Society Wedding
By Brian
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When a piece of falling equipment lands on Vanessa, her fiance is crushed. But not as crushed as Vanessa! Will he stick by her through thick and (very thin) or will she just end up as a doormat?


You’re either a member of high society or your aren’t.  You’re born to blue blood parents or you’re born to laborers.  You’re part of the upper crust or you ain’t.  

I myself firmly belonged in the latter category.  I was a junior office manager.  I had gone to college on a hard luck scholarship.  My parents were both from Jersey, for Christ sakes.  That’s why my engagement to Vanessa Wickenstein (of the Boston Wickensteins) came as surprise to everyone.

Vanessa was a debutante.  She was a heiress to a publishing fortune.  She had gone to Yale, spent summers in Europe, knew which forks to use.  Had things taken their normal course, I never would have met her.

But fate sometimes plays a hand, and the night I got bumped up to first class on a flight home from Trenton, I found myself sitting next to the loveliest women I had ever met.

Every guy says that about his wife, but sometimes they may be stretching the truth, just a bit.  I’m not exaggerating, however.  Her muscular, tanned frame, her lovely, yet severe features, her waist length raven hair…I felt sure she was a member of royalty or something.  And in a way she was.

Never expecting to get further than ‘hello’ with her, I attempted to start a conversation.  By the time we landed, we had a date for the next weekend.  Six months later, I popped the question.

It wasn’t hard for me to figure out why I loved her.  Once I found out that the fabulous body was also the home to a cunning intellect, a sarcastic since of humor, and a rebellious personality, I was hooked.  But why me?  Why would she want to marry Johnny Petrowski (of the Newark Petrowsis)?

After much deliberation, I came up with my answer.  It wasn’t to thumb her nose at her wealthy parents, or the have the excitement of someone from the other side of the tracks, or a youthful indiscretion.  I hadn’t even knocked her up.  She loved me.  This goddess of a woman, this epitome of feminine beauty, loved me!  Hey, stranger things have happened.

Her family took a little longer to warm up to me.  It’s not that they were against us, per say, but when your portfolio runs in the hundreds of millions, you tend to look very closely at potential son-in-laws.

First came the attempts to buy me.  Nothing overt, just implications of overseas employment opportunities, places where a smart young man could find himself pulling in mucho dinero.  Tragically, I’d have to break it off with Vanessa, but could I really afford to turn down an opportunity like that?  “Yes,” I replied, “I could.”

Next came the investigation.  Her father actually hired a PI to find out about me.  When my brother reported some guy poking around asking questions, it took me about two seconds to figure out what was up.  That week I spotted the nondescript gray van parked across my street.  I called Dominos and ordered two large pepperonis delivered to the van compliments of me, and then set up a meeting with Vanessa’s father.  

The long and short of it was that I had nothing to hide and wasn’t after anyone’s money.  I think that was when the family started warming up to me.  I was too blunt to be a gold digger.

Vanessa wasn’t what you’d call the high-society type.  Sure, she enjoyed her money, her fast cars and fast living, but didn’t make a career out of being rich.  She took well to my friends and seemed just at home in a smoky poolroom as in the stands at Wimbledon.  

Shockingly, I didn’t have that much trouble adjusting to her circle of friends either.  I had to learn to golf, of course, but other than that I didn’t feel I had to put on airs.  Vanessa updated my wardrobe, but that was more of a woman thing, and quite frankly, it probably needed it.

The one thing Vanessa and I clashed on was the conspicuous consumption.  At first I had insisted on paying for all her dates, but Vanessa told me to stop acting like a sexist Neanderthal and let her take me out once and a while.  We went Dutch often enough, though dollar for dollar, Vanessa was spending more.

That’s not what irked me, though.  It was her total disregard to the price of things.  The way she laughed at me when I refused a side dish because it cost five dollars extra.  The way she chided me for fixing my TV instead of just buying a new one.  The way she insisted on full-service gas pumping, and if I didn’t have the cash on me, she’d just put in on her Visa.

I guess not being able to afford something was new to her.  I didn’t really mind though, she did work and did pay her own bills.  Still, she made considerably more money as a hotshot legal assistant than I did as an office drone.  Her father had offered to set me up in the family business, but I had politely declined.  I didn’t need charity, we would manage.

The thing that blew my mind the most was the amount they were spending on the wedding.  True, the bride’s family traditionally footed the bill, but when I first saw the cost estimate, I though I was looking at the Mexican national debt.  The amount slated for flowers alone was more than my first two cars cost.  

When I suggested scaling things back a tad, Vanessa took me aside.  “Johnny, honey, I know what you’re thinking, but the wedding is absolutely non-negotiable.  When Mom found out she was expecting a girl, she started planning for this day.  Since I was a fetus, Johnny!  She’s waited for this for twenty-five years.  It’s like heroin to her.  I know this day’s supposed to be for us, but Mom’s holding the reigns on the planning.  Please, just let her do her thing.  I swear, after the reception we’ll start our own life.  Until then, don’t cross Mom.  That’s not somewhere you want to go.”

I was a little nervous at the thought of locking horns with the family matron.  She was a sweet, middle-aged woman, but a couple of instances had led me to believe seeing her with her dander up would not be pleasant.  It really was no skin off my nose, all I had to do was get measured for the tux.

