Wall Flower

Lonely girl occupying the far corner and
decorating the walls with dreariness
like a sad, wilting wall flower whose
peddles are beginning to fall

She hides behind her bright orange hair,
the only part of her with some color
other than the bleakness that
usually surrounds her

She lifts her head towards the crowd
and sees . . .
and sees . . .

I had nothing - nothing but the lack of adjectives and words to describe how I felt in this sad excuse of a “fun wedding.” May the Lord help us all – specifically the person who organized this wedding. Who would ever think of having Musical Chairs at a ceremony of holy matrimony that is two people beginning the rest of their lives together?

I introduce you to Joanne Jessica Fontaine, JJ for short, which fits her because she is short. I envy her for that; I envy her height and her unbearable beauty that compliments her personality . . . that compliments her height. She can hop around and hug people as tightly as she wants because she is so small. If she pushes the person she is hugging over a little they joke around and say, “Why you’re pretty strong for a shorty.” Then she says, “I’m not short I’m fun sized,” and the two of them laugh it up.

I, however, do not have that luxury. I got the abnormally tall gene; the light orange, carroty hair gene; and the freckle-palooza gene. Those genes must have skipped my parent’s generation and my sister’s, because none of them have orange hair (Joanne has some red in her brown hair, but that’s red, not orange) or are that tall; in fact, I am the tallest one in my family of four. I have asked my parents if I was adopted from an Irish family of giants or if they accidentally switched babies when they took a trip to Ireland when I was a wee baby. They claim that no such thing happened, but I sometimes beg to differ.

I was the five foot eleven, abnormally lanky, long-legged and –armed wall flower (described in my poem only a few moments ago) at the wedding. My sister took a risk of facing the fiery dragon within me (yes sometimes that is a poke at my hair color) by putting me in a short bride’s maid – excuse me, I meant maid of honor’s dress. She just had to make me the person that got the most attention out of all the other additions to the wedding party. I walked down the aisle by myself just before my sister did, so of course people would be gawking at the tall, gangly thing in a dark green dress that only emphasized the thing’s long legs. Oh, and the best part was that she made me wear heels.

I was the six foot one, brown-hazel eyed, thin, high-heeled, leggy wall flower decorating the fairly secluded, somewhat dark corner of the reception hall.

I tried to finish the poem I was thinking about but words still failed me. I have a habit of thinking in poem form. I write poetry as a hobby so I suppose it is only natural that I think in poem. Mostly it’s depressing poetry because I am (most of the time, but not always) a negative individual. My sister got all the sunshine and rainbows when she was born, leaving me with the rainclouds and gray skies to determine who I am. I admit, in a not-so narcissistic way, I can be fun when I am in my element, and this wedding is not my element in the slightest.

One positive thing that I can find about this wedding is that my sister (of course looking beautiful in her dress that fit her voluptuous curves - curves that I lack) is obviously incandescently, blissfully happy – more so than usual. As her and my new brother-in-law danced to a slow song (Everything by Lifehouse, one of my favorites) I watched the two of them beginning to tear up out of pure joy and my heart nearly melted with happiness. (It made me even happier that they both loved God as much as I do.) I knew how much they loved each other and seeing that love for each other on their faces was the one thing that made me grin.

When I watched my sister and brother-in-law dance was when I found one more positive thing to this somewhat childish (first it was Musical Chairs, and after this dance – I think - it was a scavenger hunt, and Simon Says is yet to come) wedding walking in through the entrance. Astonishingly enough it made me gasp to see –

Hold on.

She lifts her head towards the crowd
and spies a face among them that
seems to stick out among the
rest, like a shining star

Only his side-profile is shown, as if
seeing his whole face would be
too much for her weakening
self to handle

Normally she does not draw but
his handsome profile was one
that would look just right on
any kind of canvas

Suddenly he turned his face to
meet her doting gaze and –

And her eyes widened as if she were a deer caught in headlights before idiotically and ridiculously making her way the other corner of the reception hall where she – where I (even if I put it in third person I cannot rid myself of the mortification that has now become the essence of who I am) once again hid behind my orange hair. Another reason why I hate my orange hair: Even in a dark room it shines like a bright light and almost seems to shout, “Look over here at the tall, awkward one!”

