Trying the Knot

by Todd Erickson

  Ginny led the couple to their seats at the center of the head table, filled their champagne flutes and gave them congratulatory hugs. As a prelude to many wonderful years together, Ginny wished them a terrific evening and sashayed away. Simultaneously, Nick and Kate tilted their glasses toward the guests.

  “I love you,” Kate whispered to him, brimming with emotion. She felt consumed with happiness she had never imagined possible, and she wondered how she would refrain from overflowing with joy.

  “To my daughter,” a voice bellowed in the distance, and all eyes turned to the man swaying tipsily in the middle of the room. “To my beautiful daughter and my future son-in-law.”

  Not exactly smiling, Kate bared her teeth and stared blankly at her obviously drunk father. He raised his glass in her direction and grinned from ear to ear. Glassy-eyed and trembling, she clutched tightly to Nick’s hand. Her father looked very much like a seafaring sailor despite his sloppily assembled country western gear. Balding and bearded, Ed Hesse possessed a phantom-like dignity that spewed proclamations as out of place as his ill-fitting ten-gallon hat. His sweeping gusts of bravado were as overdone as his silver belt buckle, and with each gale force sentiment, Kate felt herself growing more and more distant as if she were drifting rudderless out to sea.

  Chief Engineer Hesse turned to Nick’s relatives and spouted, “A toast to the Paulls— the good doctor may mend backbones, but we Hesses are the backbones of this community.”

  Half the champagne flutes lifted in the direction of the Paull family and then shifted to the Hesse clan, and vice-versa. The guests were unsure for whose honor the toast was intended. Making a spectacle, Ed Hesse swaggered across the room in his snakeskin boots and gave his daughter a big boozy hug. While laughing uproariously, the chief gave Nick a fierce slap on the back which caused him to stumble forward.

  “Don’t ever underestimate the strength of a sailor, my boy,” Chief Hesse uttered from the side of his mouth. Kate felt herself shrinking with embarrassment until Ginny Norris suggested the guests of honor have a seat so dinner could be served.

  Kate’s father staggered away while Nick and Kate retreated behind a wall of out of town guests. Chief Hesse successfully detoured around the snobs behind which his daughter entrenched herself. From the cordial aloof manner which Kate treated Ed Hesse, no one would suspect they were related, let alone father and daughter. As for her stepmother, despite Ed’s encouragement not to, Kate almost always ignored her.

  Ed Hesse lumbered to his wife and removed the video camera from her shoulder. He had asked her to film his welcome toast and capture his daughter’s triumphant arrival with her cash cow. Chief Hesse had always told his daughter to marry for money, and to his astonishment someone had actually taken his advice for once. However, it was not money that made Ed Hesse happy. He had little to show for his six-figure income, but he understood money provided the means to security a woman required to create a decent home life. Contrary to Ed’s attitude, money did make Shayla happy. It pleased her to think that to have come from so little, she finally wanted for nothing. All those years of pinching pennies felt as far away as her first hangover.

  Shayla straightened her husband’s hat and assisted with the massive video camera. Her shaggy platinum hair looked even more tarnished than her dangling earrings. Her sleepy bloodshot eyes were framed with smudges of frosted blue, and her downturn slash of a mouth was a burnt shade of orange. Shayla’s bedazzled red leather pants disappeared into her white boots. An excess of black fringe shimmied from the shiny purple shirt Tucked into her too tight pants. She appeared to be headed to a Dottie West memorial concert.

  Shayla held one hand firmly gripped around her beer bottle as if it anchored her to the table, and she waved to the video camera. Despite half-hearted attempts to stand poised in ladylike fashion, it seemed she might be more comfortable bellied up to the bar. Fringe flailing, she tipped her sloshing bottle repeatedly at Kate, and she sipped daintily but often. One futile attempt to initiate conversation began with her informing the entire table Ed was moving her to the country since her childhood dream was always to live on a farm of goats and chickens.

