Surprise
Title/Prompt - Cupcakes & Cocktails, Chapter One: Mary Anne (#55 - surprise)
Author - oneoneohohone
Word count - 2354
Rating - still pg. so far.
Summary - mary anne contemplates her friends.
Link to table - table 2
Author's note - in typical super special format, mary anne is pretty much just thinking about her friends and what they're like here. i didn't want to go too far (dawns long, LONG blonde hair and claudias almond shaped eyes and jessi being black and such) as i didn't want to bore anybody, so it's really just a paragraph per sitter. it feels a bit awkward to me, but i left it that way because that chapter is ALWAYS awkward! :D
also, i have titled this "chapter one" because i decided to make the last one (first one...) the prologue. you can read that here.
Chapter One:
Mary Anne
____________________________________________________________________________________
Put on your favorite little black dress and join us for
‘Cupcakes and Cocktails,’
in honor of our soon-to-be-bride Claudia Kishi!
Hosted by Claudia’s lovely bridal party
Stacey, Janine, Yvette, Tanisha, and Charlotte.
No Boys Allowed!
Saturday * October 22nd * 7pm
RSVP Stacey Elizabeth Price 555-6547
or cupcakersvp@mail.com
~
followed by an Engagement Celebration Brunch!
Hosted by John & Rioko Kishi
Boys, Men, and Children Welcome!
Sunday * October 23rd * 10am
RSVP 555-9278
Save The Date!
12.03.2011
__________________________________________________________________________________
I sighed happily, reading the invitation for probably the eightieth time. It was all so romantic! The surprise wedding, the weekend in New York City. I absolutely cannot believe that Claudia, not to mention her sister, her parents, Stacey, and Charlotte Johanssen had managed to keep it a secret for so long. It takes time to plan a wedding. I discovered that planning my own to Eric Bordeaux just over five years ago. There I was, 21 years old, juggling my senior year of college (I graduated with a degree in Psychology, but have yet to go into the profession. I keep having children!) and planning my wedding to Eric. I graduated in June, and we married in September, just after my birthday.
I should back up a little.
My name is Mary Anne Spier. Why not Mary Anne Bordeaux, you ask? Because I couldn’t do it. I love my father very much, and do not want the Spier name to drop into oblivion anytime soon. Eric doesn’t mind at all.
Eric and I were introduced by my father. Eric was just an intern at Dad’s firm, and for some reason he decided that we made a perfect match - and he was right. I fell in love with Eric the moment I met him, and have never stopped. Just after we celebrated our first wedding anniversary, we had Isabella, our first child. Two and a half years later, Aiden came into our lives. And a year after that, I caught pregnant once again. I’m 22 weeks along with another girl. We still haven’t decided on a name. Olivia sounds nice to me.
I still live in good old Stoneybrook, Connecticut. When I was a kid I had dreams of living in New York City, or maybe Hollywood, but when the time came I realized I just couldn’t be so far away from Dad and my stepmother, Sharon. I want my children to see their grandparents every day if they want. I like having a big, accessible family. Guess what - things are getting even better!
I guess I shouldn’t sound quite so excited. It’s very sad that my stepsister Dawn is getting divorced. I’ve spent a lot of hours crying on the phone with her in the last few months. But just last week, Dawn confided something in me.
“I understand why she did it, Mary Anne.” Dawn had said seriously. I could hear a thickness in her voice that meant she’d been crying.
“Why who did what?” I’d replied softly, peeking into Bella’s room. She was sleeping soundly. It was ten o’clock at night. Just seven in California, where Dawn is.
“Why she moved us so far away when she and Dad got divorced. I always kind of resented her for it in a way, breaking up our family like that.” I realized Dawn was talking about Sharon, her mother. “ But now I understand. I just want to be as far away from the creep as possible.” Her breath hitched. She usually cries every time she talks about him. They’d been married for three years, and Nathan had seemed like a good guy, but a little over a year ago Dawn had gotten pregnant, and had a miscarriage. She was miserable. I guess so was Nathan. He showed it in a different way, though - by cheating on Dawn.
