“I didn’t think you noticed that. I had been running for the train, so I was hoping my cheeks were already flushed.” She blushed even more, her face felt warm as he kissed her again. He whispered in her ear, “You also had some kind of magical, sensual look on your face when I knew what the undertoad was.” She looked up at him with wide eyes, incredulous.
Katie made a giant bowl of popcorn and they settled in to watch To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Katie liked old movies even more than she did. During the scene when they were riding along the Riviera, Katie pointed out this was close to where Princess Grace died in a car crash. “Princess Diana died in a car crash too. Tragic princesses.”
She never told Katie about his parents. She turned to look at him sitting in the middle of the two girls, with the bowl of popcorn in his lap. He seemed to know what she was thinking and put his arm around her. “There are no real life fairy tales. No one’s immune to tragedy, right? It’s okay.”
Katie looked over at them. “Am I missing something?”
“My parents died in a car crash when I was eighteen.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that.”
“It’s okay, how would you know that?” He passed her the bowl of popcorn. Later that night they made love again and afterwards, as she lay in his arms, she mentioned her sister Monica’s wedding.
“Another wedding? And you’re a bridesmaid again?”
“Yeah, lucky me. But this wedding will be different, still stressful just different stress, the usual family stress. Would you like to come as my date?”
“Are you kidding? I’d love to come. I can’t believe you waited this long to invite me.”
“I thought you’d be bored. It’s in three weeks, in Vermont, in the backyard of the house I grew up in. My older sister Maria and her husband Josh bought the house when my parents moved to Florida.”
“Bored? No way, this is exciting. I get to see the driveway where Jennie kept vigil. The secret back stairway you ducked out of in the obscene mini skirt. Hey, do I need a suit? I’ll have to buy one.”
“No, it’s a casual wedding. A nice shirt and khakis will suffice. Katie is coming too. Maybe we could all drive to Vermont together?”
“Definitely. I’m in.”
* * *
He slept over Wednesday night before the wedding and they left early Thursday morning, driving in his car. “Buckled up ladies?” he asked, as he buckled himself into the driver’s seat. Everyone was very competitive with the car games. They started with the alphabet game, because as she pointed out, there would be more businesses and road signs closer to the city. He said, "I'll play only if you make the letter Q an exception." Laughing, she said that was okay. She won again, despite the change in rules. He turned around to the back seat and told Katie, “I should have warned you that game is rigged in her favor. She seems to always win.”
Katie laughed. “It’s because she’s never driving and she rides shot gun. It’s harder for the driver or from the back seat. She’s positioned to win.”
He nodded in total agreement and gave Katie thumbs up, while she just ignored the two of them. Katie suggested a game called I’m Going to the Beach. Each player had to name something they were bringing to the beach and then the next person had to add something and list all the things that came before. “I’m going to the beach and bringing a beach towel, flip flops, a book, etc.” She won that game too. He suggested twenty questions. Katie won.
“Okay, no more games.”
“You’re just a sore loser.” She leaned over to kiss his cheek.
“Am not. I mean I don’t like to lose, but I’m not sore about it. Well, maybe a little.” He laughed, turned up the volume on the radio and started singing. When Beyonce’s Halo came on, she and Katie knew all the words and sang along with great feeling and passion. When the song was over, he put his fingers in his mouth and made a loud, piercing whistle often heard at concerts and sporting events. “That was awesome. A truly spiritual experience.”
Katie piped up from the back seat. “Hey, has she told you about the time she tried to start a union at a factory she worked at one summer?”
His eyes lit up and he looked at her with a smile. “So you’re already a union organizer? You were asking me all those questions the other day but it sounds like you already know what you’re doing.”
“I wasn’t starting a union. I just called the Massachusetts State Labor Board.”
“Ok, this I have to hear.”
She sighed and looked in the back seat. “Thanks, Katie.”
Katie just laughed. “He’s a card carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, right? He’ll like this story.” He looked in the rearview mirror, smiling and winked at Katie.
