We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. (Oscar Wilde)
“We’ve got to dash,” Gareth says with a sudden clamor after looking at his watch and realizing that they’ve been sitting at Sonsie’s for more than two hours.
It’s been such a lovely, relaxing day, just her and Gareth, alone, sipping wine, talking and laughing – Plenty doesn’t want it to end. These are the moments that she cherishes most, moments of sheer, silly pleasure, moments free from stress, of not having to perform or be someone she isn’t or stand on her head to get attention, no judgment or scrutiny making her feel small and trivial. She knows exactly where she stands with Gareth. He loves her no matter what, and with that, she can relax and be herself. And all this adds up to Plenty being very reluctant to stand up and relinquish their sunny, al fresco spot.
“Come the fuck on, Peanut,” Gareth scolds lovingly as he gets up, pays the bill and gathers her and their shopping bags for the short walk around the corner and down Commonwealth Avenue, past unbroken lines of red brick Victorian houses and into Plenty’s apartment building. As they enter the rickety old elevator and ascend to the fourth floor, the sound of their muffled giggles echo through the corridors.
“I think I maxed out my cash card today,” Gareth says while surveying the vast sea of colorful bags flooding the elevator floor. “I’m bankrupt. I’m going to have to call my bank and get my overdraft raised just to get a taxi home from Heathrow.”
“Oh, just stay here forever. Then you won’t have to think about it,” Plenty says off-the-cuff, but underneath seriously meaning it. She does not want to see Gareth leave after tomorrow—the thought of it suddenly makes her feel lonely.
“Oh that’s a good solution to my current financial woes,” Gareth answers back, wishing Plenty would say: “Oh, to hell with this whole wedlocking thingy, I’m going back to London with you,” because he’s going to miss days like this, plus he knows that both of their lives will change after tomorrow … dreads it, actually.
Plenty watches Gareth’s mood shift ever so slightly, and knowing exactly what he’s thinking, she quietly leans her head on his shoulder.
Gareth kisses the top of her head and smiles. They know each other’s state of mind without so much as a single syllable uttered between them—their facial expressions speak in code better than any words ever could.
When the doors of the lift open, they spill out into the hallway, analyzing their purchases as they make their way to Plenty’s door.
“Who do I think I am, buying this?” Plenty pouts as she pulls out the sleeve of a strawberry-red lace top from the turquoise bag hanging on her arm.
“Oh, shut it,” Gareth scolds. “You’ll achieve maximum sizzle in it, and pardon I, but don’t you have a honeymoon to go on? And won’t this be a perfect piece of seduction garb? Kitted out in this, John will tear it off you before you get out the door.”
A sheepish grin plays about Plenty’s lips as that vision overtakes her brain before boring old commonsense can berate her for frivolously spending money she does not have.
“Yeah, I guess,” she relents, gently tucking the fabric back into its protective fold of tissue paper.
“So go forth and beguile,” Gareth commands as he looks up at Plenty’s front door and notes, “Peanut, there’s a pretty pink note stuck to your door. Maybe it’s a juicy love letter from John.”
Plenty looks up at the glaring pink note when she finishes messing with her bag as Gareth leans into her and whispers, “‘I can’t wait to make mad, passionate love to my bride’, I’m sure it says,” never missing an opportunity to tease the blushing bride-to-be as he reaches the door first, itching to rip the note off and read its amorous message.
“Jealous?” Plenty teases back, playfully bumping Gareth’s hip with her derriere, continuing to blush like an innocent school girl, feeling all chaste like a born again virgin, hoping Gareth is right, that John has left a beautiful and sexy love letter—thus putting an end to the gnawing feelings in her gut.
“Hardly, Peanut-butter-cup – Sweety – my blokess,” Gareth mocks, impatiently nudging her along, relieved that John has finally made contact … he really was beginning to wonder … “Now don’t get on my last gay nerve, hurry up! Read it!”
