"…In sickness and in health, for richer and poorer, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?"

"I do."

"And do you, Lawrence Joseph Fremont, take this lovely creature Janine…."

At that, Larry turned around and bolted out of the chapel. He just ran. He had to. He couldn’t explain his response later; he just felt an overwhelming need to get out of the situation.

Larry wasn’t one of those types of men who feel threatened by marriage or hemmed in by it. On the contrary, a large wedding with all of his family and friends had been one of his wildest dreams since he was very young. In this case, the only thing that could be chalked up to explain Larry’s actions was his choice of bride. He must have felt he made a mistake by choosing to marry Janine Cunningham.

Larry had met Janine about nine months before the aborted wedding. She had been at a party that his friend Steve was having for his promotion to partner at his law firm. Janine was there because she had gone to college with Steve. The attraction was unmistakable upon their first meeting. They had been introduced while in the kitchen grabbing some hors d’oeuvres. Larry, with his short clean cut looks, and Janine, with her cute bun style hairdo, looked at that moment as if they had been pried from the pages of a wedding magazine. Shortly after, they had retired to the basement where people were playing pool and getting slowly drunk. It was about two in the morning when they finally parted company with a date soon to follow.

Janine had graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in elementary education before moving to Washington DC where she got a job as a 3rd grade teacher at Pine Ridge Elementary in Annandale. Moving to the Washington area had been her family’s idea, so she could be reunited with her twin sister Pam, who was a student at George Washington Law School.

Pam lived in a small townhouse with a classmate in the heart of Georgetown on P Street. Janine would visit often, since she lived alone in a small Annandale apartment complex. Neither of them found love in the nation’s capital, and on the evening of Steve’s party, Janine did her best to convince her sister to join her, but Pam thought she would be out of place, and chose to stay at home with a rented movie.

Pam’s roommate, a lithe young beauty named Christine, was a lesbian, and had been involved with the same woman for almost two years. Her lover Sue was barely tolerated by her parents and the idea of the two of them living together while Christine was still in school. Thus, Christine nominally lived with Pam, and although she paid her full share of the rent and bills, she was rarely home, choosing to spend most of her time at Sue’s place in Adams Morgan off of Florida Avenue.

Larry had found out Janine was a twin that evening at Steve’s house, but hadn’t actually met Pam until about two weeks later, after he and Janine had found themselves quickly falling in love. The two of them had been invited to Pam’s house for dinner, and although Janine preferred to have Larry all for herself, she felt obligated to give her sister some of the company that Pam had become accustomed to in the ten months since Janine had moved to the area.

Pam’s dinner was a sumptuous delight, and after the first bite, Janine had dismissed most of her doubts about coming downtown that night. As she ate, she couldn’t help but notice how Larry constantly glanced back and forth between the two twins, comparing the details, almost as if he was systematically searching for some minute difference between the two. Janine laughed to herself, as this had been something the girls had done continually as children. She only hoped Larry would realize that there were no physical differences soon, rather than taking the seven or eight years it had taken Janine and Pam when they were young.

The dinner was over quickly, and after dinner, Pam suggested they check out a new bar that had opened down the street. Being a Friday night, it was likely to be mobbed, but it was only 9:30, so chances were they could get a comfortable table if they went down there now. Larry and Janine quickly assented, and they were off to The Yellow Dog.

Sitting in a dark booth, the conversation inevitably turned to the childhood of the two stunning twins. Stories about falling into Lake Champlain at Grandma’s house in Vermont echoed off the walls, as the beers continued to come to the table. Larry was transfixed. He had never seen this side of Janine before. If his love had not been cemented over the last few weeks, it was that night in Georgetown. Janine and Pam acted like children as they told story after story of their childhood. The one about throwing the softball through Old Man Flanders’ window and then telling him that it was Susie Stone from down the street. He never did find out who really broke his window.

Larry and Janine were both too drunk by the end of the evening to drive back to the suburbs, so instead of accepting the invitation from Pam to stay at her place, they brokered a cab and willingly paid the $30 fare to Janine’s house, were they soon passed out for the evening.

Trips to Pam’s became somewhat of a tradition on Friday nights. Although the happy couple couldn’t always make it, they managed only to miss about one Friday a month. It was after about two months of this that Larry finally felt safe bringing up the idea of fixing Pam up with a friend of his. The notion had come to him that first night he met Pam, but he felt kind of weird about letting a friend of his date a woman that looked exactly like his girlfriend down to the last detail.

