Tales of Bette: Pre-lockdown, Last Blast

Saturday March 7, 2020

Spring came early that year, but it was a slap in the face with everything going on in the news. COVID-19 was all over the news and wasn't going anywhere. Bette was about to take her work office home for safe distancing. Event after event was being canceled. Her friend Dave was getting married and his wedding, as far as she could tell, was going to be the last blast she was going to have for a while.

It was a beautiful day and the wedding was a small affair. Bette was invited nine days prior; a lot of people had cancelled. She was not offended that she was not on Dave's initial guest list. She and Dave had been acquainted for a decade. They only saw each other one long weekend each year: Com-Con Weekend. He ran a party room even though he didn't drink. She often attended it and wouldn't drink either because she lived close to the convention center and would drive to and from the convention. They became friends the first year because everyone wore badges and would get custom ribbons to stick to them to trade. Her ribbon was purple and read, "What the duck?!" and she was dressed as Darkwing Duck. Dave shyly asked for a picture with her and told her that his nickname was Duck. She gave him a ribbon, but instead of sticking it on his badge, he stuck it on his hat and kept it there for years, even after the silver letters faded off it, the ribbon remained. They became Facebook friends and while not close in age or living proximity, they were great convention-friends. After he met Stacy in her jewelry shop at Com-Con in 2016, the two of them were madly in love and Bette got to see their love grow each convention.

Bette showed up alone to their wedding. They rented a small section of a hotel event room and decorated it. Bette was chronically early for everything and started helping: moving tables and chairs, helping keep Dave calm, dabbing the sweat off his forehead, helping his thirteen-year-old daughter Victoria with her make-up, and pinning boutineers on Dave, his best man 'Doc,' and Stacy's father Adam.

While Dave wasn't nervous for the wedding, there was one thing he kept looking for. "Where are the marigolds? I need a light one and a dark one." Bette ran out of the room when she heard him ask for a second time. She remembered seeing the potted plant outside the room and brought it in to him.

"Is this the one?" Bette asked him. She held the beautiful, full potted plant of marigolds. Dave's head whipped to her.

"Yes! You're the best, Bette."

"Dave, I think you know by now I'm barely okay," she scoffed.

"Oh, stop that," he said. "You're one of the best people I know, why do you think I invited you?" Bette both accepted and tried to shirk the praise he offered.

A short time later the rest of the guests arrived and it became clear to Bette, most of the guests were Stacy's, not Dave's. As she sat on Dave's side of the room during the ceremony, she recognized some of the faces on Stacy's side, they were ladies who worked in her jewelry booth at Com-Con; it took some time to do so with them out of steampunk costume. Both of Stacy's parents were there sitting in special chairs at the front. They weren't the hotel's banquet chairs, they looked like dining room chairs from home. Dave had a similar pair on his side that were empty. That was when Bette saw the marigolds. They were chairs in remembrance for his parents. After the ceremony she went and looked at them. On the chairs there were wedding photos of Dave's parents, family photos, other childhood trinkets, and the marigolds; Dave's parents were there, in spirit and memory. Bette often cried at weddings, she didn't tear up during the ceremony, this was the moment when she had to take a moment to dry her eyes.

There were 24 guests in all at the wedding. Bette was drawn to Stacy's brother Brent by looks alone; he was tall and handsome, and 26 at most, Bette was 34. She had never seen him at Com-Con and looked nothing like Stacy. She tried a couple times to introduce herself and make pleasant conversation with him and possibly flirt a little, but he wasn't open to it. Brent looked at his phone a lot, even in group conversations. He was clearly bored at the wedding. She tried to tell herself that the reason for his disinterest was his phone and the lack of alcohol; she tried to tell herself it wasn't her weirdness, looks, or body. Stacy and Dave didn't drink, so the event didn't have alcohol. Bette didn't need to drink to have a good time and was driving anyways.

She talked about fun Com-Con times with the ladies from Stacy's booth during the meal and exchanged nerdy references from movies and TV shows with Doc. After the meal when the wedding party and the family went to take more pictures. The insular groups of friends were talking; Bette found herself helping the hotel staff. 'Party mom' was a title that was comfortable to her. She refilled a couple ice buckets and pitchers of water and lemonade when a staff member wasn't looking. She walked away before the staff member noticed and giggled to herself at their confusion.

