Getting the Important Things Right

by Padgett Gerler

  I opened the door to find that my beautiful mother was at her most beautiful on my wedding day. She had chosen a pale turquoise chiffon dress with a scooped neck, capped sleeves and a full skirt to her calves—understated elegance.

  I loved her so much and wanted to rush to her and hug her to my heart, but I feared I’d be met with “No, no, dear, don’t muss Ma’am’s hair.”

  And I just couldn’t bear the rebuff on my wedding day.

  So we girls just screamed and laughed and gathered all our belongings and headed for the cars.

  When we arrived at the church, most of the three hundred guests were already seated in the sanctuary. Had it been my choice, I’d have had a much shorter guest list, but The Colonel had invited everyone who had ever met me and some who had only heard of me through him.

  The wedding party gathered at the back of the sanctuary, all except Garth and his father, the best man, who would enter from the side door of the sanctuary. Garth’s mother and Ma’am had been escorted to their seats, and the bridesmaids were pairing off with the groomsmen, ready to head down the aisle to the strains of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. Percy and I had always loved that piece. As children we had said that it reminded us of the song The Irish Washwoman. So I knew that I wanted it to be a part of my wedding.

  Then I took my father’s arm.

  The Colonel had expected me to march down the aisle to the traditional cheesy wedding march. But I was having none of that. I know that Ave Maria is not your basic wedding music, but I announced that I would be entering the church while Percy sang Ave Maria. Colonel Tom began to protest, but I must have gotten one of my tantrum looks on my face because he backed right down. (Had I known the power of my tantrums, I’d have tried that trick long before.) There was another reason I wanted Percy to sing Ave Maria. Our father had never heard Percy sing in church, and I wanted to be on The Colonel’s arm to get his reaction when his son sang his most beautiful piece in his clear tenor voice.

  The organ began, the doors opened, and my father and I entered the sanctuary and began our walk down the aisle. And then Percy stepped forward and began singing. My father stiffened, paused a moment, then resumed his walk. I glanced sideways just in time to see a tear roll down The Colonel’s cheek. My wedding day was perfect.

  We reached the altar, and my big brother, my best friend, and I locked eyes as he finished singing Ave Maria for his little sister, his best friend.

  Then Percy moved to the side of the altar and positioned himself so that no one in the congregation could see him. He made sure that I could see him, though, making goofy faces at me, trying to make me laugh.

  Father John said, “Who gives this woman?”

  And when The Colonel said, “Her mother and I do,” and stepped back, I saw, for the first time, my reason for being there: Garth.

  He smiled and reached for my hand, and as Father John continued to talk, Garth mouthed, “You are so beautiful. I love you.”

  I know that the rest of the ceremony was perfect, but I couldn’t see a thing but Garth, couldn’t hear a thing but his “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  Twenty-six

  After the photographer had taken pictures of every combination of wedding participants he could think of, we joined our guests at the Faculty Club on the University campus. The Colonel had booked the large hall with stage and dance floor for the reception, and the caterers had set up a huge buffet of heavy hors douvres. Our guests had already located their seats, located the food, and located the bar. The Colonel had hired The Midnights, a local band, and they were playing some bluesy-sounding piece when Garth and I arrived.

  When the band was alerted that the bride and groom were there, they broke into When I Fall in Love, Garth’s and my song. Garth led me directly to the dance floor, where we danced our first dance as husband and wife.

  I said, “How did they know?”

  He said, “Well, I told them. Just for you, Baby Girl. Anything for you.”

  And as he led me around the floor, he smiled into my eyes, telling me how beautiful I was, how lucky he was, how happy we were going to be because he loved me more than life itself. As our guests gathered around the floor, smiling at us and for us, I felt like a princess—a very happy, lucky princess.

  When Garth’s and my dance ended, The Colonel strode onto the floor, bellowing that it was his turn. He grabbed me around the waist and spun me round and round to Daddy’s Little Girl until I became dizzy.

  Soon Garth appeared at my side and said to me, “How about something to drink and a bite to eat?”

