The Wedding

by Danielle Steel

  Things between Simon and Blaire had improved immeasurably. In fact, it was like a honeymoon, now that Sam was living in the guest cottage with Jimmy and little Matt, and her parents were alone in the house. They were surprised, and embarrassed, by how much they enjoyed it.

  They had forgotten what it was like to be alone anywhere, and they rapidly established a policy that the kids had to call before they dropped over at the main house. And whenever they did, Simon was amazed at how rapidly they were engulfed in utter chaos: baby seats, high chairs, Portacribs, disposable diapers. The thousand things they needed for Matt seemed to be everywhere; Sam was nursing in every room; and Jimmy was like a big, gangly kid, dashing around all over the house. Simon set up a new basketball net for him in the backyard, and they went out and shot baskets sometimes, just for fun, and to let off some steam and talk. He was pleased by how bright Jimmy was, how determined to get through school and make something of himself. He was definite about going to law school like his dad, and he was trying to talk Sam into going as well. The Steinbergs were not only pleased, but impressed by his devotion as a husband.

  The only major upheaval in the house was still the construction everywhere. Dozens of gardeners attacked the backyard every day, and in the kitchen, you could still cook, but they were pulling out all the old tile, and rewiring the ceiling.

  The only terrifying thing was that the wedding was only two weeks away. The garden was nowhere near complete, the bridesmaids hadn't had their dresses fitted yet, and Allegra's hadn't even arrived. She was hysterical about that, and a thousand other details, and she tried talking to Jeff about it at night, and he was just too tired. He was trying to finish his movie in the next ten days. He was irritable, and often snapped at her, but the tension on the set was driving him crazy.

  “Look, Allegra, I know … but can we talk about it some other time?” He seemed to be talking through clenched teeth most of the time. And Delilah Williams was calling them at home day and night, and driving him even more insane than his movie. It had taken them six months to get Carmen and Alan trained, and now Delilah was calling at eleven o'clock at night, to discuss a new “twist” to the cake, or a fabulous little “notion” she'd had for the flowers and the bridesmaids' bouquets. Jeff and Allegra both wanted to kill her.

  It had been two weeks of hell for them, and total stress when their phone rang, as usual, late one night. Allegra figured it was probably Delilah again, complaining that Carmen hadn't tried on her dress, and Allegra was going to have to remind her that she'd do it as soon as the picture wrapped. Instead, when she picked up the phone, it was a familiar voice, but at first she didn't register who it was. It was her father, Charles Stanton. He was calling from Boston, in response to the letter she had sent him months before, and he had never answered, inviting him to her wedding.

  “Are you still getting married?” he asked cautiously, after asking her how she was. It had been seven years since they last spoke or she'd seen him.

  “Of course.” Just listening to him, she felt her whole body go tense. Jeff had just walked into the room, and when he saw her face, he couldn't help wondering who had called her. For an odd instant, he wondered if it was Brandon. He had sent her a little note a few weeks before, implying that he would have married her eventually, and making a point of telling her that he'd finally divorced Joanie. He even had the nerve to tell her to call him for lunch sometime, and after showing it to Jeff, she had tossed it in the garbage.

  “Something wrong?” he asked, concerned, but she shook her head, and he went back to do some work in his office.

  “Do you still want me to come out?” her father asked. She didn't remember asking him, but she knew she probably had in her letter. She thought she had just told him she was getting married.

  “I don't imagine it would mean anything to you,” she said, explaining her letter to him. “It's not as though we have much contact with each other anymore.” It was partially a reproach, and in part just a statement.

  “You're still my daughter, Allegra. I'm taking a little time off here, and I was thinking about it the other day. If you'd like me to, I could come out for your wedding.” She didn't “like him to,” and she couldn't see the point of it, but she had asked him almost three months before. She wished she hadn't. She wished she had never told him at all. And she wanted to ask why he wanted to come to her wedding now. After all these years, after all his criticism of them, all his rejection of her, what difference did it make if she was getting married?

  “You're sure it's not too much trouble?” she said awkwardly, feeling years drop away from her. He always made her feel like the rejected child she had been.

  “Not at all. It's not every day I get the opportunity to walk my daughter down the aisle. After all, you're my only child.” As she listened to him, her mouth almost dropped open. What had she said to him? How could he possibly have interpreted it that way? She had no intention of walking down the aisle with him. He had never been there for her. Ever. And she was walking down the aisle with Simon, who had been.

  “I … uh …” Words failed her, and she couldn't bring herself to tell him that she didn't expect him to walk her down the aisle, but before she could say anything, he told her that he'd be arriving from Boston sometime Friday afternoon, the day of the rehearsal dinner. He was going to stay at the Bel Air. “Shit,” she muttered to herself as she hung up, and dialed her mother frantically. The whole wedding ordeal had been an agony and she couldn't believe what had just happened. She had two fathers expecting to walk her down the aisle, one of whom she hated.

