by Ward Wagher
Larry looked out the window as they cruised over the prairie. “I guess I know why they call these grasshoppers. But, they really sound like a hummingbird.”
“More like an enraged bumble-bee,” Maggie said.
“Yes,” Abby retorted, “but the universal conclusion is that they look like a grasshopper when they take off and land.”
They continued the flight in silence for a while before Larry spoke again.
“How long is it going to take to get our house ready?”
“None of this should take more than a couple of weeks,” Abby said. “You will be able to move in anytime you desire following the wedding.”
“Wedding,” Maggie snorted. She reached out and grasped Larry’s hand.
“Did I miss something?” Abby asked.
“In Quebec, when somebody purchases a wedding license, the issuing clerk swears the couple and then declares them man and wife. People don’t make a big deal about it.”
“That’s...” Abby hesitated, “unusual.”
“You were going to say barbaric?” Larry asked.
“No, of course not!”
Larry and Maggie grinned at each other. They then leaned back to enjoy the ride.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“Abby tells me you are not planning on a wedding ceremony.”
Larry looked up quickly at Arthur Winkleman. He had invited himself to dinner with them on this Tuesday night. While he and Maggie always quickly accepted Arthur’s invitations, the conversations often took an unexpected turn. Mostly, it seemed a result of the old man’s questing mind. They never knew what he was going to talk about. Tonight, though, the topic took a personal turn.
“I’m not quite sure what you are asking, Sir,” Larry said.
Winkleman laid down his knife and fork, and then took a sip of his water. “And I repeat, Abby tells me that you want the clerk to issue your marriage license, and then simply pronounce the marriage.”
“Well, of course, Arthur,” Maggie said. “How else would we do this? We want it to be legal.”
“In the Palatinate, we traditionally observe the wedding ceremony in a church or a public venue. A minister presides and pronounces the bride and groom.”
Maggie looked over at Larry in confusion, and then looked back at Winkleman. “Arthur, this is all new to us. In Quebec City and Cambridge for that matter, when a couple decides to marry, the city clerk takes care of everything.”
“Is there not a celebration?” he asked. “You know, a party for well-wishers. Is this not something your mother would want for you?”
“My mother sent a note wishing us happiness. She hopes we will be able to visit sometime.”
Winkleman shook his head. “Now, I have bewildered you. For that, I apologize. I simply wished to honor your marriage.”
Maggie leaned over and laid her hand on his arm. “Oh, Arthur, we didn’t mean to embarrass you. We haven’t been here long enough to realize that some of your customs are different. We would be happy to participate in whatever you think would be wise. Right, Larry?”
Larry shook himself. “Uh, right.”
He continued to try putting the pieces together. While Indianapolis was not radically different from Cambridge or Quebec or that matter, he seemed to trip over these differences in custom. Yet, he was intrigued by the idea of a formal ceremony to celebrate a marriage.
The culture in Quebec intensely focused on the never-ending battle with the climate. The Québécois had a practical bent that shunned elaborate festivals and ceremonies. This tradition flowed across the Northeast part of the North American continent. The reluctance to recognize personal events had carried through the culture and persisted, even though survival of the people of the area was no longer in doubt.
Larry was secretly more of a romantic than the practical-minded Maggie. He thought Winkleman’s suggestion was intriguing.
“Maggie,” Larry said, “let’s listen to what he has to say.”
She looked back and forth between them. “I suppose, I guess.”
“A wedding is an important event,” Winkleman continued. “When a young man and young woman commit to one another, it is for a lifetime. People get together to celebrate this because it is something special. It is a recognition of that most sacred of human bonds.”
“So, you think we should have this… ceremony?” Larry asked.
“I do,” Winkleman replied. “Oh, if you are uncomfortable with observing this in a church, we can rent a hall. For example, we could use one of the banquet rooms here at the hotel. I am sure they would be happy to cater refreshments.”
“I really would not want to do anything like that in a church,” Maggie said. “And it sounds expensive.”
The Québécois were relentlessly secular. Most considered religion obsolete, if they gave it thought at all. Maggie and Larry reflected their culture, and there was little they celebrated. They treated religion as a curiosity.
“If you would allow me to fund a wedding ceremony, I would be most honored,” Winkleman said.
“Oh, Arthur, you have already been too generous,” Maggie said. “We couldn’t make you do that.”
“Margaret, the Lord did not see fit to give children to my wife and me. I never had the opportunity to fete my own daughter. I would consider it a special privilege to provide such for you.”
“Well, if you insist,” Maggie said, her voice was quavery. “I suppose this would be okay, if it’s okay with Larry, that is.”
“You know, I think this might be fun,” Larry said.
“Fine,” Arthur said as he picked up his utensils again. “Do not fret, Margaret. I will take care of everything.”
They watched as he sawed off a piece of roast and used the fork to pop it into his mouth. Larry glanced back and forth between the old man and Maggie. The subject seemed closed, so he resumed eating his meal. It was quiet again before Winkleman brought up the next topic.
