The Wedding (24 page)

Sensing Shelby’s indecision, Lute pressed his advantage. He stepped closer to her, his lips inches from her brow, his bare chest heaving almost imperceptibly. The air had suddenly turned cool, and she felt goose bumps along her arms. It was as if the island had come to a standstill: the sound of waves crashing seemed to recede, and even the seagulls gliding overhead seemed to quiet their cawing, as if out of respect.
The two bodies—one lithe, sun-blasted, almost bare, the other fair, willowy, trembling—stood frozen in place. “Open your mouth,” Lute whispered hoarsely. Despite herself, Shelby obeyed. Slowly, even gently, Lute raised his right index finger to her parted lips and traced their outline. Shelby closed her eyes, wanting more than anything to pull away but rooted to the ground as if stricken. Lute lowered his face and brushed her bruised, pouting lips with his.

With a strangled cry, with some superhuman reservoir of will she did not know she possessed, Shelby wrenched her head away from Lute’s and shoved him back with the palms of her hands. “No,” she mumbled weakly, “I can’t. I have to go. My family’s expecting me.” Head throbbing, she turned away.

Lute caught her arm and jerked her back around. “Wait. We need to talk.”

“Let me go, damn you!”
Shelby shrieked, her voice piercing the night air. She had lost her composure completely, and now more than anything else she wanted just to run away.

Lute blanched and dropped her hand. “At least tell me you’ll see me again … maybe tomorrow?”

“I … maybe.”

“Just say yes. Tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock. Here. You have to give me that. You have to talk to me. You owe me that much.”

“I don’t know … we’ll see.” Nodding her head vaguely, Shelby scooped up her sandals and moved backward, slowly at first and then faster. Finally she turned and
ran up the embankment. She made it to the road without looking back.

“So it’s agreed! I’ll see you here!” Lute cried out after her retreating form. She did not respond. He clapped his hands together and laughed, and the sound was picked up by the wind and carried far out onto the ocean.

Della Connell (not McNeil, for by mutual consent Della and Lute had agreed not to live together openly until her mother died, knowing that if her mother found out about Lute she probably would die, but not before she cut Della off without a cent) stirred restlessly on a chintz armchair in the drawing room of her mother’s elegant Back Bay townhouse. She was tired. It was late, and the room, lit only by a small porcelain lamp resting on a blackamoor table in a far corner, was dark. Even shrouded in darkness, the room maintained a light, ethereal feeling, due in part to its high arched ceiling and in part to the walls, which were glazed three shades of very pale lime green, toned in beiges, white, and
faux marbre
. She warily eyed the telephone that sat on the floor at her feet, beckoning her, challenging her, accusing her.

Della was amazed herself that things had come to this pass. Just a few short months before, she would have said that she and Lute had never gotten along better. But then he left for Martha’s Vineyard with Barby, Tina, and Muffin, saying good-bye with promises to send for her once he settled in. First, the frequency of his phone calls, a veritable stream at his vacation’s lonely beginning, had trickled down to almost nothing, until finally they stopped entirely. She had
never expected him to return her letters (he could barely write), but when her own phone calls were met with impatience, then irritation, then cold indifference, she began to fear the worst, and two weeks ago her fears had been confirmed. He had called her at night, drunk and cursing, to demand that she grant him an immediate divorce. She cried and wailed and begged him to tell her why, but he refused, saying only that he no longer loved her, that he wanted a clean break. Something in his voice gave lie to his words, though, and she resolved to learn the truth. Then last week Lute had called again, angrier than before, demanding to know why no divorce papers had been forthcoming. He lashed out at her brutally, ordered her to fly with him to Mexico, where they could be served divorce papers easily and cheaply. He threatened to reveal their marriage to her parents if she refused him, and she could tell he meant it. At that moment she realized how desperate he was, for in causing her to be cast out and disowned—and surely his revelation to her parents could have only one irrevocable result— he would eliminate any hope he might have of coming into her family’s money.