“Oh, all right. So, the summer after my freshman year in college, the only job I could find was on an assembly line. I was renting a house on Cape Cod with friends from school and desperately needed a job to pay rent or I’d have to spend the rest of the summer back in Vermont. It was a packaging company for pens and pencils. You know the packages of pens you see hanging on those pegboard racks in stores? The front is clear and you can see the pens under a plastic covering glued to a cardboard backing?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Well okay, I was on the line for the multi-colored pen packages. There were four of us, two on each side of the conveyor belt with a box of red, green, blue or black pens. We picked up a handful at a time as the plastic covering came down the line and we’d drop one pen in each covering, then it would go through a machine which glued the cardboard backing on. We would do this eight hours a day. Eight very long hours.”
“Holy shit, how do you find these jobs? I was a lifeguard in the summertime.”
“I’m just lucky, I guess. A lady I always worked with taped a little sheet of paper onto the side of the belt with the metric system conversions on it. We were trying to learn them to help pass the time.”
Katie looked puzzled. “So how come when Andre said two centimeters, you didn’t know the equivalent in inches?”
She laughed. “Because I didn’t stay long enough to master it. Anyway, one day the shipment of pens hadn’t arrived so they rang the bell ten minutes after we started work. They usually only rang the bell for breaks and lunch. We all went in the cafeteria and they told us to punch out, we'd get paid for fifteen minutes. They were rounding up they told us, like they were doing us some kind of favor.”
“That’s bogus. They can’t do that. Isn’t there a minimum amount of time you need to be paid for?”
Katie clapped her hands and laughed. “Bingo. See, he knows this stuff, too.”
“Yup, if you show up to work in most states, you have to be paid for a minimum amount of time. I took a labor law class freshman year and learned about the minimum show up law. So, I got the number for the state labor board and they told me it was three hours in Massachusetts. When the boss saw a group of us still standing around the cafeteria, he came over and asked what was going on. I told him I called the labor board and they were required to pay us three hours for showing up.”
He was laughing and shaking his head. “You go girl. Awesome. What happened?”
“We all got paid for three hours but I got laid off, for simply knowing my rights. I mean they said it was due to a shortage of work, but no one else got laid off. You know, I forgot all about that, Katie. I was just like Joan at work, an employee at will. They were always speeding up the belt, too. Once we got good at a certain speed, they’d make it go faster.”
“Like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory?” he asked.
“Yes, exactly. It’s like where I work now, you edit a certain amount of papers, and get good at it then you have to do more. It’s 21st century factory work. I went to college for this? Anyway, it all worked out. I got a job waitressing at a fried seafood joint near the beach and made a lot more money.”
He looked over at her, smiling and sh
aking his head. “What did I tell you? Waitressing and writing, when are you gonna listen to me?”
She smiled back at him, stroking his cheek with the back of her hand. “Hey, I’m hungry and I’ve gotta pee. Montpelier’s the next exit.” They stopped for a bathroom break and some nourishment. The culinary school had a bakery so they loaded up on scones, muffins, cookies, and iced coffees to go. Back at the car, he handed her the keys. “You take it into Burlington. I’ve got my guitar in the trunk, I can play us some tunes if you want.”
Katie jumped up and clapped. “Yes. Let’s do that.” She drove, with Katie riding shotgun and their serenading minstrel in the back seat. He played a lot of Jack Johnson and also knew Catch the Wind and Blackbird. The girls sang along to a fairly decent rendition of John Mayer’s Heart of Life. Whether he agreed or not, he had a nice voice. She turned around and asked him, “”Has anyone ever mentioned you sound like Eddie Vedder?” He scoffed, “Absolutely not. He’s amazing.”
When they dropped Katie off at her parents' house, they all got out of the car and hugged. “That was the best drive home to Burlington I have ever had. See you two at the wedding.”