  Simon answered the phone on the second ring, and he sounded strangely calm. Allegra knew that voice, and it usually meant something was seriously wrong, but she had had her own problems that night, and she didn't pick up on it. She just hastily asked to talk to her mother.

  “She's busy just now,” he said very quietly. “Can she call you back?”

  “No. I need to talk to her right now.” “Allie, she can't,” he said, sounding firm, and then suddenly she noticed the tone of his voice. It was scary.

  “Is something wrong, Dad? Is she sick?” That was all she needed now, her mother gravely ill before this nightmare wedding they'd forced on her, with that freak, Delilah, flapping around instead of her mother. “Where is she?”

  “She's right here,” he said, patting his wife's arm. “She's a little upset,” he said gently. She'd been crying for the last hour, and he raised an eyebrow at her, asking if it was all right to tell, and she nodded. It would be easier, in fact, for him to tell them all. “We just got a call from Tony Garcia at the network an hour ago. They're going to cancel your mother's show. They're going to do a big finale and run it in a few weeks, and then they're off the air.” After nearly ten years, it was a huge blow to Blaire. She felt as though she had lost an old friend, and she had been crying since she heard it.

  “Poor Mom,” Allegra said. “How's she taking it?”

  “Pretty hard.” Simon was honest.

  “Can I talk to her?” she asked hesitantly, but when he consulted with Blaire, she said she'd call Allegra later.

  Allegra hung up, looking pensive, and thinking of her mother. She had worked so hard, and had had so many victories with that show. It had been a real accomplishment for a long time, and now it was over. She could just imagine how her mother felt, and her heart went out to her.

  “Something wrong?” Jeff had drifted by and seen the look on her face. She looked like she'd had bad news, and he stopped to ask her about it.

  “They just canceled my mother's show.” It was a somber announcement, and in some ways it hadn't sunk in yet. Buddies was so much a part of her mother's life, she couldn't even imagine her without it. And now she would have to rush to make the last episode. It was terrible timing, with Allegra's wedding.

  “I'm sorry to hear that,” Jeff said sympathetically. “She's looked preoccupied for a while; I wonder if she knew.”

  “It's funny,” Allegra said. “I
thought she looked better for the past few weeks.” And in fact she had, since her rapprochement with Simon. She seemed happier and less distracted. “Maybe she wasn't feeling well. Anyway, Dad says she's really taking it hard. Maybe I should go over to see her.” And then she told him about the call from her father, about his unexpected appearance at her wedding. She hadn't even expected to hear from him anymore. She had forgotten all about her letter. “He's actually expecting to walk me down the aisle. Can you believe that? After all these years, he really thinks I'd let him do that. He must think I'm incredibly stupid.”

  “Maybe he thinks that's what you expect of him. Maybe he doesn't know how to act with you anymore either. It could be that he's changed. You should give him a chance, and at least talk to him while he's out here.” Like Simon, Jeff always tried to be fair, but Allegra was outraged by his suggestion.

  “Are you kidding? When do you think I'm going to have time for a talk like that, two days before our wedding?”

  “Maybe it's worth it for you to make time. He had a major impact on your life, Allegra.” And in a way, on their marriage. Jeff thought acknowledging that was important.

  “It's not worth my while even seeing him, Jeff. I'm sorry I ever wrote him.” She was steaming at Jeff for suggesting she should give him a chance, and at her father for being so presumptuous.

  “You're awfully hard on the guy,” Jeff said quietly. “He is coming out, and you invited him. It sounds like he's trying.”

  “Trying to do what? It's too late anyway. I'm thirty years old, and I don't need a father.”

  “You must, or you wouldn't have written to him in the first place. Don't you think it's time you resolved things between you? I think this is as good a time as any, kind of an end and a beginning.”

  “You don't know anything about it,” she exploded at him, storming across the room as she paced. She couldn't believe he was telling her to give her father a chance, after he'd always been a bastard to her. “You have no idea what it was like after my brother died, the way he drank, the way he slapped my mother around, the way he treated us after we left and came to California. He never forgave my mother for leaving him, and he took it out on me all my life. He hated me. He was probably sorry I didn't die instead of Patrick. Paddy would probably have been a doctor like him.” She was sobbing as he came to her, all her fears and inadequacies and terrors hanging all over her, like laundry on a clothesline.

  “Maybe that's what you need to talk to him about,” Jeff suggested gently as he approached her. “What was he like before your brother died, if you can remember?”

  “Okay, but he was always kind of cold, and he was very busy. He reminds me a lot of your mother, unable to open up and reach out and relate to anyone else, not very human,” she said candidly, and then looked at him in embarrassment. Although they both acknowledged that the weekend in Southampton had been horrible, she had never openly criticized his mother to him.

  “What's all that supposed to mean? My mother is very reserved, but she's perfectly human, Allegra.” He sounded chilly.

  “I'm sure she is.” Allegra was trying to back off, but she was annoyed that he had taken her father's part, and was so willing to be compassionate toward him. “Except if you're Jewish,” she added hastily, and Jeff suddenly backed away from her as though she were radioactive.

