Wedding Season (26 page)

“This is okay.” Gabe leans back beside me and puts on his sunglasses. “Clambake wedding. Henry said they’re
cooking lobster and corn for dinner. Digging a big fire pit on the beach. Not bad.”

“Also, according to rumor, this is going to be the weirdest extended family reunion ever,” Henry says, handing me a beach bag. “Melody’s mother has been married five times. Dad six times. Kids and step-kids from pretty much every marriage, so there’s all these half- and stepbrothers and sisters, then stepparents remarrying and popping out more kids and step-kids and half-siblings. And most of them are involved in theater and the art world, so of course everybody knows everybody else and they all work together. I think Melody’s father’s second wife actually married her mother’s third husband.”

“Erica said Mel’s maid of honor is her second stepfather’s daughter from his third marriage or something like that,” Delia says. “The kids all stay in touch.”

“Here. I’ll carry the chairs.” Gabe pushes his hair out of his eyes and takes several folding beach chairs from Delia. “What about the groom?”

“Freaks.” Henry throws an arm over Delia’s shoulders. “One sister, younger. Parents were college sweethearts. Still happily married.”

“Clearly, they’re aliens.” Delia gives her a sideways glare.

“Minnesota,” Henry says. “Same thing.”

We shoulder our burdens and stroll along a narrow road lined with cars. A couple of groups of people pass us, hauling their own bundles of beach paraphernalia. The last house on the left, the base of wedding operations, is a gray-shingled, ramshackle mess belonging to one of Melody’s former stepparents. It keels lazily at the center of a broad, lightly browned lawn. Here, amid overgrown flower beds and untended hedges, are an array of mismatched chairs and
café tables set with vases of daisies, and shaded by orange parasols. The house and its haphazard surroundings have been lavished with orange, yellow, and white crepe paper and festooned with bunches of matching balloons.

“Those must be the bridesmaids,” Gabe nods. On the house’s dangerously wobbly looking front porch, which is tangled in flowering vines, a cluster of young women in bright yellow, 1940s-style bathing suits are talking and laughing. Erica, looking like a blonde Esther Williams with a giant orange daisy behind one ear, emerges from the bunch and waves frantically.

“Don’t forget your sunscreen,” she yells to us. We wave back and follow another group of guests along a weathered plank walk and over a rise to the slender crescent of sand that slopes gently toward the bay. Along the little beach are perhaps two hundred wedding guests, setting up beach chairs and sun umbrellas, shaking out striped towels, unpacking bottles of soda from little coolers. Winding through the crowd is a path lined with large pearly conch shells and bouquets of wildflowers leading to a makeshift gazebo set at the water’s very edge. The gazebo’s white canopy and silky ribbons flutter on the wind. Beyond, out in the bay, several sailboats rock on the shining blue water.

“Well, shit,” Henry says. “This is picturesque.” She smiles approvingly at a pair of handsome, tanned, and sun-bleached young men in orange swim trunks standing on either side of what I take to be the aisle. “Hi there, boys.”

“Hey,” one of them says. “Bride’s side or groom’s side?”

“Bride,” Henry says. “Are you serious?”

“To your left, please.” The usher smiles politely. “You’ll see there’s a place just down there, near the water.” He reaches into the lumpy net sack on the ground beside him, pulls out four yellow plastic ducks, and hands them around
to us. “Someone will explain how to use these at the end of the ceremony.”

“This millennium is getting so complicated,” Gabe says, as we pick our way through the crowd to the space our usher indicated. “Since when do rubber duckies require operating instructions?”

“This is
our
spot, kid,” Henry tells a very small boy standing nearby, and brandishes her duck at him. “You want to make a sandcastle here, you’ll need to purchase a building permit.”

“Bride’s side or groom’s side?” Gabe asks the little boy, who sticks his tongue out at us and runs away.

As we stake our claim and begin to set up, I see Henry’s eyes narrow.

“Bitch alert,” she hisses, looking across the aisle. “Lock and load.”

I follow her gaze to a delicate figure in a nearly nonexistent bikini top and sheer flowing sarong who winds her way through the crowd, her golden, Pre-Raphaelite curls shining in the sun.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” Henry whispers to me, as Ora raises her hand in greeting and comes toward us.

“It’s a plot,” I whisper back. “Obviously. Hello, Ora.”

“Fancy meeting you here.” Henry glowers down at her, teeth bared.

