Pastor Klaver turns to Reuben. “Just as Erika is called to submit to you, you are called to love Erika. The word ‘love’ is one of the most misconstrued words of our time. We have reduced love to some euphoric feeling. Trust me, there will be times and seasons when there will not be feelings of euphoria. But in the biblical definition of love, love is action. It is the action of giving oneself for the greater good of another. It is laying down your life daily for the sake of Erika. Every day you are to delight in Erika, pursue her, protect her, provide for her, fight for her. Reuben, are you up for this?”
“Yes!” he says.
Pastor Klaver has another question: “Will you love Erika, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?”
“I will,” Reuben says.
For a first-time officiant, Pastor Klaver is impressive. He speaks with confidence and a smile, hardly looking at his notes. He concludes his remarks by speaking for everyone in the sanctuary. “Reuben and Erika, we are all rooting for you.”
The couple kisses to applause and laughter, and as Sinatra’s “Love and Marriage” plays as a recessional, one of Erika’s sisters actually skips down the aisle. (Her husband, at her side, shakes his head and refuses to skip.) Erika and Reuben linger toward the front of the sanctuary, paying respect to their parents by offering hugs.
The dinner reception that follows is very low-key. No alcohol. No dancing.
Erika’s mom, Lynn, is all smiles, but Vic is emotional. When it’s his turn to talk, he keeps pausing to compose himself. “Erika, one of my fondest memories is taking you out for breakfast on your birthday each year. One birthday when you were little, I asked what you wanted to be when you grew up. You said, ‘Either a princess or a McDonald’s lady.’ I understood the urge to be a princess, but why the McDonald’s worker? You told me, ‘Well, they get to talk to lots of customers and they all give them money!’”
After everyone laughs, Vic continues. “Erika, you have carried that happy, sun-is-always-shining countenance with you your entire life. As you have matured, you have also emerged into someone with great insight. On the dad-daughter trip we took when you were sixteen, you developed a list of ten character traits you desired in a husband. A list, so to speak, that could be used to filter out suitors before your heart started to fall for them. Holding fast to that list all these years never helped you get a lot of dates, but it has helped you arrive here today with Reuben. I’d like to read it again for you.”
He pulls out that list she wrote at age sixteen and begins reading: “virtuous in character . . . humble . . . shows grace . . . displays awesome deeds . . .” When he finishes, he addresses Reuben. “I recall the first day Erika brought you to our house. She was on the back of your motorcycle, holding tight, with a giant smile. After you two left, Lynn said to me, ‘Well, you just met your next son-in-law.’ So, as a good dad, what did I do? Of course, I checked out your Facebook page! Here is what I read: ‘I’m a United States Marine currently serving my God and Country. I am waiting for marriage to have sex, and am proud of that. I love beer in moderation. I am a country boy and I’m high on life! I love Jesus, my family, brothers in arms, friends, outdoors—and I will never grow up!’”
Vic looks up from his printout. “Right there on Facebook, we started to see why Erika was attracted to you. You had no intention of letting life pass you by.”
He turns to his daughter. “Erika, from here on, your job is to stand by Reuben’s side with discernment, support, affirmation, and prayer. Help him exemplify those character traits you desired years ago.”
Reuben takes the microphone. At age twenty-three, he has returned from battle more mature, and the wedding guests who knew him as a boy can see this as he speaks. He graciously thanks Vic and Lynn for raising Erika well. He’s earnest and serious. “Erika and I would like to ask all of you in the room to be part of our marriage,” he says, “to be witnesses, to hold us accountable.”
When he’s finished speaking, a short video of the couple is shown: Photos flash by of Erika and Reuben growing up, while the couple explains how they fell in love. There are lovely photos of Erika and her three sisters, and several shots of Reuben with his comrades in Iraq. The highlight of the video is footage taken at the surprise family brunch when Reuben got down on one knee, pulled out a ring, and proposed. After Erika tearfully accepted, he stood up and took her in his arms. He leaned closer. He told her how much he loved her. And then . . .