So it was decided, Pam the enterprising second year law student would be harangued until she agreed to go out on a date with Larry’s friend Andy. Andy worked in Larry’s advertising firm and Larry had always thought of him as a little too good for his own good, but he would be a safe guy to set Pam up with, and he had heard rumors around the office to the effect that Andy was a real charmer, but still a gentleman. The receptionist, Tracy, had dated Andy before she had come to work there. She said so herself.

Rather than jeopardize the situation by declaring it a double date, Janine and Larry stayed at home that night and it was then that the issue of home came to the forefront of their relationship, only three months into it. Larry suggested that Janine move in with him in his townhouse in Reston. They spent most of their nights there anyway, he argued.

Janine countered with saying that she didn’t want to deal with the commute to Annandale, which was over 10 miles away and could feel five times as long in the Washington area rush hour.

At that, Larry suggested a compromise, and it was the very next day, when they began their search for a house together. After a few weeks of searching and bickering, they finally settled on a nice little townhouse in central Vienna, almost equidistant from both their jobs, a requirement that was foremost on the couple’s shopping list.

When the day came for Janine and Larry to move in, Andy and Pam were more than happy to help them out. They had apparently hit it off quite well, and although Pam confided to her sister that Andy was a little too fake to fall in love with, it certainly didn’t hurt to date him for a while. After all, she did enjoy his company. This sounded shallow to Janine’s ears, but then again, she was the one on the fast track to marriage or so she thought.

The months dragged on, and although the topics of marriage and children came up in conversation, they were never treated with the degree of seriousness that Janine wished they were. It was almost seven months after they had met when Larry popped the question. Janine took about two seconds to catch her breath before practically screaming, Yes, at the top of her lungs.

When Janine phoned her parents to tell her expectant mother that Larry had finally come through, they were so happy, they offered to fly out from Colorado for a month and arrange the whole wedding. Over Larry’s protestations, Janine convinced him to settle for the grand wedding less than two months from their engagement date.

Larry was excited and thrilled, but a little apprehensive. It had taken him quite a while to get over his initial fears enough to ask Janine, figuring that he would have another good six months before any sort of ceremony would take place, but now he was staring at something like 55 days. 55 days was a length of time you counted down to Christmas when you were a child, not a span to count down to your wedding.

Over those 55 days however, Larry overcame his fears, and helped Janine’s family to plan a picture perfect wedding. Larry’s family, although not particularly well off, flew up from Rock Hill, South Carolina to see their only son tie the knot. They too were very proud.

The day of the wedding was perfect. The sun was shining and the temperature was a perfect 75º. Andy, still Pam’s beau, had been chosen by Larry to be the best man, since they had been spending so much time together over the last few months. Both families were present in force, along with almost all of Larry and Janine’s co-workers. In full, there were over 250 people present when Larry ditched his bride-to-be and bolted out of the chapel.

Larry didn’t want to go home after leaving the ceremony. He would probably only run into Janine there, and he felt it was best to stay as far away from her as possible. He checked into a hotel downtown and went down to the hotel bar to collect his thoughts. Sitting there with his tuxedo ruffled and his bow tie hanging from his neck, he must have looked sad enough a sight to draw the bartender over to engage him in conversation after serving him a gin and tonic.

"Where you been today, all dudded up?" the bartender asked as he cleaned some glasses.

"My wedding. I skipped out on it, but I don’t feel much like talking about it," Larry’s response was curt and intended to cut off a conversation before one began.

"You know, you shouldn’t be hiding out here. The longer you wait before you talk to her, the worse it’s going to be for you in the long run."

"Yeah? What kind of authority do you have to be so knowledgeable about that?"

"I’m a hotel bartender. I hear more bizarre stories every day than you’ll probably encounter in a lifetime. The same thing happened to a guy came in here about two or three months ago. And I’ll give you the same advice I gave him. She’s going to be looking for you. She’s probably going to expect you to go somewhere special that you two share. She’s not going to go home, because that would be too painful seeing the reminders all over the place. She’ll want to avoid that, but she will want to go somewhere that has subtle reminders of you for awhile before she starts her heavy duty searching. I’d try and find that place, before things get too out of hand."

"Yeah, that sounds good enough I suppose. Listen, I’m going back up to my room. Can I settle up for my drink?"

"It’s on the house, my friend. Here’s to hoping you won’t be back here later though, catch my drift?"

"Yeah, I got you."