  Kate’s insides tightened, and her senses clammed up. Oblivious to Nick’s hand turning blue due to her tourniquet-like grasp, she wished to vanish. When Nick kissed her neck and left her side to visit with his groomsmen, Kate stood dazed and alone. Her future mother in-law, a picture of sturdy elegance, spotted Kate and summoned her over. Anne Paull extended Kate a comforting smile and told her she looked positively lovely.

  Tristana agreed with her mother, but silently she wondered if Kate was so backwards as not to realize her dress should have made a pit stop at the tailors. Kate said thank you and sat next to Anne. To her empty plate, she whispered, “This is the dress my mother was going to wear to the wedding. It came in the mail at our old house, and Nyda Czerwinski brought it by this afternoon.”

  “Oh, my,” Mrs. Paull stammered, attempting to stifle her mounting astonishment. Tristana nudged her mother and choked down a swallow of water suppressing a coughing fit. Still searching for a tactful response, Anne Paull was unsure what she was expected to say in such an awkward situation. She could not very well say the dress would have looked beautiful on Kate’s dead mother. Finally, she summoned up the words, “That’s a fine gesture, you must feel especially close to her tonight.”

  “Just today at the hospital, I was trying to remember what she looked like,” Kate said flatly. “I think the Valium the doctor gave me was playing tricks on my mind.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “Spoken from a true voice of authority,” Tristana assured, and Anne Paull glared at her daughter. Tristana asked, “Well, didn’t you pop them for years?”

  “Those were nerve pills, honey,” Anne said, and she looked waxen at her secret ex-husband, who leered casually at the matron of honor. They were deeply engrossed in a conversation about the cardiovascular benefits of an anaerobic workout versus an aerobic one. With the hope the good doctor would be later entertaining his most recent object of passing affection, Anne silently imagined herself torching the Pontoon boat later in the evening.

  “Did you happen to notice Nick’s father’s cufflinks?” Mrs. Paull asked. “Nick’s grandfather wore them on his wedding day, as did Dr. Paull. Tomorrow Nick will wear them proudly as one day will your son. It’s a family tradition.”

  Tristana rolled her eyes, and just then, Ed Hesse squeezed between Kate and Anne Paull and he bellowed out a request for a dance with his daughter’s future mother in-law. With all the grace of hog-tying a steer, he tugged her to her feet and spun her around the dance floor several times while Shayla admonished, “Smile for the camera!” Tristana laughed out loud as her mother’s eyes bugged out of her head, and she grabbed onto a speechless Kate.

  “This sure is some shindig,” Tristana said in a fake Southern drawl. She flashed Ed thumbs up, and yelled with mock encouragement, “You go, Daddy-O!” Spotting Ben across the room, Tristana fled what she considered a lost episode of Hee-Haw for a moment of normalcy.

  At the salad bar, Tristana stood behind Benjamin, who was debating whether the mushrooms looked fresh or not. Quickly losing patience, she interjected, “Oh for God’s sake, it’s a fungus no matter how fucking fresh.”

  Tristana wished to scarf down a salad and flee the ungodly floral lounge before Kate’s pirate/cowpoke father made any more asinine toasts, or he grabbed her to dance, or Kate revealed what other articles of clothing she had lifted from her dead mother’s wardrobe. Seth Poole was waiting for her at The Portnorth Porthole, where the newspaper crew was working away to meet their weekly deadline. The paper threatened to become a bi-weekly because Thad was so preoccupied with photographing the wedding, and Tristana consumed all Seth Poole’s precious time since breezing back into town.

  Tristana glanced at the clock and asked Ben if he had a cigarette for her to bum.

  “I don’t smoke, remember?” he answered regretfully.


  A small voice from behind the salad bar startled them. “I could get you one from the kitchen.” They backed away, and Jack swapped the nearly empty salad bowl for a full one. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto his ruddy cheeks, and he tried to look tough. “Menthol or regular?”

  “Wait a minute, aren’t you Kate’s kid brother?” Tristana asked. Placing a hand over her breast, she posed wanton confusion while extending her hand.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You’re all everyone talks about around here, except for the chick in the coma,” she observed. As she sized him up, she nodded approvingly. A dishtowel hung from his front pocket, and he carelessly wielded the empty bowl as if it were a dangerous weapon.