Finally, the week of the wedding arrived.  That’s when preparations went into full swing.  I was lucky to see Vanessa a couple of hours a day.  “Just sit tight, honey.  After the wedding you’ll have me 24/7.  Until then, I have to help Mom.”

It was two days before the ceremony that it happened.  We were planning on getting married on the grounds of her parents’ mansion.  For the past week I watched as dozens of laborers, cooks, coordinators, florists, musicians, photographers, and landscapers turned the yard into a replica of what I’m sure the Hanging Gardens of Babylon must have looked like.  Sometimes I wondered how necessary Vanessa and I were to the proceedings.  I bet if we left cardboard cutouts in our places the wedding would go just as smoothly.

I caught a rare glimpse of my fiancée as she directed the erection of the bandstand via walkie-talkie.  As she was haranguing the workers, I snuck up behind her and wrapped my arms around her.  Much to my annoyance, she shrugged me off.  “No, not over there!” she hollered to a crane operator over the radio.  “Next to the fountain, not in the goddamn thing!”  The crane, which was hoisting a mammoth speaker over the throngs of wedding specialists, stopped moving, leaving the speaker swinging gently, twenty feet up.

Not to be deterred, I nuzzled Vanessa’s neck.  Again, she squirmed away, this time dismissing me with a wave of the hand.  That angered me.  I knew the wedding required a lot of preparation, but nothing justified blowing me off like that.  “Vanessa!” I barked.

Vanessa turned around, as if noticing me for the first time.  “God, Johnny, I’m sorry.  Mom’s been on my ass all week.  I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

That mollified me, just a bit.  “Well, I was wondering if I was ever going to see you again.  I’m beginning to forget what you look like.”

Vanessa wrapped her arms around my neck.  “I know this hasn’t been easy for you.  But it’s almost the big day.  Think off our honeymoon, three weeks alone.  Won’t that be nice?”

“Yeah, I guess it will.”  We kissed.  “Hey, what do you say we just elope to Vegas?”

Vanessa laughed.  “Mom would kill us.  And I’m not sure I mean that as a figure of speech.  Now Dad’s probably just as lonely as you are right now, why don’t you ask him if he’d like to play a few holes?”

It wasn’t a bad idea.  The matriarchal wedding preparations had left my father-in-law to be just as out of the action as I was, and I could use the practice.  I kissed Vanessa again and trotted off.

They say scenes of horror can become impressed in your memory so that you have to relive them over and over.  I know this to be true.  I still remember it like it happened thirty seconds ago.  There was a pop, as if a huge guitar string had snapped.  I heard the crane operator scream something over the radio.  Then I was thrown off my feet from some sort of huge impact.  Funny, I was never conscious of the noise it must have made.

I turned around.  The huge speaker lay partially embedded in the soft earth, the broken crane cable still uncoiling around it.  The evil, sick feeling in my gut, praying that Vanessa was behind it, and not…and the sight of her radio laying inches from the speaker’s edge.

I remember Vanessa’s screaming parents appearing from nowhere.  The tow truck and ambulance arriving within minutes of each other.  Being shoved aside by workmen as they attached the winch to the speaker to pull it off my bride.

I remember running over to the impact crater the second the speaker was free.  Rushing to the hole just before the EMTs.  Then…powerful, burly arms grabbing me from behind.  My arm being twisted roughly behind me.  I recognized the hollering voice of Bud Sanderson, the family head of security.  “For Christ’s sake, get him the hell away from there!”

Livid, I wrestled with the security men who held me in their grip.  “That’s my wife!  Let me go, that’s my wife!”

There was no answer.  I was roughly manhandled until I was facing away from the ambulance.  They didn’t let me go until it had sped away, sirens blaring.

Ten minutes later, I was alone with Bud in his office.  “You son of a bitch!  That’s my fiancée!  Take me to her now!”

“They’ve taken her to the hospital.  You’ll see her in due time.”

“I couldn’t go with her?  I couldn’t be with her?”

“Mr. Petrowski, calm down.”

“Calm down!  My wife is laying in the hospital somewhere and you want me to calm down?”

“Mr. Petrowski…that speaker that hit Ms. Wickenstein weighed almost a ton.”

“All the more reason I should see her…” Then it hit me.  What he was implying.  That he didn’t let me near Vanessa because of what he didn’t want me to see.

I crumbled.  I began bawling like a baby.  “I’ll leave you alone then,” Bud mumbled, awkwardly.  

I guess I fell asleep.  The clock on Bud’s desk said five a.m. when he returned to his office.

“Mr. Petrowski?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Wickenstein have just returned from the hospital.”

“Please don’t tell me.  I don’t want to know.”  I suddenly knew I couldn’t take it.  I just didn’t want to hear how I was a widower before I was a husband.  As long as he didn’t tell me, then Vanessa was still alive.  As long as I didn’t get the news, she wouldn’t be dead.

“Mr. Petrowski, listen to me.  Vanessa survived the accident.”

I shot up, ready to kiss Bud full on the lips.  But his grim demeanor stopped me.  “What, how is she?”

“All I’m at liberty to say is that she’s alive, in stable condition, and expected to live.  I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

Bud was a rock when I pressed him for details, which added to my personal hell.  My joy at her survival now paled in comparison to my fears for her condition.  Was she in a coma?  Did she break every bone in her body?  Would she be a paraplegic?  A quadriplegic?  Bedridden forever?  For the first time in years I prayed.  I prayed that she’d recover, that she could still have some semblance of a normal life.  I prayed that in maybe a year or two we could go through with her dream wedding.

