One Hundred Years of Marriage

by Louise Farmer Smith

  While everyone stood in the hot wind in front of the restaurant saying what a lovely time they’d had, Josh and I snuck behind the air-conditioning compressor, a spot not ideal due to a floodlight overhead. In our first moment alone Josh touched me under both ears with the tips of his forefingers then traced the edge of my jaw lifting my chin and brushing my lips with his. Then he cupped my cheeks in his palms and we kissed, deeply, and my eyes closed imagining ourselves back in Washington, alone. “Queen of my heart,” he breathed. I looked into his beautiful dark eyes, as the wind whipped my flowered skirt against my legs.

  “I wanted to tell you before tomorrow,” he said, “I quit the Federation.”

  I wasn’t expecting this and took a breath before saying, “You did?”

  “Yeah, I gave notice. By October I’ll be a free man. It was the right time. The Jazz Festival is in October, and it’ll make a great honeymoon for us.”

  “October? The Senate will be marking up the Defense bill right then. I couldn’t take off.” The June bugs knocked into the lamp above us and fell heavily into the parking lot.

  “Ah.” He shrugged. “My peace warrior.” His gaze was soft, admiring, then he glanced in the direction of the farewells and slamming car doors. “Well, anyway, as soon as I get back from the Festival, I’ll get another job. You know that.”

  “Of course, I know that, Josh.” I looked down. The whirling wind pressed the flowered skirt against my legs and swept the dazed June bugs toward the curb.

  “It won’t be a problem. I’ve got good recommendations. Maybe I’ll find an environmental group that isn’t run by Prussians.”

  “You’re an artist, sweetheart. It may take awhile.”

  “But there’s always the job at the club. Moh says I’ve got a lifelong gig, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, you’re not worried or anything?”

  “No, Josh, no. Of course not. You’ll get another job when you get back from the Festival, an event you shouldn’t miss anyway. I’m just glad you’ll be free to go for the whole thing this time. Then, when you get back—”

  “You are something, Patty, the best in the world.”

  “And the folks at the new job, whatever it is, will be very lucky to get such a smart guy.” We kissed again, and I held him and pressed the blue flowers against him.

  Back home I rushed upstairs, peeled off my dress and slipped out of my shoes. Sandy, slumped down on the other bed, looked beat. “Pa-at,” she wailed, trying on an Oklahoma twang.

  “Wha-at?”

  “Are we ever going to have a fucking drink?”

  I giggled. “I forgot.” I pulled my dress back on.

  “Forgot?”

  “I mean I just kept telling myself I couldn’t because I was home. Come on. Let’s go to Smokey’s and retox.”

  As we tiptoed past the front bedroom, Mother’s voice came out of the darkness. “Pat? It’s past 11:00, honey. You’re going out? That’s fine. Of course. On your way back could you pick up some 2%? If it’s easy.”

  Sandy and I leaned on the bar at Smokey’s and each silently downed a mojito. We had almost finished before Sandy asked, “So what’s next?”

  “A wedding. Two o’clock tomorrow.”

  She sighed. “The nuptials, themselves, huh?”

  “Eternal vows.”

  “Great.” She sounded exhausted, and I knew I’d misused her, pushing her out in front of me, an ill-dressed alter ego. See this, I was saying to the Oklahomans, here is my sole intimate and she is not one of you. Unfortunately my buffer was showing wear and tear.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “So why are you doing this? Putting yourself through an exhaustive ritual you don’t even believe in?”

  I took a long drink and stared into that murky mirror that’s always behind a bar, so you can keep an eye on yourself. I swiveled to face my best friend. “Sandy, my mother has sacrificed her whole life for all of us. I’m doing this for her. She’s thrilled. She told me how wonderful it was for Daddy to be able to invite all the civic leaders and his friends in Kiwanis to a real wedding. To say nothing of his snooty relatives.”

  “I see. So you’re doing it for her and she’s doing it for him. Why are you both so nice to him?”

  “He needs to feel in charge. I have to pick my shots.”