  ‘Who’re you, anyway?”

  “I’m Nick Paull’s sister, Tristana,” she said, “but don’t hold it against me.”

  Ben leaned in close to listen in on the future in-laws’ conversation. He was clearly enjoying Jack’s show of nervousness.

  Tristana asked perplexed, “Shouldn’t you be out here suffering with the rest of us?”

  Jack shrugged unconcerned. “I’m working. Besides it’s not my kinda party.”

  “What exactly does your kind of party entail?”

  “Tail?”

  “Tail!” Ben echoed loudly, laughing. “His kind of party is the naked kind.”

  “Are you suggesting you’d like to get naked with me, Jack?” Tristana asked, unable to suppress a wry smile. “Why, tomorrow we’ll be in-laws, and that’s slightly incestuous.”

  Mortified, Jack was lost for words. They were laughing at his expense, and he wondered if she had heard rumors about his having fooled around with his cousin Alexa. Presently, he had the attention of the most beautiful woman in the lounge, and he was rendered speechless cast under her flirty spell of bewitching ridicule. He hoped she found the uneasy nervousness of a backwater hooligan attractive. “Well, I-I do get around, it’s a small town.”

  “They don’t call him lady-killer for nothing,” Ben said offhandedly, not realizing the offensiveness of his comment. After the fatal prom accident, lady-killer was what his classmates chanted at him from passing cars.

  “I gotta get back to work,” Jack said, flashing a look of discomfort.

  “Exactly how old are you, Jack?” she asked. Ben moved away all too aware a juvenile delinquent had usurped his Goth rock pleasure princess’ sole attention.

  “Um, seventeen, why?” he stammered, and immediately he regretted not having aged himself a few years.

  “Too bad, you’re kind of cute,” she said and flashed a drop-dead gorgeous smile. “Potentially dangerous, but still cute.”

  With that said, Tristana walked seductively away, carrying her salad back to the table. Jack’s eyes followed the long black seams that disappeared under her short black skirt, and he stood in awe of her lean curvaceous body. Tristana approached her mother and informed she would have to leave soon due to an oncoming migraine. After taking a seat, she ravenously stabbed her fork into the iceberg lettuce and inserted a large bite into her wide-open blood red mouth.

  “Quit drooling, Jackal,” Ben snapped, and he dejectedly left Jack’s side.

  Jack remained alone, far away from the guests, and he waved for Tristana to come back to him. She sauntered to his side and was quiet while he struggled to find the words to express his desire to spend more time with her, especially before they became family and all. Amused and flattered, Tristana generously offered him a spin in her new Saab if he could meet her outside in 45 minutes. Unable to contain his excitement, Jack eagerly agreed without considering who would do the remainder of the dishes. Tristana nodded to Alexa and suggested he bring his girlfriend.

  “Oh, her – she’s only my cousin.”

  Tristana winked and said knowingly, “Consensual incest is cool by me.”

  Suddenly, Kate interrupted them by angrily demanding, “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Making a date with this cute little dishwasher,” Tristana said.

  Flustered, Kate said nothing and watched Jack dodge quickly away. She followed her brother into the kitchen, where he continued to scour dishes without looking at her. Outraged, she asked him once again, “What are you doing, Jack?”

  “The dishes,” he said evenly. He continued to scrape food from the plates as he rinsed them off. “It’d be obvious to any dimwit that I’m working.”

  “Why?” When he failed to respond, she demanded, “Look at me when I’m talking to you, Jack. Why are you doing this?”

  The bustling kitchen was relatively noisy with the scraping of plates, incessant hiss of running of water, and sizzling of the deep fryer.

  “You can’t ignore me forever,” Kate said loudly. She folded her arms and leaned against the wall and watched him ignore her for what seemed like forever. After loading the dishwasher, he inexpertly lit a cigarette and proceeded to blow smoke in her direction despite her small, irritated coughs.

