by L. A. Zoe
Marriage. A day to remember for the rest of your life.
I looked high around the walls, and finally discovered the glowing plastic square with dull green digital numbers. With the bright morning light coming through the acres of windows put in with no thought of conserving energy, I could hardly see what number it displayed.
Finally, a heavyset African-American woman waddled up to the counter, and called out, “Number 33.”
A Hispanic-looking man in a business suit rushed to her.
I looked down at our number. 49. Oh well. We took seats and settled in to wait. Georgie sat with the patience of a man who spent years on the street with nothing to look forward to. I made sure Mom took all her medications, so she remained calm, though she probably wished herself back home watching a movie. Georgie went into one of his trances, probably imagining himself fighting Smaug the Dragon or rescuing a real princess.
That left me the only one mentally aware enough to hate this whole thing.
I told Mom to wait until Georgie saved enough money to pay for a real wedding ceremony, even a small one. That would still require getting this license, but the paperwork wouldn’t ruin the morning for all four of us.
I squirmed in my seat, anxious to get the whole thing over and done with, but hoping if the city’s bureaucracy delayed it long enough, Mom and Georgie would see the light and cancel. Give up. Argue and break up.
Anything except get married.
Finally, a white woman who looked old enough to have fought in World War 2 called number 49. Georgie dug his ID out of a wallet thick enough to contain an encyclopedia. Mother showed her state I.D., and I gave the woman Mom’s birth certificate.
She busied herself filling out the form on a computer screen.
Georgie paid the $75 registration fee with four greasy twenty dollar bills. The clerk tapped a bunch of keys with the ends of her long fingernails. Georgie and Mom showed her their state I.D.s I handed over Mother’s birth certificate. Georgie dug his, folded into eight tattered pieces, out of his wallet.
After nearly twenty minutes, the clerk hobbled over to a clattering printer, tore off a paper form, and slid it across the counter to Georgie.
“Just give that to whoever performs your ceremony,” she said. “They fill it out with the information, sign, and submit it back to us for recording. It must also be signed by two witnesses. You’ll get the marriage certificate in the mail. The fee you just paid includes one certified copy. If you wish additional certified copies, you’ll pay the regular fee for those.”
“Errhh, who do we give it to?” Georgie asked, stumbling over the words.
“Whoever performs the ceremony,” she said. “If you don’t already have someone in mind, we have a judge on duty who’ll perform a civil service for you for another twenty-five dollars. Right now she’s busy in the adjoining room with another couple.”
“Who can perform the ceremony?” I asked.
“Anybody who’s recognized and authorized by Cromwell County,” she said. “That includes all conventional religious leaders, such as pastors, ministers, priests, rabbis, and imans. There’re several Buddhist priests brought over by our local Thai and Chinese communities. Someone at the Hindu temple for Indians. Shamans for several Native American nations. Some Wiccan women, and several Church of Universal Life ministers ordained by mail. Also, justices, and county clerks authorized by a judge.”
“What’s a civil ceremony?” I asked.
“Nonreligious,” she said. “That’s all our judges are allowed to do.”
“It wouldn’t mention God?” Georgie said.
“That’s right. But to the county, it’s just as legal.”
“Oh, SeeJai, it wouldn’t be a real marriage if we’re not married in the eyes of God.”
My mother, who never took me to church more than once a year.
I addressed the clerk. “A friend of mine told me there’s a minister here at City Hall.”
“Oh, yes, you must mean Reverend Ewing. He’s married more couples in the last fifty years than anybody else. In nice weather he performs the ceremony outside next to the fountain, but when it’s this cold out his arthritis confines him to the hallway.”
She pointed, twisting her wrist to the left. “Just go out these doors and follow the bathroom signs. We let him remain in the empty hall just outside the Lady’s Room.”
Outside the women’s john. Wonderful. I took a deep breath. If only I could talk Mother out of this, but she and Georgie were holding hands, and waiting for me to lead the way.