Obeying his anxious command Plenty rips the Post-it off the door whilst simultaneously giving him a middle-fingered salute. But as she begins to read the note a surreal, out-of-body numbness sweeps over her. All color drains from her face as its words jolt her senses. Her eyes become transfixed with shock and her stomach lurches as waves of nausea wash up through her esophagus. She feels as if she’s having an instant melt down as her vision goes black and her heart deflates like a popped balloon. All she can hear is the sound of her blood rapidly coursing through her veins—Niagara Falls has nothing on this deafening din. She tries to swallow the lumps of raw pain that are forming in her throat … but she can’t.
As he watches Plenty’s face turn from misty rose, to slate gray, to cadaver white, Gareth drops his shopping bags and grabs Plenty’s shoulders, trying to shake some life back into her. He’s panic stricken, thinking that she’s having a stroke, or worse. He can’t lose his little peanut, what will he do without her? “Sweety? Peanut?” he cries, staring into her eyes, searching for a flicker of cognizant life, a glint of lucidity. But Plenty is too stunned to speak.
Gareth braces Plenty with one arm, her knees being on the verge of buckling, while he reaches over with his free hand and rips the note from her trembling fingers. He reads the acerbic words that have so paralyzed and floored his peanut:
Dear Plenty,
I’m so sorry, but I can’t do this. You’re a good kid, but I’ve been seeing my ex-girlfriend for the past month and have come to realize that I still love her. We’re on our way to Las Vegas to get married. I’m sorry if I hurt you. Take care and have a good life.
John.
“Holy Birdcage, Nathan Lane! Oh. My. Fucking. God. Shut! Up! Have a good life! Have a good life?! What arse dribble! I don’t believe this. The sodding wanker coward jilted you on a Post-it! The sanctimonious poncey poseur!” Gareth rants, more livid than he’s ever been in his entire life. “All I can say is you are well rid of him. He’s an arrogant tosser. Come on, little one,” he says, prying Plenty’s keys from her fingers, unlocking the door and guiding her into the apartment, “let’s get some booze down you. We’re going to kill those bottles of champagne that are chilling in the frig. We need to numb your senses.”
Feeling as if her bones are going to crumble to dust, Plenty collapses into Gareth. She is shaking – spastic with hiccups and shudders – and her eyes are brimming with tears.
Why? How? is running on a continuous loop in her head as she feels an intense and ferocious energy gather at the core of her being—moving with uncontrollable velocity, spawning a shit storm that will soon unleash torrential rains and blubbering squalls.
“Oh, poor little flower. Come on, hugs not drugs,” Gareth coos while he soothes and rocks Plenty’s trembling body as the gravity of all her bad choices weigh heavily on her heart.
When her shaking temporarily subsides, Gareth directs Plenty into the bathroom, instructing her to wash her face. “You look like Tammy Faye Baker’s ugly sister. You’re scaring me.”
A crazed laugh escapes Plenty’s lips and echoes through the raw and morbid air. Gareth’s eyes grow wide with fear. This detached funk that she’s submerged in scares him. She’s become a specter floating above her body. And she hasn’t uttered a word. It’s all too eerie – macabre, even.
“When you’re done in here go and have a lie down while I tend to a few things,” he says while rubbing her back. He then gives her another hug, gently closes the bathroom door and goes into the living room to call Sam.
“Hello?” trills Sam.
“Hey, Sam, it’s Gareth.”
“Gareth, I was just about to call you. How’s our bride doing? Is she getting nervous?” Sam asks, all bubbly and excited herself, still thrilled that Plenty asked her to be Maid-of-Honor.
Sam loves Plenty, having known her since their Emerson College days together, when they shared a grotty little apartment and growing close over the years. (Sam is the only female friend that Plenty’s ever had. They’re great friends, there for each other without getting in each other’s way—something that is very important to both of them.) And when Gareth came on the scene, visiting Plenty in Boston as often as his budget could afford, the trio quickly formed and became an urban family unit (a nucleus of love and dysfunction, as Gareth had put it).
“So, are we going to go out tonight and celebrate in true bachelorette style?” Sam continues. But when she isn’t getting the usual Gareth-esque, effervescently sardonic response she suddenly stops burbling on and slowly asks, “Gareth? Is everything okay?” afraid of the answer as she chants to herself: Please let everything be okay – please, please, please. Hasn’t Plenty been through enough? For someone whose life has been a recipe for disaster, a hot mess of a French farce on a near daily basis, she more than deserves to have something go right for a change. She’s paid her dues, plus everyone else’s!