Bud dropped me off at a private building attached to a private hospital.  “They’ll meet you inside.  And Johnny,” he paused, addressing me by my first name for the first time, “it’s not as bad as you think.”

I galloped for the door.  In the stark waiting room, Mr. and Mrs. Wickenstein sat, gray faced and exhausted.  

“How is she?”  I shouted.

“John,” said her father, standing.

“How is she?  Answer me!”

“Maybe you had better sit down.”

“Stop fucking stalling!  Out with it!  How is she?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Hard to explain!  I’m not three years old!  Tell me.”

Her parents looked at each other.  “Maybe you ought to go see her yourself.  She’s really not in that bad of shape, considering.”

It was like talking to a wall.  Why wouldn’t they tell me, so I could at least brace myself?  I allowed myself to be led away by a nurse.

I paused in front of her door, horrific images of body casts, tubes, and machinery dancing grimly in my brain.  Taking a deep breath, I entered.

And the room was empty.  It was fully appointed and seemed to have been recently used, but there was no one there.  God, how long would this suspense last?  

I turned to leave, when a voice stopped me.  “Johnny?  Johnny, I’m right here.”  
The voice was soft and muffled, but it was clearly Vanessa’s!  I turned with joy.  She hadn’t been in the bed, she must have been in the bathroom.  That meant she was up walking around!  But when I looked for her, there was no one there.

“I’m here, honey.  In the bed.  Come closer.”  But there was no one in the bed.  But there was…something.  A nameless fear gripped me.  Slowly I walked across the room.

And there was Vanessa, lying in the bed, apparently naked under the sheets.  There were no bandages, no scars, no blood.  Her lovely face stared up at me with a slightly stunned expression.

There was just one tiny problem.  She lay under the sheet.  And the sheet lay about an inch above the bed.  She was less than an inch thick.  The falling speaker had flattened her, just like a steamroller flattens a cartoon character.

“Vanessa?” I asked, flabbergasted.  

“It’s me.”  Her lips quivered, ever so slightly when she said this.  It sounded as if she were talking through a gag.  She seemed horribly rigid, only the quiver of her lips and the occasional blink of her eyes gave any sign of life.

“Vanessa, what’s happened?”

“I’ve been crushed.  Pancaked.  Smooshed.  I guess all things considered, I’m lucky.”  She forced a chuckle.

“How do you feel?  Are you in pain?”

“No.  I just feel….restricted.”  I moved my hand towards her, then stopped.

“Go ahead.  Touch me.”  She sounded desperate.

Gently, I removed the sheet and looked at her body.  There she lay, totally naked; her feet at ninety-degree angles from her body, her hands just at her hips.  She didn’t look like a cardboard figure, the flesh was too realistic for that.  But she was too thin to be human.  I placed my hand on her bare shoulder and felt her for a long time.

She felt like skin, warm and soft.  But not as pliable.  She felt like a board coated in flesh.  It was an eerie and unsettling feeling.  I ran my fingers over her body.  For the most part she felt uniform and featureless.  But occasionally I’d feel something.  The slight dent of her navel.  The hardness of her fingernails.  The fuzz of her pussy.  The bump of her nipple.

I touched her face last.  So flat.  Her lips moved a bit to my touch, I could feel her teeth behind them.  I felt her hot breath from her nose.  Her hair seemed normal, still soft and pliant.

“Can you move?” I asked her.

“Not really.”  She blinked, puckered, and wrinkled her nose.  That was the extent of her movement.  Taking her by the shoulder, I lifted her slightly.  Her whole body raised, straight and true.  My girlfriend now seemed to weigh about eight pounds.

“Oh Vanessa.”  I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“How do I look?”  I recognized the pain in her voice.  She feared what I’d think.

“You look as beautiful as always.”  And she did, really.
 
“I guess you want to call off the wedding,” she said, bluntly.

I kneeled beside her.  “Vanessa, not in a million years.  If you want to get out of this, you’ll have to find a better excuse.”

Vanessa laughed, then began to cry.  She still produced real tears.  “Johnny, I’m so sorry.  I ruined our wedding.  You don’t want to be married to a freak!  Just leave, I’ll understand.”

“Now enough of that.”  I replaced the sheet, then kissed her on the lips.  I did so for a long time.  It really wasn’t that different.  It just seemed like I was kissing her though a wall, I had no sense of anything other than her lips.  “Vanessa, I love you.  As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed.”

“Do you mean it?  Do you still love me?”

“God yes.”  I meant it, too.  This was the beginning of a decidedly weird part of our relationship, but if I was prepared to stand by a woman in a coma, then a two-dimensional girl shouldn’t be that hard.

There was a knock at the door and a doctor walked in.  “You must be Mr. Petrowski.”  He shook my hand.  “Has your wife explained what has happened?”

“Not really.”

“Well, I guess you can see for yourself.  This is most unusual, but not unheard of.”

“You’re kidding.”  

“The last documented case happened to a miner in 1845.  Obvious a rare happening, but not unknown.”

“But how?  I mean…I’ve never seen anything like this!”

“Neither have I, and quite frankly we’re stumped.  All we can say is the human body has remarkable power to survive.  For instance, Rasputin, the monk, survived drinking poison, being shot, stabbed, bludgeoned…”

“Doctor, please.”

