Always a Bridesmaid, But...

(I was installing a new drape track in a condo when this chick begins talking on the phone to her friend about a recent romance she'd had. Since I had my tape recorder handy, I secretly taped her so I could repeat is all word for word. Apparently she's always been a bridesmaid but never a bride, till now that is)

*****

The waterfall was crushing, its white spray swirling around the jagged rocks. As I listened to the sensual sound of the water, I caught a glimpse of Marcia's lips finding their way onto Peter's moist, handsome mouth.

I fought a twinge of intense jealousy at the sight. They certainly seemed to be so very happy together. And why shouldn't they be? It was obvious to everyone that they were a perfect match. It was also obvious that their six month whirlwind romance had been the perfect backdrop for their eventual fairy tale wedding. A wedding which had taken place only an hour earlier, only now, as the bridal party continued posing for pictures, I felt like absolute shit.

That was in spite of the fact that it had been a remarkably beautiful wedding. And also in spite of the fact that the heavenly nuptials had featured me as one of four blushing bridesmaids. A bridesmaid...again. Yet again.

Again? What did that make it, nine weddings in a row over a ten year period? Almost a dozen times in an actual bridal party without being an actual bride? Really? Fucking really?

I fought back the tears. I had promised myself I wouldn't get overwhelmed with emotion on this beautiful day, which also just happened to be my thirtieth birthday. Not that anyone had noticed. All my friends were too busy congratulating the bride and groom. It's kind of hard to plan a birthday party for yourself, or even to expect any friends to plan a surprise one, when everyone you know is going to be watching the very pretty and very white Marcia get married to the very black and very handsome Peter. Even I had to admit to myself that they were a perfect match. And not even their tacky choice of Niagara Falls as the venue in which to hold both the wedding and the reception could dampen the glorious day.

As a thousand tourists shared in the moment, snapping pictures and telling them how great they looked together, not even a brilliant sun could shoo away my own storm clouds now brewing in my heart and mind. It was as if my entire life had now flashed before me. I was now thirty years old without a husband. And, horror of horrors, I was still a virgin. How was that even possible? I sighed and squinted as I glared at the blinding sun. For a moment I almost felt like tossing myself over the railing and into the crushing falls. Maybe then I'd get some attention. Perhaps even some guy to jump in after me to rescue me, someone to finally call my own.

"Don't they look so great together?"

The voice belonged to Suzie, a fellow church goer and a fellow bridesmaid, who at the age of twenty-eight, had not only snared her handsome husband seven years prior, but had three adorable daughters to brighten her day. Besides the sun, what did I have?

I didn't answer. I had already traded insipid banter with dozens of tourists who lied to say they loved my dress. But that was little comfort when confronting the fact that they also gushed the truth out of their mouths like squeezed toothpaste by saying how great Marcia and Peter looked together. And now it was Suzie's turn.

I had agreed with the last two dozen agitators that had put forward the notion that the two of them together were the best damn thing to happen since sliced bread. And now Suzie. Well fuck Suzie. I wasn't about to say it again, not if I were boiled alive in oil and fed to tarantulas the size of rats.

"Mable? Are you okay?"

I wanted to scream at Suzie's stupid question. Why was it that people were forcing me all fucking day long to tell them that Marcia and Peter looked great together?

I pretended not to hear her. Had she forgotten that I was the only woman left in our circle of friends who had never been married? And had it slipped her busybody brain that it was also I alone who had never had children? And had I not made her privy on multiple occasions to the fact that it was I as well, who was the only thirty year old on the planet who had never had the privilege of spreading her long silky smooth black legs for some horny sperm filled cock, black or white?

Still a virgin at thirty. What was that, some kind of goody two shoes world record?

I didn't dare look back in Suzie's direction. The inquisitive white wench was still eying me carefully, wondering why so much damn steam was coming out of my ears. I could even feel a tear coming on, but managed to supress it. This was Marcia's day. And I was certainly not going to dampen the jovial, celebratory mood by crying up a storm. So what if I couldn't find a man to save my damn life? And so what if the closest I was ever going to get to a wedding dress was if I stood next to it wearing a bridesmaid dress?