After a long, lamentable pause, Gareth breathes out a deeply distressed sigh, “No, everything is not okay,” and Sam’s nerves prickle as she slumps back into her sofa.
I knew it, Sam thinks as she lets out an exasperated breath and rolls her eyes to the ceiling in a “you-who-controls-her-universe the joke has gone too far, game over, time to lift the voodoo you did on her, oh, and curses to you too, putz” manner. “Oh, no. What happened? Please say that Plenty isn’t hurt – lying in some hospital.”
“Well, she’s hurt, but not physically,” Gareth says, running a hand through his blond locks, dreading what he has to tell Sam. “Ehm, when we got back from shopping, just now, there was a note on her door. It was from John … and … oh, let me read it to you,” and he retrieves the note from the hall table where he dropped it, clears the nails that he wants to spit from his throat and commences to read the short, terse words out loud.
When he finishes spewing out the last sickening syntax, Sam blows forth in a huff. “Are you kidding me?!?” she lets fly, knowing that it’s a stupid thing to say, but this really is beyond all rationality. This is impossible to comprehend, even for a classic Plenty travesty. “On a Post-it?!?”
“A pink Post-it.”
“I can’t believe what a low life coward he is. Vile,” she spits, yes, nails and tacks and spikes. “He is vile. Well, she’s well and truly rid of him. I never did like him. Couldn’t understand why she was with him, or why she put up with him, let alone why she agreed to marry him. I had a feeling that something was up. He always acted guilty – sneaky. Smarmy bastard. A pink Post-it! What the fuck…”
“More of an in-your-face fuchsia, actually. Bright. The kind of color that mocks,” Gareth says as he paces the length of Plenty’s living room floor, stopping every so often to peer out the window at the street below. How can people go on with their everyday lives when there is such tragedy and crushing drama being played out right above their abstract heads? he thinks as he watches a couple stroll arm-in-arm up the street.
“Bastard! How could he! The piece of slime waste pond scum. ‘Take care and have a good life’? ‘You’re a good kid’? Revolting. He is absolutely foul and revolting. If he were here I’d gouge his eyes out. I’d gouge his heart out as well, if he had one. How could he do this to her?” Sam growls, still on a roaring boil and doing some mad pacing herself. “How is she?”
“Devastated.”
“Of course she is, how stupid of me,” Sam berates herself, so agitated that she can’t see straight.
“The gloom she’s slipped into scares me,” Gareth continues. “She’s absolutely despondent.”
“Well, thank goodness you’re with her. She’d never be able to handle this without you,” Sam says as she sits back down, trying to cool her heels. “If anyone can pull her out of this, it’s you. She adores you. God, there must be some creepy little gremlin following her around, giving her the stink eye … I’ve never seen anyone so plagued with such bad luck. It’s like a pestilent evil spell, a bad stink you can’t escape. Anyway,” she sighs, shaking off this creeping les mis feeling, “what do you need me to do? Should I come over?”
Gareth appreciates Sam’s offer, and sentiments, but … “No, I’ll handle this end. I see a long night of consoling ahead – lots of booze and tears and cases of Kleenex. Thanks for the offer, though. But I do have a big fav to ask. It’s very important.”
“Whatever you want,” she says, eager to do whatever she can to help.
“I need you to call all the guests and tell everyone that the wedding is off. Be your lovely, sweet, diplomatic self. But only call her side, of course. I could care less about his people. Let them show up, and then harass him for an explanation when he gets back from his nasty deed. Oh, and call the minister, the chapel, the restaurant, the florist and the photographer, and cancel the room at the Four Seasons. Work out whatever with them and I’ll settle with them on Monday. Can you do all that for us? It isn’t too much, is it?”
“No, absolutely not. I want to do whatever I can to help,” Sam reassures.
