I Brought a Coworker as My Date to My Ex’s Wedding, and One Comment From Him Wiped the Smile Off My Ex’s Face
in there and not feel like the fat, sad ex-wife everybody feels sorry for. Just for one day.”
Edward didn’t say anything.
And then I heard myself say it.
“Would you go with me?”
He looked up.
My face went hot. “I mean— not like— I just mean as my plus-one. You could pretend. To be my boyfriend. Just for the day. Just so I’m not walking in there alone. I know it’s stupid. I know it’s a stupid, pathetic idea. You can say no. Please say no, actually. Forget I asked.”
Edward was quiet for a long moment.
“Okay,” he said.
I stared at him.
“Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll go.”
“Edward. You don’t have to.”
“I know I don’t have to.” He picked up his half of the sandwich. “What time should I pick you up?”
“You’re serious.”
“I’m serious.” He took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. “One question, though.”
“What?”
“Do I have to dance?”
I laughed so hard I knocked over my water bottle.
“Yes,” I said. “You have to dance.”
Edward sighed like a man accepting a terrible fate.
“Fine,” he said. “But I’m warning you. I dance like a refrigerator falling down stairs.”
For the next three weeks, Edward took it very seriously.
He asked me questions. Lots of them. How long had we been “dating”? (Four months, we decided.) How did we meet? (At work, which was true.) What was my favorite flower? (Peonies.) What did I order at restaurants? (Whatever was cheapest, he guessed, and he was right.)
“You’re overthinking this,” I told him.
“I’m a woodshop teacher,” he said. “Measure twice, cut once.”
He also asked about Max. A lot about Max.
What does he do for work? (Commercial real estate.) What is he like at parties? (Loud. He likes to be the center
of attention.) What does he say when he wants to embarrass somebody? (He laughs first. Then he says something mean. Then he says, “I’m just kidding,” so if you get upset, you look crazy.)
Edward listened to all of it. He nodded slowly.
“And the mirror thing,” he said. “He said that to you exactly? ‘When was the last time you even looked at yourself in the mirror?’”
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” Edward said, and wrote something down in the little notebook he always carries in his shirt pocket.
“Why are you writing that down?”
“No reason,” said Edward.
The week before the wedding, I almost backed out.
I went shopping for a dress with my sister, Kate. It was a disaster. I tried on eleven dresses at the mall. Every one of them looked wrong. Too tight. Too short. Too young. Too old. In every single fitting room mirror,
