Life From Scratch

by Melissa Ford

  There seem to be two kinds of people in this world—the fondant kind and the buttercream kind. There are those who want the fondant cake, and while it looks gorgeous, a fondant cake is more about the surface than it is about what's underneath. Fondant tastes like crap, and we all know that, but the couple accepts the fact that they are serving a disgusting-tasting cake to their guests in exchange for the ooohing and aaaahing about the cake that comes beforehand. Fondant cakes are gorgeous cakes. They are smooth and unblemished and even and perfect. Not a very realistic way to go into a marriage.

  On the other end of the spectrum are the couples who put taste over appearance, serving a butt-ugly but delicious cake to their guest. Fine, buttercream-coated cakes can be pretty, and if the baker fusses with it enough, it can even look smooth and seamless. But the reality is that buttercream is never as pretty and perfect as a fondant cake. It doesn't scream “photo-op.” And it's a wedding—the best day of your life according to some—so shouldn't even the cake be exquisite, as least to look at?

  Please don't ask me which type of cake Adam and I had at our wedding.

  Chapter Ten

  Crushing the Garlic

  I rip up Laura’s change of address card the moment I get home. I write a long blog post about how husbands who don’t mourn the end of their marriage are heartless assholes. Arianna suggests that I should take it down; stop baiting Adam. But I leave it up and let it collect comments expressing agreement. Damn straight I’m right. A person shouldn’t feel relief when something ends after twelve years unless they’re being released from a POW camp.

  Six days after the party without a phone call, and I am ready to write off Gael, too, when he calls to remind me of my promise to help him at the wedding. “I’m collecting on my promise,” he informs me.

  “Really?” I say, stirring some rice into the melting butter at the bottom of my pan. “A wedding.”

  “And you need to dress up. You need to blend.”

  “So I should grab my big white gown out of storage?” I say dryly.

  “Do you still have it?” Gael asks.

  “Of course I still have it. In storage somewhere, but I still have it. Why?” I ask. For a moment I’m frightened that he’ll suggest that we head off to town hall.

  “I didn’t know if that was the sort of thing you got rid of after a divorce.”

  His statement makes me pause. I’m not sure how I decided what I would keep and what I would leave behind, but suddenly, my big, cream-puff-of-a-dress feels like an unlucky talisman for any future relationship. It’s like the literary monkey’s paw—I need to throw it out before it causes something terrible to happen.

  Though fate doesn’t really work like that . . . right?

  I still make a mental note to get rid of said dress on eBay and promise Gael that I’ll be ready to go by two o’clock, dressed in something appropriate and understated. My hair in something more professional-looking than a ponytail. I hang up and return to my rice, willing it to brown evenly.

  I haven’t really given the task of helping him at the wedding much thought since he first proposed it. To be fair, we had just had sex when I agreed to go. I was in such a state that I probably would have agreed to anything—running off to the Bahamas, breaking-and-entering into my old apartment, cooking ham. Thinking about going to a wedding—even someone’s I don’t know—makes me feel a little numb. Most of my friends were already married before I went through my divorce, so it has been several years since I’ve had to hear someone say “I do.” In fact, this will be my first time facing a nuptial aisle since my own divorce.

  Listen, I tell myself, it’s okay to be sad for yourself even in the face of someone else’s happiness. You don’t even know this bride. You owe her nothing except to hold some cameras and pass Gael his equipment. If I have to tune out the “I dos,” and avert my eyes from seeing her big white dress, so be it.

  Gael calls me downstairs at two o’clock. I’ve left my hair down, willing it into damp curls with a little gel. I’m wearing a standard black cocktail dress; knee-length. I add a string of pearls that my ex-mother-in-law gave me for my wedding. Gael has parked a van outside my front door, blocking the fire hydrant. The van’s back doors are open, revealing a series of boxes and bags.

  “There is someone else doing the video,” he tells me. “We’re just taking the still shots. We have to be there at three, but I thought we’d get there a bit early to set up, so I could teach you all the equipment. Bridal party portraits begin at four.”