Erika and Reuben
He gave her the first romantic kiss of her lifetime.
In the reception hall, everyone watching the video breaks into applause at that moment, as Erika beams. Vic and Lynn, feeling grateful and proud, make eye contact with each other, but say nothing. Their own marriage has weathered a great deal; Lynn’s memories of child abuse, the nightmares that followed, her early urges to abandon their marriage. But at this point in their lives, they feel very blessed—by their daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren.
Three of their girls are married. Just one daughter, twenty-two-year-old Aleece, is left, waiting for her first kiss. As the night ends, Erika throws her bouquet and, in an obvious setup, Aleece catches it.
Of course, there’s no need to call Becker’s Bridal in the morning to get Aleece an appointment. For now, it’s a matter of time, and more than that, a matter of patience.
She’s got the bouquet. She’s got the grounding of her faith and family, and a sense of life’s possibilities. When and if the time is right, her kiss will come.
Megan
All the guests at Megan’s wedding know her story. The accident that left her with a mangled right hand was only four months ago, so when Megan enters the church sanctuary, it’s the first time some guests have seen her in a while. They take in the fullness of her arrival—her dress, her hair, her smile—but their line of sight soon goes to her hand, and to the “birdcage” headpiece covering the wound on her forehead.
During the ceremony, though, Megan gives them reasons to look beyond her injuries. There’s the intensity with which she gazes into Shane’s eyes at the altar. There’s the ease with which he holds her hand.
For Megan’s father, Jack, the wedding is far more emotional than he expected. He finds himself thinking about both the strides Megan has made since the accident and the long road ahead. He can’t help it.
Some guests have talked to him in recent weeks, so they can sense what’s on his mind today. “It’s hard for me to think of her going through the rest of her life,” he has confided to friends. “When I look at Megan’s hand, I can’t believe this happened. It would be one thing if she had all that surgery and would be done with it. But she’ll need more surgery on her hands. She’ll need plastic surgery on her face to make her look more normal. All the skin grafts from her hip, they’re not the same color as her face. . . .”
But Jack is also feeling grateful to Shane, and impressed by the way he has loved and stood by Megan. At the time of the accident, the couple was engaged for just a week. Jack has been thinking: “Megan had such a strong desire to get married, to raise a family. She has such a love of children. If she had not found Shane before the accident, how would her life have turned out? Would she find someone else? There’s no way to know the answer.”
And so here, during the ceremony, Jack has an epiphany. Both Laura, his wife, and Megan adhere to the strict teachings of the Apostolic Christian Church. In the mid-1980s, Jack watched as Laura turned to the church for solace after the death of their nine-month-old daughter, who had fallen off her changing table. Jack understands why Laura and Megan have been drawn to the church, but his faith is not as absolute as theirs.
And yet . . .
Watching Megan and Shane gaze at each other at the altar, he feels as if he is in the presence of something powerful. The thought in his head is this: “They were brought together by God.”
As the ceremony continues, Laura finds herself smiling;
she hasn’t yet cried and doesn’t think she will. Unlike Jack, she’s less focused on Megan’s injuries. Instead, she’s thinking: “For a mother to see her child so overjoyed, well, what more could I ask for? We’re all very blessed.”
At the reception, people notice Megan eating with her left hand. But they don’t know that she can now grip a pen with her damaged right hand, and that she has an ambitious plan: After the wedding, she’s going to write her thank-you notes with that hand. It won’t be the beautiful handwriting she used to have; now her scrawl is closer to that of a third-grader. But she’ll show everyone she can do it. Her effort will be a thank-you to her doctors and physical therapists, as well as to those who gave wedding gifts.
As the reception comes to an end, Laura thinks back over her own life. As a girl, she had fantasized about meeting the perfect guy, having the perfect wedding, embarking on the perfect life. What’s the definition of perfect, anyway?