“So, Lawrence, tell me about your visit to the site of the laboratory.”
Larry set down his fork and used his napkin to wipe his mouth, the way he had seen Arthur do it. The table manners in Indianapolis were more elaborate than he usually practiced.
“I have never encountered tilt-wall construction,” he said. “Seems like a fast way to get buildings up.”
“Indeed,” Winkleman responded. “We have such a short summer season. We like to get the buildings enclosed while the weather is good so that we can finish it at a more measured pace.”
“That makes sense, Sir,” Larry replied. “I can’t imagine working outside during the winter.”
“I would not desire to do so,” Winkleman said. “Although I did so when I was young.”
“How were you able to do that?” Maggie asked incredulously. “In the winter?”
“I got cold,” he said with a shrug. “With a little preparation, though, you can survive outside during the winter. It is not pleasant, but there you are.”
She shuddered. “It was bad enough running between buildings in Cambridge. I can’t imagine staying outside any length of time.”
“Come on, Mags,” Larry jumped in. “You were outside with me when we shoveled the walks at Maseeh Hall.”
“But that’s different.”
Larry subsided. He had learned that when Maggie responded like that, it meant that she wasn’t interested in arguing. He glanced over and saw a twinkle in Arthur’s eye. He returned to his meal. The buffet often contained various cheese dishes, and he was becoming partial to them. They had a broccoli and cheese casserole which he thought was exceptional. The only downside to this kind of eating was that his clothes were becoming noticeably tighter. He needed either to exercise or eat less, or both.
§ § §
Two days later Larry sat in his hotel suite wrestling with a particularly complex formula. Once he had teased out the solution to managing gravity fields with the Osiris Cells, he was now able to predict the general behavior of the fields. The fields seemed to follow
Newton’s Law in that the attraction, or in this case, repulsion was inversely proportional to the square of the distance. While he would not be able to affect the velocity of an object he was working with, he felt certain he could use the field manipulation to loft the object into orbit. That object would still require some type of a reaction engine, such as a rocket, to accelerate to orbital velocity.
While the math still did not exactly match the observed phenomenon, the variance was consistent across his observations. For his purposes, it was good enough. He looked forward to getting the lab into operation. He had shared some of his speculations with Arthur Winkleman, and the old man had vigorously encouraged him to continue along this line. What he was working on was going to revolutionize ground travel. With some research effort, he thought he would have a major impact on space travel as well.
In spite of the population collapse following the Carrington Event, and the subsequent plagues, mankind had managed to maintain some marginal space-going capability. This focused on keeping the critical meteorological satellites in orbit, but little else. Launching orbital rockets had always been expensive. It was even worse now, considering the small size of Earth’s economies. Larry’s inventions would lower the cost per pound to orbit by several orders of magnitude, he thought.
A pounding at the door interrupted him. He wondered who had gotten past the guards. He peered through the spy hole in the door to see Maggie in her wheelchair wearing a ferocious scowl. Brad stood to one side, looking helpless. Larry pulled the door open.
“I need some help, Larry,” she said.
“What’s going on, Mags?”
She pointed back to her suite. “This lady is here with this wild looking dress that she said is for me to wear to the wedding.”
“Is that so?”
“Well, go in and tell her she’s in the wrong place.”
Larry glanced into the room and back at Maggie. “Are you sure about that?”
“She was bleating some nonsense about a wedding dress, Larry. A wedding dress. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of. I don’t do dresses.”
Larry gazed at the young woman he had promised to marry and was seized with overwhelming affection, warmth, and humor. She was the picture of indignation, as she sat in her wheelchair with her hands on his hips.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “I’m just not quite sure what to say?”
“Well, go tell her to get lost. People really don’t wear stuff like that.”
Larry sighed and then marched into the room. “Can I help you, Ma’am?”
The chunky middle-aged brunette studied him with evident humor. “The Paladin told me that you do not celebrate weddings where you come from.”
Larry nodded in acknowledgment.
“Part of the wedding ceremony,” she continued, is that the wedding party dresses up – the bride and the groom especially. Ms. Bosstic seems to have misunderstood.”
Larry grinned broadly. “Oh, I don’t think she misunderstood at all. You see, Maggie is a tomboy. Plus, people don’t wear dresses in the winter in Quebec.”
“Oooohhh,” the dressmaker nodded in understanding. “Perhaps I started off on the wrong foot. The Paladin warned me that Margaret could be a challenge.”
Larry was now chuckling. “Let me see if I can get her in here.”
He returned to the hallway where Maggie was telling her story to Brad, who nodded sympathetically. When she saw him, he pointed back into her suite with his thumb.
“Come on in, Mags. I’ll help.”
She looked back at the guard. “He’s going to help me throw her out.”
He nodded in understanding, but when he looked at Larry, his eyes twinkled.
Later, when he was back in his suite, Larry wondered how he had managed to talk Maggie into allowing the dressmaker to measure her for the wedding dress. He supposed it involved her reluctance to look like a rube in front of Arthur. He thought maybe the pictures of the dresses might have something to do with it, considering how Maggie’s eyes had lit up when she saw them.