God is not just the creator of our universe or the loving and amazing Lord of all, He is the God with a sense of humor - He had that sense of humor when He made me, the introvert and please-don’t-look-at-me kind of girl, part of a loud family. It isn’t that I don’t love my parents or my sister, it presently amazes me how I was put into this particular family. My parents had expected me to grow out of my quiet faze like Joanne, but at eighteen (soon to be nineteen and in college) they need to give that up.

Feeling safe enough to come out of the cover of my hair, I slowly lifted my head and my eyes quickly scanned the area around me. My heart was acting in a way that I have really only read in books and even written about; I read about it mostly when it was out of exhilaration and excitement of finally coming back to Narnia (C.S. Lewis is a genius and my favorite author). It was not usually over seeing a handsome face; I am not a Bella Swan character-type for crying out loud, whose heart melts and flutters at the sight of a too-handsome face (Stephenie Meyer is a good author but her vampire-werewolf saga is not my cup ‘o ginger ale).

I spotted him walking over to two other curly-haired guys (both were also attractive) and a pretty girl with a swollen abdomen. He began talking with them – probably saying hello. He hugged the pregnant girl – I should say woman – for a long time, and I could see the giant smiles on both of their faces. My heart did that strange thing again and continued to do so even after they stopped hugging and he began hugging the two other guys.

He looked over at me again and my heart, like a kick boxer, began beating my ribs like a punching bag, or another opponent.

“Loraine!” someone called and I jumped out of my skin. My caller laughed and touched my arm. “Someone just got caught doing something they know is not socially acceptable.”

“Your face isn’t socially acceptable,” I muttered to my sister in Christ and best friend Cassandra.

Her expression was one of shock and then of entertained evil. “Loraine Jane -”

“Dear God, please smite her,” I interrupted.

“- Fontaine!” she shouted, and I retreated to my shell filled with Jesus and angels and no possible way of being publicly humiliated by a name like mine.

“Don’t make me use your full name, Loraine Jane Fontaine,” Cassandra said with that evil grin still plastered on her cute, round face.

Yet another thing I am embarrassed about: Mi nombre.

“As a Christian I am supposed to love others,” I said to her, glaring at her with the eye that was not covered by hair. “You are making it difficult for me to exude love upon thee.”

She threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “I love you too,” she said into my ear. “And I love your name.”

Against my will I wrapped my arms around her neck (I was obviously taller than she, though she was fairly tall too, standing at five foot eight) and said, “Feel free to take it, sweety.”

She let me go and leaned against the wall beside me. “It fits you better, honey bunches.”

I fought a grin, rolled my eyes, and looked back over at the guy who unfortunately had my attention and immediately regretted my decision to do so: he had a hand on the woman’s slightly pregnant belly (she had to be at least halfway through) and had a loving look on his face before he smiled up at the woman’s face.

He then looked over in my direction and I felt my cheeks grow hot before I quickly looked at Cassandra with a wild look in my eyes.

“What are you getting so jumpy over, Lori?” she asked before she looked in the direction I was looking and I wished she had not. What if he was still looking at me?

“Is it that guy over there? The one that doesn’t have curly hair?” she asked teasingly.

“Shutupthereisnoguy!” I snapped, all the words flowing together and forming one mega word – an undecipherable word that one would have to fight purple and black fish with razor sharp teeth and claws to be able to decode.

Still, she figured it out. “You know I was just kidding,” she said. “But you gave yourself away, genius.”

I sighed and quickly glanced over at him. I found him staring at me this time and he quickly looked back at the pregnant girl, who was cradling her stomach. I sighed once more.

“It’s nothing,” I told Cassandra. “He just . . . looked familiar, is all.”