“I’m terribly sorry.  But Ms. Wickenstein, despite everything, is in fine condition.  You can take her home tonight, if you like.”

“Can’t you do anything for her?”

“We’re working on it.”  That sounded hopeless.

Just then, Vanessa’s mother burst into the room.  “Oh, honey.  Oh, honey,” she wept as she knelt by her daughter.  “Why did this have to happen?”

This, of course, set Vanessa off.  “Why now?” she sobbed.

I tried to calm them down.  “It’s going to be OK,” I stated.  “We’re all here for you honey, you’re going to be just fine.  You can have a fine life like this.”

“It’s not the stupid accident!” she snapped, as if I had changed the subject.

“Then what?” I asked, wondering what else it could be.

“It’s the wedding,” sighed her mother.  “This totally complicates things.”

It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what they were implying.  “You don’t actually intended for us to still go through with it?”  It had never occurred to me the wedding plans would be unaltered.

“Of course I do,” said her mother.  “This is going to be the social event of the year!  People are coming from all over; they’ll be reporters from ‘Brides’ magazine!  The food’s been ordered, the flowers…”

“But think of Vanessa!  After all she’s been through…”

“Johnny, come over here.  Bend over me, where I can see you.”  I complied, shocked at the anger in they eyes of her otherwise immobile face.

“Johnny, are you sure you don’t want to back out of this?  Tell me now.”  Damn, she was pissed off.

“Of course not, honey.  It’s just that after everything that’s happened (such as you becoming  a lot smoother) I thought we should postpone things a bit.”

“Johnny, the doctors say I might be this way for a long time.  Can you deal with that?”

“Yes.”

“Even if this was permanent?”  She was no longer terrified.  She seemed to have accepted her being crushed in a manner of hours and was now looking to the future.

“Honey, nothing would make me feel differently about you.”

“Then why should be cancel the wedding?  You might as well get used to me like this.”  

I opened my mouth, then shut it.  Vanessa’s mother was staring at me, intently.  Still have a wedding?  I supposed it was possible, but in two days?  I had figured Vanessa would take months, if not years, to recover emotionally.  I knew I hadn’t.

“Vanessa, are you sure this is what you want?  I mean so soon?”

“I lost my third dimension today, the use of my body, and the ability to move.  This wedding is all I have in my life.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean…you.  You’re all I have in this life.  So let’s get on with it, okay?”

“O…okay.”

Vanessa’s mother smiled.  She then took out a manila folder.  “All right, honey.  I’ve made a list of the problem areas we’ll have to overcome.  The gown is going to be the biggest obviously, after that we’ll have to arrange how to walk you down the aisle…”

I exited the room, and found the doctor waiting in the hall.

“Can you believe it?” I asked.  “It never even occurred to her to cancel our wedding plans.”

“Well, when people go through stress like she did, they often grasp hold of what’s familiar and happy.  My advice is to help her plan any way you can.  It’ll help her to come to grips with things.”  I wasn’t so sure.  It seemed Vanessa viewed being flattened as if she had broken a leg or something.  An inconvenience that could be overcome.

“Doc,” I asked, “what happened to the miner?  The guy who got crushed in 1845?”

“He became a circus freak.  Made big bucks.  Married the Lizard Woman, had six kids.”

“But how?”

“The records don’t say.  Some speculate the kids we’re really his, but do you think Lizard Woman had a lot of suitors?”

“Wild.  Then what?”

“Lived to be 80.  They say they buried him between two coffin lids.”

*

The next morning, the Wickenstein women held a council of war.  Vanessa’s mother paced the gymnasium-sized living room, smoking like a chimney.  Vanessa, as she could no longer use a chair, leaned against the wall.  She was wearing one of her mother’s robes, which hung loosely off her inch-thick body.  I sat on a couch next to Vanessa’s father, seemingly forgotten, extras in this scenario.  Outside, wedding preparations went on at full pace.  All except the installation of the sound equipment.  Bud and I had waited for the crane operator this morning with a couple of two-by-fours, but he hadn’t shown.

“Now I don’t want anyone to panic,” Mrs. Wickenstein repeated in a panicked voice.  “I’ve arranged for a professional to help arrange things.  If anyone can pull this off, Pierre can.”  As if on cue, Pierre burst into the room.

Remember that guy in ‘Pulp Fiction’ who ‘fixed things’?  The old Mafia guy who made problems ‘disappear’?  If he had been about twenty years younger, six inches taller, and about a thousand times more homosexual, he would have been Pierre.

Pierre kissed Mrs. Wickenstein on the cheek, winked at Mr. Wickenstein, and then marched over to Vanessa.  “Can you help me, Pierre?” I heard Vanessa’s supplicating whisper.

“Hmm,” mumbled Pierre, standing Vanessa up with one hand and circling her.  “Hmm.”

“Well?” asked Vanessa’s mom.  Pierre shushed her.

After about five minutes of close observation, Pierre cocked his head.  “Avert your eyes, people!”  he chirped, then yanked off Vanessa’s robe.  Her father quickly looked away.  

Pierre proceeded to prod and examine Vanessa in a way that would have made me furious in any other man.  Finally, he replaced my fiancée against the wall.

“I can do it.  But it won’t be easy.  I’ll need all your help.”  Vanessa and her mother heaved a sigh of relief.  I replaced Vanessa’s robe.