  “You don’t even smoke,” she pointed out annoyed. “If you just give me a chance and listen –

  Apathetically, he snapped on the garbage disposal and puffed away.

  “Dammit, just listen for one second,” she hollered over the roaring noise. Water splattered from the faucet against her bare arms. The anger he felt toward her was palpable.

  Kate was rudely bumped out of the way by a waitress, who flung her ponytail about as she pinned up an order while yelling, “Six cod and four loin!”

  The server moved Kate to one side, snapped off the garbage disposal and grabbed her long Salem cigarettes. She peered inside the pack and shook them while giving Jack the evil eye. “You’re kind of in the way here, princess.”

  Kate bit her bottom lip and her eyes grew misty with tears. She moved closer to her brother, but he slipped away as he tossed the cigarette into the sink. “I’m sorry, Jonathon Gerard Hesse. I’m sorry for whatever it was I did to make you hate me so. I’m sorry about mom dying and dad remarrying, and for whatever else you blame me for.”

  “Okay, whatever.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “Just you remember, Jack, we’re family, you and I always, no matter what.”

  Feigning apathy, he turned away and said coldly, “The only family I got now is in a coma.”

  Kate backed away and wiped her runny nose. The humidity from the kitchen had made her thick hair limp, and she was sweating at her temples. Visibly wounded, she said, “That hurts, Jack. It really hurts.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “I loved Vange, too,” she whispered. Her forehead was sweaty now, and her eyes were watering. “You don’t know this, but at one time back in junior high, when we were just kids, Evangelica was like a sister to me.”

  “If you say so,” Jack shrugged, and he put further distance between them. He added, “Then you walked away from her, too, just like you did me.”

  She said in disbelief, “It wasn’t like that, Jack. It’s not how you think it was.”

  Fractured by his indifference, she covered her mouth, wiped her nose and wandered out of the kitchen. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit dining room, and the site before her resembled a ringmaster cowboy raising the arm of an unsuspecting circus attendee.

  “You heard it hear first, folks,” Ed Hesse announced proudly. With his arm wrapped around Nick, he trembled excitedly about to deliver breaking news. Off to one side, Shayla recorded the spectacle. “It’s official, this fine young specimen of a man here has promised me at least six grandchildren. Put your hands together for my future grandkids!”

  Amongst the laughing and chatter of her expected litter, Kate shivered and ran her hands through her thick dark hair. She shook her head unbelievingly as she grew increasingly nauseated. Escaping the echoing applause, she fled to the restroom in order to splash water on her face and to regain composure.

  “Christ Almighty,” Alexa muttered. “They’re plottin
g to turn Kate into a breeding mare.”

  “Kaye would’ve never approved,” Jane Feldpausch said, and she took a gulp of champagne. “This here is a three ringed-circus.”

  “Literally. When will they bring out the dancing bear?” Thad asked.

  Jane shuddered. “I can’t believe one of my sister’s kids is marrying for money, and the other one, well, he’ll end up in jail before he ever gets the chance to marry. Or even worse, he’ll knock up my daughter.”

  Kindly Father Tim put a comforting hand on Jane’s shoulder and massaged gently.

  Chelsea nudged Thad and pointed to Shayla, who passed the video camera back to her husband. She rolled her eyes and said, “This is the height of hillbilly narcissism.”

  Jane refilled her tall glass and took another guzzle of bubbly. She no longer had the stomach for her former brother in-law and his new wife. They looked like a demented Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

  In an orderly efficient manner, the waitresses distributed all the dinners except one. It was Kate’s idea to give their guests the option of the two cheapest items on the menu, smoked loin or deep fried cod, but neither dish appealed to Chelsea, who demanded she be brought a meatless morsel. Chelsea considered it a personal offense her own mother refused to place anything on the menu that did not at one time possess fur or scales, and she would not stop harping on the subject. Thad suggested she eat a salad.

  “Salad!” she yelled. “I’ve been eating lettuce in this joint for the past 20 years. I’m sick of salad. My mother’s deliberately torturing me into eating meat, and you’re telling me to eat a salad? Do you consider salad sustenance?”

  “Well, no.”