Lute had pushed Della to the wall. He had come close to breaking her, closer than she would ever let him see, but she was determined to fight back. She did not know why he was so desperate for a quick divorce, but in her heart of hearts she thought she could guess. He had met a woman, she was sure of it, and he had told her that he was already divorced. Well, whoever this woman was, she would be disabused of that lie soon enough. Pride was no longer an issue; Della had already sacrificed every scrap of dignity she might have once
possessed for this man who had so effortlessly turned her love into ashes. She would see herself damned in hell before she’d let herself be thrown over by some nigger bitch, but first she would ensure her damnation on this earth: she would fly down to Martha’s Vineyard and win Lute back from whatever woman was ensnaring him, for she had nothing if she did not hold him, the only man who had made her think beyond herself. She would face him, and remind him of the power she held over him. In the past, she had always found that she could hold on to Lute by keeping his nose pressed up against her world, giving him little glimpses of the sort of elevated life he had married into and would himself be privy to … in due time.

She had a seat reserved on a small plane, no more than a puddle hopper really, that left Boston at seven o’clock the next morning. She had his address; she would be at his front door by eight. The ticket in her purse was powerful evidence of the lengths to which Lute had driven her, for she was terrified of planes and had avoided them thus far in her life as if they were flying coffins. Fly to Mexico indeed, she thought. Lute had always tried to coax her into flying, and he had finally succeeded, but the flight was not going to Mexico.

Della picked up the phone and held it motionless in her hand. Then she slowly pressed it back down into its cradle unused, as she had countless times before. Enough, she thought to herself. Call him. She leaned forward in her chair, snatched at the receiver again, and dialed his number.

As the phone rang, she tried to compose herself, praying that one of the children did not pick up. She doubted it,
though, late as it was. A click, and then a voice at the other end of the wire; it was Lute, and he was obviously in a good mood: his “hello” rang with childlike exuberance.

“Lute, it’s me.” Silence at the other end of the phone, and then Lute’s voice again, the same and yet completely different, dry as dust, as if he had handed the phone to a nearby stranger. Inwardly, Della quailed at the change, but she steeled herself for the coming deluge. “Lute, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to … surprise you. I’m taking a plane to the island tomorrow. I know this is last-minute, but I need a break from this wretched city.”

The blast of invective that spewed into her ear made her physically wince. It was a bellow, an enormous uncoiling of rage. Never had she heard Lute so angry, so ruthless in his threats. “I’m … I’m sorry that you feel this way,” she stammered mechanically, “but I am your wife, and I have a right to see you. It’s not fair to keep me away, and I will not—” Another blast of bile interrupted her; she held the phone away from her ear and let him rage until he was spent. “Lute, I don’t know why you suddenly hate me, what I ever did to you but try to help you, but if you want a divorce it will have to be on my terms.” Della rubbed at the black circles under her eyes. “I will see you tomorrow, and you will look me in the eye, and you will tell me how your heart could have turned to stone. And if you can do that, I will leave you and never look back.” Lute’s voice in her ear lowered in key, shifting to a softer, more soothing pitch. He pleaded with her, cajoled her, begged her with every fiber of his being to wait, to hold off for just one week, so that he
could prepare for her arrival with all of the ceremony it deserved.

But Lute’s whimpering, conjuring up as it did visions of past days when power was firmly in her hands, only firmed her resolve. She spoke tersely into the receiver. “Lute, I will see you tomorrow morning, and that’s
final.”
With numb resolve, she listened as he mounted another verbal assault, but before he could get very far she did something she had never done before. She hung up on him.

T
he morning of the wedding broke cool and clear. The sun was still too low to burn off the sprinkling of dew that dusted the grass around Addie Bannister’s cottage, and the only sounds that broke the still air were the excited voices of Barby and Muffin packing their bags for a day on the beach with their new-found friends from across the Oval and Jezebel’s sniffing as she explored the treasure trove of smells that were to be found under the front porch.

The sun rose higher now, slipping through the stately trees in the park, dappling the grass with pale green places which highlighted the richer green of the shaded areas.