  When we were out of The Colonel’s earshot, Garth laughed and said, “You were turning green, and your eyes were rolling back in their sockets.”

  He was so funny. And he had come to my rescue before I passed out or threw up. I liked being rescued by my husband. I felt certain I’d always be able to depend on him.

  Once we had gotten some food and a drink and were ready to dig in, the toasts began. First, Dr. Brooks, Garth’s best man, stood and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his breast pocket. Then he read, in a near-inaudible voice, some long-winded speech about traveling life’s highway together. Then each of Garth’s groomsmen, all fraternity brothers, stood and gave some semi-amusing toast through clenched teeth. Then it was Percy’s turn.

  He stood, raised his glass, and said, “Garth, you have not only married my little sister, you have married my best friend.”

  As the crowd began to “awwwwww”, Percy raised his hand to indicate that he wasn’t quite through with his toast.

  When he had everyone’s attention, he continued, “And if you ever do anything to hurt my best friend, I’ll kick your sorry ass!”

  Most of the crowd laughed, Percy’s and my friends whooped and screamed, “Hell, yeah!”, and Dr. and Mrs. Brooks gasped so fiercely that they nearly sucked their snooty patrician noses down their throats.

  I quickly stood and raised my hand to quiet the mayhem.

  I said, “Many of you offered me something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I thank you all for your thoughtfulness, but, as I told you, I already had those things covered. For all of you who have been curious about what those things are and where I got them, well,

  My something old is my oldest and dearest friend, Percy.”

  With that, Percy and his friends jumped up, pumped their fists, and bellowed, “Woo, woo!”

  “My something new is my newest friend, Vickie.”

  Vickie clasped her hands under her chin and mouthed, “Thank you.”

  “From my great friends, Suzanne and Mary Sue, I borrow laughter.”

  They both jumped up and shrieked, and Suzanne screamed, “Hot damn!” I was so grateful she hadn’t screamed her favorite word, abso-fuckin’-lutely!

  “And I carry in my heart the beautiful blue of my Ma’am’s eyes.”

  Ma’am clasped her hands over her heart and mouthed, “I love you.”

  The night before my wedding I had gotten a hug from my father. On my wedding day I got an I love you from my mother. I would tuck Ma’am’s I love you into my heart, along with the blue of her eyes, and I would take it out from time to time when I needed her comfort and support and she wasn’t able to give it to me.

  Garth stood, put his arm around my waist, kissed my hair, and whispered, “That was beautiful, and so are you.”

  Just as we were finally settling down to eat, the band started playing Rock Around the Clock. Percy ran over to me, grabbed my hand, and dragged me out onto the dance floor. As we danced and laughed, all of our high school friends joined us, and we entertained the whooping, clapping crowd until we were spent and bathed in perspiration.

  When the dance ended and we were all panting and soaking up the attention, I scanned the smiling faces of our guests, and my eyes came to rest on the face of Mrs. Brooks. I froze. She was not smiling. She was staring directly into my eyes with raised eyebrow, flared nostrils, and pursed lips. Had I done something wrong? Why was sh
e looking at me like that? My neck hairs became prickly. I was feeling guilty. But why?

  Percy was ready to crank it up a notch, but with that uneasy feeling creeping down my spine, I told him that I needed to take a rest. I broke away from the dancers and made my way through the crowd to where Garth was having a drink with his fraternity brothers. When I arrived, I noticed that they were all wearing that pinched, accusatory look that I had just seen on Mrs. Brooks’s face.

  Garth said, “That was quite a show you put on out there.”

  I was a little slow on the uptake and didn’t detect the sarcasm in his voice.

  Still gasping for breath, I said, “Yeah, that was so much fun. You should have joined us. Aren’t my friends hoots?”

  And through clenched teeth Garth hissed, “In case you haven’t noticed, I am not a hoot and am not interested in associating with hoots. You shouldn’t be either. You’re a grown woman, for god’s sake. Now act like one!”