Pierre clapped his hands.  “OK people, here’s the drill.  Mommy, you need to contact the florist.  Tell them what’s happened.  Tell them you need some sort of bouquet that we can attach directly to Vanessa.”

He turned to Mr. Wickenstein.  “Daddy, you’re going to have to walk your daughter down the aisle, and you’re going to have to support her in such a way that she doesn’t tip over, slip, or slouch.  Go find one of those brawny men outside and have him make you a wooden cutout the size of your daughter.  I want you to practice all day until you can do it.  Now, Mr. Groom…” he turned to me, and sized me up.

“Since you’re closest to the situation, you’ll need to help your sweetheart with her dress.  Don’t worry, she’ll know what to do, but you’ll have to help support her.  You’re going to be her gofer until the wedding.  I’ve made an appointment at Rose’s, she’ll know what to do.  I’ll try to find a stylist who can do SOMETHING with that hair.  Now let’s move out everybody.”  Soon, Vanessa and I were alone in the room.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Vanessa asked.  Awkwardly, I picked her up.  I tried to transport her upright, but it proved too slow going.  Eventually, I just slung her under my arm as if I were carrying an ironing board.

My car proved another problem.  As I tried to stuff her into the front seat, I realized she wasn’t going to fit.  She was about 5’6” and standing up rigidly, it was impossible to get her through the door.  We soon found out the only way to transport her was lying down in the back seat.

“Are you OK?” I asked, as I made her as comfortable as possible.  “Anything I can do?”

“No, let’s just get a move on.  God, how will Rose be able to design a dress in 24 hours?”

“I’m sure she’ll think of something.”

“Do you really think so?”  She sounded scared.

“I do.  No matter what the dress, you’ll look lovely.”  ‘Just like a Playboy centerfold,’ I thought.  And in more ways than one.

Not wanting to subject my half-naked and totally flat wife to gawking bystanders, I parked in the alley and brought her in through the service entrance.  “Hello?”  I called.

A thirtyish woman with granny glasses and a pincushion on her wrist met us.  “Oh, Vanessa.  This is worse than I thought!  Bring her into the fitting room.”

As I carried her inside the dress shop, I heard sobbing.  Looking down, I could see tears streaming down her flattened face.  “Now knock that off!” I hissed.  “This woman (who I’d never actually heard of) can work wonders.  You’re going to look great.”  She made no response.  

Rose instructed me to disrobe Vanessa and hold her upright under a bright light.  “Oh, Vanessa.  What am I going to do with you?  Why did you have to go and get flattened now?”

“I know,” moaned Vanessa.  “Why couldn’t it have happened three days from now?”

That weirded me out.  It seemed like that being flat at her wedding wasn’t the worst problem resulting from the crushing.  It was the ONLY problem.

“Now,” said Rose, there’s no point in your standing around freezing.  Slip these on her, would you?”  She threw me a spandex bra and pair of panties.  Gingerly, I dressed my wife.  It has occurred to me that I’d probably be doing this for our entire marriage.  Dressing my wife, feeding her, transporting her, taking care of all her needs.  The strange thing was, I didn’t mind.  I knew that marriage was a matter of giving, and I’d certainly have to do a lot for Vanessa.  But having her need me so much, having her depend on me, having her be so helpless…I’d never tell anyone, but I sort of enjoyed the idea.

Rose returned from the front of the store, carrying what appeared to be another woman in Vanessa’s state.  For a second I thought we were about to meet another flattened bride, but on closer inspection, it turned out just to be a cardboard cutout of a bride, dressed in a real wedding dress.

Rose sat the figure on the ground and removed the metal base that supported it.  “There.  Johnny, would you be so kind as to set your wife in this stand?  Let’s see how well she can stand up.”

With some slight adjustments, Vanessa managed to stay upright on her own quite well.  “This will help with the fitting,” said Rose.  “Now, how am I going to make a dress for someone with a frame like yours?”  Rose tutted, as if she were facing a minor professional challenge, as opposed to the entirely weird situation we were dealing with.

As Rose scampered off, I observed the woman who was to be my wife.  Even under the bright shop lights it wasn’t that hard to imagine she was simply a cardboard mannequin, a lifeless figure there to display the workout clothes she had on.

Rose returned and began holding up various swatches of clothes for Vanessa’s approval.  Soon I was lost as they fell into conversation about patterns, colors and styles.  I began to zone off, though I was briefly surprised when Rose took out a black marker and began writing down measurements, arrows, and other symbols directly on Vanessa’s body, as if she were a notepad.

“Hey, what gives?”  I asked.

“I’ve never designed a gown for anyone quite like your fiancée.  I have to make some notes where I’ll remember them.”  I felt a little annoyed; she seemed to think of my wife as nothing more than a frame to support the dress.  I looked at Vanessa to see how she reacted to this treatment, but her face, of course, told me nothing.

My irritation grew when Rose began snipping out bits of material and gluing them to Vanessa’s bare skin with Elmer’s Glue.  “I just need to see how they go with her complexion,” she responded to my unstated rebuke.  

Finally, Rose decided that she had al the info she needed.  “OK, Vanessa, I’m going to get started right away.  I’ll probably have to work all night on this, I hope it’s worth it to you.”

“Oh, believe me, it is!” Gushed my pancake of a girlfriend.  “And don’t worry, money’s no object!”