  It feels like he’s all business, as if I’m just a woman he has hired for the day, one he doesn’t need to invest a lot of niceties in, since there is little chance that he’ll see me again. I feel myself respond with my own coolness, and I get into the front seat without speaking, fastening my seat belt silently and hoping I remembered to put on the waterproof mascara as opposed to my normal, black-river-creating make-up.

  He is tense as we drive through the city, barely speaking except for an occasional statement here and there. It is annoying to drive in the city, the stopping and starting and people passing in front of the car. There is a small lot by the synagogue, and we pull in next to the catering truck. Gael gets out and unpacks the trunk, bringing all the boxes and bags into the dimly lit basement hallway. Steam escapes out the synagogue kitchen, and as the door opens, I glimpse white-aproned women squeezing something semi-liquid out of piping bags onto grilled toast. My stomach lurches.

  He opens a bag and points at a disassembled camera body, rattling off the names of various cameras and their lenses. He shows me how to set up the tripod, insert the cable release so the camera can be ready for the ceremony. How to use the external flash. I am barely registering half of what he is saying, knowing full well how important it is to get this right. He is here to capture moments. This bride may need these photos later on to remind her why she married the groom in the first place. What if we miss the kiss at the altar? Miss the first dance? Perhaps it will change the entire course of their marriage when she is sitting on the sofa late at night, waiting for her husband to get home and desperately needing a visual reminder that she does still love him.

  Sometimes I forget that everyone is not me.

  And I had those pictures to remind me, yet I still left Adam.

  One of the bridesmaids comes giggling down the hallway, clutching a glass of champagne in one hand and a make-up bag in the other. Her eyebrows raise as she catches site of Gael leaning over one of his open bags, and she gives another glance over her shoulder as she disappears into a stairwell, presumably on her way to the bride. I catch Gael looking at the swish of taffeta we can still see through the small, square window in the door.

  “Pretty,” I say tersely. Even in mauve taffeta, the bridesmaid was stunning.

  “Blonds are not my thing,” he says.

  “What about the woman at the party?” I ask.

  “What woman at the party?” Gael asks, genuinely confused. He opens one of the cases and shifts around two lenses.

  “The blond. By the window.”

  “Carly?” he questions, as if I’d know her name. “I know her from a wedding. I shot her sister’s wedding in the fall.”

  “Oh,” I say, suddenly relieved. “Oh.”

  “Apparently the marriage is already over.”

  “Divorce is en vogue,” I comment wryly.

  He looks up at me and shrugs. “I’m sorry, Rachel. Are you upset to be at a wedding?”

  “No, no, really, no.”

  Except that I am.

  “I didn’t want to shoot this one,” he admits. “I had no choice, I needed the money, but I dated the bride.”

  “Recently?” I ask, hoping that I’ve kept the gasp mostly out of my voice. “Does the groom know?”

  “It was years ago. And I didn’t remember her, actually. She wanted my brother-in-law to photograph her wedding, but he wasn’t available today, so he set up an appointment with me. Midway through the meeting, she starts asking about Madrid
and reminiscing about this crazy day in Central Park, and the groom says, ‘I think we have something in common.’” Gael repeats the groom’s words in a perfect replica of a New York accent. “I am not excited to be here either. Let’s just endure and toast ourselves afterwards.”

  I manage a weak smile and hoist two of the bags onto my shoulder, following him up the stairwell to the lobby outside the main sanctuary. A few bridesmaids are milling around, fixing each other’s make-up and hair. One gives a startled glance when she sees Gael and gives him a small, awkward wave. He gives a terse wave in reply and we duck into the sanctuary, almost knocking into the wedding director overseeing the finishing touches on the chuppah.

  “Did you date her, too?” I hiss.

  “She’s a friend of the bride. I think we had dinner together one night. With the bride, Rachel, with the bride.”

  I am itching to ask him a dozen questions, everything from how many girlfriends has he had in New York to how long he dated the bride, who is due to show up in the lobby within the next ten minutes for family portraits. But he is busy walking around the room, checking the lighting from all angles. I sit down on one of the chairs and watch the florist twist a final rose around one of the poles holding up the chuppah.

