by Anita Shreve
“Oh,” Sydney says, getting a look at herself in the mirror as Hélène has her sit facing it. Her hair is done up, as promised, but the knot is so artful as to appear to be coming loose, though any number of pins and a prodigious amount of hair spray have been necessary to accomplish it.
“Put these on,” Hélène says.
Sydney unwraps a box in which lies a pair of pearl earrings. “These are for me?”
“They’re your wedding present,” Hélène says.
“But I assumed the hair was the wedding present,” Sydney says, fingering the tear-drop-shaped pearls.
Hélène kisses her cheek. “Put them on,” she repeats.
And, of course, Hélène might have known the effect of the earrings with the loose bun. Sydney’s face is flatteringly framed, her jawline and throat prominent, the pearl earrings two lights at her ears. The earrings will be all the jewelry she will need.
“Thank you,” Sydney says, standing and embracing the Canadian woman.
“I envy you,” Hélène says.
Sydney will not put on the dress that still hangs from the closet door until the last minute. Her sandals and shawl have been set upon a chair. The other women have left to tend to themselves, and from the hallway, Sydney can hear showers running. She imagines steamed mirrors, dresses hanging from bathroom hooks, makeup arranged on the lip of a sink.
Downstairs, men are pacing. They remain convivial, though Sydney can hear questions asked twice, three times, worry apparent only in the repetition. Sydney looks again at the clock on her bureau, a glance that incorporates a view through which no neon yellow kayak has yet passed. In minutes, Sydney thinks, the questions might become more pressing, the tone more urgent, worry laced with anger.
When the showers stop, the voices downstairs raise themselves a notch, not enough to worry the bride upstairs, whom they might imagine blissfully oblivious, but enough to gather the men together. A search party must be formed, Mr. Edwards says.
Oh god, Sydney whispers in her room.
Mr. Edwards addresses the guests. Sydney, in her robe, listens from her open doorway. She has tucked Julie’s handmade handkerchief into her bra. She wants to have it on her for the ceremony.
“I’m sure he’s all right,” she hears Mr. Edwards say. “Maybe he beached himself and is looking for a way to get back here. He wouldn’t have taken his cell phone because he’d have known he could easily flip the kayak. My guess is that he went for the islands. It’s his usual destination. What in god’s name possessed the man, today of all days? Ben, you go with Ivers and Peter in the Whaler, check out the islands. The three of you.” And here Mr. Edwards addresses Sahir and Frank and Sydney’s father. “You come with me. We’ll drive into the village. We may have to split up. I’m not sure how to go about this. Good god, what was the boy thinking?”
Jeff, Sydney notes, instantly demoted.
The men, in tuxes, white boutonnieres in place, leave the house. Sydney is embarrassed for the fuss. At the very least, all the village will know of the groom who was so careless and so casual as to go kayaking on his wedding day. Of the flock of man-birds who descended upon the town to scour it for traces of the wayward fiancé. The embarrassment, however, is nothing compared to her fear. Sydney imagines. And then she imagines again. She cannot censor her thoughts.
Feeling a nearly unbearable urge to lie down, Sydney does so, propping her head up on the pillows so as not to destroy Hélène’s work. The news will be good, she decides. Jeff has simply forgotten the time. Or Mr. Edwards was correct—Jeff had to beach himself and is even now frantically looking for a way back. Any minute, everyone will come home, Jeff good-naturedly taking a ribbing, mounting the stairs two at a time, looking for his tux and his shoes, blowing a kiss at Sydney and telling her he will explain all after the ceremony.
From time to time, Sydney hears the doorbell ring. Guests have begun to arrive, Julie and Hélène charged with occupying them without revealing the fact that the groom is missing. In time, however, the guests are bound to suspect that something is wrong. Sydney bites down on her lip.
A prisoner in her room, Sydney puts on her dress and shoes so that she can go to the landing and wait. She will not, however, mingle with the guests.