Rhinegold gave me a Look, and stood up to walk with me.
I followed the overhead signs to the restrooms, and discovered a line of couples waiting for Reverend Ewing.
A tall, African-American man dressed in a black “minister’s” suit—not a robe, but a suit cut in a way I only saw ministers wear—Reverend Ewing stood in front of a couple of young white hippies wearing bluejeans and ragged blue chambray work shirts, one hand marking his place in a huge black Bible on a stand.
Attached to the Bible stand was a row of yellow electric candles, glowing feebly in the mid-morning light.
His arthritis must not have been in his back, because he carried himself military straight, projecting a powerful image. White hair clipped to tight curls close to his scalp. Clean-shaven. And a kindly expression on his face.
Despite my misgivings about Georgie and Mother, I enjoyed listening to Reverend Ewing. He pronounced his words with loud majesty, rolling the rhythm, the sound of his deep voice resonating first in his stomach and then through the hallway.
He even read from the real old-fashioned version of the Bible, the one hardly anybody uses anymore because nobody understands it. It suited his style.
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.”
Confronted with that, the two hippies looked dazed and confused.
After he pronounced them husband and wife, they looked relieved to get away.
A young African-American man also dressed in a black minister’s suit approached us, hand out. “Hi, I’m Alexander Jackson,” he said as he shook with all of us. “I’m Reverend Ewing’s great-nephew, and his assistant. He apologizes for the delay, but he wishes to give all couples his undivided attention, and there are several more in front of you. Do you have your license form already?”
With impressive courtesy and professionalism, Mr. Jackson made certain we had the proper paperwork, and took down Georgie and Mother’s names.
“Any particular requests?” he asked. “Any particular Bible passages you’d like read?”
Georgie looked at Mother, and Mother looked at me, like I knew anything about it.
“Just so it mentions God,” Georgie said.
That tickled Mr. Jackson so much he couldn’t restrain his laughter. “Reverend Ewing will certainly mention God, you can bet on that, sir. If anybody wants a civil ceremony, think they can keep God out of the picture, they’re at the wrong place they come here. How about music?”
Georgie and Mother both looked at me.
“We didn’t even think of that,” I told Mr. Jackson.
Rhinegold grunted, then handed a plastic CD case to Mr. Jackson. “Track one, if you don’t mind.”
He glanced at it, and his face lit up with surprised pleasure. “Celtic Woman. First time anybody’s requested them. I look forward to hearing it.”
I nudged Rhinegold. “What is it?”
He smiled. “You’ll see. You’ll like it, I promise. I think.”
“Thank you,” I told Mr. Jackson.
“I’m sorry we can’t let you sit down,” Mr. Jackson said. “The county is kind enough to allow us to use their hallway, despite a pending lawsuit filed by the ACLU, but the fire marshal won’t allow seating in this area. Safety rules, you understand.” He handed Georgie a big paperboard red number 9.
“What’s this?” he mumbled.
“Your number.” M
r. Jackson checked his watch. “You will probably be called about eleven thirty. There’s a McDonald’s two blocks west of here, and a Starbucks next door.”
“Can’t we just wait here?” Georgie asked.
“Certainly, you just have to stand up.”
Rhinegold and I didn’t have enough money to spend it on expensive coffee. We’d go to McDonald’s after the ceremony. Georgie was paying for the marriage banquet. Whoopee.
So we waited.
The hippie couple declined having their picture taken with Reverend Ewing under a seven-foot arch of artificial white and pink flowers. A young woman did take a shot of them holding hands in front of the stairwell door.
Next, the reverend joined two young African-Americans, a homey with a gold tooth and a young woman about seven months pregnant. The dude took an attitude when Reverend Ewing insisted he tighten his belt so his pants wouldn’t slip down and show his underpants, but girl yelled at him, and he eventually complied.