She learned as a young mother that terrible things can happen. Losing her daughter Melissa was a wake-up call for her, and it informed Megan’s life too. Megan grew up knowing that babies can fall of changing tables and die. And so, Laura has noticed that Megan is entering marriage more realistically.
Watching Megan say good-bye to her guests, Laura feels a blossoming realization about what constitutes a perfect life. “Just because the accident happened during Megan’s engagement,” she decides, “that doesn’t mean she isn’t starting out with a perfect life. Perfect doesn’t mean unflawed or without challenges or that bad things won’t happen. Megan understands that. She accepts the idea that the life she has, that’s the perfect life.”
Megan and Shane are standing together, receiving everyone’s well-wishes. At one point, as friends of their parents talk to them, they reach toward each other, almost absentmindedly. Very easily, they are hand-in-hand. The perfect life awaits them.
Shane and Megan
Chapter Twenty-four
Outside the Doorway
It’s Monday, nine a.m., and Shelley is about to leave home and drive the few blocks to the store. But first, as always, she takes a moment to light a candle. It’s a quick, self-styled “gratitude ritual” she’s been doing for years.
“Thanks for the week that just passed,” she says softly. “Thanks for the week to come. Thanks for Becker’s Bridal, for my parents’ well-being, for my own stability.”
She wishes health and happiness to the brides she’ll meet this week, and to their families. Then she says Alyssa’s name, and the names of her sons, hoping they will always know how much she loves them.
On this Monday, she adds a few extra words: “I know Alyssa is struggling with decisions about her heritage, about staying with me at the store and making Becker’s her life.” This isn’t a prayer or a request to a higher power. Shelley doesn’t ask that Alyssa remain at her side. Instead, she says simply: “I wish her well in her decision.” After that, she blows out the candle and heads over to the store.
When she arrives, one of her saleswomen, Mona, is prettying up the Magic Room; vacuuming the carpet, and using Windex to remove fingerprints from the mirrors. Mona has her own Monday ritual. She stands on the pedestal, looking at thousands of images of herself in all the mirrors, and as she hums a wedding march, she moves her arms as if she’s conducting an orchestra.
Alyssa arrives next. “Hi, Barbie,” she says to her mother. Then she settles in for her Monday chore: listening to messages on the office answering machine to see if anyone reported a problem during a weekend wedding. She checks e-mails, too, scanning subject lines for complaints. “Nothing too serious,” she tells Shelley, which is always a relief. (The worst report comes from a bride whose lining wasn’t appropriately hemmed. Her bridesmaids rose to the occasion with needle and thread, stitching quickly and saving the day. It wasn’t so terrible. It made the bridesmaids feel needed.)
At ten a.m., Shelley unlocks the front door and greets the week’s first customer. Her name is Katrina, and she’s a twenty-seven-year-old librarian from suburban Detroit. She’s brought along her mother, mother-in-law, and two kid sisters.
As Katrina scans the racks, she talks to Shelley and Mona about her fiancé, also a librarian, and about what it’s been like for her since her namesake hurricane hit New Orleans. “I get tired of apologizing for my name,” she says. “Everyone has a comment.”
“We call her Katie,” her mother interjects.
Katrina explains that she feels a special connection to the victims of the hurricane. Still, she has decided not to attend the upcoming American Library Association conference in New Orleans. “They give you a name tag and you have to wear it all day. I couldn’t bring myself to walk around New Orleans wearing a name tag.”
“Katrina is a beautiful name,” her mother says, and then, almost apologetically, adds the obvious. “Of course, we didn’t know there’d be the hurricane when we named her.”
Shelley listens and nods empathetically. There’s so much parents don’t know and wish they did. That’s the definition of parenting, isn’t it? Every parental decision, starting with the innocuous choice of a baby’s name, can have ramifications in her life. Every choice we help our daughters make—about a childhood friend, a college, a career, a possible husband, even a bridal gown—has potential hazards.