The Ovalites were coming awake. Baths were being run by the fastidious who bathed on arising, the conspiring odors
of bacon and coffee were speeding up, the babies were beginning their demands, some cheerfully, some tearfully, and the women, with the wedding now only hours away, were groaning as they tried on girdles and high heels, and giving short answers to any query not concerned with clothes.

The onrushing sounds of the Oval filtered through the window to Lute’s daughter’s bedroom, and Tina awoke with a start, momentarily alarmed at finding herself alone in the room. As she drifted up from sleep into fuller consciousness, she remembered the outing her sisters had planned the day before. Barby and Muffin loved the beach, but Tina did not share their enthusiasm, preferring instead to spend her days in the orbit of next door’s mother, even though it meant enduring the company of her two sons, Drew and Jaimie. Drew, twelve and dark-skinned, barely acknowledged Tina’s presence, and Jaimie, nine and fair-skinned, acknowledged her presence by teasing and tormenting her. He was the devil of the family. He tried hard to be good so that he could get to ten, but he was so mischievous that his mother was sometimes afraid he wouldn’t make it. Next door’s mother seemed to favor Drew over Jaimie, but Barby told Tina that was just because she was afraid Jaimie would pass and break her heart.

Tina kicked off her sheets and stretched her stubby, nut-brown legs. She noticed that the sunlight pouring through the window was brighter than it usually was when she got out of bed. She wondered why, and she also wondered why her daddy had not called her down for breakfast the way he usually did. Shouldn’t Barby and Muffin have come back
already? Rubbing her eyes, she rolled out of bed and padded to the top of the stairs.

Peering between the banisters into the living room below, Tina saw her father sitting on the edge of the sofa, arms crossed. He was rocking slightly back and forth, and he had a funny look on his face that she did not recognize. “Daddy?” she cried out querulously.

Lute looked up, a tight smile on his face. “Good morning, sleepyhead. Don’t you worry about anything. Everything’s going to be just fine.” He resumed his rocking.

Tina felt a twinge in the pit of her belly. Until her father spoke, she had been unaware that there was anything for her to worry about. She pressed her face between two wooden banisters and regarded him solemnly. “What do you mean, Daddy?” she squeaked.

This time Lute did not look up. “Nothing’s going to stop this family from getting what it deserves,” he said. “You’re going to have a new mother soon to take care of you, and to make sure you grow up right.”

Tina’s face brightened and her eyes grew wide. Her little behind bumped up and down in excitement. “Really, Daddy, really? Who is it? Oh, tell me it’s next door’s mother.” Tina held her breath.

Lute rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Now, you know as well as I do that Mrs. Goodwin has a family of her own to keep her occupied. But Shelby Coles doesn’t, and she’s going to make you the best mommy in the whole wide world.”

Tina had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. She did not know the name on her father’s lips, but she knew whose
name it wasn’t. Next door’s mother had been the source of all her happiness that summer and, until her father’s words, the repository of all her hope. When next door’s mother looked down at her, her smile was full and real, not like the smiles of the other mothers, smiles that never made it to their eyes, and barely made it to their mouths.

Suddenly Lute jerked his body around to the door; they heard the sound of a car turning up the gravel path that led to the front of the cottage. Lute snapped to his feet and faced the door. He clenched and unclenched his fists, leaning slightly forward on the balls of his sandaled feet as if bracing for the charge of an onrushing animal. His body was a coiled spring. A car door opened and closed, and the clipped crunch of high heels coming up the gravel walk grew louder.

“Tina, get to your room. Right now.” Lute did not take his eyes from the door. Something in her father’s voice brooked no argument. Tina scampered to her feet and ran back to her room, cowering behind the door and pressing her ear tightly against the painted wood.

Della had arrived. In the very act of coming openly into the Oval, she had sacrificed everything and turned Lute’s own threat of exposure against him. She would have nothing now if she did not hold Lute. They were both fighting lost battles, neither one willing to admit their positions were hopeless. To Lute, Shelby was still no man’s wife. To Della, Lute was still legally her husband.

When she walked through the door, Lute glowered at her ominously and pointed his finger over her shoulder.

“You should have told that cab to stay and keep the meter running, because you are turning around and going right back to the airport and taking the next flight back to Boston.”