“Don’t talk about it.” I said quickly, before she could go off on a tangent about Nathan. I feel like she needs to think about him as little as possible right now. “Keep going.”
She took a few deep breaths. “Well, really, more than anything . . . I just want my Mom. And you. I need my family back. So I’m coming back to Stoneybrook. I’m going to stay with Mom and Richard for a while.”
I’d wanted to jump for joy - my sister was coming home! - but I realized I couldn’t do that, of course.
So I had reason to be excited. Dawn would be back in about two weeks. In just over a month I would have a weekend in New York City and a reunion with all of my old friends, which we hadn’t all been together since Stacey got married last year. Stacey’s wedding hadn’t been a spectacle at all - it had been intimate, their closest friends and family, at a beautiful mansion in the Hamptons. She’s widely known in the City, because she attends a lot of Big Events with her husband, Martin Price. Her husband is rich. Stacey wasn’t too bad off herself - she went to Princeton, graduated with a bachelors in Finance, was working for a pretty big firm - but Martin is an executive at one of the bigger brokerage companies on Wall Street. He’s ten years older than Stacey. So Stacey McGill is now “Stacey Elizabeth Price,” which she says she likes the sound of. Stacey is everything a Manhattan socialite is supposed to be - tall, blonde, beautiful, and rich. She’s still a diabetic, of course, but she now gets the best care money can buy, and rarely gets ill.
I wondered about Claudia’s wedding. Would it be a spectacle? Oh, for sure. Claudia was always an artist, and always wild. She was a terrible student, and never made it into the art schools she’d hoped for as a kid. That doesn’t matter, though, because Claudia is in a league of her own. She went to New York with Stacey intent on becoming something, and she’s slowly making it. She paints, designs jewelry and clothing, and is a decorator. She and Stacey attempted to start an event planning business, but never could get it off the ground. The last time I saw Claudia her hair was in a shaggy cut, and was streaked with fuchsia. And because Manhattan is known for its bold fashion, Claudia toned herself down, as to not be like everyone else. I think she doesn’t want to be mistaken for trying too hard. She wears a lot of black with big, clunky, brightly colored jewelry she makes herself, and big, clunky, brightly colored shoes that probably cost as much as my mortgage. I’ll bet she’s designed her own dress. As I told Kristy, I cannot begin to imagine what it will look like.
Back when we were kids, Kristy had been loud, bossy, and full of ideas. She wore jeans and sneakers, a messy ponytail, and her mouth got her in trouble a lot. Kristy has not changed. She’s still short, though she’s discovered platform shoes. Her long brown hair is still always in a ponytail, and she still wears jeans. From what I see in pictures and in person (Kristy lives in Boston, and while that’s not incredibly far away, it’s still pretty darn far.) she dresses up a little more with tops, instead of just T-shirts and turtlenecks. Probably to go with the big shoes she wears. Kristy is also just as competitive as ever, which is why her being so frantic about being the “last” of us to get married (or something close to it.) wasn’t such a shocker. Everything is a game to her. She works for a T-shirt company, but I’m really not sure what her title is. Usually she waves her hand, saying “Oh, I kind of do everything.” when you ask her. Then she changes the subject. I don’t think Kristy is in love with her job. And I think she might be lonely up there. It’s not lonely here, plenty of people stayed behind. Even Abby Stevenson!
It was not a shock at all when Abby came out sophomore year, and none of us cared. I mean, we cared but we weren’t bothered by it. She’s still the same girl - loves sports, allergic to life. She manages Stacey’s mother’s clothing store! That’s why she never went far. She started working there in high school, stayed part-time through college, and decided to make a career of it. Maureen Spencer is talking about opening a second store in Mercer and having Abby as her “district manager,” which I think is really exciting. Abby lives not far from me in a little rented house with her girlfriend - well, wife, I guess - Theresa. They had this small commitment ceremony about two years ago, and it was beautiful. Probably the nicest BSC wedding I’ve been to - aside from my own, of course.
