quitting.

After Lila and I exchange tearful goodbyes, I retreat to my room. Before I climb into bed, I pull down the curtain. Okay, fine, it’s not really a curtain but a dark gray sheet that Cam found at his parents’ house and helped me staple to the ceiling to keep out the light. He nailed a hook above the window so I could pull it up during the day. I’m not going to bother removing it in the morning—I’m sure Lila will get around to putting up real blinds eventually. Then I check my Hello Kitty alarm clock (I have to remember to pack this in the morning—it was a gift from my dad when I was eight). It’s eleven-thirty in the evening. The alarm is set for six-thirty, since my flight is at nine. Cam was supposed to take me to the airport. I guess I’ll be calling a cab.

First I hit the radio button to make sure that the volume is on. “Like a Virgin” blasts in my ear. Then I realize I’m cold and sneak back into the living room, rummage through one of my two suitcases and find Cam’s J. Crew cotton long-sleeved shirt that he left here months ago (I wear it when I want to feel warm and toasty), and slip it on to punish myself. Back in the bedroom, his smell wafts over me as I turn off the light. I wrap myself in my pink top sheet that I have to remember to pack in the morning.

Did I set the alarm properly? What if I set it for 6:30 p.m. instead of a.m.?

I sit up and check—6:30 a.m. In six and a half hours. I’m never going to fall asleep. I bet Cam can’t fall asleep either. He’s not a good sleeper when he’s stressed. When he’s working on a case, he tosses and turns and flips his pillow. Bet that’s what he’s doing now.

Poor Cam.

I will not cry. No, I will not—I will n—I wipe the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand. What a baby.

How could I have broken the heart of the one person who has loved me so fiercely over the past few years? Why do I think moving to New York will be good for me? What if I’m a failure? What if I never meet another man who will love me as much as Cam does? What if no other man ever asks me to marry him, and I become bitter and bitchy and start to hate all couples and throw up at the sight of any hand holding or Valentine’s Day cards?

I check the alarm. Again. I close my eyes and start to drift into a sad, desperate sleep. Cam…love you…changed my mind…

Blackness.

I wake to an intense headache. Like forks bashing into my forehead and both temples. To go along with the pain, swirls of green hot light burn behind my eyelids.

What the hell? Did I roll off my bed in my sleep? Did my lamp fall on my head?

I open my eyes slowly, intense sunlight spearing my pupils. The pain instantly dissipates. No one is attacking me. But I can’t believe how bright it is in here. Weird, actually. Then I realize why. This morning, of all mornings, the staples holding my makeshift curtain must have finally given out. How appropriate.

What the—

I blink my eyes. Once, twice. Three times. I do not believe what I see.

I’m back in the desert. In the truck. Wrapped in the itchy green blanket.

In Cam’s arms.

2

The Gabby Horror Engagement Show

I am going insane. That must be it. Obviously, the only explanation. How did I go to sleep in my empty bedroom, yet wake up in Cam’s truck?

Unless I’m dreaming. Yes, that makes sense. I’m still asleep. The truck and the desert are just an illusion. How weird is that? Normally a desert isn’t a mirage—normally you’d see a mirage in a desert.

When I put on one of Cam’s J. Crew shirts, his scent tortured me into hallucinations about what could have—would have—been.

What will be.

In my dreamworld, I snuggle up close to him. Mmm…feels so nice. That’s it. I’m going to wake up and call him. Cancel my move. Get married. He’ll take me back. Of course he will! I’m entitled to twenty-four hours to change my mind, am I not? I must wake up and call him immediately. Now. Wake up. Come on, you can do it! Wake up!

I have to pee. I hate when I have to pee in dreams. That means I have to pee in real life. I’m always concerned that I will pee all over my bed.

Now open your damn eyes! What’s wrong with you, you lazy ass?

Cam elbows me in the chin.

This dream feels awfully real. I tenderly stroke my injured face and check out my surroundings. My very authentic-looking surroundings. I sit up in my dream, in the hope that it will wake me up in real life. But instead, I am simply sitting up. In Cam’s truck.