“And you,” Ora says, all graciousness. “What a pleasant surprise. I’m here with an old friend of the groom’s. Gabriel! Hello, darling.” She lights up as he moves to kiss her cheek; she offers the second cheek, Eurotrash-style, and, caught off guard, he stumbles before leaning in again, and nearly kisses her mouth. They both laugh, and she puts a hand on his chest. I could swear he’s blushing. My stomach lurches.

“Hey.” Delia puts her hand out, and Ora takes it.

“Ora Mitelman. You’re the lead singer of Mercy Fuck, aren’t you?”

“Yup. Delia Banks. Nice to meet you.”

“I saw you open for the Apocryphal Angels last year,” Ora gushes. “You girls are amazing.”

“Thanks, thanks. That’s nice of you.”

“Do you suppose I could convince you to perform at a private party in a couple of weeks?” Ora still hasn’t released Delia’s hand. Henry scowls at them, turns away, and flops down in a beach chair.

“It’s possible.” Delia smiles. “Let me talk with the band and see what their schedules look like.”

“Cost is no object, of course,” Ora says, letting Delia’s fingers slide slowly through hers. “I must have you.”

“Dee,” Henry says. “Could you please come put some sunscreen on my back?”

“In just a minute, hon,” Delia says, not looking away from Ora. “I’m in the book, Ora. Give me a call next week, and I’ll let you know.”

“Oh, I will. And I’ll be seeing
you
there, of course.” She beams at Gabriel.

“Seeing her where?” I grab Gabe’s arm.

“Joy.” Ora stares at my hand. “Is that an engagement ring? Gabe, you didn’t tell me you two were engaged!” She has gone gratifyingly pale under her tan. My momentary sensation of triumph is quashed, however, by an unpleasant thought: When would Gabe have had an opportunity to tell Ora about our engagement? And if he had such an opportunity, why would he not have told her? And who installed this
Cosmo
Girl monologue in my brain?

“He surprised me a few weeks ago,” I tell Ora, linking my arm through Gabe’s. “Though apparently he’d been planning it for some time. He proposed at my thirtieth birthday party. Isn’t that romantic?”

Gabe gives me a quizzical look. I don’t blame him. I’m acutely conscious of sounding like a complete idiot, but my mouth seems to have developed a mind of its own.

“Well.” Ora tosses her hair over her shoulder and smiles coolly. “Congratulations. He certainly is a catch, Joy. You’re a lucky girl.”

“Funny,” I say. “That’s just what he said. That I was a catch, I mean. That he was lucky.”

“Well. Best wishes to both of you. I should be going, I suppose. My date will be wondering if someone has carried me off! But I’ll be seeing you all soon, I’m sure.” She turns and sashays off, pausing to flirt with the half-naked ushers. Delia watches her go until Henry throws a bottle of sunscreen, which hits Delia on the back of one leg.

“So,” I ask Gabe without looking at him, “what’s this party of Ora’s you’re going to?”

“A launch for the paperback of her novel, I guess. She hired me to be party photographer.”

I sneak a glance at Henry, who raises an eyebrow.

“May I come with you?” I ask. “To the party?”

“Joy, you wouldn’t have any fun. I’ll be working.” Gabe shades his eyes with his hand and looks up toward the house. “I see some commotion up there. Ceremony should be starting soon. I’m just going to run down to the water and rinse my hands, okay?” He pats my shoulder and walks away.

“So.” Henry squints up at me. “Did you ever get the scoop on that situation?”

“No. I thought it had become a nonissue.”

“What situation?” Delia says.

“Nothing.” I drop down onto the blanket beside them.

“The wildebeest you were slobbering over five seconds ago, beloved?” Henry glares at Delia. “She’s the one Joy tried to beat up last month. With the hots for Gabe.”

“Hank, you’re not a best friend, you’re a human satellite dish. Who else did you tell?”

“Ora?” Delia says at the same time. “She does boys?”

“She’ll do any biped in range. If she’s that discriminating, even. You never even asked him about it?” Henry shakes her head at me.

“No, I did not. Please shut up now—he’s coming back.”

“You’re a real piece of work, Silverman.”

“Thank you so much, Henrietta. You’re too kind.” I take scrupulously careful note of the instructions on the back of the sunscreen bottle as Gabe sits down beside me. A crowd of children in yellow and orange starts down the aisle, blowing on kazoos and banging tambourines.