It was getting late, and I decided to put down the shower invitation and check my Facebook. Eric was working late all week and had called to say he was zonked and would stay at his office in Stamford, and he loved me. This isn’t an unusual occurrence. I opened up my laptop and felt a small thrill to see I had a new private message. Unless it was something totally out of the blue - and I keep my Facebook account pretty private, only good friends and family - that message would be a reply to one I had sent this morning. I clicked on the icon and was greeted by a tiny thumbnail but still spectacular picture of Logan Bruno.
Logan was my first real boyfriend. And we’d dated, on and off, through high school, as well. Usually out of mutual boredom - one of us would need a date to a dance or a group thing, and when all else failed, would turn to the other. While we were closer to “friends” than “more than,” we had the occasional hot and heavy make out session in the backseat of his car. I lost contact with Logan after he left for college - he went back to Kentucky. Suddenly, out of the blue about three months ago, he showed up on Facebook. He was excited to tell me that he and his girlfriend were expecting a baby. I was very happy to hear from him and excited at his news. And though we were both taken, we kind of went back to out old ways, friendly flirting. Nothing serious, of course!
Logan’s message said that yes, he’d also received an invitation, but only to the Brunch the next day. And yes, of course he would go. This was Claudia’s wedding, after all - he even added that he felt bad about missing the other BSC weddings. Especially mine. I nearly screamed. He was coming! I was going to see Logan again for the first time in nearly ten years! I allowed myself a little dance as my heart pitter-pattered. Then I briefly wondered if I should feel so excited. Of course I should, right? An old friend, so much time...
But what would Eric think of me seeing and old boyfriend? Hmm.
I contemplated this as I scrolled through Facebook. Jessi Fields (former Ramsey) had uploaded a picture of the girls in her class - she taught beginners ballet at a community center in New Jersey. The girls looked adorable in their black leotards and pink tights, their hair tightly wound to their heads. The grins in the picture were priceless - most of them were missing teeth. Jessi moved back to New Jersey with her husband, Cliff, about five years ago. They married young, and Cliff got a great job straight out of college, but had been laid off last year. Now he’s working at a software company in Manhattan for much, much less, and I know that they are in trouble financially. Jessi never went to college, just arts schools, and found that ballet didn’t make the best career. She teaches, but she doesn’t make much money. She occasionally gets into performances, even some off Broadway stuff, but never anything huge. She wants badly to get on Broadway, but that’s a tough thing to break into.
Mallory Pike is still absolutely Jessi’s best friend. She even followed her to New Jersey after she graduated from college. Mallory is engaged, and has been for two years, to this guy Rik. Mal and Rik are very trendy. I do believe the term is “hipster.” Mal has a great job as a blogger for a trendy website, and she’s also a freelance journalist. She’s discussing self-publishing a novel these days, for her “fan base.” Which she does have one. Mal still has that red hair, though it’s straighter and longer - and wears those big horn rimmed glasses that seem to be so trendy now. She seems incredibly happy with her life, and I don’t blame her. Ugly Duckling, meet Swan. Though I never thought Mal was ugly.
Facebook is so handy for keeping in touch - I hate that Kristy isn’t on it. Shannon Killborn had put up an entire photo album of pictures from Italy. She travels a lot. Her fiancee is a professional photographer, and she travels the world with him, which is probably the most exciting thing I can think of. Shannon is a fair photographer herself, and I always look forward to the pictures she shares from different parts of the world. I’ve never met her fiancee. She met him on a trip to Greece with her sister Tiffany. Shannon probably has the most exciting, glamorous life of anyone I have ever known. Stacey Elizabeth Price herself included.
I sighed, closing my laptop again. My little girl fluttered around in my tummy. All thoughts suddenly turned to the cheesecake in my refrigerator, and I had to have it. My, my, little girl. When you want something, you want it bad! I thought, standing up quickly. The rest of the night in bed with a big slab of cheesecake, some ginger ale, and my TV tuned to Lifetime sounded amazing. I had to get to it quickly. It had been a week full of pleasant surprises, and I was exhausted.
x-posted to ffn. the format looks better there, too ;)
edit: don't ask me why the cut appeared three times. i'm fixing it!