“Well, it wasn’t money I was thinking of.  This dress will be expensive, but I was thinking maybe you’d like to work off you debt.”

“Work it off how?” I suspiciously asked, removing bits of cloth from Vanessa’s body.  “What kind of work can she do in this state?”

“Well, her standing there got me thinking.  She’d make an excellent window display!  When you return from your honeymoon, if I could just stand her up in my window for a few hours a day…”

“Absolutely not!  You’ll not turn my wife into some kind of advertisement!”

“Oh, Johnny, will you calm down!” hissed Vanessa.  “Rose has done me a great favor here, modeling for her is the least I can do.  Yes, of course I’ll do it.”

“Great,” said Rose, sticking her tongue out me outside of Vanessa’s line of sight.  “I’ll drop the dress off in the morning.”

“You’re a doll.  Johnny, make yourself useful and call Pierre, see if he’s found out anything about my hair.”

Using the desk phone, I called Pierre’s cell.  He instructed me to bring Vanessa to a beauty parlor in the ritzy part of town in half an hour.

When I returned to the front room, Rose was wiping marker off of my girlfriend with a damp cloth.  “Thank you for everything,” Vanessa was gushing.  “Maybe we can salvage this wedding after all.”

Feeling vaguely disoriented; I carried her back to the alley.  When I realized my car was gone, I wasn’t even shocked.  It was about par for the course for the past couple of days.

“Oh dear, you didn’t park in the alley, did you?” said Rose when I informed her of my loss.  “The restaurant next door is very particular about that.  They must have had it towed.”

“Great, now what?”

“We can pick up your car later,” chastised Vanessa, still slung under my arm like a piece of luggage.  “Just call a taxi for now.”

As I struggled to fit Vanessa in the back seat of the cab, I felt slightly guilty.  I was packing up my wife-to-be like she was a guitar case or other awkward equipment.  A few days ago I would have been concerned for her comfort; now I was worried how best to pack her.  I hoped my attitude would change with time.

I sat in the back seat with Vanessa on my lap.  I worried what the taxi driver would think about such a flat woman; I certainly was in no mood to talk about it.  I told the cabby the address of the beauty salon.

“That’s quite a woman there,” said the driver, over his shoulder.

“Um, yes she is.”  What flip!  Talking about my girlfriend, right in front of her face like that.

“Great body.  So is that part of an advertising display or something?”  It took me a second to see what he was implying.  Of course!  Vanessa had her back to him; from his point of view she was nothing but a big photo.  I heard her snicker to herself.

“Um, yes.  Prototype for a supermarket display.  Beer ad.”

“I’d like to head for those mountains, that’s for sure.”  I bristled.  “I say something wrong, buddy?”  Asked the driver, noting my reaction.

“She’s my fiancée.”  

“Get out!  Really?  We’ll, you’re one lucky guy!  I didn’t mean anything by that, she’s just really pretty, that’s all.”

I calmed down.  “She really is.  She’s something really special.”  Gently, I ran my hand over her side.

The hack swerved in and out of traffic and eventually pulled up in front of a fancy schmancy looking beauty salon.  I held Vanessa upright with one hand as I fumbled the fare over to the driver with the other.

“Good luck, pal.  To the both of you.”

“Thanks.”

After the cab driver pulled away, Vanessa whispered to me “That was sweet what you said.  I’d tell you to kiss me, but there are so many people around.”

“So?”

“What would they think?”

“Who cares?”  I gave her a long, deep kiss.  When we disengaged, I noticed a lot of pedestrians were staring at me.  In their eyes, I was making out with the equivalent of a rubber woman.  I grinned at them, laced my arm around Vanessa’s waist, and led her into the salon.

Pierre had arranged for Vanessa to get her hair done by someone who could ‘work wonders.’  The stylist didn’t ask questions about Vanessa’s state, she simply went to work.  I had to assist.  She couldn’t sit in the chair so I had to hold her and constantly move her around to the hairdresser’s specification.  Getting her hair washed was the hardest part.  As she could no longer bend her neck, I had to hold her body straight out from the sink as her dark hair was run under the tap.

After about two hours of swinging Vanessa around like a golf club, her hair was done.  “So, what do you think, Johnny?” she asked me.  She had originally planned to wear her hair up, but the squashing of her head left little support to an elaborate ‘do.’  Her hair was now in what is called a ‘French braid,’ that is, braided up along the back of her head.  

“It looks really good,” I replied, sincerely.

“Are you sure?  Does is take your eyes off…you know?”

I feigned ignorance.  “Off what?  Oh, that!  No, to be honest, it’s quite hard to tell.”

“Really, honey, do you mean it?”

“Oh yeah.  When you’re all dolled up in your gown, I’m sure no one will even notice.”  I subtly rubbed my nose to see if it was growing.

“Now make sure you don’t muss your hair while you’re sleeping,” cautioned the hairdresser.

“Don’t worry,” Vanessa replied.  “I’ll just sleep standing up.”