"Are you sick, Mable?"

I clenched my fists and could feel the bouquet in my hands starting to squish angrily in my violet painted fingernails. Was there a law somewhere that said a girl sick of never wearing a white dress had to suck it up and look happy? And was there a law somewhere that said parents were allowed to name their daughters Mable? Who in their right mind named their daughters Mable? Mable was a name best reserved for aging spinster school teachers or grandmothers who needed help crossing the street. What passionate, hot blooded, extremely handsome male hunk was going to date a girl named Mable? That was almost as lame as the name Gertrude.

"I'm just fine, Suzie. A little sunstroke is all. I'll be fine, honest."

"Okay, but if the sun is bothering you then maybe you ought to stand in the shade, like under that tree over there."

I had reached the boiling point and beyond. Suzie knew damn well that I was standing strategically on the two foot high rock so that my picture could be taken with the other three bridesmaids also standing on two foot high rocks. I suddenly wished I was a female wrestler so I could yank out Suzie's straw like wig hair, scratch the flesh from her heavily made up face, and knock out her yellowing false teeth. Still, I managed to hold on.

"Don't worry about me," I begged, still supressing an avalanche of tears. "I'll be just fine."

"If you say so," she said, finally turning away.

"A penny for your thoughts?"

The voice came from behind me and was definitely male. A few moments of concentration with pursed lips told me it was Darren, the usher who had escorted me down the aisle. Brian, the forty year old eyesore who up till today had been slated to walk with me, had taken sick with pneumonia. It was just as well because walking with Brian had made me look awkward. He was far too short for me, a skinny guy with space between his teeth. His only claim to fame was that, like me, he was black, hence the supposedly necessary pairing. Why did wedding planners think it obligatory, when matching up the bridal party, to pair the only two blacks together?

Both Brian and Darren were bachelors. Unlike Brian, however, Darren, was white. Darren was also a good friend of the bride's sister, and I found Darren to be as charming as he was attractive, howbeit he was a whole nine years younger than me. Not that I would ever refuse to date a much younger man, but I just happened to look my age, making the distinction between us, much sharper. So sharp in fact, that the wedding planner began toying with the idea of switching the emergency replacement Darren with a younger bridesmaid, and having me walk with a man more my age. I didn't take such a slight personally, because I had spent my entire life dealing with such awkward scenarios.

People were always trying to stereotype what my possible date or future husband should look like and act like. Hence, I would always have well-meaning friends pulling me aside and yanking my heart out by saying "he's not a good match for you." And "you should date someone less exciting, or older and black. And I would even hear, "you don't want to date someone that good looking, because he'll be gone whenever a pretty girl passes by."

And that was why I was originally paired with Brian. He was the token black male usher, and he was pegged as being 'middle aged.' It irked me that they viewed me, at only thirty, as being middle aged also. But then again, I wasn't, admittedly, one of those women that carried her age well. Even more alarming, was the fact that Brian was a little on the very short and very plain side. I was very tall, but did match him by being on the very plain side.

Darren, on the other hand, was so much taller, a lot hunkier around the chest, and was a lot easier on the eyes where spacing between the teeth was concerned. Not to mention that he had dreamy broad shoulders and eyes that were a delicious blue. But I had no illusions that a guy like that could possibly ever find me attractive. Besides, he didn't give any hints that he might like to date black women. I had already convinced myself that all men found me repulsive. How else to explain their lack of interest over the first thirty years of my uneventful life?

"I'm just feeling a little under the weather," I lied, not wanting the hot and hunky Darren to know what every other person on the planet already suspected, and that was that I was coming apart at the seams over the fact that I had become a bridesmaid yet again. Was I ever going to be a damn bride? At thirty and counting, the age forty was just around the corner, and then I really would be a good match for the dreaded Brian.

"Well, at least you can relax now. They're finished taking pictures," Darren said, offering a smile that was as tentative as it was dazzling.

I had tried my best throughout the day not to drool all over Darren, but now that we were up close together, and he was anxious to chat, I decided just to kind of let my hair down and try to make the best of a bad situation. And if I did, then maybe, just maybe...

