Frank and Michelle

“Michelle! Come on, we’ll be late!” I called up the stairs.

It was just after lunchtime on Saturday, June 1st. The schedule for the day was to have the wedding ceremony in the mid-afternoon, followed by dinner, and the afterparty, which would last until everybody had gone home. Since the venue was a way’s off, though, and neither of us drove, that meant would have to take a bus, and then a train, and then a cab from the station to Hamper Mill’s Inn; and then the reverse to get back home. Jennifer, after hearing about it, had offered to drive us to the venue in the afternoon (we would have to come back on our own at night, though); in return, however, she had asked to help Michelle get dressed and made up for the wedding, which she accepted.

They were taking their sweet time with it, though. Why did women take so much time getting ready anyway?

“Em! Jennifer! Everything alright?” I called again.

“Yeah, don’t worry, we’re almost done!” came Em’s muffled reply.

I paced through the living room for a while, until I heard the door to Michelle’s room open. I looked up, and saw Jennifer walking down the stairs. She stopped at the foot of the staircase, cleared her throat, and said: “May I present to you… Miss Michelle O’Hagan.”

And then Michelle walked down too.

She looked stunning in her dark-blue dress, the neckline giving just a small hint of her modest cleavage; a deep violet sash was tied at her side in a bow, emphasising her waist. She was wearing a matching pair of glittery dark-blue mid-heeled shoes, and her face was very carefully made up: the makeup was more noticeable than what she usually wore, but it was still sensible and highlighted her features perfectly. Her hair was a mass of curls – I wondered how she did it, since it was usually really straight – tidily pinned on top of her head by a glittery hairband and a couple silver-coloured hair pins, enticingly exposing her neck. The ensemble was completed by a small black purse, which was hanging off her shoulder on a short silver chain, and a matching set of earrings, bracelet, and pendant, silver, set with light blue stones.

I could feel myself falling even deeper in love with her. For a long moment I wondered if we could just skip the wedding and start the after-afterparty right there and then. Then I caught myself and smiled. “You’re beautiful,” I said.

Michelle blushed slightly. “Thank you,” she said, also smiling.

“Like the jewellery. Aquamarine?”

“Coloured crystals,” she replied. “Borrowed them from mum.”

I nodded. “Good choice.”

We look at each other in the eyes for several long seconds, until Jennifer cleared her throat again.

“Now, if you two are done flirting...” she said.

“Hey!” said Michelle, “We weren’t flirting, we were just--”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Jennifer cut her off with a smirk. “We should really get going, or we’ll never get there in time.

I nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

During the ride over we chatted about all sorts of things; I learned, for instance, that the sash Michelle was wearing had been handmade by her, under Jennifer’s instruction. I was glad the two sisters, despite their years of non-communication, were patching things up.

Then the conversation turned to Abigail; Jennifer had gone to visit her in the morning, and things didn’t look good. She was in no immediate danger, but the doctors agreed that it was a matter of months, if not weeks, at that point. Michelle fell very quiet; I could almost sense her regret for the time she hadn’t spent with her mother.

When we arrived at Hamper Mill’s Inn me and Michelle got out of the car. “I’ll swing by your home later tonight,” Jennifer said; Em had asked her to feed Conroy. “You two have fun,” she said, and I could have sworn she’d winked at me before driving off.

I looked at Michelle, smiled, and offered her my arm. “Shall we?” I said. She nodded, grabbed my arm in return, and we walked towards the building. We were greeted at the door by the master of ceremonies, who took our names, checked them against the guest list, nodded, and pointed us towards the outdoors patio, where the wedding would take place.

The next half-hour was a whirlwind of introductions: it seemed that all of Michelle’s co-workers had been invited, and apparently they were all very interested in meeting me. I kept wondering why, until we were introduced to Em’s boss Francesca, a good-looking, rubenesque woman, dressed in a champagne wedding gown, who was running around to ensure the final details were in place (she was a control freak, according to Michelle, and she couldn’t leave anything up to chance: she had to double-check everything). She was the one who finally explained things, when she said “Oh, so you’re the Frank we’ve heard so much about! It’s so nice to meet you!”

I shot a questioning glance to Michelle, who had suddenly taken a keen interest in one of the flower garlands hanging off the patio wall, apparently to avoid meeting my gaze; I could see she was blushing slightly. “Nice to meet you too,” I replied. “I hope you’ve only heard good things about me.”

“Oh, certainly, certainly,” Francesca replied. “You’ve been the talk of the office water cooler for a while now, Chell’s done nothing but chat our heads off about you since at least a month. Frank did this, Frank did that, Frank bought me movie tickets, Frank made dinner last night, and so on.”