“There you are,” Emily says, running up the stairs and giving Sydney a hug.
“This is insane,” Sydney says.
“It’s going to be all right.”
Emily has on a gunmetal-green silk sheath. Her glasses frame and enhance her dark eyes. “In a few minutes, we’ll all be laughing about the son of a bitch and how he got lost.”
“Will we?” Sydney asks.
“You bet.”
Sydney, slightly light-headed, puts a hand on the railing. “Your dress is stunning,” she says to her friend.
“I was just about to say the same to you.”
“Is everybody here?”
“Becky was stuck in traffic, but she’s here now. Everyone is eating and drinking and, frankly, could care less when the ceremony starts. You know a wedding is only an excuse for a great party.”
Sydney is silent.
“But when Jeff walks through that door,” Emily says evenly, “I’m going to wring his fucking neck.”
Sydney retreats to her room and sits on the bed. She reviews her marital history. Twice married: once divorced, once widowed. She hoped to make another entry today, but who can say what that entry will read?
Sydney hears car doors slamming, raised voices from below. An energy seems to tumble up the stairs and spill into her room. Sydney runs to the railing and watches as the front door opens. Mr. Edwards walks in, his face rigid.
“Is Jeff back?” Sydney, breathless, calls.
But Mr. Edwards appears not to have heard her.
Sahir and Ivers immediately follow Mr. Edwards through the door. “Is Jeff all right?” Sydney asks from above.
Ivers glances up, his face unnaturally pale. “We’ve got him,” he says. Ivers stops and turns toward the door.
Jeff enters the hallway, a burst of garish color, the orange life vest unclasped but hanging from one shoulder. He stands barefoot. His hair and body are still wet, his bathing trunks clinging to his body. His feet are nearly blue.
Sydney laughs and weeps together. “Thank god,” she cries. “Thank god you’re all right.” She holds on to the railing, relief weakening her legs.
“I’m fine,” Jeff says in a quiet voice. Not the quiet of the chastised, Sydney suddenly notes, but the quiet of someone who has already removed himself, has set himself apart.
His voice chills her. She does not understand.
She looks at the stony face of the father, the wet trousers of the brother.
“Asshole,” Ben says.
Guests begin to spill into the hallway.
It is as if they are in costume for different plays: Jeff in clinging bathing trunks, the life vest tossed to the bedroom floor; Sydney, who has shut the door behind them, in salmon-colored silk and pearl earrings.
“Where did you go?” she asks, a hand to her chest.
“One of the islands.”
“You made it that far? Who found you?”
“Sydney, I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
“What?”
Jeff is silent.
Sydney shakes her head, bewildered. “You don’t love me anymore?”
“I love you,” he says.
She opens her palms. “You don’t want to marry me?”
“No, I don’t.”
And Sydney knows right then that it is all over.
From downstairs, she can hear exclamations of surprise, the front door opening and shutting. The sun comes out, which strikes her as unnecessarily cruel.
“Did you think I was happy?” Jeff asks.
“I thought you were”—Sydney searches for the word— “anxious.”
“I was. I am.”
Sydney cannot move.
“I’ll go back to the apartment,” Jeff says. “Clear my th
ings out. It would be best if you could stay here for the night. I’ll be out by tomorrow afternoon.”
That already he can think about clearing out the apartment stuns Sydney. But then again, Jeff has always been so far ahead of her.
He turns toward the window. He puts his hands flat against the glass. Sydney gazes at his long back, his tanned legs. Is he crying?
“Would you have done this to Victoria?” Sydney asks.
Jeff is a long time in answering. “No,” he says finally.
Something lurches inside Sydney’s chest. “Why not?”
“It would have been a bigger deal,” he says.
Sydney is amazed that Jeff has no intention of softening the blow.
Jeff puts his hands on his hips. “I suppose you could say I did this to Ben.”
Once again, Sydney doesn’t understand. “To Ben?” she asks.
“To spite Ben.”