"I could use a drink, I suppose," I said, managing a fake frown. Pretending to be under the weather was only useful if you could milk it for privileges. But the guy you were milking had to at least have half a brain. Darren had come across as not only charming but witty, and so I thought to myself, 'what the hell?' I was sorely in need of cheering up, and sorely in need of having a man say something nice to me, as long as the day didn't end up with that said man trying to get me between the sheets. Saving myself for marriage had become a badge of honor which I dutifully wore on my sleeve, although some of my friends called it an albatross around my neck that had helped prevent me from nailing down a man I could call my own.

My best friend Martha had once told me that men weren't so much into dating a 'Goodie Miss Two Shoes' anymore. What they were really after were girls who were 'naughty but nice.' It made me wonder. Did any guy on the face of the earth even care that I had kept myself pure as the driven snow? Apparently not, if you took into account that I'd had zero marriage proposals to show for sacrificing myself to the virgin Gods, and that I was perpetually suffering pent up lust.

It wasn't easy maintaining a strict regimen of daily denial's whenever men gave you those puppy dog eyes and offered a dinner of lobster and fine wine in exchange for a little roll in the hay. Not that I had anything against hay, but it was the rolling part that always made me supremely nervous.

My deceased mother had always told me that staying a virgin was going to interest and intrigue men, and make them drop at my feet like twitching flies. One day I'll have to dig up dear old mom and tell her how absolutely wrong she was. What the heck, I still love her anyways, or at least what's left of her, laying in the ground.

Still, having started a noble cause such as waiting for that ring, always made me feel that I had come this far, so why not just stick with it all the way? In for a dime, in for a dollar so to speak. I had never imagined, however, when I first started keeping my damn legs crossed, that I would reach the age of thirty and still be so notoriously single. Some of my 'sistas' had gone through two or three divorces and remarriages and were still younger than me. For them, men seemed to grow on trees. For me, I might as well have been on another planet.

"It's only a ten minute walk to the hall where the reception is. We don't have to take the limo back. We can walk it and stop into a bar on the way," Darren says, breaking my self-imposed concentration. Being bitter will do that to a person, make them feel as if they have to keep reliving the failure over and over and over in their minds. I was no exception to that rule.

I let my big brown eyes take in his still stunning blue eyes and magnificent dimples. The more I looked at his face, was the more I found to like about it, even the purposely left behind one day stubble shadow. I had always thought, that if tastefully done, that it made a man look so damn appealing and irresistible.

I sought immediately to cool my jets. Darren was only, after all, offering me a drink, not a ring. Rings took countless months and countless bouts of strategy to accomplish in between. Which in my case was so much harder, because I never had anything to offer a man except permanently closed legs. Still, as handsome as Darren was, and as drunk as I was sure to become, my 'always a virgin until that day' rule was not about to be broken. Not now, not tomorrow, and not a couple of months from now. Darren or no Darren.

"Yeah, a drink or two would be nice. Help to steady my nerves. Thanks."

He reached out with his hands, aiming them for my waist. I had been standing on a piece of tall rock with a flat surface, and had gotten there earlier by stepping on a series of smaller rocks along with all the other bridesmaids. He was seeking to help me down so I wouldn't have to climb onto the series of rock steps.

The thought that he was going to help me down by putting his hands around my waist was exhilarating.

I smiled nervously and took a short leap of faith.

He clasp my waist and gently lowered me to the ground, smiling in my face and gazing into my eyes as we paused for a moment.

I wondered if he liked me, but knew that even if a friendship might develop out of the day, it would probably end up going nowhere. For one thing he was white, and I had never dated white guys before.

For some reason I had always been attracted to men of my own race. For a second thing, he was so much younger than me. Didn't they call that robbing the cradle?

A third thing, was the fact that he was just so damn hot in the looks department. Just about as hunky and as handsome as they came. Whereas, apart from my large, eye-popping, all natural breasts, I was just about as plain as could be. That is, except for my hypnotic big brown eyes. Guys always said there was something magical about them, the way they could mesmerize a member of the opposite sex from a hundred feet away. I had always hoped that some guy may get lost in them long enough to pull a proposal out of his ass, but sadly, my ring finger still sat barren.