An MP3 player on the floor nearby played a rap song apparently about love and marriage. I could only understand half the words. A middle-aged woman with a large gardenia corsage held the hands of two toddlers, a boy and a girl, telling them to watch Mama and Papa get married. All of them stood posed for the picture under the arch.
Finally, our turn.
Reverend Ewing introduced himself, and shook all our hands with a vigorous smile. If I’d been concerned about the ceremony itself, he would have removed all doubts. If anybody could do it, Reverend Ewing could.
What worried me was what Georgie and Mother would do later, when Reverend Ewing wasn’t there to lean on.
Mr. Jackson hit the music player, and played Fields of Gold. So beautiful and sweet and romantic and old-fashioned. Almost medieval. Like Rhinegold. A crazy choice for Mother and Georgie.
Reverend Ewing listened to it several minutes, eyes closed, obviously savoring it, before he seemed to wake up and remember the wedding ceremony.
He directed Georgie to stand to his left, in front of him. As best man, Rhinegold stood to his right.
Mother stepped awkwardly to Georgie’s left.
“Who gives this woman away?” Reverend Ewing asked.
I gulped. I didn’t think of this part. “I guess I will,” I said. “Except I’m also her bridesmaid. I’m her daughter.”
He smiled. “Wonderful. Just stand right beside her, lend her your support.”
I waited for the part where Reverend Ewing asked whether anybody knew any reason why the marriage should not proceed, wondering whether I’d have the courage to speak up. But what would I say? Social Security would cut off her SSI check? They might encourage each other’s drinking? They only knew each other a few weeks? They were both crazy?
All of that true, but they didn’t care.
Because Georgie might hurt her and she couldn’t take it?
Because fear like misty fog swelled my stomach with dark dread I couldn’t see, like a nightmare I couldn’t remember when I woke in the morning?
Reverend Ewing opened the big Bible to a passage he no doubt read a lot:
“Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Somehow, the old-fashioned words made sense to me, but frightened me all the more. Mom believed in Georgie so much, and I couldn’t. I liked him, but I didn’t trust him to remain with her for the rest of her life.
So I worried about Georgie sundering Mom. As I watched them smooch at the end, the world rocked. I shook, knocked back and forth, and nearly collapsed. My stomach churned, making me nearly run to a toilet in the nearby Women’s Room.
The locket burned my chest halfway down to boob-level.
I glanced at Rhinegold, and wanted to hug him, to feel whole again, but he wasn’t looking at me, so I just shivered, arms folded across my chest, squeezing hard, but not hard enough.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Valentine’s Day Party
Rhinegold and Georgie rolled his cart to a far corner of the Top Foods Supermarket on the corner of E Grand and Byington.
No more plastic bags containing Georgie’s clothes and collected aluminum cans. It rattled, but only from the loose, rusty wheels and the jarred welds.
The sidewalks contained a variety of surfaces: deep drifts, ice glazes, patches and clumps of snow. But the supermarket had diligently cleared its parking lot, except for the huge piles of snow the plows left between every other row.
“Let’s take it closer to the door,” Rhinegold said. “So the baggers don’t have to walk a mile in this weather to get it.”
“You’re right,” Georgie said. “Only fair thing to do, after I borrowed it for this long.”
The sun shone in Rhinegold’s eyes as they walked to the bus stop, Rhinegold slowing his pace to match Georgie’s limp. He checked his watch. “Still plenty of time.”
After renting a blue Toyota Tercel, Rhinegold drove them back to the room he shared with SeeJai, only she wasn’t there now.
“I sure thank you for everything,” Georgie kept saying until it got tiresome.
“You were just lucky Englewood Gardens had a two-person apartment available right away.”
“I just can’t get over how expensive it is,” Georgie said. “Reminds why I didn’t want to pay rent.”
“Only twenty-five percent of your Social Security check,” Rhinegold said. “That’s what SeeJai’s mom paid for her one-person studio. It wasn’t as much, but it was twenty-five percent of her check.”
“All right,” Georgie mumbled. “And I’m glad all we had to do was carry her stuff down one floor.”