Her head spins. She hasn’t eaten since early in the morning. She thinks suddenly of all the catered food that will now go to waste. All those lovely flowers. Mr. Edwards. Julie. Who even now might be waiting, hopeful, downstairs for the bride and groom to emerge—a little tattered, perhaps even a bit bludgeoned, but ready nevertheless for a ceremony in the sunshine.
“I can’t marry you,” Jeff says. “You see how it would be false.”
Sydney shakes her head.
“He wanted you,” Jeff explains simply.
Sydney turns her face away, as if to throw off a misheard remark.
“I could see it that first day when we arrived at the house and you were body surfing,” Jeff says. “He couldn’t take his eyes off you. And then later, after that first boat ride, he said he thought you were different from other women—smart and unpretentious. It was clear to me that he was interested in you.”
“But you had Victoria.”
“Yes, I did.”
She searches her room for some sign of normalcy. There is a can of hair spray on her bureau. The white box the earrings came in is beside it. A book has fallen from the bedside table. When did that happen?
“These things. . .” Jeff gestures to the door, the window. “These things, they’re not as coldly thought out as you might imagine. Sometimes it’s only in retrospect that you realize what you’ve done.”
Sydney pulls a pin from her hair and holds it in her lap.
Jeff takes a long breath, a prelude to the final confession. “Victoria was once Ben’s girlfriend.”
Sydney is silent.
“I’m amazed he didn’t tell you.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Well, that’s one for Ben, then.”
“This is a game?” Sydney asks.
The blood leaves Sydney’s head, her face, her shoulders, and pools somewhere in the middle of her chest. Her hands tremble from shock or from anger. All that she has imagined—her life with Jeff, their marriage, children she might one day take to visit their grandfather—will never happen. None of it was real.
Jeff walks toward her as if to embrace her. She shakes him off, denying herself his sympathy, now fraudulent and treacherous. Already she sees herself walking alone on city streets, pausing to sit on benches or lean against railings, a speechless dread inside her. She thinks of all that will have to be done to dismantle a life.
“Sydney,” he says.
“Go away,” she says.
Behind her, she hears him shut the door.
Sydney locks the door and lies on her bed. She waits. Occasionally, she can hear a raised voice, a woman crying. From time to time, people come and knock and call her name, but she does not respond. She waits an hour, two hours. She waits long enough that she thinks everyone will have gone home. Certainly, the guests will have dispersed. She hopes that Ivers and Sahir and the others have gone back to Boston. She prays that her parents have had the sense to return to their respective homes. In a minute, she will collect her purse, descend the stairs, and walk out of the house. She will walk in the direction of Portsmouth and from there she will take a bus. To where, she has not yet decided.
She reviews her marital history. Nearly thrice married. Once divorced. Once widowed. Once left at the altar.
When she guesses it’s safe, Sydney opens the door. From the landing, she can hear nothing. As she descends the stairs with her black suitcase, she listens for any sounds of life in the rooms adjacent to the hallway. She wonders if they all know she is there, if they are allowing her to leave. Her raincoat hangs from a coat-rack by the front door. It is not raining, but Sydney takes it from the hook anyway. She puts it over her salmon-colored dress.
“Sydney,” Mr. Edwards says from the doorway that leads to the kitchen. He still has on his dark suit, but the tie has been undone or ripped off in anger. “I can’t begin. . .”
Sydney holds up a hand to silence him.
“I’ll call you a taxi,” he says. “Do you have money? You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. I am ashamed of my son.”
Mr. Edwards takes a step into the hallway. “I want to disown him. . .Julie is inconsolable.”
Sydney moves toward the door.
“I bought this house for the family, for the idea of family,” Mr. Edwards says. “I imagined it would be a place where the family would gather. It would attract the boys and Julie, make them come to see us more often. Who can resist the seaside? And then later there would be grandchildren, and they would love it here.” His lower lip trembles. “The beach. The water. . .”