A wind seemed to come out of nowhere, lifting my dress as we walked towards the hill that heralded a treasure trove of garish amusements on both sides.

"You seem to have walked over an air grate," he explained as I quickly pulled the stunning pink material back down over my long black legs.

"I hadn't even noticed it was there," I said sheepishly.

"Well I certainly noticed your very nice legs from that Marilyn Monroe imitation."

My temperature shot up and my blood began rising to my head. This Brad Pitt lookalike was complimenting my legs and comparing me to Marilyn Munroe. It all made me flush with excitement. I'd never received such compliments from a man before. And certainly not from a guy that had been the object of my continuing drool since early morning.

"It's kind of a hard climb," I said, almost huffing and puffing as we managed the steep uphill battle.

His yummy supportive hand, as if on cue, slipped back around my waist to help me up the harsh slope. Again, it felt exhilarating.

"Oh look, the Ripley's believe it or not museum," he blurted out, almost as if he were a kid passing a candy store window.

His back was turned to me, and I looked at his broad dreamy shoulders one more time. What did that make it? The nine hundredth and ninety ninth time for the day? Was I ever going to hold a man in my arms? And was it ever going to be with a sweet 'too good to be true' dreamboat like Darren?

"Let's go in," he said, showing off an extra twinkle in his pretty blue eyes. "These kind of things have always fascinated me."

A sudden twinge of embarrassment took hold. "My purse is in the limo," I lamented, confident he would do the manly thing and pay my way.

He frowned, taking my hand. "It's my idea to go inside. I hardly expected you to pay."

He stepped in front of the ticket booth, releasing my hand just long enough to whip out his wallet.

I watched as he dropped the twenty-five dollars onto the counter, snatched up the tickets, then re-clasped my hand to lead me inside.

He seemed happier than a pig in mud to be going to see the exhibits, and I remember thinking to myself that his wayward spirit seemed to ooze simplicity rather than entitlement or overconfidence. He was devilishly handsome and he knew it, but he didn't seem to flaunt it. Rather, he was the kind of guy that sought to slowly grow on you, and right now, I was buying into his playful charm.

I followed him with feigned fascination as he went methodically from exhibit to exhibit, commenting on how they were all just as he remembered them from his last visit to the museum and the falls some ten years earlier.

I glanced at my watch. They wanted us to be at the reception hall within the next half hour, but Darren didn't seem to be in any kind of a hurry. I got the sense he was enjoying his time with me.

"You're not like the others," he said, turning his dreamy body sideways at the last exhibit to stare directly into my big alluring eyes, yet again.

My heart began to beat quickly and loudly. He was making this little excursion with me personal, and I didn't know if that meant that he really liked me or that he just wanted to say he was having fun.

"Why am I not like the others?" I ventured, kicking myself for allowing him to get inside of my head. Guys always seemed to do that to me, get inside my head then churn my thoughts over like some kick starting engine, trying to get me to steer into their direction. I had always resisted the urge to become too serious with a guy in the past because it was obvious they had no class.

Darren seemed more mysterious and carefree, someone who would undoubtedly be a lot of fun and who could bring a lot of excitement into a girl's life. He forced me to keep gazing into his hypnotic blue eyes while waiting for him to answer. It made me realize that he knew exactly how to play the game, even at the tender age of twenty-one.

"You're much more charming and a whole lot sweeter," he said, firing the words into my heart as though they were bullets. "And you're so very easy on the eyes, and extremely easy to talk to. Very down to earth and not stuck up."

His speech had me awestruck. First bullets, then challenging, fired arrows. And all launched towards my heart, howbeit taking a detour first into the suspicious recesses of my worried mind.

His tone and playful mood were becoming ferociously real, backing me up into a corner from which there might not be any reprieve or retreat. I decided to lay down the ground rules just in case his promiscuous thoughts were becoming etched in quick drying cement.