  “That's a rotten thing to say about her. The poor woman is seventy-one years old, and she's a product of another generation.”

  “The same generation that put the Jews in Auschwitz. I didn't exactly feel like she was a warm and caring person while we were there. And what exactly would she have said if you hadn't told her my ‘real’ name is Stanton, and not Steinberg? You know, that was a pretty shitty thing to do. Downright cowardly in fact.” She glared at him from across the room, and he was trembling with rage over the things she had said about his mother.

  “So is refusing to talk to your father. The poor guy has probably paid his dues for the last twenty years. He lost a son too, not just your mother. She's had other kids, she has another life, another family, another husband. What has he got? According to you, he has absolutely nothing.”

  “Why are you so fucking sympathetic to him, for chrissake? Maybe all he deserves is nothing. Maybe it was his fault Paddy died. Maybe if he hadn't been treating him himself, or wasn't such a drunk, maybe he could have saved him.”

  “Is that what you think?” He looked appalled. They were the demons that had trailed her for twenty years, dancing all over their living room, and even she looked frightened. “You think he killed your brother?” He looked horrified. It was a terrible thing to say about anyone, especially her father.

  “I don't know what I think,” she said hoarsely, but he was still bristling. He hardly recognized her in the things she had said that night and he didn't like her. It was the first real fight they'd ever had, and it was a lulu. It was almost worthy of Carmen and Alan.

  “I think you owe me an apology for the things you said about my mother. She never did anything to hurt you. She was just shy when she met you.”

  “Shy?” Allegra screamed at him from across the room again. “You call that shy} I call it vicious.”

  “She was «ewer vicious to you!” He was shouting now too, and neither of them liked it.

  “She hates Jews!” was the only retort Allegra could come up with.

  “You're not Jewish, so what do you care?” He threw back at her ineptly.

  She slammed out of the house, and got into her car. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew she wanted to get away from him, and as far as she was concerned, he could take his wedding and stuff it. She wasn't going to marry him if he was the last human being alive, no matter who organized the wedding, or who walked her down the aisle. They could have the whole goddamn mess for all she cared.

  She drove down the Pacific Coast Highway going eighty-five and was at her parents' house in forty minutes. She opened the front door with her key, forgetting their new rule to call them first, and she slammed the front door so hard she almost broke the picture window. Her parents were sitting in the living room, and her mother jumped when she heard her.

  “Good God, what happened to you?” Blaire looked at her. She looked like a wild, rumpled mess. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, bare feet, and she had her hair piled high on her head and stuck through with a pencil. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I'm not,” Allegra said, looking like a madwoman. “I'm canceling the wedding.”

  “Now?” Her mother asked, horrified. “It's less than two weeks away. What happened?”

  “I hate him.”

  Simon turned away to conceal a smile, and her mother stared at her, unable to believe she would do this. All she could think of now were the endless preparations. All for nothing. “Did you have an argument?”

  “That's beside the point. His mother is a monster, and he thinks I really ought to give Charles Stanton a chance after all these years. ‘The poor man has had so many problems.’ That's disgusting.” She looked irate as she said it.

  “How did Charles get into this?” Blaire looked totally confused. She hadn't seen him herself in seven years, and he hadn't crossed her mind since she'd told Allegra to at least invite him to the wedding.

  “He called tonight. He thinks he's walking me down the aisle. Can you beat that? He wants to come to my wedding.”

  “That's all right, dear,” her mother said calmly, forgetting her own woes and disappointments, and concentrating on her daughter. “Maybe Jeff is right. Maybe it's time to make peace with him.” But Allegra only got angrier when she heard it.

  “Are you all nuts? The man abandoned me emotionally twenty-five years ago and you all think we should be pals? Are you all out of your minds?”

  “No. But it's not worth hating him for all these years, Allegra,” she said wisely. “There were a lot of things back then that you weren't old enough to understand, about grief, and what happened to him. He just couldn't handle it when P
addy died. He cracked for a while. I think he actually lost his mind, partially—emotionally in any case. And I'm not sure he ever completely regained it. I'm sure he's quite sane technically, or at least I assume he is. But he was never able to get the pieces put back together after that, to have a personal life, or maybe not until now. But you ought to at least listen to what he has to say.” As her mother spoke to her, there was the insistent sound of their doorbell. Simon looked surprised and went to answer it. It was like living in an airport, or on a sitcom. But much to everyone's amazement, it was Jeff, and he looked almost as disheveled and angry as Allegra.

  “How dare you walk out on me like that!” he shouted at her, and Simon and Blaire exchanged a look, and walked quietly upstairs. Allegra and Jeff were so furious, they never even noticed that her parents had left, and they stood in the living room and shouted at each other for an hour, as Blaire tiptoed around upstairs wondering if they were still going to have a wedding.

  “Well, they certainly sound well matched,” Simon said with a small smile. It was more excitement than they'd seen in their house in years, if ever. And a few minutes later, Samantha called. With the windows open, on a warm night, they could hear Jeff and Allegra's argument all the way to the guest house.