Larry headed out of the bar and up the elevator as he thought about what the bartender had said. Janine and he really hadn’t had any special places that they shared, and even if they had, he didn’t expect that she would be going to one. The drink he had just finished was coursing through his veins, and although Larry wasn’t that much of a drinker, he felt like having another. He contemplated ordering room service, but he didn’t really want to be alone. Well, in that case, he thought, I’ll take the bartender’s advice, and head to The Yellow Dog, on the off chance that Janine would go there. She and Pam were probably already there, he thought, trying to come up with excuses why I ran out.

So, Larry hopped on the subway, after realizing he had no change of clothes with him. The ride to Foggy Bottom was short so he walked the ten or so blocks down to The Yellow Dog. He walked inside, and as it wasn’t too crowded, took a seat at the bar.

Sitting in that bar seemed to make the time go faster, as Larry had a few beers as he watched the people at the tables and the ones at the bar around him. He tried to imagine what they were doing, in general, at this bar, and what their grand plans were for life. Thinking about other people helped him to forget what was going on in his life, something he wanted to keep off his mind.

He had been there for about two hours and three or four beers when she walked in. Damn, he silently cursed, the bartender was right. She had changed out of her wedding dress, and was wearing a pair of cutoffs and a nice little blouse. It was only a few seconds before she spotted him and headed over to join him.

"Listen, Janine, I’m sorry…."

"Larry, it’s Pam."

"Oh, what are you doing here?"

"Well, Janine’s staying at a hotel with Mom and Dad, so I figured I’d get out of the way, blow off some steam. She’s really upset you know."

"I figured she would be. I can’t imagine what came over me back there. I just panicked, and I don’t even know why."

"Oh, I think you do know why?"
" Really, why is that?"

"You’re young, you’re successful, why bother getting tied down now, when there are so many other fish in the sea? I’m not saying I blame you. Andy and I are almost through. He wants to get more serious, but I can’t say I really like him that much. He’s fun to hang out with, but I know a lot of guys that fit that description and have other good qualities to boot."

"Yeah. I don’t know. I want to apologize to her, but I just don’t want to get dragged into a twelve hour debate about what this means and what is going to happen now."

"Oh, I don’t think you’ve got to worry about that Larry."

"Really, why not?"

"Janine doesn’t ever want to see you again. She’s flying back with our parents to Colorado tomorrow, and she’s going to see if she can find a job teaching out their next fall."

"Great. So you’re the messenger of doom then?"

"No, I didn’t expect to find you here. Janine left a note at home for you."

"That’s great. Just a note?"

"Larry, you ran out on your wedding. She really doesn’t owe you anything more."

"I guess not."

"Listen, can I tell you a secret? Something I never even told Janine?"

"Sure, I suppose."

"When Janine first introduced you to me, I was incredibly jealous. When we were growing up, Janine always stole the better looking guys from me. She was so much more outgoing than I was then. It seemed like you were just another cute guy I was destined never to have, because of my sister."

"Pam, why are you telling me this now, of all times?

"I don’t know. It’s been weighing on me for awhile."

"And I’m supposed to say, ‘Really, me too! Let’s go jump in bed?’"

"No, I don’t know, I just thought it might make you feel better to hear it."

"Well, in that light, it seems nice, but the cold hard fact is that I don’t want to marry Janine, but I don’t want to hurt her either. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more confused in my life."

"Well, if it makes up for it, most of the rest of us in this world are dying to live through that kind of confusion, if only to make our lives more interesting."

"It doesn’t make up for it, since it doesn’t help me get an answer to my dilemma."

The beers that Larry had had already were starting to go to his head, and he felt quite a bit buzzed. He thanked Pam for her advice and got up to leave. From The Yellow Dog, he walked down to the riverside, under the Whitehurst Freeway. The air was turning a little chill as he sat down and stared at the water, imploring it to give him some divine advice about what to do with his life.

As he was staring at the water, he heard footsteps behind him and rose to meet whoever was walking towards him, hoping it was Janine and that Pam had pointed out where he had walked toward.

"Hey man, give me your wallet. I got a piece here, I don’t want any trouble, and I know you don’t either, pretty boy."

The shock of reality hit Larry like a bolt of lightning. While he was sitting here moping, other people were going about their lives, dealing with whatever fate God had dealt them. You didn’t hear them sulking all the time. There probably was a reason that people like Pam wanted to deal with the sort of confusion he was. Their lives were so boring and so routine that any change would at least provide excitement for one solitary moment, and they could say that they felt they were alive.

It took a mugger to make Larry feel like he was alive. He reached for the inside pocket of his tuxedo as he heard a loud bang. Almost immediately after he heard the bang, he felt coldness wash all over him. Looking around, he realized that he had fallen into the river and was slowly sinking.