“Cheers. You’re a star. We really need to clean up and sweep away these details. She’ll never have the strength to face them. I’ll ring you later. Kiss, kiss; chow,” and Gareth hangs up, goes into the kitchen, takes out two champagne flutes from the cabinet over the sink, grabs a bottle of chilled bubbly from the frig, dunks it into a bucket of ice and brings the lot into the living room, all the while hoping and praying that his precious little peanut really is all right.
The tomblike silence that has fallen over the apartment is creepy and Gareth is worried. He can almost hear the ticking of the time-bomb about to explode. He knows that Plenty is in some kind of shock. Her faraway look and muted reaction to the note confirmed it. The only thing she had uttered was a kittenesque whimper – and that crazed laugh – it was scaaaary.
“Please let this be a temporary condition,” Gareth mutters, giving a nauseous shudder as he whisks about, making everything look just so, Gareth style. “Please let her pull through this unscathed, if possible, because I don’t know what I’d do without my little peanut.” Then, as he hits a few pillows before plumping them up, in an attempt to take the edge off his outrage, he spews with jaw tightly clenched, “I could kill that git. Absolutely murder the bloody wanker for doing this. I can just see it now, the headlines will read: ‘Fag slays BFF’s jilting fiancé in blind rage.’” Then he laughs ironically, “Oh, who am I kidding, I couldn’t harm a gnat.”
Meanwhile, back in Plenty’s bedroom …
Plenty is numb, unable to move her body as she stands in the middle of her bedroom feeling devastated, absolutely crushed, mortified and destroyed. Her spirit feels completely squashed … ravaged, obliterated and gutted as heartache, anguish, melancholy and despair utterly consume her.
The only thing she doesn’t feel is surprised and astonished that this has happened.
Murphy’s law – Sod’s law – whatever law you want to call it, it’s well and truly Plenty’s law. For what can go wrong will go wrong and always does go wrong in her life. So it’s no surprise that these events should unfold as they have, in the worst possible case scenario. But it’s no less painful to bear, no matter how inevitable and ordained the atrocious event is.
“Why me?” she protests, finally ungluing herself from the spot she’s been frozen to, throwing herself onto the bed and burying her face in her pillows. “I’m a good person, aren’t I? I’m not mean or malicious or repugnant, am I? Why do bad things happen to descent people? Why!?! Why am I so cursed? So … so jinxed? I am so tired of always coming up smelling like a big brown pile of poo. I want to come up smelling of pretty roses for a change.”
She rolls over and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, making a sound like the raw winds howling on the Moors. Then slowly getting up, she grabs a box of tissues from her Vanity to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. But the flood gates have opened. She can’t stop the tears.
She throws herself back onto the bed and stares up at the ceiling, exasperated and frustrated beyond reason and comprehension. “I must have been very wicked in another life,” she continues to rail, “and now I’m being punished. My love life … oh, chuffing hell, my life period, is doomed. I don’t understand this curse I’m under, it’s just cruel. I mean, it isn’t like I ask for lofty things out of life. I’m not greedy. I don’t walk around all haughty, full of myself high and mighty. I’m a simple girl. I’m certainly not a pompous twit asking … no … demanding everything. Hardly that. Blimey,” she snorts, “I wouldn’t begin to know how to be like that because I certainly don’t think that I’m worthy.” Then a slight flicker goes off in her head. “Maybe that’s why I accepted John’s proposal. Deep down inside I was punishing myself for being such a tosspot. Subliminally I knew this would happen. It’s my comeuppance for thinking that I actually can have what I want most, to be happy and content, to have all the areas of my life go right. But, no, silly Plenty, don’t you know by now that you can’t escape the inevitable, that the moment you think you’ve finally got it all, it all falls spectacularly to pieces?”