As he worked, he wondered how Maggie would look in a wedding dress. He was rather looking forward to seeing for himself. Larry experienced a similar discomfort later in the afternoon when a tailor arrived to measure him for his wedding suit.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“I must look like I just escaped from the circus,” Maggie muttered under her breath.
Arthur stood next to her and chuckled. Considering his age, there was nothing wrong with his hearing.
“Nonsense, My Dear,” he said. “You look marvelous. I am so happy you decided to have the wedding here in Indianapolis. Besides, Larry thinks you look great.”
She looked across the room where Larry stood next to the minister that Arthur had procured for the ceremony. He stared at her with his mouth open and a wondrous expression on his face.
“Oh, Larry has always looked at me that way.”
“That’s because he loves you, Margaret. Do you love him?”
Maggie glared at Larry for a few moments. “Yes, I guess I do. I didn’t want to. I have picked up after him for most of my life, and it looks like I’m going to do so for the rest of it.”
“But, you probably would, anyway, correct?”
She grinned at Arthur. “I guess I can’t fool you, can I?”
He put his hands on the wheelchair handles and began pushing her forward. “Shall we go meet the groom?”
Maggie sighed. “I suppose we need to get this over with, Arthur.”
“Right.”
Winkleman pushed the wheelchair across the room to where Larry stood. Next to him was the minister and on the other side, Abby Creitzman stood with a huge smile on her face. A half-dozen of Arthur’s employees along with many of the hotel people sat in chairs arranged on either side of a single aisle.
The staff decorated the meeting room with some modest sprays of flowers, and luminaries on stands along the walls. Maggie’s dress was arranged so as not to get tangled in the wheelchair. The linen had been repeatedly bleached so that the dress was almost pure white. A local tailor had crafted a charcoal pinstriped suit for the event and helped Larry don the unfamiliar clothes.
Larry remembered little about the actual ceremony. The words he read out of the small book were unfamiliar. Abby coached them to respond to the questions proffered during the ceremony. He was mainly enthralled with how wonderful Maggie looked. When instructed, he kissed the bride and received a kiss like he had never received from Maggie before.
Winkleman had reserved another of the hotel’s meeting rooms for the reception and was it decorated with silver streamers and arrays of flowers. A multi-layered cake anchored the head table, along with an assortment of hors-d'oeuvres, and sweets. One of the hoteliers began serving the cake and the guests made their way around the room to congratulate the couple.
The minister eased up to them. “May I offer my warmest congratulations upon your marriage,” he said.
Larry shook his hand. “Thank you, Sir. We appreciate your participation today.”
“Yes, thanks,” Maggie said. “You took time out of your schedule to be here. That was generous.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” he said.
“Where, in the government, do you work?” she asked.
The man looked nonplussed. “Oh, I do not work for the city or the Palatinate. My congregation is able to support me, and it also gives me plenty to do.”
Maggie looked confused. “I thought Arthur said you were a minister.”
Now, the man also looked confused. Then he seemed to shake himself. “Oh, I think I understand. Government employees here are called civil servants. I am a minister of the Gospel.”
Maggie tilted her head slightly. “I don’t believe I have ever heard that term.”
The man smiled. “It means that my job is to share with people the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and we can have everlasting life through him.�
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“Oookay,” Maggie said. “And what is a congregation?”
“I suppose you might call it a church.”
Maggie slapped her forehead. “Light dawns on Marble Head. I got it. You’re one of those religious...”
She hesitated, searching for the right word. The minister laughed.
“That is okay, Mrs. Berthold. A lot of people think of us as nuts. I don’t take offense. There are perhaps fifty of us who worship together. We would be delighted to have you visit with us sometime.”
Maggie blushed. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I say the first thing that comes to mind. I’m not very tactful. And, stop grinning, Larry.”
Abby walked up and grasped Maggie’s hands in hers. “Oh, Maggie, this has been a wonderful day. I am so happy for you two.”
“Thanks,” Maggie replied. “And thanks for helping out, and for being in the ceremony.”
“I was delighted to be a part. And, if you like, I will be happy to record the gifts when you open them.”
Maggie looked over to a table along the side of the room that was stacked with gaily wrapped presents for the couple.
“Uh, sure,” she said. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I would write down the names of the people who gave you the gifts, so you would know who to write thank-you notes to.”
“Thank-you notes...” Maggie looked confused again.
“I’ll help,” Abby repeated.
After sampling the refreshments, Abby guided the couple over to the gifts table where they were directed to begin opening the wrapped presents. Abby jotted down the names of the givers, along with a description of the gift itself. She also gave soto voce instructions to Larry and Maggie. The guests gathered around and clapped after the couple opened each gift.
Winkleman had carefully explained the concept of the honeymoon to Larry and Maggie, and so, after the reception began winding down, Brad and Alex guided them back to their respective hotel suites, where they changed clothes and prepared for departure.