That night we affixed Vanessa into the bracket that would support her down the aisle.  I stayed with her until she fell asleep.  In the darkness I looked at the sheet of paper I’d soon be married to.  I walked around her and viewed her from the side.  You couldn’t tell it was her; she looked more like a piece of pinkish-brown wood.  But face-on, looking into her slumbering eyes, she looked just as lovely as on that first plane flight.  I thought about what she had said, about being able to back out on the wedding.  Maybe some guys would have; this was certainly a complication I hadn’t expected.  But to be honest, my feelings really hadn’t changed.  Having a flat wife wouldn’t be all that bad.  I wouldn’t have to worry about her hogging the covers, for instance.  And she’d stop obsessing about her weight, finally.  At her request, I had put her on the scale that night.  She weighed 11 and a half pounds.

Leaving Vanessa, I went into the kitchen for a late night snack.  I found Vanessa’s father there, manipulating a human sized piece of wood, practicing for the big day tomorrow.

“Hello, John.  I think I’ve about got the hang of this.”  He demonstrated how he could walk while supporting the wood, as he would support his daughter the next day.

I felt it was time for a man to man talk.  “Mr. Wickenstein, how do you feel about all this?”

“About what?” He asked, setting the wood down, and opening a beer.

“About all these wedding preparations,” I cautiously replied, opening a Heineken for myself.  “You know, having to support Vanessa, the special considerations after the accident, all the hubbub.”

Mr. Wickenstein looked thoughtful.  “I know it probably seems like a lot of craziness.  But she’s my little girl and this is her special day.  I want everything to be absolutely perfect.  Well, I’m going to try to get some rest.”

After he left, I shook my head in disbelief.  Was I the only one who noticed Vanessa had been steamrolled?  It seemed everyone else was looking at this like a normal wedding.  I decided to step outside and clear my head.

To my surprise I found Pierre sitting on the back steps, smoking.  “Hey, John,” he said, “what’s up?”

“Oh, just nervous about the big day tomorrow.”

“Yeah, most guys are.  Don’t worry, you’ll be off on your honeymoon in no time.”

“Yeah.  Uh, Pierre, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure, what’s on your mind?”  It occurred to me Pierre wasn’t half as flamboyant now as he had been this morning.  Maybe it was mostly a façade.

“Do you think there’s anything a little…odd about our wedding plans?”

“It’s not my place to answer that.”

“C’mon, between you and me.”

“You mean about Vanessa’s condition?”

“Yeah.  I mean I could frame her and hang her on the wall now, and her main concern is that the wedding isn’t ruined.  It seems no one minds that she could be hidden behind the sofa.”

“Do you mind?”

“No.  You’d think I would, but I really don’t.”

“Well, there you have it.  Vanessa’s probably worried about what you’ll think of her now, so she doesn’t want to scare you off with a lot of complaining.  That’s why she’s pouring her everything into the planning; she wants things to be as normal as possible.  As for her family…well, you know how rich people are.  It’s better to look good than to feel good.”

I chuckled.  “So you think a marriage can work when the wife’s in constant danger of slipping through the heat vents?”

“That, my friend, depends on you.”

The next day was the big one.  I didn’t see Vanessa before the ceremony; you know what the superstition says.  Instead, I concentrated on getting myself dressed and ready.  I truly believe that there is no such garment as impractical and uncomfortable as the tuxedo.  I had last worn one at my senior prom, and if luck was with me I wouldn’t have to wear another one for another eight years.  

The wedding was to be held outdoors.  As I took my place at the altar, I gazed out over the sea of guests (at least ten percent of them were people I knew, and at least sixty percent were people Vanessa knew.  The rest had been invited by her mother; presumably they were important).  The string orchestra warmed up in preparation for the wedding march.  Inside the house, the caterers began laying out the seven-course banquet for the following reception.

Then I saw her.  Standing at the end of the red carpet she would walk down to meet me, supported on the arm of her father.  Rose had done a great job on her dress.  It was a simple, strapless gown that showed off her lovely shoulders.  It had a short train that covered up the fact that not only would she not be walking, but that she wasn’t wearing any shoes.  She was wearing shoulder-length gloves that covered her crushed arms.  Her bouquet appeared to be held in her hand, but I knew it was no longer impossible for her to hold anything.  I assumed it was attached via some sort of underwire.

She was clearly flat; no amount of makeup or clothes could hide that.  But suddenly her cardboard thinness didn’t seem as big a deal.  No longer did I focus on the fact that she could double as a surfboard, but on how I had never seen her looking lovelier.  I noticed her gorgeous brown eyes more than the fact that she’d never need a bra again.  I looked forward to binding my life with hers; I hardly thought about how I’d always have to carry her around.

As the wedding march played, Vanessa’s father gingerly walked her down the aisle, holding her upright to give the impression that she was making the trip under her own power.  When he reached where I was standing, I gently wrapped my arm under her elbow and took over supporting her.  Glancing at her face, she still wore the same stunned expression that would never leave her face.  But her eyes were smiling.

As the minister read the ceremony, I thought about what our lives would be like.  Vanessa would become dependent on me; I’d have to feed her, carry her around, dress her, and take care of her.  Before she was smashed, she had always been in the one in charge of things; now, it seemed, the tables had turned a bit.  I wonder how she’d adapt to life as a living paper doll.  I knew I’d do anything to help her adjust to her new lot.  I’d have to show her how much life could hold for her in her new, less curvy state.  Her career as a department store mannequin seemed promising, for instance.  Or maybe she could rent herself out to a museum; she certainly looked like a work of art to me.  She wouldn’t make a bad model, either, if they could alter her clothes, just a bit.

My reverie was interrupted by our vows.  “Do you, Vanessa Wickenstein, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?”