“Huh,” I said. “I guess I’m doing something right if I’m leaving such an impression on Michelle.”

“You did,” nodded Francesca. “I’m glad she’s finally found someone.”

I didn’t correct her. With a side glance, I could see Michelle’s cheeks getting redder and redder.

And then it was time for the ceremony. As me and Michelle sat side-by-side in the third row, watching the groom – a tall, muscular man who seemed uncomfortable in his tux – fidget, waiting for Francesca to make her entrance, I just enjoyed the moment.

As the music started I took Em’s hand and squeezed it. She looked over at me and smiled.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...”

It was well past midnight when we returned home. We had enjoyed a rich and sumptuous dinner, and a nice party after that: there was food and wine aplenty, live music, dancing. Everyone was happy. I’d shared several dances with Michelle, and I would have liked to continue if the party hadn’t wound down (the venue was in the countryside, so there was no noise issue, but everyone was quite tired by then). Francesca enthusiastically thanked us for coming, and her newly-minted husband Henry bid us goodbye with a firm handshake; he also offered to pay for a cab to take us home, rather than making us go the long way and use transit, and we gladly accepted the offer.

Still, me and Michelle seemingly didn’t want to go to sleep. We just grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge, and sat on the couch, sipping away at our glasses, while laughing and recalling the day’s events.

“Didja see Aaron’s face when his date fell in the pond?” Michelle said with a snicker.

I smiled “Yeah. Blamed it on the heels, she did, but I rather think she’d had a bit too much to drink.”

As the night went on, I found myself looking at Michelle more and more, and I was having difficult concentrating on both her and the conversation, so I had to catch myself several times, to ask “Sorry, what did you just say?”

At one point Conroy interrupted us, mewling pitifully, and I got up to fill his bowl before sitting back down on the couch. Michelle was smiling widely, happiness brought on by booze, as she looked at me and asked: “Yer quiet. What’cha thinking ‘bout, Frank?”

I looked at her, face flushed from the drink, eyes glittering. A bit unkempt after the long day, but every bit as beautiful as she was when she first walked down the stairs that afternoon.

And maybe it was the alcohol in my body that made me reckless, maybe my feelings had finally reached the tipping point, or maybe something else entirely, but I found myself answering with the truth.

“’m thinking about how much I wanna kiss you right now.”

Em threw her head back and gave a drunken laugh, then leaned forward and put her hand on my shoulder. She looked up at me. “Why don’t ya do it, then,” she said, in a challenging tone.

I paused for a couple seconds, then gathered my courage. I scooted along on the couch until I was sitting right next to her, placed both hands on her shoulders, brought my face closer.

And I kissed her.

She was completely passive at first, as if she hadn’t expected me to actually go through with it; but then she started reciprocating the kiss, with the same enthusiasm she always put into things. We made out for what felt like hours, just sitting there on the couch, with a passion and need that was clearly mutual, her hands wandering over my body, my hands wandering over hers, until we broke the kiss and came up for air; we were both panting heavily as we looked into each other’s eyes.

“Bloody hell,” I said.

“Yeah, holy shit,” she replied.

We exchanged a glance, and went right back to kissing. And then we kissed again. And again. And again. We both had clearly been waiting a long time for this moment, and simply didn’t want it to end so soon.

Gradually our making out became slower, softer; we began to caress, rather than pawing aimlessly at each other’s bodies. We had satisfied our pent-up yearning, now it was all just about being together.

We broke the kiss again (what was it, the seventh time? Eighth?), looked at each other, and smiled.

“That was fun,” said Michelle.

I gave a small nod. “Yes, it was.”

She paused, then asked another question. “Sooooooo...” she said, “Did ya just wanna kiss, or…?”

“Oh, I want to do so much more,” I replied.

She smirked. “I’m glad,” she said, and reached up with her finger, to flick the tip of my nose. “So, my place or your place?”

“Either is fine,” I said, grabbing her and standing up, lifting her in my arms while she gave a small startled yelp. She was heavier than I expected: that, the alcohol I had coursing into my veins, and standing up so quickly after sitting for so long made my head spin, and I fell back down, sitting on the couch, Michelle sprawled across my lap.

We looked at each other, and started laughing. “Maybe we should take this a bit slower?” she said.

“Good idea,” I replied. Michelle stood up, then offered me her hand, and pulled me up.

“Come on,” she said. “You’ve never been in my room, have you? Lemme introduce ya to my bed.”

Neither of us got a wink of sleep that night.