Plenty covers her eyes with her hands as a fresh wave of sorrow engulfs her, towing her under in a current of self-pity as another crying jag swoops down upon her, pecking at her until frustration foams up again. “But why? Why does it always have to go so pear shaped, so sour and rancid? What have I done wrong? Am I really being greedy, asking for a smidgen of happiness and the man of my dreams? Someone who I can share my … my … everything with, someone who will love me for who I am – accept me, understand me … and not use me? Is that really too much to ask for? I mean, I’m not demanding diamonds or furs or yachts or chauffeur driven limousines or a house in the Hamptons or even a manor house in the Cotswolds, just Mr. Right! Not Mr. Righteous, or Mr. Filthy Rich, just my soulmate, really. I just want the simple pleasures in life … contentment, laughter, sharing, trust, passion … love, pure and simple! Hello up there,” she pleads to the ceiling, “may I please have a comfortable and happy life with my Mr. Right? Fuck, I’ll even take a Mr. Apt if you think I’m so bloody greedy! Please, please, please? I just want to be happy for more than a nanosecond … is that really not allowed?”
But the problem is there are too many Mr. Wrongs out there, ready and all too willing to pounce on the sweet, vulnerable Plenty’s. For it’s true, some girls only attract old men, dogs and cads. And that, in a nutshell, was and is the definition of Plenty’s love life.
Plenty sits up abruptly, her emotions roaring to a boiling point, going from self-commiseration to full-on outrage in a matter of seconds (all this plunging and climaxing without the pleasure of sex is exhausting—and so not satisfying) as she pounds her fists on the bed, now railing to the ceiling, “Look, I know I’m not a willowy, rail thin, blond haired, blue-eyed, dream-model girl, but for fuck’s sake, aren’t there any sweet, warm, fairly handsome men out there, with honesty and integrity, who would love a quirky, humble, lovingly witty erudite, quasi pretty girl? Huh? … No, I guess not. I guess the gods have decided that happiness does not suit me. I really, really want a do over.” The only problem is, Plenty exceeded her do over request quota ages ago. No sense in asking for one … again.
She slowly lowers her head and stares into dead air, feeling equally dead inside—and drained—as thoughts of John and their relationship come flooding back, hitting her like a torrential tidal wave, drowning her senses. She thinks about his actions. Have there been telltale signs? Has she been that blinded by his smarmy charms and hollow words?
Suddenly his duplicitous smooth talk rings in her ears, deafening her dignity: “You’re the best …” and, “Of course I love you, kid …” and, “You’re just the sweetest, Honey …”
Plenty shudders. They had been insincere, hollow words followed by empty gestures. But, unfortunately, when you’re a Plenty, susceptible to honeyed silk, a dollop of flattery will get you everything and everywhere.
Her yearning for true love and her misplaced hunger for affection blinded her, and like a starving dog salivating over a sliver of food, she was easily led and duped by John-the-Suave—John-the-Cunning.
“Lend me a ten spot, my love,” he’d say, his voice dripping with honey … or: “Pick up my dry cleaning, doll.” … “Sweetness, get the check, will you, I’m tapped out at the mo. I’ll pay you back later.” (Wink. Kiss.) … “You can handle the weekend on your own, right? I have a last minute meeting out of town. You’re a living doll.” … “I’m going to be late tonight, don’t wait up …”
His malodorous bullshit now echoes in her ears. His dirty lies and bogus hogwash now cuts her to the quick, slicing through her innocent and gullible heart.
“Was I born yesterday?” Plenty admonishes herself, thumping her temples with her fists. “Am I that naive and simple? That blinded by a bad man in a posh suit? Talk about wet behind the ears, I’m absolutely drowning in it, aren’t I? How could I have been so stupid – so imbecilic and dimwitted? Why did I trust that underhanded, slippery crawling snake, ambiguous sleaze-bag, S.O.B. rat-bastard, pond scum amoeba?” She spits each word out as if drawing venom from a wound, then she takes a long cleansing breath and lets it out slowly. “That felt good.”
Suddenly a giddy feeling comes over her and she begins to giggle uncontrollably. She’s reeling from all the emotions hitting her at once. “Bloody hell,” she snorts and cries at the same time, “if it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all, would I? But come on, it has to change. I mean, this was the big payoff, with interest, right? Hello up there,” she yells, once again looking up at the ceiling, “I’ve really, really had enough. Ha-bloody-ha. Please, joke’s over. I am now officially not amused.”