Vanessa, sadly, couldn’t answer loudly enough for anyone but myself and the reverend to hear her muffled ‘I do.’  But I heard it and that was the important thing.

“Do you, Johnathan Petrowski, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?”

“I do,” I practically bellowed.  I wanted everyone to know how proud I was to have my newly steamrolled girlfriend become my wife.

“Then, by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.  You may kiss the bride.”

Carefully, I moved Vanessa until she was facing me.  Looking in to her shocked and immobile face, I couldn’t help thinking that this was not how I had planned the kiss to be.  I expected to be looking at the woman I proposed to with a look of sheer joy on her face, not a human pancake who could have been painted on a piece of sheet metal for all the reaction she showed.  But I knew, somewhere in the few millimeters she now occupied, the heart of my wife still existed, and still loved me.

Lovingly, I placed my hands on either side of her face and pressed my lips into hers.  Everything fell away: the crowds, the ceremony, the fact that her head was now the size and shape of a Frisbee.  Vanessa and I were the only ones who existed in the world.

“Turn her a little, could you?”  I disengaged from Vanessa to see who had made the whispered demand.  It was the photographer, kneeling near the altar.

“Excuse me?”

“I can’t see her from the side.  She’d just be a line in profile shot.”  I obliged my turning her slightly towards him so she could come out on film.  Then, I kissed her again.

Eventually I decided I was going a bit overboard with the kissing.  The band started playing the tune which signaled our walked back down the aisle.  Pierre had insisted we go slowly to de-emphasize Vanessa’s slimness, but I was too happy.  Lifting my bride up vertically by my side, I joyfully carried her between the rows of applauding relatives, well wishers, and total strangers.  It would be the first of many times I’d carry her places.  I liked it.

At the reception, held in the ballroom of the Wickenstein manor, presented another problem.  We were supposed to be seated at the head table, as my best man and other wedding party members gave toasts.  But Vanessa could no longer sit down!  She’d look strange (well, stranger) standing up at the table, but if we leaned her on her chair, she’d be facing the ceiling.

Vanessa’s Dad came to the rescue.  He arranged for the table to be moved so that Vanessa’s chair was directly over a heating vent.  Then, he removed the grate.  Vanessa stood in the hole up to her knees, but at least this way her head was on level with mine.

For the first time during the ceremony, I could relax.  Holding on to my wife’s stiff and motionless hand, I listened as our friends and family toasted us and our new life.  I had never been happier.

The rest of the reception went off without a hitch.  I fed her some cake (or at least smashed a little into her partially open mouth.  I danced the spotlight dance with her, holding her carefully around the waist and swaying her in time to the music.  I also handed her off (literally) to dance with my father and my best man.  One of Vanessa’s cousins threw her garter in her stead.

People refrained from commenting on Vanessa’s new shape.  Rich people would never be so boorish as to commit such a social faux pas.  As for my family, I had called them the previous night and warned them.  My friends on the other hand, were a different story.

“Man, Johnny, when you said your girl was a little on the flat side, this isn’t at all what I expected,” chuckled one of my groomsmen.

“Back off, man, she was in an accident.”

“Don’t get me wrong, she’s a lot prettier than some women you’ve dated.  Skinnier, too.”

Finally, it was time to go.  I wrapped Vanessa’s shawl around her bare shoulders and carried her to my car, dodging the volleys of rice and using Vanessa as a partial shield.

It was good to get away from everyone.  Driving through the night, listening to the rattle of tin cans behind my car, my new wife laying across my lap with her bare feet out the window…it was so romantic.

“Johnny?”  She whispered.

“Yes?”

“Do you have any regrets?”

“None at all.”

“Are you sure?  I mean, I know I won’t make the ideal wife.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.  You’re still the prettiest girl I’ve ever met.”
“But I’m so misshapen.”

“Vanessa, you’re flat as a board, smooth as silk, light as a feather, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I’ve grown to enjoy you being like this.”

“Oh, Johnny, if I could move, I’d hug you.”

At long last we came to the hotel.  I had wanted to gather Vanessa up in my arms and carry her across the threshold, but of course she wouldn’t fit, lengthwise.  I simply had to carry her in, headfirst.  Then I got a nasty shock.

The hotel room wasn’t empty.  Fifteen or twenty of Vanessa’s friends and female relatives were camped out there.  “Surprise!”  They shouted in unison.

“What’s going on?” Hissed Vanessa.

“Well, Vanessa,” began her cousin, Jessica, “we figured that since you can prepare yourself for your honeymoon, we’d do it for you.”  With that, she and another girl took my wife by the arms, then hustled me out of the door.  I sat in the hall for about half an hour, wondering why my honeymoon was going this way.  Eventually, the girls exited and instructed me to go on in.

The room was very dark inside, and I had trouble locating Vanessa (it wouldn’t be the last time; a girl like that is easy to misplace).  Finally, I saw her.  She was leaned against the far wall.  Her friends had done a number on her.  Her face was overly made up and she was drenched in perfume.  Her hair now fell back, unfettered, down her shoulders.  She was dressed in a leather miniskirt and a leopard skin bikini top.  There was a note taped to her chest.

“Dear Johnny.  Happy honeymoon!  Hope you like it!  Love, Vanessa’s friends.”

I smiled.  Gripping my wife by the hips, I lifted her into the bed.