Rhinegold and SeeJai, with some assistance from Georgie, moved her mother’s things yesterday afternoon, after they finished the wedding banquet at McDonald’s.
Georgie and Melissa Grant spent that night alone together, but now Georgie and Rhinegold were banned from the apartment, so SeeJai’s mother and Areetha could get her ready for the Valentine’s Day party that evening.
Rhinegold was under strict orders to look his best, but still wouldn’t take half as long to prepare as SeeJai.
“After you leave this evening, I’ll take the bus back to the apartment,” Georgie said.
He wasn’t calling it “home” yet.
“You’re welcome to stay and watch TV,” Rhinegold said. “I’ll take you home before I return this car tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to be there in your way when you two get home tonight,” Georgie said with a low, evil chuckle. “After you get her all hot and jealous with that other gal, she’s going to attack you, just wait and see.”
“Yeah … “ Rhinegold didn’t feel quite so confident, but he didn’t have a Plan B. The attack might be genuinely violent, not metaphorically sexual.
“Besides,” Georgie said. “I want to spend the night with Melissa, if you don’t mind.”
“You newlyweds,” Rhinegold said, laughing.
“She loves you, Rhinegold. I know it. Her mother knows it. You two’re the only ones ain’t figured that part out yet.”
Because he and SeeJai were the only ones who knew the truth. But Rhinegold didn’t want to spoil Georgie’s delusion.
He did wonder exactly what SeeJai and Areetha were up to. They went shopping the other day, and brought back a lot of packages, and that was before SeeJai even told him about the invitation.
He didn’t want to go. If he’d gotten the invitation from the mail, he just would have pitched it without showing SeeJai. Maybe called Father to give a lame excuse.
He wondered why they even invited him. They must have held lots of parties in the two years since he moved out. They never invited him to any of those others, though of course they didn’t have a mailing address for him. They could have called, but they didn’t bother.
Maybe Father was really serious about entering politics. A neglected homeless son wouldn’t look good to the voters. Maybe he actually hoped to convince Rhinegold to go to college.
Father liked SeeJai. Maybe he hoped she would help convince Rhinegold to change. Perhaps he was trying to seduce her with a taste of the wealthy lifestyle. Make her ambitious enough for herself, enough to push or drag Rhinegold along with her.
He didn’t understand why SeeJai insisted so adamantly on going. When she first showed him the invitation and said, “We’re going,” he thought she was kidding.
Not.
But she didn’t enjoy eating dinner with Father and Sybille, so—no, she said she liked the dinner, she didn’t get upset until she and Keara went off someplace for some heart to heart girl-talk, which upset her.
Whatever, it didn’t stop SeeJai from wanting to attend this Valentine’s Day party.
Since Rhinegold didn’t inspire her love, perhaps she wanted to meet other upper class men, maybe fall in love with one willing to follow in his parents’ footsteps.
Let her do as she liked. He protected her, but not from any men she wanted.
Father and Sybille inviting Helena disturbed him, though it made sense, given the closeness grown up between them since he left the house, and her friendship with Keara.
The more he thought over Georgie’s plan to play up to Helena to make SeeJai jealous, the more Rhinegold decided it was too dangerous. Better to avoid Helena altogether, and to keep her apart from SeeJai.
He didn’t want either one starting a food fight. That would really upset Father and Sybille.
He’d be embarrassed enough if they simply shouted at each other.
And Keara? Definitely avoid her as well, especially since she and SeeJai didn’t like each other.
All right, let SeeJai meet all the guys she wanted while he checked out old buddies—and they both avoided Helena and Keara.
Sounded like a plan.
Because the bluejeans and sweat shirts he carried around in his pack while homeless wouldn’t suit a fancy party at the family manse, Father actually brought one of Rhinegold’s old suits from Rhinegold’s old bedroom closet to his downtown office, and Rhinegold picked it up. The wool, single-breasted light brown one.