  At this point in my own wedding, I was sitting with Arianna and my sister and Adam’s sister in the bridal room, changing the polish color on my nails. I had gotten a manicure the day before, and the color was still bothering me. Arianna told me to fix it; it was easy to switch the color and have it be perfect. I remember holding my hands flat on the table between us. I thought the nail polish color was important back then. No one probably noticed it.

  One of the bridesmaids opens the sanctuary door to peek inside. “Hey Gael,” she calls out. “Amanda is down here now, if you’re ready to get started.”

  He gives me the smallest glance and mouths the word “endure,” though it looks as if he is just puckering his lips. I follow him out into the hallway and help him arrange the various formations of family and friends, the bridesmaids giggling through the whole exercise, the bride radiant in the center of each picture.

  She is small and blond—so much for his lack of interest in blonds—with thin lips and hairless arms and blond eyebrows waxed into a look of perpetual surprise. She looks like she could still be in high school, except that her mother keeps referring to her as Doctor Flaum to anyone who will listen. I try to picture her with a stethoscope draped around her neck, but Gael whispers that she has a doctorate in literature. I try not to laugh and drop the flash the next time I hear her mother address her.

  “Hey Rachel,” a voice drawls, and I turn around, half expecting to see Adam sporting a new voice—almost like the monster that keeps jumping out at the heroine in the horror film—except that it’s Polar Pete of dinner party fame. He takes my hand limply, shaking it as if he’s rattling a piggy bank. His skin is still cold and strangely white. “Funny seeing you here.”

  He is obviously one of the groomsmen, formally attired in the same tux and cummerbund combination as four other men. He tells me that he has known the groom forever. He looks bored by the friendship. “How do you know Amanda?”

  “I don’t,” I admit, wondering when New York got so small that you could bump into Polar Pete and your current boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend all at the same affair. “I’m here with Gael, helping with the photographs.”

  “Oh, so you finally decided on a career,” he says. “Photography.”

  “No, this is a one time deal. Just filling it for his usual person.”

  “I thought you had followed your brother’s footsteps into photography.”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” I say.

  And then I realize that I have nothing more to say to Polar Pete. We both stand there awkwardly, waiting for Gael to call the groomsmen into the shot. I examine the stained glass windows depicting various Bible scenes, and try not to be blinded by the bride’s dazzling smile. I busy myself with reading through one of the cream-colored programs that outlines the ceremony, including a final addition: “And after the kiss, Mr. and Dr. Flaum-Ravelstein are husband and wife!”

  The bridal party disappears into a back room, and the groom and his men walk in the opposite direction to what appears to be a small coat closet off the sanctuary. The lobby begins filling with people who spill into the sanctuary, taking their seats on either side of the satin runner. I follow Gael up towards the chuppah and turn around, holding the lens firmly in my hands. With no bride to watch, all the eyes are on me, and I shift uncomfortably until the ceremony begins.

  The music starts up and the groom walks down the aisle, flanked by his parents. He kisses them at the chuppah, his mother leaving a smudge of lipstick on his cheek that I’d desperately like to run forward and rub off. The groomsmen walk down the aisle, each with a bridesmaid on his arm. A flower girl tosses huge clumps of rose petals, finishing off the basket several yards ahead of the chuppah. A woman runs forward, scooping up a particularly large batch on the satin runner, and tosses them towards the groom’s feet.

  And then the music changes.

  The doors open for a final time, and the tiny bride begins the walk towards her groom, and my vision blurs. This is the happiest moment of her life on the happiest day of her life. She is walking for the last time as a single woman. We all believe, when we take those steps down the aisle, that it will be our last time as a single woman. After all, if we thought otherwise, why would we ever take that leap of faith?

  When I took that walk down the aisle I felt lucky. I felt like my chest was going to burst open from all of the pride bubbling around like a newly opened bottle of seltzer. Now I feel queasy watching the bride beam at the guests, turning her head from side to side to smile at friends and relatives, her gaze always returning to the groom waiting for her at the end of the aisle.

