Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest by Jen Doll Page B

life?”
    “Great!” I said. “I moved to Boston, but I’m probably headed back to New York soon. I don’t know if you knew I was living in New York? Boston is great, too! Busy, you know, working, going out a lot . . .” As I rambled, I looked around the room. “How’s stuff here? Have you seen Nathaniel lately?” My ex didn’t seem to be in attendance.
    Buddy followed my eyes and inspected the crowd as well. “Last I heard he was living in Birmingham, dating some girl.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “It’s Decatur, you know,” he continued. “Same old, same old. Claire getting married, though, wow. I guess we’re old, huh?” He seemed slightly dazed as he turned back to his meatballs. It appeared I wasn’t the only one confronting strange feelings about growing up.
    Moments later, Marjorie and Brian were at my side, ushering me to a table, sharing gossip. Weddings and babies, but also rehab stints, failing parents, even a divorce or two. Houses had been bought, companies founded. Jobs had been won and jobs had been lost. I didn’t see anyone who was suddenly bald and fat and driving a station wagon, just lives being lived, here like everywhere. “There they are!” someone shouted, and we all turned to applaud the bride and groom, headed out among their guests following their post-wedding photography session. “He seems nice,” said Marjorie. “She looks gorgeous. Oh, they’re so happy!”
    I caught sight of Jesse, another high school friend. He was the one who’d kept me most reliably informed about my ex over the years. He waved and walked over. “Well, hello there, stranger,”he said. When I’d broken up with Nathaniel, Jesse had not been happy with me, but he hadn’t stopped talking to me or even, like my brother, yelled at me for being a jerk. He wasn’t judgmental. He had stayed in our hometown after graduating. His family was here, and I suspected he had never planned to leave, not permanently.
    “Hi, Jesse,” I said, getting up to give him a hug.
    “Mind if I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the place next to mine.
    This wasn’t a mere hello. He had news. I moved my bag to make room.
    “So, I have to tell you something about Nathaniel,” he began.
    “I just saw Buddy,” I said. I stopped eating and took a sip of wine. Everyone else at the table appeared deep in their own conversations. I swallowed. “He hadn’t seen him, though. What is it? Is he okay?”
    “Nathaniel is
married
,” said Jesse. “To a redhead! Get this: They eloped to Hawaii.”
    “Hawaii? Eloped?” This information did not compute. The Nathaniel I had expected, if not here, would be at home, watching TV from the couch of his little room at the back of the house, his Golf parked in the carport, its tape deck cued up to his favorite Hüsker Dü song. My Nathaniel, a lei around his neck, hula-ing into the sunset, cavorting in impossibly blue waves with
a redhead
?
    “As you can imagine, his mother was not happy with the elopement,” he said. “Anyway, his wife sort of looks like Little Debbie!” As Jesse began to laugh, I tried to conjure the all-American cartoon girl on the box of snack cakes, an image I hadn’t thought of since high school. I couldn’t picture her, and Icouldn’t picture her as Nathaniel’s wife. But more than that, despite myself, what I felt was a strange kind of pride. Eloping to Hawaii has oomph. That’s the kind of thing I’d hope a future husband of mine would have the nerve to do, too.
He must really love her
, I thought.
    “I think he’s really happy,” said Jesse.
    We were interrupted by another friend from high school, a girl who’d been a cheerleader, who’d had the sort of popularity I’d once fruitlessly dreamed of attaining considering my lack of coordination and mud-brown hair. “How are you?” she said, grabbing my arm and squeezing. “Oh, my God, you look great. What are you up to now? Are you still living in New York?”
    “
You
look great,” I said. “You