* * *
They were upstairs in her old bedroom on the third floor, getting ready for a BBQ at her aunt’s house where her parents were staying. He met her sisters when they arrived, but her parents' flight from Florida was late, he had yet to meet them. He really hit it off with Maria’s husband Josh, who enlisted him to help set up for the wedding and do all the wiring and lighting. The ceremony was taking place outside in the yard. The weather looked spectacular for Saturday, although a tent was set up just in case. Dinner was being served in the yard, while the music and dancing would take place in the barn later in the evening. She was stressing about seeing her parents. “What exactly is it you’re upset about?” he asked.
“My mother is going to make a big deal about my hair.” She started to mimic her mother with an all knowing, superior tone in her voice. “I knew you would realize short hair looked better on you. It was just a matter of time. I just don’t want to hear it. If she only knew the torture she put me through. And please don’t get involved in any long conversations with my father. He will try to trick you into revealing too much.”
“Too much of what?”
“I don’t know, something he can use against you.”
“I think you’re being paranoid.” She was sitting on the end of the bed wearing the dress she wore with Nick the night he gave her the gift certificates, the dress with the puffy bottom and the blue polka dots. He was unpacking his clothes, including a beautiful light blue short-sleeved shirt for the wedding, made of some kind of brushed silk material that was really soft. It was going to look awesome with his eyes. He was taking this all very seriously as he also bought a new pair of khakis, shaved his scruffy beard and got his hair cut, this time visiting a salon. It was styled slightly long, brushing his collar, layered and much shorter in the front, with curls just covering the top of his ears, a head full of thick, tousled, wavy soft curls and she loved it.
“Chill, okay? It can’t be that bad. They’re your parents.”
“Exactly.”
He sat down next to her and taking her hand, sweetly kissed her and ran his hand though her hair. “You look really pretty. What can I do for you?”
She shrugged. “Nothing, it’s just me.”
“We’re in your childhood bedroom. How about something really naughty? I can see you’re the rebellious type.”
He laid her back down on the bed and ran his arm up her leg. Her strapless silver sandals dropped to the floor. He lifted her a bit, moving her up the bed then tugged at her panties.
“Hey, we have to be at my aunt’s in twenty minutes.”
“We’ll be fashionably late.” He kissed her again, more intensely this time. “Okay, I’m going under.”
“What?” He lifted the puffy skirt on her dress, his head disappearing underneath. “What are you doing?”... “Oh my.” She felt his tongue probing her as she let out a long, low moan.
When they did arrive fashionably late to her aunt’s, a full forty-five minutes late, her mother made an immediate beeline for her. “Where have you been, you’re late. Your sisters told me you cut your hair. You look so nice. And you must be the new boyfriend.” Her mother gave him a big hug. “Don’t you think she looks nice with her hair short?”
She stood holding his hand, which he kept squeezing, smiling a dreamy, silly sort of smile. He wrapped his arm around her waist and said to her mother, “I think she’s gorgeous any way she wears her hair.” He had a dopey smile too.
* * *
The day of the wedding was a perfect summer day, sunny and warm but not too hot. The weekend was going really well. Her sister Monica kept her plans very low key. The rehearsal dinner was at a local Italian restaurant they always went to for special occasions, graduations and birthdays. The food was served family style.
Everyone loved him. Maria told her he and Josh became fast friends along with Mike, Monica’s fiance. Sara said he was like the brother they never had and their Dad liked him too. “You’re kidding?” She wasn’t sure what to make of this news. Her boyfriends were always picked for shock value, like Jared. She dated him her senior year and went to the prom with him, where she didn’t have formal pictures taken because they hid out by the dumpsters getting high. He had about twenty tattoos, always dressed in black leather, including for the prom and wore black ear stretchers. He also rode a motorcycle, which angered her father beyond belief. Every night she left the house that year, he sat up listening to sirens in the distance and pacing the floor. He was so relieved when she left for college that fall. She felt bad about that now.