I must admit, this is the most realistic dream I’ve ever had. I pinch my leg. It hurts. And the air feels so real. I take a deep breath and look up at the sea of blue. The Arizona sky always makes me feel as if the horizon goes on forever. To my left are the Superstition Mountains. They look like mounds of dirt, or children’s sandcastles, against the blue. My surroundings are too alive for this to be a dream.

My heart races. Which it doesn’t normally do when I’m asleep, at least, not that I’m aware of.

All right, I’m awake. This is not a dream. This is not a dream! But what does that mean? That everything that happened yesterday was a dream? If I’m still in the desert with Cam, does that mean that I never said goodbye to Lila? Never finished packing up the apartment? That I never told Cam no?

Does that mean—

I look down at my left hand. Sparkle, sparkle.

—that I’m still engaged?

I lean against the rear windshield to support myself. I’m still engaged! I’m getting married! I didn’t ruin it all to follow some lame plan to go to New York. When my breathing has returned to its normal speed, I slither back into my spot next to Cam. I lift his arm around me and cuddle into him. His breath smells sweet. His eyes flutter open and then closed, and he pulls me against him. His stubble brushes against my cheek and I feel giddy with relief. I can’t believe how close I came to ruining this. What was I thinking? People struggle their whole lives to find love like this. To find a guy like Cam. And I have him. How could I have thought for a second that a job in New York was more important? Was I crazy? Why did I want to live in the most alienating city in the world? With a psycho roommate—who’s going to haaaate me when I tell her I changed my mind.

She’ll live. As long as she doesn’t slit her eye with a steak knife.

Hurrah! I’m marrying Cam! I hug him as tightly as I can until his eyes pop open.

“Morning, beautiful,” he says. “Love you.”

Hurrah! He loves me! He’s in one complete emotional piece! There is no hurt in his eyes whatsoever. Officially unscarred.

“I love you, too,” I say, my feelings for him overflowing like a closet stuffed with too many shoes. “What would you like to do now, Mr. Engaged?”

He grins. “Since Lila is already planning the new decor for your room, I want you to move into my apartment.”

Oh. Right. That does make sense now that we’re officially going to be a couple. Married people tend to live together. Cam has been asking me to move in for the past year, but I wasn’t ready. You don’t live with a man because you want to save money on rent. You live with a man because you want to spend your life with him. And since I wasn’t sure what my ultimate plans were—staying in Arizona or hightailing it out of there—I didn’t want to commit to a shared couch, or a plant, or a lease, or anything we would have to divvy up six months later. But now the decision is made. We’re getting married. No need to divvy up the couch pillows. Ever. “All right. I’ll move in,” I say, then press my lips into his. Thank God I didn’t tell him no. Who cares about a job? I’m obviously afraid of being happy. My parents have screwed me up for years and years. I pull back and look at my watch. “It’s already nine. I don’t know how we slept in so late in a truck bed. I don’t know how we even fell asleep.” I guess sleeping out in the desert was a cool thing to do. Something to tell our kids about the night we got engaged. More impressive than the How We Met story. At a friend’s party in college. Boring. “What happens now?”

He rubs my two hands between his. “Now we get to tell everyone.”

Fun! Is there really any better announcement than a ring-sparkling, smile-beaming, guess-what-we’re-engaged one? I think not. “Who do we tell first? Should we call? Should we drop by?”

“Let’s stop by my mom’s. It’s Saturday. We don’t have anything else to do today.”

Yes, the day is wide open. I don’t even have to unpack—we can just move it all to Cam’s place later. I kiss him again and wrap myself in his arms. Tomorrow I’ll have to call TRSN to tell them I’ve changed my mind. Today I get to enjoy.

After showering quickly at Cam’s, we drive to his parents’ house in Mesa. By the happy way her arms are flailing, I can tell that Alice, Cam’s mother, is already aware of the news. Cam must have told her that he was planning to propose. If it’s true that you can tell how a man will treat his wife by the way he treats his mother, then I’m in for years of worship. Go, me!

