Good Luck, Fatty

guess.”
    “Good.” She gives her bangs one last spritz of hairspray, slides the final bobby pin into place and says, “Ready?”
    Why does she sound less nervous than I am? “Is it time?” I ask. I crack the bedroom door open and peer down the hall into the kitchen, which is empty. “Looks like it,” I report.
    We float out together, stopping at the counter to collect our bouquets. Mine is pastel-colored carnations, an explosion of after-dinner mints. Denise’s is lavender roses and baby’s breath. I give her a careful peck on the cheek. “See you out there.”
    I practice my fancy wedding-march stride as I slip through the enclosed porch and into the yard, where Tom loiters anxiously on his mark by Denise’s scraggly ficus. When our eyes meet, we both smile (and Marie starts the boom box churning out Here Comes the Bride ).
    I hook my arm around Tom’s (is this what it’ll feel like if we take the plunge someday?) and, in rhythm with him and the music, parade toward the glittery twig of a form that is Aunt Paulina.
    Beside Aunt Paulina, his hands folded politely over his crotch, is Orv, his gaze level, spine stiff, a telltale line of perspiration zipped over his upper lip.
    “Thanks for doing this,” I whisper to Tom as we go.
    He only grins wider.
    I’m not really into weddings, so it doesn’t matter to me, but Orv and Denise have got a pretty minimal scene going here. As I glance around, I count a total of maybe nineteen people.
    Tom takes his place next to Orv and, opposite them, I become Aunt Paulina’s shadow. When I look back at the house, I’m flabbergasted by what I see (and so is everyone else, apparently, since they’ve all gone church-mouse quiet, including Roy).
    Along the path Tom and I have just blazed floats Denise, looking like an angel, the afternoon sun lending an other-worldly aura to her already established pregnancy glow. If I stare hard enough, I almost think I can spot a halo struggling to form in the dewy air above her head.
    It’s a short walk, so Denise is soon at my side. And that’s when it hits me that the two people I love most on earth (Tom, Harvey, and Roy are in a dead heat for second place) are about to unite. Become one. Bond forever.
    “Welcome, all,” says Aunt Paulina in a sure voice that penetrates the modest crowd.
    As my gaze skims the collection of faces turned our way, I feel a tug of sadness for Denise. Because even though her mother and twin brothers are here, her father is not. By choice. A choice he made a decade ago, when he went chasing after a lucrative business deal in Vietnam or Cambodia (he has ties to both) and, also, a little Asian chippy. I advised Denise to replace him in the wedding out of spite, but she opted to leave the job vacant.
    I should be watching Denise or Orv or even Aunt Paulina (or, at the very least, listening with rapt attention as lifelong vows of commitment are exchanged), but all I can do is stare helplessly at Tom as he draws a black velvet box from his trousers and cups it in his jittery palm, thumbing it open to reveal a matching pair of thin gold bands.
    I love you, I tell him telepathically, wishing he could read my mind.
    From what I absorb of the ceremony, it is sweet and sentimental, in a quiet, old-fashioned sort of way. Before I know it, Tom is holding the rings up, and Orv and Denise are slipping them over each other’s fingers.
    Then comes the kiss, wholesome yet intimate and lengthy enough that I end up shifting around in my shoes, my heels poking divots in the newly mown lawn.
    “I now present you Mr. and Mrs. Orville Hayes,” Aunt Paulina announces, beaming at the crowd.
    Orv thrusts Denise’s arm (and the bouquet she’s clutching) into the air in triumph, the rest of us breaking out in buoyant applause. Denise’s brothers hoot and holler for a few extra seconds, and then the newlyweds begin their rounds, a ripple of sincere smiles and warm hugs greeting them.
    I move in on Tom, stealthily take his hand and give it a squeeze. “Hey, there,” I murmur. “How you doing?”
    “Good,” says Tom, just as someone (not Marie this time; she’s busy shoving Roy into Denise’s arms and snapping a cell phone picture) switches the boom box to a wedding reception appropriate dance mix. In the shade of the house, the brother-sister team of Jerrod and Mindy Brown (neighborhood kids Denise has cajoled into helping out at the wedding for twenty bucks apiece) buzz about a ten-foot buffet table, arranging