Jen Glantz - Always a Bridesmaid (For Hire): Stories on Growing Up, Looking for Love, and Walking Down the Aisle for Complete Strangers

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For those who told me to give up on being a writer, on being a professional bridesmaid, on being exactly who I amwhich is equal parts stubborn and equal parts peculiar:

Im really glad I never listened.

And for Laurie, Lloyd, and Jason Glantz, who always told me that I should, would, and without a doubt could:

You were right. My goodness, you were right all along.

I am going to do something, and I have a strange feeling it is going to be phantasmagorically different.

Paul Zindel, author of I Never Loved Your Mind

You are terrifying and strange and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.

Warsan Shire, poet

Jennifer, marry a dentist. Theyll be able to replace your teeth, for free, when they start falling out.

My eighty-three-year-old great-aunt Rita

Authors Note

I changed most names and some identifying details of people, places, and things throughout the book. Of course I did. The characters who gave a heartbeat to these stories are friends, and strangers who turned into friends. Oh, and guys who had the courage to take me on a date. I changed their names as a way of saying: Thank you, Im sorry, I love you. Now go off and be well.

W hen you live in New York City, its almost expected that people will see you at your very, very worst, very, very often. Its built into the price you pay to live here, because you will at some point fall into the trap of believing that every block, every subway car, every splinter-ridden park bench is your own personal territory for having a full-blown mental breakdown.

I pinky-promise you that eventually youll stop thinking twice about walking down Third Avenue in the morning to buy a large cup of coffee, with your hair in a spider web of tangles and your bra everywhere but where it should bewhich is on you. And youll stop noticing that everyone is staring at you as you publicly break up with the person who has had an iron grip on your heart. After all, if there isnt a crowd of at least five total strangers watching, can you say it even really happened?

The comforting thing is that even when youre at your worst, theres always someone else one-upping you one block over. Thats why you dont need to bat an eye when tourists turn their chunky DSLRs away from the Empire State Building and zoom in on your face, mid-ugly-cry.

I, however, am the kind of person who tries to keep my humiliations private. Like the time I had to be rescued from the bottom of my own closet.

Hello? I whispered in a delicate panic to the kind soul at the other end of the line at 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday. I had been organizing my long-neglected closet, only to be rewarded with every shelf collapsing on top of me, along with an avalanche of forgotten clothes that shouldve been donated to Goodwill years ago. The only parts of my body that hadnt been temporarily paralyzed were my face and a single outstretched arm that had managed to reach my phone. I had dialed the only person I knew would pick up at that hour: my buildings on-call maintenance man.

Whats the problem? he asked, pushing a giant rock of phlegm up and down the bumpy lining of his esophagus.

Its an emergency, I said, attempting to wiggle my toes beneath a pile of platform shoes that my friends and I had worn when we dressed up as the Spice Girls for Halloween. My shelves collapsed, and now Im trapped at the bottom of my closet.

Cant you call someone else? he asked, annoyed, clearly regretting giving me his personal cell phone number when I moved in.

Well, I dont have a

A what? A boyfriend? A best friend? The ability to dial 911?

I took a deep breath and imagined what would happen if I called 911 and they transferred me to the NYPDs Seventeenth Precinct at 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday. I imagined what it would feel like to utter the words, Help me! Im trapped in my own mess of polyester and sequins, to the citys finest; how Id have to beg and plead for them to stop handcuffing the guy trying to break into a non-twenty-four-hour CVS, or quit patrolling Fifth Avenue to come to the twenty-sixth floor of my apartment in Murray Hill just to rescue me from a pile of T-shirts I had bought seven years ago.

Please dont make me do that, I whispered. If you come, Ill give you your Christmas bonus early.

Those turned out to be the magical words. He arrived just a few minutes later in his bathrobe, my knight in fuzzy armor. I smiled because I knew hed seen worse. Much worse.

How did this happen? he asked, peeling back layer after layer of clothing.

Well, I read that its going to be fifty-five degrees tomorrow, so I was trying to grab a sweater from the top shelf when

No, he cut me off. Not that. This !

I craned my neck to see that he was holding in his wide-palmed hands not one, not two, not four, but nine bridesmaid dresses.

Its not what it looks like, I said, worried that his judgment would crush me faster than the contents of my closet. Trust me, I dont even like weddings.

I wasnt totally lying to him either. When I was a little kid, the idea of my own wedding didnt take up much real estate in my mind. Whenever I found myself scoring an invitation to a sleepover or to a lunch table in middle school, the girls would giggle over the cuts of their future rings, the colors of their future flowers, and the flavors of their future cakes, while Id be off in the corner of someones bedroom or at the end of a table, crafting paper airplanes from expired love letters I was too afraid to send.

You hate weddings? my friend Samantha once asked me incredulously at her sleepover party, every syllable loaded with attitude. I watched as she brushed her Barbie dolls bleach-blonde hair, her fish-like lips pursed in sour disapproval.

I dont hate them, I said. Hate was a very strong word that my mom put in the same bucket as curse words; I was never allowed to use it. Whenever I had a staring contest with a plate of broccoli or a pile of homework, I would say I uggghhhed them instead.

But dont you want the flowers and the dress and the giant shiny ring?

Not really, I said, thinking for a second and realizing I had never thought about it before. I was seven years old, and the only thing that regularly crossed my mind was which toy Id score in my McDonalds Happy Meal, or how I desperately wished I could sleep through the next lesson in long division.

All the other girls at Samanthas sleepover talked about how they wanted this flavor cake and that color rose. How their dress would be a cascading waterfall of lace and theyd spend all night twirling around in it. They never mentioned the ooey-gooey love part. They never mentioned the person who would be standing beside them in the photos, at the altar, for the rest of their lives. Maybe thats because back then, boys still had a major case of cooties.

Look at her lopsided bangs, one of the girls said about me as their tittering laughs ricocheted off the walls, hitting me right in the face.

Shell never get married, another girl said as she slid into her Beauty and the Beast sleeping bag.

You know what I think, I said, as my cheeks flushed magenta and my voice sounded as if someone was shaking me uncontrollably, though nobody was. I think if you find your forever person, you two should just do whatever you want.