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Bloberta remembers thinking one thing upon meeting Clay: 'He'll do.' He was never the handsomest man she'd seen, barely even the most handsome she had been courted by. He wasn't the smartest or the strongest; he didn't even seem to be all that fatherly. Still, Bloberta was edging up to her mid-twenties. Twenty-seven with a boyfriend – or a fiance – seemed a hell of a lot better than twenty-seven and single.
She thinks, though, that she can change him. You can change any man with enough time and energy – or so her friends tell her as they gossip over coffee, flaunting sparkling wedding rings, bellies swollen with babies already. Bloberta is confident that, if even right now Clay isn't ideal, he could be; she could make him more like what she believes a good husband – nay, a good man – should be.
Clay is easy and she thinks, maybe, she's not the only one whose afraid to be thirty and alone. A long time ago, she liked to sit in her room and read the excerpts of romance novels that were tucked into her mother's magazines. Bloberta wasn't even supposed to know they existed, but her mother didn't take much care in throwing them out. They were easy to fish out of the garbage in the middle of the night and take to her room so that she could lie on her stomach on the floor with a flashlight and smooth out the glossy pages. She skipped the pictures and the advice on what shade of lipstick to wear and find the pages with illustrations of strong men clasping beautiful women. She'd read the small sections of story and, though it didn't make much sense, she liked the idea of a handsome man coming out of nowhere, sweeping you off your feet, taking you directly to your own bed, and then, then, her stomach would feel all tight and funny and she'd have to stop reading for the night.
However silly it may be, she's been waiting for her own handsome man to come along. A wedding reception is as good of a place as any for the man of your dreams to show up, right? Though Clay seemed less than the men in those glossy magazine pages in his horrendous powder-blue tuxedo and flute of champagne.
"So can I buy you a drink?" Clay asks. Bloberta nods, hiding her own flute of alcohol.
They sit together, knees touching a little. "So," Clay says, “Bloberta is an...interesting name."
Bloberta excuses herself to go and wait with the other women to try and catch the bouquet. She wants to claw out all their eyes and she envies the tulle white princess dress of one of her friends from high school. She catches the bouquet and thinks maybe things are on point after all. She shows Clay back at the table and he smells the plastic flowers.
"So," he says, "my mom is dead."
Bloberta drinks the drink Clay bought her and the one she had hid and then another.
Sometime, near midnight, when Bloberta is saying that she's always dreamed of a wedding as nice as this one, Clay interrupts her to order himself another drink. He doesn't even ask her if she wants one this time. Bloberta picks at her chicken. It was chicken or fish and she figured chicken was more expensive, so she chose that, even though she barely ate it.
After midnight, when the reception is slowing down and the drunks are driving home, Clay hiccups and touches his napkin to his mouth. Bloberta is pretty sure he's puking just a little bit. He wipes his mouth and Bloberta holds her plastic flowers, slides her shoes on. Maybe she was wrong and it's best to just try again tomorrow. She doesn't have the patience for this man.
"So," Clay says, "do you want to marry me?"