“God condemns liars,” she joked.

“Paul says in Romans eight that there is no condemnation in Christ,” I retaliated before sticking my tongue out at her. A voice in the back of my mind nagged me and asked me why I found the wedding childish when I was sticking my tongue out like a juvenile.

“You didn’t deny lying, so I still win.” She stuck her tongue out at me as well. “And I would not be surprised if he did look familiar to you. I thought the same thing about his brothers.” She looked over at him, something I was desperately trying to avoid. “He goes to our church on Wednesdays, but he sometimes comes on Sundays. He’s in the choir.” I was about to say something when she beat me: “The men’s choir, with Garret. He was not able to be in the co-ed choir because of his schedule.” The co-ed choir performs on Sundays which is when I go and sometimes play piano for them; the men’s choir performs on Wednesdays.

“Must have some wild social life,” I muttered. “How do you know so much?”

“Because I talked with his brothers,” she answered. “I stopped speaking with them just before he walked in. He was late because he had just come back from a Mexicali trip at around five in the morning then had to go help a friend move.” She looked back over at him; I still did not look at him. “His older brother Kevin said that Joe wouldn’t miss his childhood friend’s wedding.”

“Wait,” I said, “he’s the Joe?” She nodded. “The Joe Garret always talks about when he tells us about his home in New Jersey?” She nodded once more. “How could I not have known this?”

“Maybe you were too distracted by his dashing good looks,” Cassandra teased, and I only glared at her. “His brothers are not that bad. Kevin is the happy one while the first youngest, Nick, is the quiet yet funny one, like you. He’s a little less sardonic and depressing than you, though.”

“That’s so nice to hear – in fact, I am a much better person now that you told me this wonderfully interesting news,” I said, living up to my sardonic status. “Who is the pretty, pregnant one?”

“That’s Danielle,” she replied. “She’s -”

“There’s my little sister!” Joanne shouted, and I looked in the direction the voice came from. “I haven’t seen you since the musical chairs!”

“You know I avoid childish rituals of going in circles and fighting over the possession of a thing that is meant to be sat upon,” I replied, and smiled at her.

I had the honor of getting a real, genuine, and beautiful Joanne smile in return. “Come on” – she held out her hand – “I have a surprise for you.”

“Is it a surprise or are you using ‘surprise’ as a cover-up word for ‘a way to humiliate and-or make my little sister feel uncomfortable’?”

She forcibly took my hand and pulled me along. “You will just have to wait and see, my little dragon,” she laughed, using the nickname she gave me based off my hair color. She gave it to me when we were in junior high because “I’m ferocious like a dragon and my hair is the fire.”

She pulled me passed tables filled with relatives, friends we’ve known since we were little children, and friends of the family. The table Joe, my brother-in-law’s childhood friend – whom I must ask my sister about nonchalantly and unsuspicious-like when I get the chance – was sitting at was occupying the spot between the dance floor and the cake, which sat in the middle of the room. My sister was pulling me toward the dance floor, and we were passing right by Joe. He had been staring at me once my sister began leading me to the floor of dancing.

I was going to pass the chair Danielle, the pregnant one (whom I was also suspecting to be connected to Joe in some way), sat in just before we passed Joe’s chair. They were sitting together.

Oh darn my heart for beating so quickly! It had no need to do so because I was not running a marathon; I was not running away from a vicious, blood thirsty tiger; and I was not about to jump out of a plane and skydive! All I was doing was wondering what my sister was going to do to me and passing some guy as he sat in a nicely decorated chair. It was nothing more, nothing less.

(Dear God, please tell me why he made me react this way and please tell me it’s not what I think it is. In Your name, amen.)

As I passed him the two of us looked at one another. Up close I could see that his eyes were a nice brown, like the color of autumn leaves beginning to brown. (Here marks the beginning of a poem about him.) He grinned at me and he almost looked entertained when the shock shown on my face like a bright, flashy bilboard: eyes widened, mouth gaping, and all that not-so-lovely stuff.