I begged JJ. I said that everything that will be will be. Que sera, sera. But we really did have to get married. I said my daddy was libel to kill him if he didn't, anyways.
You see, I know things fall in place; there's always another song to be lived. I didn't know which would be coming up next. Maybe it would be a happy one with me and JJ runnin' off. Or maybe it would be a tragic one with JJ lying dead on the road. I wasn't going to think about it too much because you can't force the word of Bruce--it's gotta come to you like a whisper in a dream. One day, I'll wake up and I'll just know what's supposed to happen next. I strongly suggested to JJ that he walk down that aisle; no smile was expected.
Well, I guess JJ's parents were feeling the way of mine, thinking that a shotgun wedding must be the way to go because next thing I knew his mom was calling my mama aranging for cold cut platters, along with rental rates for tables, chairs and the gazebo in the park next to our high school.
It all seemed to be happening pretty fast but JJ seemed to be moving pretty slow. He didn't call me at all of his own accord; it seemed like there was a purpose for everything. That was okay by me, though, because I was feeling sick as a dog. They say a lot of girls don't get morning sickness--that it's mostly a bunch of hullaballo. My own mama said that morning sickness was all in a girl's head and that if you don't think that it will be, then it won't. Well, I thought then that it wouldn't be, so I ate when I felt I shouldn't (it's all in my head, I said) and I got sick all over the needlepoint that my mama left on the kitchen table. She was embroidering one of those things you frame and put in a baby's room that says something prophetic like how the baby was created in God's image but will be molded into that of his parents'. I didn't mean to get sick on the needlepoint, but that's how I felt about that.
By the time I was seven months along, the wedding was ready to go. We rented that gazebo and Reverend Miller came from church to preside. We had plain folding chairs that were set up in front of the gazebo; it was arranged so that the guests would have to fold their own chair and carry it to the reception tables (actually these tables were sawhorses with plywood planks covered with butcher paper and masking tape that JJ's little brother finger painted all over). It turns out The park gazebo was cheap to rent in January due to the bitter cold, but tables and chairs cost an awful lot to rent and mama saw no need to waste money when a little one was on the way. JJ's mom was a bit put off by this since they were so well off and all, but my family wouldn't have the groom's family paying for this party. It was JJ's mom's idea to turn his baby bro loose in the finger paint; she thought that it wouldn't seem so cheap if we made it personal. He was baically naked and covered in all sorts of colors of his choosing, running and rolling around on the unrolled butcher paper--it really looked like a lot of fun. My mama said they were wrong to let the baby act out like that and that's why they had such a wild boy like JJ. Mama didn't like the bum prints, or even the tiny footprints, on the table that they were to eat from. I don't know when she got so hoity-toity; she'd blow the dust from the dining room table before she sat us down to dinner, but she sure didn't get out the Pledge.
Well, all looked beautiful outside and it wasn't even too cold, 45 degrees. All that was left was for mama to make me look beautiful, too. My dressing room was the park office (JJ had to get dressed at home). My wedding dress was from the JCPenney catalogue. I didn't get it fitted and waited until just the week before the wedding to order it just so I could be sure of what size I'd take. They didn't make maternity in wedding gowns to I had to get a plus size that was way too big up top, tight across my tummy and just right across my birthin' thighs. It was also a little too long but since it had no train, mamma said it would just seem as though it did.
As mamma was teasing my hair, trying to make it higher and higher so it would balance out the rest of me, I got a stabbing pain in my belly. I yelped and my mamma said I was being weak, that it was just a kick or nerves or both. But it didn't feel like a kick and I wasn't nervous at all. I tried standing upright in front of the mirror while mamma stood on a chair behind me with a comb and a can of Aqua Net. Next thing I know my legs got all warm and sticky, while reddish-brown stains sprinkled and spread at various points below my thighs.
Mama dropped the comb and the Aqua Net and left me standing ( I still didn't dare sit) as she ran to the gazebo. I pushed the baby out while still standing, and when he came out lifeless, I stepped across him and laid down on the cold stone floor. I looked at his little face and he didn't seem real and I wondered if he ever was. Mamma came and wrapped him up. Daddy drove me to the hospital in my bloody wedding dress. JJ said he was sorry and went home with his parents and little brother.
The next week, JJ came by to tell me it was for the best and it would have been a big mistake. Yeah, my whole life feels like one big mistake, I thought. This thought brought me great relief.