  “You passed on the one where he ran over to the motel ahead of you.”

  I didn’t want to think about that scene. “Sandy, we’ll live through this.”

  “He’s pulled all of you off track. He’s a raging compulsive personality.”

  “All the more reason to be kind.”

  Sandy lit another cigarette and blew the smoke above our heads. She swung her bar stool around a few times then rested her arms on the bar. “You know, Pat? You sound depressed. Are things okay with you and Josh?”

  “Oh yeah. We’ve already worked through all our issues.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, the emotional, cultural, psychological stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for one thing, we’ve decided we don’t need to reproduce ourselves. The world doesn’t need more consumers, more white westerners who’ll use up more of the world’s precious resources in one year of their privileged lives than a whole third world village will in a generation.”

  “Well, thank you for the policy statement.”

  “Sandy! Population is going to be the biggest issue of our century. Besides, Josh isn’t really settled in what he wants to do, besides music, a day job.

  “He works at the Wildlife Federation, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s given notice.”

  “When did he do that?”

  “Yesterday or the day before.”

  “He quit his job and then flew out here to get married?”

  “Look, Sandy,” I swung around to face her. “He wasn’t happy there. He shouldn’t be doing anything but playing the piano. I love the fact that he isn’t a hard charging, go-getter like my father, that he doesn’t have to be busy, busy, busy all the time, working, working even when there isn’t any work that needs doing, just working because work is all he has. The talks Josh and I have—My parents never talked, not in a deep searching way. Josh and I want to keep our intimate relationship just as it is, not get whipped up into being mommy and daddy, not falling into stereotyped roles, his marching out the door to slave away nine to five.”

  “But it’s okay if you keep working?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Sandy half laughed and signaled the waiter for another drink. “Boy, good thing you’ve worked through all your issues.”

  “What do you care whether or not we have children?”

  “Your resistance to becoming a parent might be a little over-determined, don’t you think?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, there’s your mother, and then there’s your father.”

  “I just want to get this over and go home. Okay, Sandy?”

  “Sure. It’s too late to unfuck your life now,” she said.

  “Go to hell.” I whispered.

  We sat at the bar without talking. Finally Sandy took a long swig from her glass. “Pat, Josh is probably the right guy for you. I’m crazy about him myself. But when we got off that plane, you turned into a zombie.”

  Sandy might be right about some of this, but I was feeling disoriented, and I sure didn’t need her to stir my anxiety further. All families had problems. We were doing all right. Mother had worked her way out of depression with the help of her psychiatrist. Ernest had grown into a splendid man of character and good humor. Olivia had chosen a life for herself, and I had found a mate. Only The General had shrunk. I leaned my head in my hands. I should let Sandy drive.

  *

  “Grandma Vic is here, ready to go,” Ernest said in the morning when I emerged from the bathroom.

  I looked at my watch. “It’s only ten o’clock.”

  “Mom said your flying in a
t the last minute made Grandma so nervous, she’s been running three to four hours ahead all week. She’s sitting in the living room.”

  “Do you think she’s bothered by the Jewish thing?” I asked.

  “No more than if you were intermarrying with an Episcopalian, which is to say, yes, she thinks it’s a shame you couldn’t find a nice Methodist boy to marry. She’s ninety-six years old, Patty. Mom, on the other hand, is delighted with the Jewish thing—our own bona fide link to the champion underdogs.”

  I looked at my brother, trying to see his little boy face behind the beard and glasses. “Do you remember the day we took the canoe out of the attic?”

  “Sure.” A slow grin formed inside his beard. “Happiest day of my childhood.”

  I smiled back. “I better go say good morning.”

  In the soft light through the sheers at the bay window my Grandmother Victoria, dressed for the wedding, looked like a faded painting. She had taken off her lace gloves and clutched them on the head of her cane. I moved to her side and kissed her cheek.