Katrina doesn’t like the first dress she tries on. “It looks like a wedding cake,” she says. But the second dress, a $1,600 strapless gown from Spain with a bolero jacket and a sash along the waist, looks stunning on her.
“What do you think?” Mona asks.
“I think I love it,” Katrina says.
“Well, come on upstairs,” Shelley tells her. “We’ve got a special room. Let’s see what you look like in there.”
While Mona helps Katrina up the stairs, fluffing her train behind her, Shelley heads over to the counter to go over her schedule. She has fittings almost every hour until eight p.m. “A lot of time on my knees,” she says.
Just then, a few quick bursts of light emanate from inside the Magic Room, as flashes from the family’s small camera bounce off all the mirrors. Soon enough, Katrina’s mom is crying the usual tears of joy, and Mona scurries out onto the sales floor. “I forgot to bring the tissues,” Mona says, grabbing a box. “What was I thinking?”
Meanwhile, another bride-to-be has headed up the stairs and is now standing on the landing outside that old bank vault, with her mother at her side.
As they wait their turn, Shelley walks over to greet them. The young bride is fresh-faced and blond. She looks very much like her mom, who leans against the wall, holding two purses, her daughter’s and her own. For now, Shelley knows nothing about this bride, nothing about her mother, nothing about their lives. She doesn’t even know their names yet. But like the thousands of brides and their parents who’ve passed through Becker’s Bridal before them, they have a story that carried them here, to this dress, this doorway, this moment.
“It’ll be just a minute,” Shelley promises the young bride. Then she turns to the bride’s mother and smiles. “You’re going to love how she looks in the Magic Room.”
The pedestal in the Magic Room
Afterword
On February 10, 2012, just a month after The Magic Room was first published, Jeff Zaslow, beloved friend and author,was killed in a car accident on his way home from a book signing. This was the last thing he wrote.
From the start of my research, I was impressed with Shelley’s daughter, Alyssa, a smart young woman whose work in the store had her sorting through her feelings about love, marriage, and her family’s line of work. She knew the statistics: half the brides buying dresses from her could end up divorced. Why would some make it and others wouldn’t?
In the days before The Magic Room went to press, I asked Alyssa, “Any news?” If she were to get engaged, I wanted to put it in the book. “Nothing to report,” Alyssa said with a sigh. “You’ll have to print the book without the fairy-tale ending.”
The book ends wi
th Alyssa still waiting, and after The Magic Room came out, Ellen McCarthy, a reviewer for The Washington Post, wrote that she admired Cory’s patience and maturity, his determination to make sure everything felt right. “Stay strong, Cory,” she wrote. “Good marriages are not made of satin and lace.”
A week later, to celebrate the book’s release, we had a party at the store in Fowler. Several hundred people showed up to get their books signed, many of them former Becker’s brides. Later in the evening, after most of the crowd had left, Cory presented Alyssa with his copy of the book.
“Open to page two hundred and thirty-seven,” he said. On that page was the photo of Alyssa trying to grab the bridal bouquet. Cory had cut a square hole in the book, right at the tips of Alyssa’s reaching fi ngers. In that space, he put an engagement ring. In large letters he wrote: Will you marry me?
Alyssa tearfully said “yes,” and I could see the emotions on Cory’s face—relief, love, anticipation, maybe fear. All of us there were moved by this couple’s moment of commitment. And I had a strong feeling that in their patience they had helped give their marriage a vital foundation.
Alyssa, like one hundred thousand women before her, will soon become a Becker’s bride.
Acknowledgments
There were more than 100,000 Becker’s brides who made this book possible.
Just as they are all embedded in that old mirror in the store, I also feel as if they’re here in spirit, in the pages of this book. Though I’ll refrain from naming them, I am grateful that over the last seventy-six years, they all made their way to Fowler, Michigan, to share their stories and find their dresses.
The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for Our Daughters Page 28