With another heavy sigh, Plenty leans back and retrieves the box of tissues, which by now is wedged between the mattress and the headboard, wiping her eyes and blowing her raw red nose.
Then, without looking, she reaches her hand out and grabs her pillow, burying her face in it, breathing in the crisp, clean, soothing scent of cool cotton. And as she hugs this comforting rectangle of downy feathers and striped ticking, Plenty suddenly stops feeling sorry for herself—for a moment, anyway—and quietly smiles as Gareth pops into her head.
“I’m not so unlucky though, am I?” she mutters as she sits up and leans her chin on the edge of the pillow. “He’s my lucky charm – my very own personal talisman. I might have gone through a lot of crap in my life, and really walked a wonky path, but in the end all of that is trivial drivel, adding up to a hill of meaningless beans, because I have my Gareth – my Sparky. I have his unconditional love and friendship. There are no prerequisites or demands or provisos with him, and isn’t that what life is all about? Friendship, unconditional love, someone you can count on, who will be there no matter what – they’re the most important things in life, and with him I have it all. I really did have one huge, lucky spurt when he ran me over in that Tube Station a million years ago. I must have been flying under the poo radar that day. I could really be alone right now, completely and utterly on my own, without him in my life. Talk about meaningless. So what am I bitching about? I really am grateful for him.”
Thinking and reflecting and, unfortunately, over analyzing, Plenty continues to hug her pillow while rocking back and forth. And as she does so, John crawls back into her thoughts, like the slimy parasite that he is.
Suddenly a vision of nightmarish proportions flashes in front of her eyes—a vision of John and his old slut-bitch-girlfriend writhing in coitus arousal – the flames of hot passion consuming them as they shag for hours whilst Plenty ignorantly goes about like Cinderella, planning her wedding, unsuspicious, green as newly planted grass, believing everything told to her by John-the-Contemptible.
“Was I being used until someone or something better came along – or reappeared?” Plenty spits as her guts wrench and lurch. Her state of mind reforming its tempestuous clouds, becoming reactive and out of control – again. Her raw emotions are about to climb a new crest and plummet, right when she’s beginning to think that she’s calmed down enough to go out and face Gareth. “Was this just some kind of game? Get the fat girl to fall head-over it for you and then dump her in the worst possible way? Is my life that amusing? Are my emotions a sport for some recreational fun? Am I an entertaining pastime – a diversion to be had, then tossed aside when the distraction becomes boring? Is that all I am, just a chew-toy to entertain oneself with? A trifle until the gold comes along?”
Her tears are flowing freely, she feels empty and worthless. A bucket of warm spit has more value than do her feelings right now.
“But why go this far and drop me in it at this juncture? I don’t understand,” she continues to mumble as she blows her nose and tries to wipe away the stream of tears flooding down her cheeks. She’s beyond trying to understand what John has done. “I guess he really did find a better meal ticket. His golden-goddess came back to him. Why stay with a brown lump of sod when you can be with exquisiteness … fuuuuuuuuk … I was going to get married tomorrow … and now … I’m not. I was just a rebound toy to him.”
And as if in a trance, Plenty gets up, walks to her closet and opens the door.
There it is … her wedding dress, taunter of what might have been.
Her hand, like a detached life form, reaches up, grasps the satin hanger and lifts the dress from its hiding place. She hugs it to her. The delicate silk caresses her skin. It feels creamy to her touch, lush, rich – buttery. It’s so light, it feels airy and buoyant … diaphanous.
Like a robot on auto pilot, Plenty carefully lays the gown on her bed, undresses and slips into the allegorical garment. She then places her feet in the milky white, strappy Manolo’s (gift from Gareth) that are sitting next to the Vanity, patiently waiting for their walk up the little chapel aisle. She totters across the room and takes a hat box down from atop the bureau, gingerly lifting its lid and taking out a pillbox hat with veil, gently placing it on her head. She then pulls out a pair of long velvet gloves from the bottom of the hat box and slowly slips her shaking hands into them.
Fully dressed, from head to toe, in a whisper of white, Plenty takes a deep, shuddering breath as she turns and walks over to the cheval mirror, staring until her vision blurs from the tears streaming down her face…