  “You were my best student,” she whispered so none of the generations of other watercolor students could hear her praise me. “When you were a very little girl you had a flare with the brush, a freedom. During the war we had such fun. But then you tightened up, and I couldn’t get you to paint the way you had when you were four and five. ” She always told it the same way. I inhaled the fragrance of her Madame DuBarry face powder. She squeezed my hand, but kept her eyes to the floor. Her chest rose and fell uncertainly.

  “How’s your angina?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer nor did she look up. Suddenly, I knew. It was my Mexican wedding dress. Late yesterday afternoon before the rehearsal, she’d walked the three doors down the block from her little house to stare at my selection— ruffles of gauzy cotton alternating with wide lace. I stepped up onto the tattered embroidered footstool that had belonged to Grandma Vic’s own mother in North Carolina. I held the dress in front of my jeans to display it.

  “A squaw dress?” Grandma Vic had gasped. She didn’t understand why a girl with a professional job in Washington would purchase something so flimsy in comparison to the stiff, satin, stand-alone gowns she was used to seeing the brides of our family zipped into. I’d thought I might get credit for thrift, that being so highly prized in my family, but this morning in the living room her eyes were forced away from me as from one awaiting deportation. I patted her fragile shoulder. “You look so beautiful.”

  *

  Olivia showed up for the wedding, stepping down from a sloppily painted, rusted VW bus into the swirling wind that always encircled our huge Gothic church—a memorial, built by grieving parents in honor of a lost child. I did a double take when I saw my sister carrying her Samsonite Vanity Case and her flapping bridesmaid’s dress on a hanger.

  “That’s Olivia?” Sandy gasped. She’d expected a hippie, of course, and so had I. For some reason, for the first time in her life, Olivia was wearing heavy make-up, a beige mask like something for turning tricks on Reno Street in Oklahoma City. She’d blackened her eyebrows, covered her eyelids with blue grease and painted her full, pouty lips bright red.

  “She’s never looked like this before. I guess someone who’s been living on a commune shouldn’t try to jump backward into femininity so abruptly.”

  When Olivia got sight of me standing beside the entrance, she took a step back. I gritted my teeth. I wanted to run to her and find out what she’d done with the beautiful golden girl my sister had been. But I stood still, and my friend, Deanna, who was approaching from the other direction, her fiery hair flying in the wind, quickly shifted her things into one hand. “Olivia?” she called and hurried up to put her arm around my sister’s waist. “Goodness, darlin’. It’s so good to see you.” She drew Olivia along toward the door. I held it open for them. Women like Deanna were the salt of the earth.

  The General had left for the church before I got downstairs this morning. He had announced last night that well before the ceremony he would station himself in the large hallway outside the sanctuary from which he planned to route all the girls—bride, bridesmaids and candle lighters—into the church parlor, and the groom, best man, and the ushers—drafted from the ranks of my cousins—into the minister’s study next door.

  The church parlor was smaller than I’d remembered, a cloying chamber of flowered wallpaper, flowered rugs and flowered draperies held down by a long dark trestle table. My bridal party seemed to sink into the florid mass. Mother in pink chiffon caught the light, but the bridesmaids and candle lighters wiggling into their moss green linen sheaths became just so many stalks waving here and there amid the flowered upholstery.

  Mother was on familiar ground here in the church parlor where she’d called hundreds of meetings to order and bowed her head for a thousand prayers. Dear Aunt Fel was here, her little sewing kit in her purse for any last minute repairs.

  The light from the window fell on the huge box left on the long table by the florist. Mother and I approached it. “How’re you doin’, darlin’?” Mother whispered as we stood side by side to lift the lid of the box.

  “Great.” We pulled away the waxy green paper and inhaled the fragrance. The light illuminated the wreaths—freesia, baby’s breath, and yellow roses to be worn on the heads of the bridesmaids, wrist bouquets for the candle lighters. And one perfect circle of white roses for the head of the bride. Also my bouquet—white freesia, stephanotis, roses and violets tucked here and there. Mother and I had whipped through so many decisions by phone, I was amazed to see these flowers, shimmering before me, evidence of arrangements made and then forgotten. “They’re perfect,” I said.