Mr. Edwards shakes his head. His face collapses. He pulls a white handkerchief from his pocket.
Sydney puts a hand on the man’s arm.
“You’ll let us know. . .,” he says, bringing the handkerchief to his face.
“I loved him,” Sydney says.
Mr. Edwards nods.
“I’ll let you know,” she says.
Chapter 11
On the train to the city, Sydney passes abandoned mills, asbestos-shingled houses, a shop called Tom’s Autobody. She imagines the atoms of her own body disintegrating into a kind of chaos, an emptying-out of her center.
The trip is meant to last an hour. Or two hours. She has no sense of time.
A young man in a white shirt approaches her. Will he speak to her?
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I was sitting there.”
Sydney looks up and notes a small duffel bag in the luggage rack overhead. She smells bacon on the young man’s breath. Not trusting her legs, she simply shifts to the window seat.
Slightly abashed, the young man joins her. “Where are you going?” he asks.
Sydney opens her mouth.
“Boston?” he prompts.
She nods.
“Shopping?” he asks. “Theater?”
At the best of times, Sydney might have found these questions intrusive. Now they are a torment.
“The city” is all that she can manage.
The word itself an oasis.
The train passes houses and farms and haystacks. Sydney tries to persuade herself that she is in England. She wonders if all of her life now will be an attempt to convince herself that she is somewhere other than where she actually is.
When the train arrives in Boston, Sydney follows signs for the subway to Park Street. Heading toward the exit to the street, she discovers that the escalator is out of order. She has to bump her black suitcase up the stairs. By the time she gets to the top, the handle has broken.
Sydney leaves Park Street station and walks in the direction of the State House, drawn by the gleaming gold dome. She has the idea that if she reaches the top of the hill, something practical will occur to her.
At the summit, she sits on a stone step. She ought to have taken a taxi from the train station and asked the cabbie for advice. She glances down the hill. A doorman is helping a man unload a car. Sydney stands and walks toward him. When she reaches him, she discovers an entrance to a hotel so discreet that it appears to have no name, merely Roman numerals. Sydney pushes through a rev
olving door into a lobby.
It might be a club. The wood paneling and marble floor are masculine in feel. Black-and-taupe chairs flank a gold sunburst clock on a wall. A glass screen trimmed in wood hides a concierge. Small metal tables like sculptures are arranged about the room. Sydney wants only to sit down, which she does. Nothing in the lobby reminds her of any place she has ever been before, already an asset.
Behind Sydney is a marble staircase with a gold banister. She wonders where it goes. She glances at the clock. It reads 6:20. Would she and Jeff have been on their way to the airport by now?
“Can I help you?” asks a young man behind the desk. He has on a black uniform and seems foreign. Eastern European? Romanian?
Sydney stands with effort, as if she were decades older than she is. She drags the suitcase with the broken handle behind her. She realizes for the first time since she left the Edwardses’ house that under her raincoat she has on her salmon-colored wedding dress.
“Have you been with us before?” the young man asks.
Sydney shakes her head.
He enters information into a computer, though she has given him none. She wonders what he is writing. Woman in distress? Shabby suitcase with broken handle? Hasn’t been with us before?
“Will it be one adult?” he asks.
The question seems unnecessary. “Yes,” she answers.
He slides a paper across the desk. The room rate is more than she anticipated, but moving on is simply unthinkable.
“Room nine-oh-six is available,” he says. “It’s quite nice,” he confides.
The elevator has a glass front. Sydney has a sensation of vertigo as she passes from floor to floor. On each is a table with a bowl of apples, suggesting that the floors are identical. But they are not. As she rises, Sydney tries to discern a difference. By the eighth floor, she has the answer: the art on each is original.
The key is gold-colored and tricky, and she has considerable trouble inserting it into the lock. Sydney imagines this to be a hotel where powerful men have trysts. She pictures well-dressed women with scarlet lipstick and matching shoes.