She’s at the truck in her flip-flops before Cam even puts it in park.

“Welcome to the family!” she sings as I open the door and she throws her arms around me. “You jerks,” she says. “Why didn’t you call us last night? Your father and I were waiting.”

“Sorry,” he says.

“Dad’s inside.” She winks at Cam and we follow her to the door. As I walk through the stucco entranceway, a cacophony of voices shout, “Congratulations!”

“Dad” is about fifty people. The room is filled with Cam’s relatives—parents, sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. A surprise engagement party. Sweet? Or disconcerting?

Not that a family gathering like this is unusual. We see a whole crew every Sunday night for dinner, granted not this big. Alice insists that her entire family come over. There’s a barbecue in the back beside the pool. The women prepare the food, the men do all the grilling. Hello, stereotype.

Cam’s sister and her brood live in Tucson, which is two hours away. For Blair to come in on a Saturday, well, that had to have been planned in advance. And even Richard, Cam’s dad, is here, which is a bit of a shock. He’s normally at his frame store, er, framing away.

Imagine if I’d said no? And the whole party was planned and Cam came home and had to face the entire neighborhood? Sorry, you can all go home. Nothing to celebrate. Pass the potato salad.

The entranceway is littered with family photos and cheap shoes. I hate taking off my sandals, but Alice insists. If we were somewhere that had winter, meaning slush, I’d understand. But here the closest thing we get to slush is Ben & Jerry’s. Plus Alice has a white cockatoo named Ruffles that likes to pace the floor and gnaw at my pinkie toes whenever I’m barefoot.

“Let’s see the ring!” Blair screams, running over to me. She’s twenty-nine, only a year older than Cam, and three months pregnant. With her third. She’s five foot seven and is currently nestling her hands over her swollen stomach. Her blond curly hair—Cam and Blair have Alice’s golden-blond curls—is tied into a severe bun behind her head. Her face has a leathery quality to it, as if she’s spent too many afternoons in the sun. Honestly, if I ran into her on the street, I’d peg her more as mid-to-late thirties.

When I show her my hand, she squeals like a twelve-year-old. Suddenly, still in the entranceway, I’m surrounded by Cam’s aunts and cousins and cousins’-wives, and the questions are fast and furious.

“What’s the theme of the wedding?” asks Blair.

Theme?

“Aren’t you thrilled?” asks Jessica (wife of a cousin).

“When’s the date?” asks Leslie (another wife of another cousin).

“Who are your bridesmaids?” asks Tracy, mother-in-law of Leslie, sister in-law of Alice.

“Are you going to change your name?” Blair again.

Even though their mouths continue moving, suddenly I no longer hear what they’re saying. They seem to be on mute. The entranceway has turned into a steam room, burning hot liquid into my nose and mouth and ears, and now, not only have I gone deaf, I can’t breathe.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I manage to say, pushing myself backward and tripping over a sneaker.

I steady myself and take off for a moment of privacy. I remember too late that the door’s lock has been broken ever since Blair’s youngest got locked inside a few months ago and Cam had to bust it open. How can anyone who has so many parties have a broken lock on their guest-bathroom door? I know this is a close family, but jeez. You have to push out your foot to barricade anyone from barging in on you.

How long can I stay inside before anyone notices I’m gone?

After doing my business, I sit on the furry orange toilet seat cover, my foot extended and pressed against the door, and try to catch my breath. The entire bathroom is orange. Alice loves orange. And brass. The two-floor split-level home is covered in gleaming brass statues, pots and massive picture frames. Since Richard owns a framing store, everyone is up on the wall. Many times. Many, many times. Everyone except me. But now that I have a ring on my finger, I’m sure to get up there. Many times.