  The groom, waiting.

  Not the bride.

  That day was the last time I wasn’t waiting for Adam; that he was waiting for me.

  I whisper an apology to Gael, set the lens on the floor and slip discreetly out a half-open door next to the ark. I am in some type of darkened chamber that holds a desk, two chairs, and a few books on a mostly empty shelf. The only light coming into the room streams in through the window, but it’s almost dark outside. Winter in Manhattan.

  I cry as quietly as possible, even though I had the forethought to close the door lightly behind me as I slipped out of the ceremony. I am now stuck in this room until the wedding is over. I can hear the dull murmur of the rabbi intoning the blessings, and honored friends reading passages in English. I put my hands over my face as if I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m silently sobbing, and when I move them away, they carry with them two identical streams of black eye make-up. So much for streak-free mascara. I can only imagine what I look like.

  I hear the shattering of the glass marking the end of the ceremony, the cry of joy from the audience and then wild Klezmer music accentuating a long kiss. I am waiting to hear the buzz of guests exiting out the sanctuary, when a quiet but urgent knock comes on the door. I expect to see the rabbi’s bald head telling me that I’ve defiled the holiness of this chamber, but it is only Gael.

  “I have to work the cocktail hour now, but I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “You probably think I’m crazy,” I blurt out.

  “Not crazy,” Gael says fondly, giving me a quick kiss on my forehead. “A mess with make-up all over your face, but not crazy. Remember—endure. I need you in the cocktail room, mi amor.”

  I nod, indicating that I’m about to pull myself together. “I’ll be in there in a second. I’m just going to slip into the bathroom.”

  The bride has set up baskets in the bathroom containing everything a person could possibly need at a wedding, from tampons to a new pair of stockings, and, thankfully, small tubes of make-up remover. I scrub my face clean and pat it dry with one of the hand towels. I toss the towel into the laundry basket, feeling badly th
at I had stained it with remnants of my make-up. One of the bridesmaids is reapplying her own make-up and watches me in the mirror.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Me?” I ask. “I’m fine. I just don’t do well with weddings.”

  “Sucks that you’re a wedding photographer,” she says.

  “I’m not. I’m just helping the photographer today.”

  She points out that there are little tubes of lip gloss in the basket. I take out one and apply it with a Q-tip.

  “I don’t do well with weddings either,” she confides. Bathrooms have a way of starting conversations like this. There is something about bathroom tile that brings out a woman’s darkest secrets. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Seriously, never the bride. And I’m going to be thirty-five.”

  “I was married,” I admit. “Now divorced. And now my ex-husband is dating a friend of mine, can you believe that?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she says and hands me a Kleenex, as if she expects me to start crying again. I tell her the whole story, acutely aware that Gael is probably struggling under the weight of the camera bags and juggling lenses as we speak. I finish my story with seeing Adam at the party and how I couldn’t speak coherently around him. She clicks her tongue sympathetically in all the right places. She squeezes my hand, and we both exit the bathroom, the nameless bridesmaid to pretend to be happy for her friend while I hunt down Gael, who is snapping pictures of guests.

  “Where have you been?” he questions, handing me one of the bags.

  “Cleaning up. It takes time to get all that make-up off my face.”

  I snap a grapefruit martini off of a passing platter, and Gael gives a sigh, shaking his head slightly as if he doesn’t know what to do with me. He takes dozens of pictures, sometimes asking for equipment out of the bag. Most of the time, it’s faster for me to simply open the top, and let him poke around to find it. As he moves through the room, making sure to photograph every guest, I watch the bride. She is radiant, with her veil casually pushed back from her top of her head and her tiny stick arms flailing in the air as she hugs everyone who enters her path. She is so happy that it seems as if the happiness should linger around for hundreds of years to come, almost like an echo in a cavernous room, continuing to bounce off the walls. I drink way too many martinis watching her and end up sitting on a bench in the hallway, the room tipping a bit from side to side.