Triple Love Score (23 page)

“Is it okay if I wear this to the town clerk?” Miranda held up her best I’m-a-teacher dress.

“
Anne
,” Jellie called out, forcing her mother to turn away from the supervision of Danielle’s lipstick.

Deniz turned, lipstick still in her hand, and said, “No.”

No, it turns out is one of the few words Deniz knows in English. And she practiced saying it for every single thing Miranda pulled out of her suitcase. Luckily, when she picked up the green satin confection of the bridesmaid dress that, too, was met with a no. She wasn’t expected to wear that to the town clerk.

The other ladies finished Danielle, turning her into a brunette version of a wedding day Barbie with her white Chanel suit. Not Chanel-style. Chanel for real, Miranda found as she handed Dani the jacket from the hanger. “Selin,” Dani said, shrugging.

Deniz slapped her thigh and repeated, “Selin.” Then she issued a directive to Jellie in Turkish so quickly that not even Danielle could translate. Jellie bolted from the room, and a silence fell over the cousins. They stood between Danielle and Miranda, but their focus was now on Miranda. They murmured under their breath, pulled out containers of blush and eye shadow, holding them up to the light. It seemed the group now realized Miranda was a lot fairer than them and even fairer than Danielle. Miranda bent down and pulled out her own make up bag and handed it to Deniz’s second in command. She was a larger woman in an equally stunning pink abaya dotted with teardrop clusters of crystals. Her thick black hair was pulled back into a massive braid the size of a loaf of challah bread.

“Yes,” she said, flicking an expert finger through the tubes and clamshells. She said something to Danielle next.

“They are going to do your hair first,” she told Miranda. “Just let them. It will be for all day.” As soon as Danielle finished speaking, the ladies pulled out two large cans of Aquanet. They blasted Danielle’s hairstyle like fire fighters dousing a blaze.

In the end, Miranda emerged from the guest bedroom in a copy-cat hairstyle of Danielle’s and a floating peach chiffon abaya. “I thought they were Christian,” Miranda said. “Aren’t these dresses Muslim?”

“That’s just Turkish. Or maybe Middle Eastern. They are Christian. Well, Omar’s parents are. Just wait until you see how the cousins dress at the reception. I don’t think they are religious in any way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Imagine your bridesmaid dress short.”

“How short?”

Danielle slapped a place on her thigh a good three inches above where her white skirt stopped.

“Oh, this is going to be an adventure, isn’t it?”

A surprising number of people fit into the local marriage registrar’s office. Even though Miranda could tell from gesticulation alone that the secretary in the outer office only wanted Omar and Danielle and two witnesses. She kept putting up two fingers and waving them frantically at each new person who pushed to slip into the office. Of course, Jellie was last. When she pushed through this closing door, she exhaled with a loud, “whew.” Everyone laughed, even the marriage registrar, who luckily didn’t mind all the people.

The smell of perfume and cologne and the flowers Deniz had tucked into Danielle’s hair at the last minute filled the small room, which was becoming increasingly hot. Scott stood on the other side of the room, in the gang of Omar’s cousins. They could only be called a gang. They each wore the same cut of suit in dark blues bordering on black. Their hair, raven and gelled, stood perfectly coiffed an inch or two above their heads, swept evenly back like Ken dolls. They were a gang of Ken dolls. And Scott, even without the benefit of his summertime tan, fit right in. His hair was similarly styled, slicked back with a slight wave, though more brown than black. His suit must have been borrowed from one of them. He kept turning his eyes up toward her in between the punch lines of jokes the cousins were making. The youngest kept whispering in Scott’s ear, probably translating. Scott laughed with his whole body, slapped his knee and tapped his foot, a one man band of joy. Miranda giggled to herself, not even knowing the joke.

The local registrar announced each form, holding it up for everyone to see, before reading it aloud completely in Turkish. Then Omar and Danielle signed, and Deniz and one of Omar’s brothers signed. You wouldn’t expect anything romantic about a crowded room and government paperwork, but seated in front of the registrar’s desk, Danielle and Omar didn’t glance down at the paperwork even once. They kept their eyes locked on each other, their smiles growing broader with each signature.

