The Hopefuls Read Online Free Page B

surprised—and not in the way that my friends would later be surprised when their boyfriends proposed as the years went on, but all-out shocked because I had no idea that it was coming. We’d never discussed it, not in any serious way, and I was mostly just confused when he knelt on the grass and said, “Beth, will you marry me?”
    His hands were shaking a little bit, and I could feel the people around us staring, elbowing each other and whispering that there was a proposal happening. “What?” I asked. I looked at him and he laughed. He seemed more confident then, and he took the ring out of the box and started to put it on my finger. “Will you marry me?” he asked, and I laughed too and said, “Yes, of course.” I was twenty-three years old.
    —
    My wedding was the first one I’d ever been to. No one could believe this, but it was true. I had no idea what to expect and I let the wedding planner (a woman named Diana who carried around five huge binders with her wherever we went) dictate everything. Whenever I asked Matt his opinion about anything, he just said, “It’s up to you.” We got married in Madison and had the ceremony at St. Andrews, the church I’d grown up going to, and the reception at the Sheraton downtown. We did every last cheesy wedding tradition out there. We had a groom’s cake, I threw my bouquet, we smeared frosting on each other, Matt took a garter off my leg, and my whole wedding party danced into the ballroom as they were announced, as if we were all a part of some music video.
    It didn’t occur to me until years later to be embarrassed about our wedding. It was only after attending the beautiful, tasteful, grown-up weddings of our friends that I began to see that ours was almost a little tacky. But by then, it was too late.
    Before the wedding, Diana mailed a list of “bridesmaid dos and don’ts” to the girls. They included tips such as “Don’t drink too much! No one likes a drunk bridesmaid.” And “Don’t expect to be anywhere close to the center of attention…this isn’t your day!” And “Don’t tan before the wedding! You don’t want to risk a burn!” And “Do ask the bride how she’s feeling and offer emotional support.”
    Colleen thought this list was the funniest thing she’d ever seen and kept it for years. At the wedding, Colleen got so drunk she fell and ripped her dress. And my best friend from childhood, Deborah Long, used her maid of honor speech to talk about how she was more than ready for her own boyfriend to propose. And when I walked down the stairs in my wedding dress for the first time, my single aunt Bit gasped and said, “Good God, you’re just a baby.” Then later, she whispered to me, “If you don’t want to go through with this, you don’t have to.” Diana was probably mortified, but none of these things bothered me. I thought the whole day was perfect.
    On the day of the wedding, Matt and I agreed we wouldn’t see each other before the ceremony. But we met at a doorway, and stood on opposite sides with the wall between us, reaching around to hand each other our wedding presents. He gave me diamond earrings and I gave him a watch. The photographer took a picture of us, holding hands through the doorway, still hidden from each other. It is one of the most ridiculous pictures I’ve ever seen.
    —
    Years later, Colleen told me that my marriage to Matt was a result of terrorism. When she said this, we were at her apartment, lying on the couch and eating licorice out of a giant plastic container. I stopped mid-bite, squinted my eyes at her, and waited for her to explain.
    “You know,” she said, and took a bite of her Red Vine, “everyone was afraid they were going to die then. So many people had died that it was all anyone could think about. People were looking for anything that made them happy, and they moved fast, like there wasn’t a lot of time left.”
    I wanted to defend my marriage, tell her that our relationship was