T
HE CEREMONY
is interminable. Step-relatives and friends, yoga instructors and voice coaches and Method acting teachers rise to read epic free-verse poems composed exclusively for the occasion, to sing songs accompanied by ukulele, recite ancient Sanskrit blessings, lead the guests in a creative visualization to ensure the couple’s happy future. At one point Henry nods off and begins snoring. By the time the bride and groom finally take their vows and are pronounced husband and wife, the sun has begun to set.

“And now,” Melody shouts to the guests, raising her arms. “Take up your rubber duckies! We’re going to send them out to have an adventure at sea, where they’ll always be together!”

We struggle to our feet along with the rest of the crowd, and take our ducks down to the water’s edge. Henry and Delia bet on whose duck will go farthest, and hurl them into the bay. Gabe and I follow suit.

“Bon voyage, ducks!” Henry yells. “Good luck and Godspeed!”

Beside us, the little boy we frightened earlier is clutching his duck and crying hysterically as his mother attempts to convince him he should set it free and send it seaward.

“No, no, no!” he shrieks, as she tries to pry it from his fingers. “Mine, mine, mine!”

I know how he feels. I turn and follow Gabe up the beach.

L
ATE IN THE AFTERNOON
, Henry comes by the apartment to fetch me for a second fitting session with her scary Russian dressmaker. She announces herself by leaning on the buzzer several times in rapid succession and shouting up from the street. When I put my head out the kitchen window to pacify her, she stomps out onto the sidewalk and waves.

“Hurry the fuck up,” she yells. “We’re running late.”

“Nice to see you, too, Hank. Down in a sec.” I close the window and skulk through the living room. Laid out on the couch with the dog asleep on his feet, Gabe looks at me over the edge of the
New York Times.

“We just got back,” he says.

“And now I’m going out again.”

“Yikes. All right, then.” He cowers behind the paper. I ignore him. “When’ll you be back?”

“Don’t know. Late, maybe. Girls’ Night.” I pluck sunglasses and keys from the coffee table, and bang the door closed behind me.

“Don’t slam!” Gabe yells after me. I skip down the steps two at a time and gallop out to meet Henry, who grabs my hand and drags me toward Seventh Avenue, waving frantically for a taxi. Not until she has flagged one down, installed us in the back seat, and arranged it so that we are heading to the East Side at a highly illegal speed, does she turn to me
and smile. She’s wearing a battered gray tank top emblazoned with the words
Beer: It’s What’s for Breakfast.

“Hi, honey. How was your weekend? How was the wedding?”

“Just great.” I shove my sunglasses on and hunch as far down in the seat as I can. “Joan picked another fight with Bix, and then got so drunk she couldn’t stand up and I had to baby-sit her. Before dinner I overheard the best man telling the groom that if it didn’t work out they could always get divorced. And a world music band played the reception. It was just really marvelous. Thanks for asking.”

“Nice.” Henry smirks. “Who got hitched?”

“Friend from college. Maybe you remember him—Tom Beggs? He was a junior when we were freshmen. Playwright. Drama department.”

“The whole fucking school was a drama department.” Henry makes a face.

“He and the bride met at a writers’ colony and left their respective spouses for each other. The ex-wife and the new wife will be going into labor just weeks apart.”

“Really nice. Very romantic.” The cab takes a sharp turn and Henry ends up lying in my lap. “When’d you get back?” She looks up at me.

“Couple of hours ago. Please get off before I scream.”

“Oopsie. Here we are.” Henry shoves a wad of crumpled bills into the driver’s hands, and crawls over me and out the door. “Want to tell me why you’re such a big bundle of sweetness and light today?” She offers me her hand and helps me out of the cab onto the dirty street.

“I think I’ve provided ample justification.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t answered the question. I can always tell when you’re holding out on me, Jo.” She rings the dressmaker’s buzzer. I sigh and kick at a fire hydrant.

“Ora. Again. She was at the wedding.” The door opens, and the dressmaker’s assistant waves us in.

“Small white world,” Henry says, as we stumble through the dark lobby and into the main shop area.

“She’s stalking Gabe. She has spies. She’s getting information from the dark forces.”

“You are late.” Veruka stalks toward us, slashing at the air with her cigarette. “Please to take off your clothing immediately.”

“Hi, Veruka. Sorry we’re late. How’s your summer going?” Henry takes off her shirt and begins to unbutton her jeans.

“You have gained weight,” Veruka tells Henry. “Your bosoms are bigger. And you have lost.” She stabs her cigarette in my direction. “Go, go. Go to dressing room.” She jabs her cigarette out in a coffee cup. Henry and I move to the curtained cubicles at the other end of the room.