The Uninvited
Hoping to inspire myself back into regular blogging, I answered this question on Quora: Has someone ever uninvited you to their wedding? (It seems to have worked, as I’m updating my website and preparing to add more adventures to my blog.)
Before I share my story, I want to say that about ten years after this happened, the lady and I met randomly at a book signing. We both decided to let the past go and have worked at several other signings together. Just in case she happened to read this, I wanted to make sure she knows there are no hard feelings!
Now, to the story. Several years ago, I was a member of an international meet-up, where I met the bride-to-be. Learning that I used to be in professional theater, and liking how I applied my make-up, she asked me to do hers on her wedding day, a few weeks hence.
Members of the meet-up threw parties from time to time in their own homes, and I attended one of them, accompanying a male friend and his teenage son. We were not dating; we were colleagues. One of the host’s friends was a hairdresser from South America, Jorge. (Names all changed!) He and I had met previously at one of my own parties, a costume ball, where he had dressed as Zorro. He had just arrived at my house, left his coat on my bed with the other partygoers’ belongings, and was checking his appearance in the mirror when I walked in on him in the bedroom. We’d had a great laugh about it, as I was tickled pink at finding Zorro in my room! We enjoyed a little bit of flirting and verbal sparring throughout the evening, but that was as far as it went.
The host of the next party was a chiropractor, and apparently had her treatment room at the top of a circular iron staircase, in what looked like a tower attached to the house. As Jorge was close friends with her, he offered to show me the intriguing room. We took, perhaps four minutes at most, to climb the staircase, admire the treatment bench, and return back downstairs to the party.
The next morning, I received an email from the bride-to-be: “Dear Lizzy, in view of what happened last night, we are not comfortable with you coming to the wedding.” Puzzled, I replied asking what had happened. No response. Eventually I phoned the host, and she told me that the bride had assumed that Jorge and I had had sex upstairs in the chiropractic treatment room.
I found her assumption and condemnation ludicrous. Later, Jorge and I joked that if we had, it would have taken a heck of a lot longer than the two minutes between going up and down the spiral staircase!
(As he's wearing a mask, I think it's all right to post this picture from the costume ball.)