Unfortunately, most of the brass has seen better days. The bathroom faucet is rusty, the toilet seat chipped. The orange carpet is squashed and stained. Alice fancies herself a Martha Stewart apprentice but can’t quite pull it off. It’s the antithesis of the übermodern houses my dad and mom used to favor. They had both been in love with chrome. Personally, I couldn’t care less about design. Whatever bedroom I occupied was usually a mess. It drove my parents—and now Lila—crazy.

I stand up. In the Windex-streaked mirror, there are deep circles under my dark brown eyes. Otherwise, I’m generally a fan of this mirror, since it’s a skinny one. I look at least two sizes smaller than my size-eight frame. Almost lithe. And my skin always has a nice glow to it because of the reflection off the orange wallpaper. My brown hair is tinged red. I hold my breath and push down my shoulders, trying to imagine what I’ll look like in my wedding dress. I try to smile. I’ve always been told I have a great smile. Two dimples, nice lips, naturally white and perfectly sized teeth. It’s my best feature. And it was the best smile of my class, according to my high school yearbook.

I hadn’t really thought about the whole planning-the-wedding part. All those details to work out…bridesmaids, location, ceremony…honeymoon? I’m looking forward to that part. I’d always planned on running off somewhere romantic for my wedding. Like Fiji. No muss, no fuss. Just bliss. Not that Alice would let me get away with that. Blair’s wedding was the biggest event this town had ever seen. And everything, everything, was done by hand. They hand delivered two hundred invitations so they wouldn’t get dented in the mail. Made fortune cookies from scratch with personalized messages for each and every one of her 375 guests.

Is Alice expecting us to do something similar? Do parents save money for this? Is my dad supposed to pay?

Budgets. Registries. Licenses.

Headaches.

Last year I did a story on the wedding industry and met plenty of bridezillas. That can’t be me. I don’t have the time. Actually, I do have the time, since I’m currently unemployed. But I won’t have the time if I’m going to be freelancing. Which I’ll have to do if I can’t get my job back.

Please tell me both my parents won’t have to come to the wedding. After the graduation ceremony from hell, where my parents started screaming at each other in the auditorium and my mother threw a program book at my dad’s head, I was hoping they would never again opt to be in the same city, never mind the same room. My mother is going to ignore him. Or throw a cake at him. It’s going to be horrible. This whole wedding is a mistake. A big, fat—

The door pushes open and I make a grab for it.

“Sorry,” says Blair in her nasal voice, slamming it closed. Okay, I’ll be honest. I don’t love Blair. Of the whole crew, she annoys me the most. She’s so bossy. And opinionated. (“You don’t waste your money and buy your shoes at shoe stores, do you? You should really be buying them at Wal-Mart.”)

“No problem,” I say.

“Is Gabrielle still in there?” I hear Alice say.

Blair: “Yup.”

Alice: “Beautiful ring.”

Blair: “Yes, it’s nice. Pear is the latest style you know. I told Cammy he just had to get it. He was going to buy it at some jeweler in Scottsdale, can you believe it? I turned him right around, and told him to go see Stan in Phoenix.”

Alice: “I told him the same thing! You know he needs a haircut. So does Gabrielle.”

Nag, nag, nag. It’s not hard to see where Blair gets it.

Or Cam.

I lift my thumbnail to my lips and start nibbling. Oh, no. I haven’t bitten since college. I should definitely not be starting again now. I take another nibble. I can’t help it.

“…I don’t know why she won’t let me clean up her split ends for her….” Alice’s voice trails off as she heads back toward the party. I can’t help but study my split ends. Which I will never let Alice touch. My future mother-in-law refuses to see a stylist. She cuts her own hair, in this very bathroom. She cuts Blair’s hair, too. She’s always offering to cut mine, but I keep inventing excuses.

I pull myself together, shoulders down, big smile, and rejoin the party.

The group is already in the process of piling potato salad and tuna wraps onto their orange paper plates.

“There you are,” says Cam, wrapping his arm around me. “Hungry?”

“Definitely.” I love Alice’s tuna wraps. She’s a nag, yes, but a nag who can cook. She is constantly copying recipes for me. As if I could cook. Not.