  I could feel that prickly feeling growing.

  Garth took my elbow and guided me back to my seat where the two of us ate in silence.

  While we were eating, I watched my parents command the dance floor while Garth’s parents sat in stony silence. For the wedding Mrs. Brooks had chosen a purple jacket dress identical to the black one she had worn to my parents’ back yard cookout. Apparently, where they came from, there was no sartorial distinction between barbeque wear and wedding wear. Every social occasion was granted the same fashion weight. And as Garth’s mother sat ramrod straight, staring at her plate, she clutched her purse in her lap, as if we had invited pickpockets to the reception.

  When the band took a break, Percy started playing records. As Ray Charles sang

  Oh, you don’t know the one

  Who dreams of you at night,

  And longs to kiss your lips

  And longs to hold you tight…

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up into Jeremy’s face. I was so surprised to see him, had not noticed him with his parents during the wedding. I jumped up and hugged his neck. I had not been able to stay mad at him for long. He had been my first love, and we had made up in time to go to the Ray Charles concert. Here he was at my wedding, and Ray Charles was singing our favorite song, You Don’t Know Me.

  I introduced Jeremy to Garth, and Jeremy extended his hand in greeting. Garth gave Jeremy a limp, disinterested handshake, but Jeremy was too busy chatting with me to notice Garth’s slight.

  Finally, Jeremy said, “Hey, man, mind if I have one dance with your bride?”

  And Garth responded, “You’ll have to ask her.”

  So he did. We ran to the dance floor so we could take a few turns before Ray finished singing our song. When the dance ended, Jeremy gave me a farewell hug and told me I was more beautiful than ever.

  He escorted me back to Garth, shook his hand once more, and said, “Congratulations. Take good care of her.”

  Garth didn’t respond.

  And Garth didn’t speak to me for the rest of the night.

  When I said, “What’s wrong, Garth?” he said, “Nothing,” without looking my way.

  Twenty-seven

  It was near eleven o’clock when Garth said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  It had been a long day, and I was ready to call it a night, too. We made a broad sweep of the reception room, thanking our guests for coming and telling them all to stay and enjoy themselves until The Colonel shooed them away.

  As we stopped to talk with Garth’s fraternity brothers, they all clapped him on the back, winked, and said, “Ready to get on with the honeymoon, right?”

  Garth winked and clapped them back while I stood aside and blushed.

  We left the room to loud cheers and well wishes.

  Actually, we couldn’t afford a honeymoon, so we went straight to our apartment. Garth had gotten us a small place in graduate student housing with a bedroom, a bath, and a combination living room/dining room/study room/kitchenette. To reach it we had to descend a flight of stairs from ground level. The only two windows in the entire apartment were in the combo room, tiny squares at the ceiling that peeked out onto the concrete sidewalk. And even though we moved in during the summer, our little subterranean home was quite cool. Ma’am had given us some of her mismatched cast-off furniture, rugs, and lamps to furnish the place, and we had made it quite cozy, despite the cramped space and minimalist lighting.

  Since The Colonel had sent wedding invitations to everyone he had ever met, Garth and I had received an obscene number of gifts. We had twelve place settings of our formal china and sterling flatware, as well as eight place settings of everyday dishes and stainless. We left the good china and silver stored at Ma’am’s and furnished our little place with the everyday stuff. We also had cookware, utensils, and cookbooks. (It looked like I was going to be expected to learn to cook something that didn’t involve Twinkies.) We also had a linen closet full of new sheets, blankets, pillows, and towels. And Ma’am had given me Percy’s and my favorite ratty old quilt. Garth and I were ready to be a married couple.

  When we reached the car, the silence was deafening. Garth wouldn’t say a word. I chattered endlessly, but he wouldn’t respond. So I just filled up all the empty spaces until we arrived at the apartment.

  When Garth pulled into our parking space in front of our apartment, turned off the engine, and got out of the car, I waited for him to come around to my side, open the door, lift me, and carry me over the threshold of our first home. Instead, he slammed his car door and headed for the apartment, leaving me sitting in the car. I jumped out, ran after him, and asked what was wrong.