Finally, the registrar collated the stack of papers and stood. “Evlilik i lerinde ba
!” he said.

Miranda didn’t understand at first, but the wave of clapping and cheering gave it away. Omar leaned across to kiss Danielle. He made it as far as her cheek, when his dad placed a hand on his shoulder. He said something quickly to Omar. Jellie, standing next to Miranda, translated, “The church first.”

Danielle blushed and picked up Omar’s hand and kissed it instead. Their moment was short, though. The room broke down into gender lines, and the men pulled Omar away. They would go off and have lunch while the women went back to the house to get dressed again. Miranda watched the men walk away; Scott blended into the group effortlessly. She focused on him, the cut of his suit jacket, the sway of his hips as he walked, the smile on his face as he turned to laugh so easily with strangers.

“You ready?” Selin asked, taking Miranda by the arm.

“Sure,” Miranda said, looking over Omar’s grandmother’s shoulder as the men moved up the street, hooting and clapping like a pack of hooligans. Just as she started to turn to follow Selin, she took one glance back. Scott stood apart from the group, his hand over his eyes to shield against the sun. He scanned the crowd of aunts and female cousins, finally resting his gaze on her. Then he blew her a kiss. A real kiss couldn’t have felt any better than that one. Then he turned and in a Gene Kelly move, jumped up clicking his heels out together to the side. The other men saw this and began attempting the move themselves. When one toppled into the other, a slight tussle broke out. Omar pushed the two boys apart and their merry party continued up the street and out of view.

“Boys,” Selin said. “Eh, let them have their fun, right?”

Miranda didn’t answer. She wanted to run after Scott and pull him away from the group. She wanted to duck down a deserted side street and kiss him for real. She wanted to make him click his heels again.

“Oh, you’ll see him soon enough,” Deniz said. “Come let’s get changed.”

At the house, all the ladies gathered together in the main living room. Danielle was arranged in a chair in front of the fireplace with the heavy mantel painted a gleaming white to match the rest of the trim in the room. A painting of two Turkish girls with ample bosoms lounging on stacks of woven rugs in brilliant colors filled the space above the mantel and echoed the colors of the plush rug under their feet. Miranda kneaded her toes into the silky fibers of the rug as she awaited Selin’s directions. Cousins and aunts filled in the left side of Danielle, with Jellie crouched down at Danielle’s feet like a faithful and beautiful hand maiden. Selin directed Miranda to Dani’s right shoulder, then placed herself behind them. The other aunts and cousins, including Deniz, filled in behind. At once Miranda understood the pattern: Single, Left. Married, Right. She saw the word puzzle in her mind, throwing in the word Liar for her own part in the tableaux.

The photographer took several rounds of pictures. Then, he changed lenses, gesturing for them to get closer or separate. She felt her cheeks burn from the effort of so much smiling. If everyone weren’t so close, she would have whispered things in Danielle’s ear, the kinds of things that had gotten them into trouble in school. At one moment, Miranda looked down and saw that Danielle had placed her palm against her belly and was staring at her navel. The photographer kept chirruping something that could best be described as eyes up. Miranda kicked at the leg of Dani’s chair. She dropped her hands to her side and smiled for the camera.

Released by the photographer, Danielle jumped from her chair tugging Miranda’s hand as she went. They rushed from the living room and out of the kitchen, past waiting trays of pastries and delights, and into the back yard. Danielle finally stopped moving, but she didn’t drop Miranda’s hand, instead she pulled it to her stomach.

“She’s kicking,” she said.

Miranda felt the flutter under her hand and tears in her eyes at the same time. “Oh, Dani, I’ve never—”

“I know, me neither.”

