Wedding Season (36 page)

And it’s only seven forty-five.

In short, I’ve had root canals more enjoyable than this evening promises to be. I am standing in the doorway between the foyer and the living room, watching Rome burn and listening to my mother and Mrs. Winslow debate the rate of hors d’oeuvres circulation and placement of the bartender’s station, when Maud abandons Tyler to his one-woman fan club and sidles up next to me.

“Having fun?” She knocks her shoulder against mine.

“Oh, sure.” I lower my voice. “What could possibly be
more fun than my family and Gabe’s trapped together in a stuffy apartment?”

“Just wait ’til the wedding. This, only much more so.”

“Thanks, Maud. I can hardly wait.”

“What are friends for?” She puts an arm around my waist.

“I’m glad you’re here, anyway,” I say. “See if you can keep me from insulting anyone, okay?”

“I’ll do my best. Hey, look. Joan decided to show up, finally. And—oh, my god. Isn’t that—?”

It is, in fact, none other than Ora Mitelman, who stands near the front door with Joan, greeting my mother and Mrs. Winslow. I resist the impulse to begin a horror-movie screaming fit, only because this scenario defies belief. It simply can’t be happening.

“That
is
the girl from that awful night at Pantheon, isn’t it?” Maud whispers. “You didn’t invite her, did you?”

“Yes, and emphatically
no,”
I whisper back, watching them come toward us.

“Hello, darlings.” Joan gives me a sleepy smile as she approaches, flaps her hands at Maud, and leans against Ora, who returns Maud’s murderous gaze with a defiant stare and a raised eyebrow. “Sorry we’re so late. I hope you don’t mind that I brought a friend, Joy. Bix left town this morning. I don’t know where. Or when he’s coming back. Isn’t that funny? And Ora—do you girls know Ora? Have you met? Ora, this is Joy and Maud.” The three of us manage curt nods. “Joy’s getting married, too. It’s her party.” Joan closes her eyes slowly, opens them again, struggles to bring us into focus. She sways a little on her feet. “Anyhow. Ora came over to talk with me because I was feeling a little low, didn’t you? She’s such a good friend. And I asked her to come along because I didn’t want to come all by my lonesome. Are you having a good time, Joy? Is it a nice party? Look. That man is
serving drinks. A drink would be nice. Ora, darling, let’s go fetch us some drinks, shall we? Girls, we’ll be right back, okay? Don’t you go anywhere. There’s Miel. Hello, Miel!” Joan revolves in slow motion and heads for the living room. Ora moves to follow her, but Maud catches her by the wrist, and pulls her back.

“You’re really a piece of work,” Maud hisses at her. “How dare you show up here?”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t make a scene.” Ora removes herself from Maud’s grip. “Look at her. She’s high as a kite on who knows what, and I couldn’t convince her to just stay at home. What did you want me to do—leave her by herself in this state? She’d probably take a walk out the penthouse window.” Before Maud can reply, Ora turns and hurries to catch up with Joan, who moves through the crowd like a cheerful somnambulist. We watch in silence from the doorway to the living room as Joan accepts a glass of something from the bartender before drifting over to Max and Miel. Gabe, noticing the new guests, moves to greet them.

“Well.” Maud looks at me sideways.

“Well,” I tell her. “Well, well, well.”

An elevation of voices from the kitchen distracts us; after a moment Henry stomps through its swinging doors and marches in the direction of the bedrooms at the rear of the apartment. Delia comes out after her and rolls her eyes at me.

“How are you holding up?” she asks us as she passes. We decline comment, and she continues on into the crowded living room.

“You say the wedding’s worse than this?” I ask Maud.

“Maybe you should elope.” She shakes her head. “What do we do now? Should we have Ora kicked out?”

“I, myself,” I tell her, “have always been a champion of
avoidance and denial. I see no reason to vary that course today.”

“Your call.” Maud shrugs. “I’m going to go spill a lot of something on her.”

“Knock yourself out. Let’s keep an eye on Joan, too. Probably best if she doesn’t add too much more to whatever chemical mix she’s got on at the moment.”

“Good thinking, Jojo. Come on, let’s go mingle.”

I commence to make the rounds, mouthing hellos and waving to people, returning their forceful handshakes, embraces, smiles. After a half hour of awkward introductions, obedient small talk, and discussion of my engagement ring, which seems to go on for an ice age, I hear someone call my name and turn to see Joan swaying toward me, smiling angelically. I smile back and remove from her hand a glass containing the dregs of what I estimate to be her second or third double bourbon. She doesn’t notice.

