crap wedding that turned out alright

the only one in that family who escaped felt queasy opening the cream and gold envelope. out of obligation she’d always flown home to attend the weddings of her brothers, knowing all too well how yet another horse and pony show would play out.

here’s how bread rolls.. two families mixing like oil and water, brought together under the roof of a budget price country house hotel for one day dragging out into all eternity…and that’s after an hour in a joyless church where official paperwork gets signed and designed to suck any last remnant of youth or romance away forever. it’s a legal matter now.

the things julie dreads most are the uncouth table manners of her eldest brother joey, who she’ll have to endure for roughly five hours before quietly slipping away back to the airport. even though they look like twins, different experience and worldview render them hostile to one another….only this time something gorgeous happens.

after the bad dressy food, julie and he find themselves sitting outside on a bench on a manicured lawn, framed by halfhearted flower beddings done on the cheap… it’s a bit cold out here, though preferable to the protocol of organised fun going on indoors…  out of the blue joey tells her he knows he’s wrong now…he knows all his actions and constructs were bullish and self defeating…he just wants her to know he knows.he wants her to know he thinks she’s class.. the embodiment of something he too could’ve been, had he inhabited a less toxic frame of mind..and the more he gushes, the more he soaks and drowns the jealousy that dogged any chance for them ever becoming friends. he cringes about the time where he beat up her boyfriend under the pretence of being a protective brother..julie bristles at that one…it’s very close to the bone.. it blew her one and only great love affair right out of the water.

julie’s the only one who never married…she lives in paris now, and once in a blue moon she’ll send gifts home to joey..real gorgeous things…quality clothes he’ll wear that fit nice…overcoats..marino wool crew neck jumpers…summer shirts…good french cologne.. she never thought she’d ever find herself doing that. little does she know, it saves his life.. it saves him from going under while he attempts to rebuild his damaged world so late in the day.