On the opposite end of the spectrum was Nick, but she knew her father wouldn’t like him either. After all, her Dad staged protests on campus when Bush decided to invade Iraq. He made signs saying “No War for Oil”. He hated Dick Cheney with a passion. Every Wednesday night, peace vigils were held in the center of town and he was a regular participant. She knew he influenced many of her own opinions. Liberal politics were the religion in her house growing up. Do Unto Others, There but for the Grace of God and To Whom Much has Been Given Much Will be Expected took on a secular, political twist. Despite the changing political winds, her father was a product of the sixties and never gave up his ideals. Nick, with his capitalist goals and lust for earning lots of money, was as anathema as Jared in her father’s book.
Her mother discovered he had a great eye for colors, so she enlisted him as her head assistant wedding planner. She called him her Best Boy. He worked all afternoon stringing little white lights around the trees in the yard and hanging them from the rafters of the barn. The morning of the wedding, he was up at the crack of dawn, getting the yard ready. Bales of hay were being stacked like benches and covered with colorful old quilts. Seating arrangements were set in conversational groupings around the yard. The barn was full of old furniture her mother sold at consignment shops and these were all carried out to the yard or arranged along the barn walls-rocking chairs, wicker furniture, Adirondack chairs, antique benches. Old crates were used as coffee tables. The center of the barn was the dance floor, a stage set up at the far end.
Long tables covered with quilts and antique linens lined the side of the yard. She and her sisters filled mason jars with wildflowers and small jelly jars with votive candles floating in colored water. Wind chimes were strung in the trees and a few hammocks hung between some of the tall pines. He came up with the idea of putting the beer and wine on ice in an old claw foot bathtub, pointing out that as the ice melted, it would just drip out the old drain. Her mother practically swooned.
The wedding was at five. She was getting ready with her sisters and he wanted to take a quick nap so he could dance all night. He was very pumped about the fact the music was a local reggae band. “I love your family.”
“You seem to be a big hit.” She stopped him at the bottom of the stairs and as he lea
ned on the banister, the knob at the top of the newel post came off in his hand.
“Hey, look at that.” He tried doing his best Jimmy Stewart impersonation. “This is a very interesting situation. Apparently your family had a wonderful life living here.” He smiled a huge smile, the one she fell for that night on the train.
She leaned over to kiss him, smiling and laughing. “I love you. You really are the best boy I’ve ever met.”
* * *
About a half hour before the ceremony, she was stressing over her hairpiece. A band of silk flowers, three soft roses with green leaves on a twisted hemp rope that tied around their heads, matched the silk rose colored, knee length dresses they were wearing. The problem was, there was a knot in the back and everyone was wearing the knot under long hair where no one would notice. Except her knot, which was resting on top of her short hair. She was trying not to freak out. As the youngest girl, she was always accused of being the crybaby in the family, although she thought that was so untrue. Her mother took charge. “All right, I know who can fix this. I’ll get my Best Boy.”
“No, Mom, he doesn’t want to come in here, and stop calling him your Best Boy. You make him sound like he’s five years old,” she complained, sounding very cranky. Her mother bustled out of the room. “Agggh!” she groaned, falling back on the bed in her sister’s master bedroom, where they were getting dressed. A photographer was recording the pre-wedding activity for posterity. When her mother escorted him back to the room full of girls, he smiled sheepishly and sat down next to her.
“Come on, sit up. What’s the matter?” Pointing to the knot on the back of her head, she pouted and said, “This looks stupid.” He took it off, examining if for a minute. Her sisters stood watching as the photographer snapped a photo of them sitting together on the bed.
Looking up at the photographer, he put his hand up as if fending off paparazzi. “No photos, please. Can someone get me some scissors?” Her mother ran off to find some as he patiently started to untwist the hemp, everyone watching raptly. When he got the ends to one strand, he tied it off and cut the excess with the scissors her mother handed him, as if she were a nurse in an operating room. He tied it back on her head and covered the now tiny knot with her short hairs, which curled in the hot and humid upstairs bedroom. Her sisters clapped.
The Reverse Commute Page 25