“Darling,” she says. “Bathroom?”

“Take a right. Second door on your left. You okay?”

“Mmmmm-hmmmmm.” She trails her fingers across my cheek as she continues on.

Across the room, Ora is chatting with Tyler and Gabriel, and as I watch them, I remember what she said to me last night: People will talk. Who knows what they might say? What, indeed. Well, with no further Topher-related incentive to keep silent, they might unfold a sordid tale of my misdeeds to my unsuspecting fiancé, is what. Thereby turning him into my ex-fiancé and Ora’s new boyfriend. If he isn’t already. I feel a sudden and urgent desire to lie down in the middle of the floor and take a nap, or to burst out laughing, or to gallop out of the party and down the street waving my arms in the air and wailing like an entire Greek chorus.

I decide instead to keep an eye on Joan, and trot through the hall to the guest bathroom.

“Joan?” I tap at the door. “Are you okay?”

“Go away, please,” Tulley’s voice comes faintly from within.

“Tulley, is that you? I thought you’d decided to come out earlier. Not that I blame you if you’ve changed your mind. Want company?”

“Go away, please.”

“Right. Okay.” I lean my head against the wall for a moment, then continue down the hall to the master bedroom, where I suspect Joan has gone in search of an unoccupied lavatory. I push the bedroom door open. It takes me a full five seconds to register that I am not alone; a man and a woman half-on and half-off the window seat opposite the entrance are locked in a very active and very passionate embrace. It takes a bit longer to register that the man and woman in question, who have not yet noticed my presence, are, respectively, Luke and Henry.

“Aggh,” I say. They leap apart. We stare at one another. I begin to back out of the room.

“Joy, wait,” Henry calls.

“Nope. Bad idea.” I lunge backward through the door, race unseeing down the hall toward the party, and run smack into Gabriel.

“Hey, I was just coming to look for you.” He catches and steadies me. “Are you okay?”

“In a manner of speaking, no. Not really.” I look up at him, feeling suddenly that I have reached critical mass and will spontaneously combust, very soon, if I don’t do something about it, if I don’t find some way to sort out all these conflicting thoughts that fill my head with this roaring, deafening white noise. “Oh, Gabe. We need to talk.”

“Hey. Red.” Gabe puts his arm around me. “Take it easy.

We will. Take a deep breath. Whatever’s going on, it’s going to be fine. I promise.”

“You do? You promise?”

“Yes, I do.” He laughs. “So relax. Let’s try to have some fun here. However unlikely that seems.”

“Ah!” Ora is coming down the hall toward us. “There you are. The couple of the hour.” She places herself ever so slightly between us. “Gabe, do you have a moment? Joy, you don’t mind if I borrow him, do you? We need to talk.”

Before I can respond to her—and I have no idea what I’m planning to say anyway, and my heart is in my throat, so it’s just as well—my brother Josh appears in the hall, waving at us.

“Joy! Gabe!” he says. “Get in here, you guys. James is going to make a toast.” The three of us turn and stare at him. “Come on! They’re coming,” Josh calls into the living room, and as we walk in, Gabe and I side by side, Ora slightly behind us, the guests stand and applaud. Ora brushes past us into the room, throwing a glance at me over her shoulder. I feel very much like fainting, but two days in a row seems excessive. Someone gives me a glass of champagne. James, standing on an ottoman, whistles for attention.

“Friends, here we are, to celebrate the unimaginable.” James holds his glass aloft. “I thank my mother and Mr. and Mrs. Winslow for organizing this event, as Joy and Gabe’s nearest and dearest truly need some assistance adjusting to the idea of them getting married. And we’ll be holding an engagement party once each month until the wedding, for those who need further acclimation to the concept.” The crowd laughs uproariously and I find myself wishing them all swift and painful karmic reprisals. “So.” James waves his hands for silence. “To help you along, we’re going to try a guided visualization of—”

“Joy! Help!” A scream comes from the hallway. It’s Henry. Luke appears in the door to the living room, panting.

“Get an ambulance. Someone call now.” He looks wildly around the room.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” Gabe asks, as five or six people pull out their cell phones and my mother rushes for a phone on a side table.

“It’s Joan.” Luke turns to me. “She’s out cold. On the floor of the bathroom in that bedroom. We can’t wake her up. She’s barely breathing.”

I run for the master bedroom with Gabe, Ora, Luke, and a handful of other people hot on my heels. I skid into the bathroom to see Henry crouched beside Joan, who is askew on the floor, her face waxy, her eyes half-lidded. Vomit trickles down her cheek and into her dark curls, and forms a pool beside her head.