  Again, his response was, “Nothing!”

  Once we were inside the apartment, Garth went straight to the bedroom, ripped off his tie and jacket and dropped them on the floor, kicked off his shoes, and fell across the bed. This was my wedding night and I’d never had sex, but from what I had seen in movies and read in books, wedding nights weren’t supposed to be like this. I thought there would be dim lights, romance, whispering, touching, tenderness. Perhaps Garth hadn’t had sex either—I hadn’t asked—and he was just as nervous as I was.

  While he lay face down on the bed, I went to the chest of drawers and removed the white see-through nightie that Suzanne and Mary Sue had given me at my lingerie shower. I grabbed a coat hanger from the closet and tiptoed to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. Once I had turned on the light, I took one last look at myself in my wedding gown. The vanity mirror was small, so I had to stand on tiptoe just to see to my knees. I did look like a princess. I didn’t want to take off my dress, but I did want to get into bed with my husband. So I slid out of my dress, hung it carefully on the hanger, and hooked it over the shower curtain rod. I washed the make-up from my face and brushed my teeth. I pulled the sexy nightie over my head and, once again, looked at myself in the small vanity mirror.

  I was nervous, so I took a few deep breaths, turned out the light, opened the door, and took the two steps to our bed. I crawled in beside Garth, my heart beating in my throat. Garth’s back was to me, so I draped my arm over his side.

  He grabbed my wrist, pushed my arm aside, and snarled, “Leave me alone!”

  I cried, “But, Garth, this is our wedding night. Aren’t we going to make love? We’ve talked about this night for so long.”

  Then he yelled at me, “Well, if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get!”

  And before I knew what was happening, he rolled over on me, unzipping his pants and ripping my nightie. He pinned me with his forearm and entered me angrily. The pain was like none I’d ever experienced, but Garth covered my mouth with his hand to muffle my screams. In a matter of seconds, it ended, and Garth rolled off and away from me.

  He spat, “Is that what you wanted?”

  Through my sobs, I cried, “No, Garth,” and reached out to touch him.

  Once again, he swatted my hand away.

  I rolled off the bed, holding my sides, and limped to the bathro
om, where I saw my beautiful Audrey Hepburn gown hanging from the shower rod. I moved it to the hook on the back of the bathroom door, then turned on the shower and waited for the water to turn to scalding. I stepped under the stream and scrubbed and scrubbed until my skin was red and raw. Then I stood in the spray of water until it turned cold. I stepped from the shower and dried myself with a big fluffy butter yellow towel that someone had given us as a wedding gift. Once I was dry, I wrapped the towel around my wet hair and went to the chest of drawers to rummage for my old flannel nightgown. I slipped my gown over my head, eased my pillow from the bed where Garth was sleeping (or feigning sleep), and retreated to the combo room sofa, where I wrapped myself in my ratty old quilt and cried myself to sleep.

  The following morning I awoke to an empty apartment. I had not heard Garth leave, but he was nowhere to be found. And he had not left me a note. When noon came and he had not returned, I began to worry. I didn’t want to call friends and family, though—didn’t want anyone to know that my husband had abandoned me the day after our wedding.

  I was so sad, so frightened, but mostly I was confused. What had happened? Had I done something to make Garth behave that way? Was my behavior so abominable that he could no longer stand the sight of me or the thought of being married to me?

  I was still sitting on the sofa, wrapped in my quilt, when Garth returned to the apartment around ten o’clock that night.

  I said, “Where have you been? I was worried.”

  He said, “I’m a big boy; you don’t have to worry about me.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me you were leaving, where you were going?”

  His eyes became angry slits as he said, “Because you are not my mother, and I don’t have to tell you shit.”

  And, with that, he stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door.

  I continued to sit and stare into the dark in my confusion. I don’t know when I finally dozed off, but I awakened with a jolt to find Garth sitting on the floor beside the sofa, his face buried in my quilt.