If it had been anyone else, they might have heard her approach. But the moment was too big to be on alert as well. Miranda stood there with her hands pressed on either side of Danielle’s stomach; the two of them oohed and ahhed like fools as Jellie slid up right in between them.

“Whatcha doing?” she said in a clear imitation of a cartoon Lynn watched in Stanton’s den. Something about inventions and summer vacations and boys with triangular heads. If only Miranda’s mind hadn’t slipped to the cartoon and stayed with the moment, she would have moved her hands away. But she didn’t. At least not until after she heard Selin call out to Jellie.

Miranda turned to see Selin peeking out of the backdoor. A glimmer of realization swept Selin’s face. Her carefully painted eyebrows arched in surprise then settled into a thin, sharp straight line. Her beautiful, towering heels, the exact shade of her navy dress, banged out a swift tattoo as she marched over the stone patio. Jellie, obviously knowing that look, hightailed it back into the house.

“Are you okay?” Selin demanded. “Tell me now.”

Miranda wasn’t sure what she expected, but the Dani of her childhood, a PK as she called herself for preacher’s kid, might have lied her way out of this. She once convinced her parents that she started a prayer study group in their garage. To explain the smoke, both legal and illegal, and the empties tucked into the plaid couch that used to be inside the rectory, Danielle told them how she wanted her prayer group to reach beyond traditional church youth, and minister to those who really needed it. If a cigarette or a Pabst Blue Ribbon got a boy to listen to the news of the Lord, wasn’t it a tool of the spirit, she asked.

“The doctors found something yesterday,” Danielle started.

Miranda leaned back on the heels of her shoes, swaying a little, both nervous and anticipatory; this story could be a good one.

“You know, at the clinic, they told me that I didn’t have long and that I couldn’t travel, that I needed to see the people at the American hospital.”

“Yes, I thought you had an appointment next week.” Selin said.

“I told Omar that because I didn’t want him to be worried about it during the wedding. I wanted him to be marrying me not because I was sick but because he wanted to. So I had Miranda take me yesterday. I had to know what was wrong.”

“That’s silly. We’ve known Omar was in love with you since his first month at college.”

“You knew?”

“I’m his mother, of course I knew.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

“I’m his mother. That’s his business to tell me. In those affairs, a mother can only ruin things. But what is it now? What did the doctor say?”

Danielle’s face lost its color. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “I’m pregnant,” she said. She kept her eyes closed.

“A baby?” Selin said pointing at Danielle’s stomach. “For us?”

“For us?” Danielle repeated, her eyes snapping open.

“Yes, of course, for us. This family. You and Omar. Our grandbaby. At last.”

“At last? You were waiting for this?”

“We expected him to marry you and stay in the States and then he followed us to Turkey, and you followed him, and we kept waiting. He lived here, and we never bothered him about spending the whole night out or where he was going. But we didn’t know why he kept pretending like nothing was serious. Omar was already eleven when I was your age. I wasn’t sure how much longer you would wait for him. I guess God pushed things along.”

“You aren’t mad?”

Selin took Danielle’s hands into her own. “I have been waiting for a daughter since I was nineteen. And now to get a daughter and a grandbaby in one day—only a fool would be mad.”

Danielle started to cry. The tears ran over the make-up on her face but not a single drop of mascara ran.

“Deniz did your make-up?” Selin asked.

“Yes,” Miranda said, answering for Danielle, who couldn’t stop crying.

“Then you’ll look fine for the wedding. Cry it out. The hormones do that.”

Selin, gracefully like a cat, plucked her way across the patio stones in her glossy Loubatans and slipped back into the house. Danielle slumped forward into Miranda’s arms. “Good thing I am not further along, or I could have gone into labor with that!”

The patio door quickly opened again. “Don’t tell Omar I know,” Selin said. “I want to congratulate him directly.”

Miranda could have sworn that Selin winked at the last bit. “Directly,” Miranda repeated. “Sounds like Omar may be in a bit of trouble.”

“Poor Omar,” Danielle said. “I’m just glad she isn’t blaming me.”