“So dear, what are you thinking, a May wedding?” asks Alice as she refills the (yes, orange) potato-salad bowl. “I know how much Arizona girls love a May wedding. Perfect weather to get married outdoors.”

Blair got married on May fourth. Alice got married on May thirteenth.

“I’m not really sure yet, Alice.” Um, we’ve been engaged for less than ten hours? Can I have some time to breathe, please?

“I told Cammy that he should have proposed months ago,” she continues. “So we’d have more time to plan, but did he listen to me? Does he ever? No. Now we only have six months to pull it all together.”

“Mom, six months will be plenty,” Cam says.

Hello? Have we picked May? Did that decision happen while I was in the bathroom?

Alice shakes her head from side to side. “Gabrielle, I tried getting in touch with your mom to invite her today. But she didn’t return my call. Is she out of town?”

My mother? Here? Thank God she’s out of town. I don’t know what she’d make of this quasi-Brady bunch, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

“She’s doing some work in Tampa,” I say.

I catch a look between Alice and Blair. They’ve never said anything outright, but I get the feeling that they don’t approve of my mother’s hectic career, her men, her marriages. “Ah, I see,” Alice says. “Well, when she gets back, I’d like the three of us to get together for tea. We should put our heads together and start planning. When will she be back home? Perhaps we can have a girls’ night this week?”

Is she kidding me? My mother? Here? What if she throws one of the brass statues? Even without my father as a target, she’s always throwing something at somebody. I’m not sure how’s she going to react to Alice. I can’t quite picture her hand-making fortune cookies. Throwing the cookies, possibly.

“She’s very busy,” I say. “It’s hard for her to get away.” Which is true. My mother is not in the best place in her life right now. She’s an entrepreneur and is always investing in the next “big” thing. Unfortunately, she loves start-ups, even though they don’t always love her back. Last year, she lost a mint and had to sell her Scottsdale house and move to a small condo in Phoenix. Right now she has her eye on some business opportunity in Tampa. Which is why she didn’t freak out when I told her I was moving to New York. She thinks we both have had enough of the dry heat.

Alice rubs her hands together. “I bet she can’t wait to dig her hands into the planning!”

“Um…I haven’t told her yet.”

Up shoot Alice’s penciled-in eyebrows.

When would I have found time to tell her? This kind of news takes more than the two seconds I had to myself while I was in the bathroom.

Alice fidgets with her hair. “Talk to her soon, please. We need to get cracking. I’ve already spoken to the church and told them to hold May sixth.”

Dread sets in. My mom and I declared ourselves agnostics, but we still fast every Yom Kippur. Just in case. I’m not religious, but I absolutely can’t get married in a church. And what about those wafers? Do they come in kosher? Do people actually eat wafers, or is that just in the movies? Are they carb-free? My mom is always on a diet. Oh God, my mom is going to throw the wafer.

Cam sees the panic on my face and quickly adds, “Mom, we haven’t decided on St. George’s. I told you that.”

“Calm down, Cammy. You don’t have to make a decision this second. But it is a family tradition, and it would make me very happy.”

For someone not of the tribe, she sure has the Jewish guilt thing down pat. She could put my mom to shame.

“And May six is the perfect weekend,” she declares. “Not that I’m pressuring, I don’t want to pressure, but Aunt Zoey and Uncle Dean bought tickets in from Salt Lake for the whole family.”

But no pressure.

Cam looks exasperated. “Why would she already buy her ticket?”

Alice shrugs and stares at her plate. “American Airlines was having a sale.”

I don’t believe this. The relatives bought their plane tickets before I even knew we were getting married. Is this normal? This is not normal. I know my own family history makes it difficult for me to understand normalcy, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. I should tell her to back off. Step back, missy.

The words are at the tip of my tongue, but they don’t come out.

“Anyway,” Alice says, “let’s talk about colors for the wedding. I think orange would be beautiful—”

“Let me just get something to drink,” I say backing away. Vodka, perhaps. In one of Alice’s orange-tinted tumblers.