“What do we do?” Henry sounds hysterical. Her eyes are wild. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Oh, for god’s sake.” Ora pushes past us into the bathroom and looks down at Joan. She suddenly seems unaccountably competent and assured. “She just passed out. Gabe, get those people out of here. Tell them not to bother with the ambulance.” She drops to her knees beside Joan and shakes her by the shoulders. “Joanie. Joan, wake up. Wake up. Wake up!” Ora lifts a hand and slaps Joan’s face, hard. After a moment, Joan’s eyes flutter open, and she struggles to focus on Ora. I slump against the sink, my body weak with relief. Henry lets out a gasping sob and flees.

“Joy.” Ora turns to me. “Wet that washcloth for me. Let’s clean you up a little,” she tells Joan. I have a sudden memory of something from a review of Ora’s memoir, something about her brother having died of an overdose while she was in the next room. I pass her a damp washcloth, and very gently, Ora wipes the spray of saliva and bile from Joan’s face and hair.

“My head hurts,” Joan tells her.

“You probably hit it on something when you fell.” Ora stands up and brushes at her skirt. “Think you can move, Joan? I’m sure she’s fine,” Ora turns to Gabriel, “but I’m going to take her to the emergency room anyway, so they can check her out. Can you help me get her up? Luke, could you run out and hail a taxi for us?”

Gabe and Ora, with Joan between them, make their slow way out; I trail behind. The apartment is deserted except for my mother and her husband, the living room littered with sad half-empty cups and little soiled plates. It seems that the party is over.

At the curb, Luke stands beside a taxi, holding the door open. Ora and Gabe ease Joan into the backseat, and Ora climbs in after her.

“You want me to come with you?” Gabe asks her. “Or meet you at the hospital?”

I catch a pale glimpse of Ora’s face; for the briefest of moments her green eyes lock with mine. We are the same, I think to myself. We both want the lie to be true. Ora looks back to Gabe, shakes her head, pulls the taxi’s door shut. The car pulls away, and we stand on the curb and watch them disappear down the street.

M
UCH LATER, SOMEWHERE ALONG
the dark, bleary trajectory between midnight and dawn, I am sitting on the couch, staring into the dim living room. I have been here, sleepless, for an hour or so, when the light in the bedroom goes on. A moment later, Gabe shuffles down the hallway and squints at me from the doorway.

“Hi,” he says, his voice thick with sleep.

“Hi.”

“Why are you out here?” Gabe pads across the room.

“Couldn’t sleep.” I move over and he flops down on the couch beside me.

“Was I snoring?”

“No, you weren’t. But—”

“Was I drooling?”

“Gabe, did you—would you—are you having an affair with Ora?”

Which is worse, I wonder, as I hear the words slipping from my mouth, to say these things or not to say them? Which represents the deeper betrayal? To betray what I believe, or what I feel?

“What are you talking about?” Gabe laughs, then frowns. “An affair? With Ora? Are you completely insane?”

“Yes. I think we’ve determined that conclusively. Are you?”

“Am I insane?” He reaches over and turns on the lamp on the side table.

“No. Are you having an affair?”

“No.” Gabe shakes his head, genuinely aghast. “Are you serious? I—
no
.”

“Were you? Do you want to?”

“No. God, no. What even gave you that idea, Joy?”

“You’ve been spending so much time with her.”

“I have? I guess I have been. But for work. Just work. I mean, she’s a pleasant, relatively intelligent, not unattractive woman. She’s a good client. But beyond that—”

“What about Friday? I saw you with her. I saw you go into Café Paradiso together.”

“I ran into her on the street, between shoots. She was depressed, and she asked me to have lunch with her. She’s been very generous about connecting me with new jobs. I had an hour free, and I figured I owed it to her.”

“It hasn’t occurred to you that she might have some
motive for getting you work, beyond the kindness of her heart?”

“Nope. But if she does, what’s that to me?” He looks down, reaches over and touches my engagement ring, looks back up at me. “I’m spoken for, remember?”

I believe him. I am suddenly exhausted and find that I have neither the energy nor the will to not believe him. Doubts are there, waiting to be entertained, but I’m too tired to think about whether he might be lying to me, or himself; to consider how I might have betrayed him, or myself, or anyone else; to confess anything further, to cry anymore, to feel ashamed or even relieved. I decide to just believe, and the tension binding me slackens and the white noise in my head fades to a whisper. I lay my head down on Gabe’s knee. He strokes my hair.