Girls in White Dresses - JENNIFER CLOSE [18]
The fights they had now were much worse. Isabella had never fought like this with anyone before. With Ben, she had all-out, drunken marathon fights that lasted for hours. She was sure the neighbors thought they were crazy.
Isabella woke up the morning after these fights with a sore throat from yelling and swollen eyes from crying, sure that she had done damage to her insides. Ben was an asshole, a jackass, a dick. But just when Isabella thought the end was near, she felt a little hole of panic open. He was also funny, and could be sweet. Was she really ready to let that go? Wasn’t she partly to blame for the fight?
The ceremony was a full mass and Ben shuffled his feet and breathed loudly through most of it. Isabella kept turning to give him a look. She gave him these looks often, the kind that you give to small children to let them know their behavior is inappropriate. Usually he just ignored her.
After the wedding, they all stood outside the church waiting for the bride and groom to make their exit. Ben smoked a cigarette and talked to some friends, and Isabella watched the clouds and tried to calculate how much longer it would be before they were at the reception and she could get a glass of wine. She was interrupted from her dreaming by Ben’s voice. “Hey!” he said. “Look who it is.”
Isabella saw Ben slapping the hand of his friend Mike, giving him a half hug–handshake–pat on the back. “Mike, you remember Isabella?” Ben smiled at her and she smiled back. Ben almost never remembered to introduce her. He was just excited for her to meet JonBenét.
“Yeah, definitely. How’s it going?” Mike nodded to her. “And this is my girlfriend. You guys have met, right?”
Isabella watched the tiny girl emerge from behind Mike. She was a pixie! Isabella hadn’t even noticed her standing there. All of her features were teeny; her hands and fingers were almost childlike. Isabella stared at her. She couldn’t help it. It was JonBenét, and no one had been exaggerating about the resemblance. If anything, they hadn’t prepared her for this. Isabella got goose bumps just being near her.
“Hi, Ben.” JonBenét had a raspy, breathy voice that made her sound like she’d just been running. “Wasn’t the wedding beautiful? I told Mike in the middle of it that if one more person from his fraternity gets engaged before us, I’m done!” She laughed and turned to Mike. “Right, baby?”
Mike ignored her. “You guys want to get over to the reception? It’s not supposed to start for another hour, but maybe we can convince the bartender to get us some drinks.”
“Yeah, sure,” Ben said. “You guys want to ride with us?”
Isabella gave Mike shotgun so she could sit in the back with JonBenét. “Mike just got a new car,” she said to Isabella. “And I said to him, What’s that? I can’t wear that on my finger.” She laughed and waved her left ring finger in the air.
Isabella laughed and caught Ben’s eye in the rearview mirror. They smiled at each other.
The reception was at a country club in some New Jersey suburb. Isabella felt like she’d been to a million of these weddings. By now, they all blended together in a blur of fabric-covered chairs, pink napkins, and crab cakes. Isabella looked around. The centerpieces made her sad.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” JonBenét said to them. She sounded dreamy, like she couldn’t believe her eyes. Mike put his hand on her back and she smiled up at him. He didn’t look at her. Isabella had once seen a TV show called Tarnished Tiaras that exposed the truth behind child pageants. It focused on one mother who offered spray tans to the little girls to make some money. She stared at JonBenét and wanted to ask her if she ever got a spray tan. But she stopped herself.
The bartenders were still setting up. They looked up warily when they saw the four of them approaching. “Hey, man,” Ben said to one. He lifted his chin in a nod and the bartender did the same back. Isabella was always amazed at how people just liked Ben immediately. Strangers in bars and people on the street treated him