Plus One

The toilet starts overflowing at approximately 9:47 PM, between the second toast and the cheese course, and I want it on the record that I almost didn’t come tonight.

I’ll get to that.

Right now, Tyler’s sister is standing at the edge of the hallway whisper-screaming “the toilet is overflowing” as if any combination of volume and urgency might undo what had already, objectively, happened. Rebecca—the bride-to-be, the woman in the sage green dress, the entire reason forty people are standing in this aggressively beige house drinking prosecco on a Saturday night—is frozen in the hallway with her hands over her face. She is not speaking. She is not moving. She is standing there in the dress she sent eleven people photos of, being betrayed by plumbing at the worst possible moment of her social life.

The room fractures.

Tyler's mom sets down her prosecco like someone's announced a bomb threat. Two of Tyler's friends start doing that thing men do where they stand up and look around for something to fix without actually fixing anything. Someone says "do you have a plunger?" Someone says "should we call someone?" as if there is a 911 for toilets. Someone else says "should we put towels down?" and then nobody puts towels down. Nate — who is the reason I'm here, but I'll get to that too — says "dude, where's the valve?" to Tyler, who says "I don't know, this is my mom's house," as if plumbing is a niche interest and not a feature of every building on earth.

I'm standing by the cheese board. I have a cracker in my hand. I watch forty adults collectively decide that a clogged toilet is an unsolvable crisis, and I think about how people always say they "froze" during emergencies. This is that, but for plumbing.

I put down the cracker.

I should explain how I got here. Not to the hallway — that part's straightforward, I just walked — but to this party, this house, this situation where I am about to fix a stranger's toilet at an engagement party for people I've met approximately ninety minutes ago.

Nate called me at seven. I was on my couch. I had a show on. My hair was in a towel and I had a face mask on — the green kind, the kind that dries and cracks if you move your mouth, which is nature's way of telling you to stop talking and stay home. Nate said "please, it'll be like two hours, I just need a plus-one so Tyler stops giving me shit," which is not a romantic invitation by any definition but it is an honest one, and I have a soft spot for honesty even when it's packaging something I don't want to do.

So I came. I put on a dress — black, no statement, the kind of dress that says "I am here but I am not participating." I even put on earrings, which for me is basically a tuxedo. I sat in his passenger seat and I did not ask what we are because I never ask what we are and he never brings it up and that arrangement has worked fine for four months. Fine is maybe a strong word. It's worked.

Nate is Tyler's friend from college. Tyler is the groom-to-be. I've never met Tyler, or Rebecca, or Tyler's mom, who told me about her new marble countertop within four minutes of my arrival like the marble needed a formal introduction. I said "it's nice" because it is nice and because I had nothing else to offer this woman. Tyler is fine. He's tall, good teeth, calls everyone "brother." I'm sure he's a perfectly adequate person to marry.

The party was what you'd expect. Everyone performing. Every conversation a variation of "let me see the ring" and "how did he propose" and "you two are just so perfect." Nobody means it more or less than they'd mean anything they say at a party, but the event demands you pretend you do. Emotional inflation, collectively agreed upon. I find it interesting. Like a nature documentary about a species that isn't mine.

Nate had his hand on my lower back for most of it. He didn't do that in the car. He did it here, in front of Tyler and the marble island and the prosecco. He introduced me as "Sabrina" — no label — and when people smiled and said "so how long have you two been...?" he said "oh, you know" and changed the subject. I ate crackers and let the sentence stay unfinished. Some sentences are better that way.

Tyler's mom gave a toast. She cried. Everyone awwed. Rebecca leaned into Tyler. Nate squeezed my shoulder like he wanted me to know he was having a feeling but wasn't going to specify which one.

And then Rebecca excused herself. Whispered to Tyler, slipped down the hallway. Nobody noticed but me, because noticing people leave rooms has always been more interesting to me than watching them stay.

Three minutes later, water was hitting tile in a way that water should not hit tile.

Which brings me back to the hallway. The cracker is down. I'm walking.

Nate says "babe, you don't have to—" and I file "babe" away for later because that's new, and I keep walking. I pass Rebecca, who looks at me through her fingers. She doesn't say anything. I don't either.

The bathroom is not that bad. Water on tile, not carpet, which means Tyler's mother's commitment to beige is actually working in everyone's favor for once. I find the shutoff valve behind the toilet and turn it. The water stops. I find the plunger under the sink — there is always a plunger under the sink, people just forget to look when they're panicking — and I deal with it. Two minutes, maybe less. I'm not going to describe the process. Something was clogged and now it isn't. That's the whole story.

I wash my hands. I use the fancy soap, the kind shaped like a seashell that is clearly decorative and not meant for actual use. I feel like I've earned it.

When I come out, everyone has migrated back to the living room. I can hear Tyler's mom saying "these things happen!" in a voice that makes it clear she does not believe these things happen in her home. Tyler is saying "should we do gifts?" in the tone of a man trying to steer a ship past the part where it hit something.

Rebecca is still in the hallway. Standing very still. That's what people do when they're trying to figure out if the worst part of their night is over or just beginning.

"Thank you," she says. "Oh my God. Thank you. I'm so sorry. I don't even know — you're Nate's...?"

"Yeah," I say. Which answers nothing, but she doesn't push it.

"I can't believe that just happened. At my engagement party. I literally just—everyone's going to remember this. This is going to be the story."

"Maybe," I say. "But it's a better story than the toast."

She stares at me. I realize that might've been rude. I don't take it back.

Then she laughs. Not the laugh from the party — not the one that checks the room to see who's watching. An ugly laugh, surprised, the kind that comes out before you can arrange your face around it.

"It is a better story than the toast," she says. "Oh my God, don't tell Carol I said that. Tyler's mom. She worked on it for like a month."

"I won't tell Carol."

"You don’t even know me. You just—you plunged a toilet at a stranger’s engagement party.”

"It’s not that complicated. You turn the valve, you use the plunger…”

"That’s not what I mean.”

"I know."

"I don't even know your name."

"That's okay."

She leans against the wall. The hallway is narrow and still smells like seashell soap. From the living room I hear the crinkle of wrapping paper. Someone says "oh my gosh, you guys!" which is the sound of the performance resuming. Rebecca looks at me, and for maybe two or three seconds, she stops being the bride-to-be and becomes a person standing in a hallway who is tired of smiling.

"Do I look okay?" she asks.

She looks like a woman in a sage green dress who just had the most human moment of her entire engagement party. She looks almost relieved.

"You look fine," I say.

She nods. Pushes off the wall. Smooths the dress. Walks back out, and I hear the room rearrange itself around her — "there she is!" — the performance clicking back into place, everyone agreeing to forget what happened or at least to make it cute by Monday.

I stay in the hallway another minute. The fancy towel is crooked. I don't fix it. Some things get to stay crooked.

I find Nate by the cheese board. He says "that was really cool of you" and I say "it was a toilet" and he laughs, and I notice he doesn't put his hand on my back this time, and I don't know what that means, and I don't try to figure it out.

On the way home, he turns the music on. I lean my head against the window. The road is dark in the way that isn't threatening, just empty.

"Thanks for coming," he says.

"Mhm."

He drives. I'm still thinking about Rebecca's face in the hallway when she stopped performing — just for a second, just long enough to be a person in front of someone she'll probably never see again.

That's the thing about strangers. They don't need you to be anything.

I find that reassuring.