  She took both my hands. “Oh, darlin’,” she whispered, “We like Josh so much—a musician, so sweet and handsome. He’s almost worthy of you.” She made a teary smile, and I pulled her to me for a squeeze. We both turned to glance at Olivia who’d kept her back to me since coming in. “Please talk to her,” Mother said.

  “Sure, Mom, I’ll find out what’s up in just a sec.” With my arm around her, I guided my mother toward a corner where we could speak without anyone hearing.

  “Everything’s okay, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Oh course, Mom,” I promised, “but I’ll be leaving right after the reception, and I haven’t had a chance to ask how you’re doing, with both us girls gone, and Daddy’s blood pressure under control.”

  Fear glinted in her eyes, afraid I would again urge her to leave Daddy just as I had off and on for the last ten years.

  “You’re in great shape now,” I said, ”healthy and working. Ernest off on his own.” I held her shoulders and smiled into her eyes. “I want you to be happy, too.”

  “If you’re happy, it will be enough,” she said and the worry in her eyes made me feel I had cornered her. She rushed on. “I owe Daddy a lot. I always knew he’d dig ditches for me if he had to.” Trapped in gratitude, who was she to complain about a husband who had the one characteristic her father lacked? “Oh Patty, I knew that each of my children would grow up to make good lives for themselves, but you know Daddy.” She obviously wanted to stop here, but I refused to nod and make the gracious close. She looked so frantic and sad I really was tempted to just hug her and stop. “You know,” she began again, “that he would be lost and helpless if I left.”

  I saw that I was torturing a woman who didn’t have it in her to hurt him. We hugged and then she began to hand out the wreaths. I watched her moving around the room, gently pinning the flowers on all the long hair. I let out a long aggravated breath. This provider business! It seemed so old fashioned—the male breadwinner. But her happiness had been my oldest responsibility, and I shouldn’t have marred this day for her.

  “I have an announcement,” Calinda said. “It’s been suggested that we remain standing so as not to wrinkle this linen which all of you know won’t look like much going down the aisle if we’re not careful.” Those who had already sat down stood up. Perfume an
d hair spray filled the air, as these Oklahoma women bent over the mirrors of their vanity cases to arrange their long hair beneath the wreaths. The old pendulum clock on the parlor wall said 1:50. Perfect. The peals of the great pipe organ struck up the introductory music and poured down the hallway toward us. This was the official church organist playing a Bach Prelude. Mrs. Pryor, wielder of considerable political clout in this church, had convinced the minister that as wedding coordinator she should take over the organ when it was time to play the “Wedding March.” “That’s ludicrous,” Josh had said when I told him to expect a shift downward in keyboard skills when Daddy and I started down the aisle.

  “Right,” I said. “This church has more than one pocket of ludicrous.”

  Mother returned to the florist’s box for more wreaths and bobby pins. I slipped off my shift and laid it out full length on the trestle table in order to fold it. I was aware that Mrs. Pryor, heavy-footed and big-voiced, had entered the room, and my resolve not to acknowledge her drove me deeper into my folding project. She was turning each of the bridesmaids and candle lighters around as though they were little girls whose sashes and pigtails needed tying up. “Better get a move on, little bride,” she sang out. “Times a-wastin’.”

  I threw my full-length white slip over my head and did not emerge from it until she had closed the door behind her. This strapless undergarment to give the dress “a little body,” was a concession to Mother who had frowned at my flesh showing though the lace midriff.

  Just as I gave the elastic top of the slip an upward yank to settle it snug under my arms and raise its hem off the floor, I realized my error. I glanced about the room where good women were softly laughing and talking, unaware of the bad joke I’d played on us. My face went hot, and I labored to drag in a heavily scented breath as I knocked softly at the door to the adjoining study. To my relief the great dark tree of my brother immediately filled the slightly opened door as though he’d been waiting for my knock, his mass protecting me from view by the groom and his men.