When the wedding party came back, Bette took a moment to give Stacy and Dave the small wedding gift she brought them. "It's isn't much. I saw them, and I knew you'd get a kick out of them." Bette handed them the box wrapped in brown grocery store bag paper. "I'm sorry for the cheap wrapping. It was either this or Christmas wrapping."

"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself." Dave looked at the box. Written in black Sharpie in Bette's sloppy hand writing it said, 'Best wishes -Bette Wheelan. I'm Sorry.'

Dave tore the paper and opened the small box; inside were two rubber ducks: one steampunk, one pirate; Stacy's and Dave's respective Com-Con costumes annually.

"I thought it would have been rude of me to insist they be your cake toppers, and it would have been too small to have you open them with your other wedding gifts, but I wanted to see the looks on your faces when you saw them."

Dave and Stacy let out big laughs. "It's us! Especially you, my Duck," said Stacy.

"It's the thought that counts. And you clearly put a lot of thought into this," said Dave.

"I found them right after Con last year and I was hanging on to them for this year. With the way things are going with COVID, I didn't think I should wait until then, if there's going to even be a Con this year. I'm frankly not optimistic about it." She spoke happily at first, but by the time she was done, she wasn't.

"I get it." Said Stacy. "The clinic I work in, It's getting scary. We have no idea what's going to happen."

"All those games of Pandemic we played, I don't feel prepared for the real thing," joked Dave.

"My mom retired from working in a hospital. She was in administration, but still, I'm glad she's out of there. She's thinking with the rate of spread and what the CDC is saying, things won't get back to normal for six months to a year or longer. I read a lot of history. I'm inclined to agree them." Bette didn't mean to turn their joyful conversation into a somber one, but COVID was all anyone could talk about in the last several weeks.

"We'll get through it together. Apart-together," Said Dave chipper.

"Yeah." Said Stacy. "We're pirates, steampunks, and superheroes. We can do this. We can get through anything."

Bette smiled and teared up a little. "You'll have each other. I'm so happy for you two. You know I wish you the best." She embraced them both. "It's getting late. I'm getting tired."

"We'll talk soon. Don't you worry about that." Said Dave. "Can I walk you out to your car?"

"Don't you dare!" Bette snapped joyfully. "I wouldn't dare let you miss out on your festivities or your lovely bride." She said it as she stepped away from them. She didn't say goodnight to anyone else. She didn't want to interrupt the conversations for anyone else. She wasn't close enough to anyone to feel obligated enough to do so.

Bette stopped at the potted marigold by the door and looked back at everyone in the room. She smiled, plucked a flower off the plant, and exited the room. She held the marigold carefully in her hand and gave it a sniff as she exited the hotel. For early March, it was still surprisingly warm, she didn't button up her long leather coat. When Bette got home, she took off her coat and heels and let out a comfortable sigh. She wanted to put on her brown slippers, but she left them at her friend Kari's house over a month ago, who knows when she'd get them back; she put on her sneaker-looking slippers instead. Bette went over to a large framed picture that had four pictures in it: Her parent's wedding picture, one of her parents hanging up laundry she took when she was in high school, her parents with her at her college graduation, and all three of them together with John in a hospital bed. She set the marigold on top of the frame with other dried-out dusty flowers she had placed there over the last few years. She spoke to the picture, "Hi Dad. I went to another wedding tonight. There wasn't any dancing at this one. I finally have the strength to do it, and there wasn't any. But that isn't the point, is it? Not for them at least." She touched her abdomen and her A-cup breasts that used to be double-Ds. "I wonder sometimes if I'll ever have one. I certainly don't regret ending that engagement to Charlie. I'm glad you saw me be strong enough to do that. Maybe that's enough. Mom and I will be enough for each other for now. We have been for the last three years." She crossed the room and poured herself a glass of red wine, she had a miniature rubber duck she dropped in it. She raised her glass to the picture on the wall. "To a love like Morticia and Gomez." She looked at the rubber duck in her glass, "And a couple of lucky ducks." She took a sip. "Looks like I'll be floating on my own for a while."