The Wedding Swap

Chapter 3 The Program

The Mercer family had rented the whole of St. Anne's for the ceremony, which meant that when I pulled into the parking lot at three-thirty, the lot was empty except for a row of black cars and a van with the florist's name on the side.

I sat in the car for a minute, watching the doors of the church, and then I got out and walked up the path.

Nora had offered to come with me. I had told her to wait at the house. This was something I needed to do alone, in the way that a person needs to touch a wound to know how deep it goes.

Inside, the church was cool and dim and smelled like carnations. The pews were already full. I stopped in the vestibule and looked down the aisle, at the rows and rows of people in their good clothes, at the altar with the flowers I had chosen, at the string quartet I had hired, tuning up in the corner.

And then I looked at the program in the basket by the door.

It was a single sheet, folded, with a ribbon at the spine. On the cover was a monogram, GM, and the date. I picked one up and opened it.

The bride's name was Piper Louise Bennett.

The groom's name was Grant Marcus Mercer.

There was no mention of me anywhere.

I stood there holding it for a long time. A woman in a cream suit came up behind me and said, "Are you here for the service? You can sit anywhere in the back." She was one of the ushers, the kind the Mercers hired for events, and she looked at me with the polite blankness of someone who had been told to expect a certain kind of guest.

"I'm the sister," I said.

She blinked. "Oh. The sister. Of course. Let me get someone."

She hurried off. I kept walking.

Down the aisle, past the pews, the heads turning. I heard someone say my name. I heard someone else say, "That's Vera," in the tone people used for an accident that had not quite happened yet. I kept my eyes forward.

At the front of the church, in the first row, sat my mother. She was wearing a navy dress with a brooch at the collar, and she was already turning to look at me, and her face was doing something complicated. Next to her, my father sat with his hands in his lap, watching the altar.

In the second row sat Grant's mother, Marsha, in pale gray, with pearls. Grant's father beside her. Grant's brother and his wife and their two children, who were playing with the ribbons on their little shoes.

And at the altar stood Grant, in his tuxedo, with the pastor, and beside him, in the gown I had chosen, stood Piper.

She saw me first. Her mouth opened. Then Grant turned, and he saw me too, and for a second he looked like a man who had just realized he had walked into traffic.

I walked to the first row and stood at the end of the pew, next to my mother.

"Vera," she whispered. "Sit down. Everyone is looking."

"I know," I said. "That's the point."

"Vera. Please."

I turned and faced the altar, and I stood there, in my own gray dress from my own closet, with the program in my hand, and I waited.

The pastor, who had obviously been told something, cleared his throat and said, "We have a situation."

"Yes," I said. "You do."

Grant stepped forward. He looked at me, then at his mother, then at Piper, and I saw the whole of him then, the way he moved when he was caught, the way he looked at the person he thought could solve it. He looked at his mother.

Marsha Mercer stood up. She was a small woman with a very straight back, and she turned to face the church as if the pews were a boardroom and she was about to make a motion.

"Everyone," she said. "I want to thank you all for coming. As you can see, there has been a small misunderstanding in the family. The wedding will proceed, but I want to be clear that any confusion is our own, and we would never want to put a guest in an uncomfortable position."

"That's a nice speech," I said. "But I'm not a guest. I'm the bride."

The church went very quiet. Even the children stopped playing with their shoes.

Marsha looked at me the way she had looked at the board member who had sat down. "Vera. I understand this is difficult. But the situation is more complicated than you're making it."

"Then explain it."

She glanced at my mother. My mother had gone pale, her hands gripping the pew in front of her, her mouth tight. She did not say a word, and I understood then that whatever was happening, my mother was not going to save me. She had made her choice weeks ago, in the whispering, and she was going to live with it.

"I don't think this is the place," Marsha said.

"It's exactly the place," I said. "You organized this. You called my mother. You asked for a different bride. If it's such a reasonable thing, then say it out loud, in front of everyone, and let them decide."

I heard someone in the back of the church say, "Oh my God." I heard someone else stand up. I did not turn around. I kept my eyes on Marsha, and Marsha kept her eyes on me, and for a long moment neither of us moved.

Then Grant said, "Vera, let's go outside. We can talk about this."

"No."

"Vera."

"No," I said. "You had three years. You had every morning and every dinner and every night. You had a hundred chances to tell me, and you chose the one hour when I couldn't do anything about it. So I'm not going outside. I'm standing right here."

Piper stepped forward. She was still holding a bouquet, the one I had ordered, white roses and blue thistle, and she held it like a shield.

"I didn't plan this," she said. "You have to believe me."

"I don't have to do anything."

"It's not my fault. Grant's family wanted someone who fit. They wanted someone who could handle the foundation. You never wanted the foundation. You hate the foundation. You told me that yourself."

"I told you that in the kitchen. In private. And you used it."

Her face tightened. "I didn't use it. I just didn't defend you."

"Same thing."

She looked at Grant, and Grant looked at his mother, and Marsha looked at the pastor, and the pastor looked at the floor. It was a whole circle of people who had made a decision and now had to stand in it, and I was standing in the middle, and I was the only one who had not known.

"Say it," I said to Grant. "In front of everyone. You asked me to marry you, and then you let your mother change it. Say it."

He did not say it. He stood there with his hands at his sides, and his face was blank, and I could see that he was waiting for it to be over, and I finally understood that I had never really known him at all. I had known the man in the garden, the one who hid a ring in a bread basket. And the man in the tuxedo had been a different person the whole time, and I had loved a costume.

"Is anyone on my side," I said.

The church was silent. Then, in the first row, my father stood up.

He got to his feet slowly, the way he did everything, and he stepped out of the pew and into the aisle. He was wearing a gray suit I had helped him pick for the wedding, and a tie my mother had chosen, and he looked at me for a moment and then turned to face the altar.

"I'm on her side," he said.

My mother made a sound. He did not look at her.

"I paid for this wedding," he said, to no one in particular. "I paid for the flowers and the food and the band. And I want everyone here to know that I did not pay for my daughter to be replaced like a broken part."

Marsha Mercer straightened her back. "Robert, I don't think—"

"I don't much care what you think," my father said. "You've had your way for months. You can have one more minute of it. But I'm going to stand here with my daughter, and when this is over, I'm going to walk out with her."

He came and stood beside me. He did not touch me, but he stood close enough that I could feel him there, and I felt something in my chest loosen.

"Anyone else," I said.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, at the back of the church, a chair scraped. I turned, and there was Nora, walking down the aisle with her purse slung over her shoulder, and behind her, four or five other people I had not even known were there, friends from the copywriting world, from the coffee shop, from the years before Grant.

They came and stood with me. The usher in the cream suit stood by the door with her hand over her mouth. The pianist stopped playing.

Marsha Mercer looked at the group of us, and then at the full church, and then at the door, and she said, "The wedding will proceed."

"The wedding is canceled," I said.

"You can't cancel it."

"I can't cancel it," I said. "But I can refuse to be a part of it. And if there's anyone in this room who thinks what you've done is right, they can stay. But everyone else should think very carefully about what it means to sit in a chair that was put there for me."

I walked back up the aisle with my father beside me and Nora behind me, and the four or five friends behind her, and I did not look back. I heard Piper say my name once, and I heard Grant say nothing at all, and I heard Marsha begin to speak to the pastor in a low, urgent voice, and then I was outside, and the door closed behind me, and the sun was bright on the parking lot.

It was the same sun that had been there that morning, when I stood in the doorway of the bridal suite and felt cold. But it was a different day now. I had made it a different day.