Wedding Season

by Darcy Cosper

  “There are two categories of flirtation.” Henry drains her glass. “As a means to an end, and as an end in itself.”

  “What’s your point?” Luke laughs, but it’s unconvincing. I look from one to the other, trying to figure out what’s happening.

  “That there’s a difference between me buying a drink for a pretty girl because I feel like flirting, and buying a drink for her as a first step toward fucking her.”

  “And your fiancée is okay with that distinction?” Luke presses both hands on the bar, ignoring a customer who waves a handful of money at him.

  “What’s it to you whether she is or isn’t, Luke?” Henry asks sweetly.

  “Wow, look at the time.” I poke her. “We should go soon.”

  “Was your heart broken by some siren who couldn’t keep her hands in her pockets, Luke? Is that it?” Henry’s smile is seraphic. Luke opens his mouth to answer, gives me a stricken look, and moves down the bar to take an order.

  “Hank, what are you up to?”

  “What?” Henry looks innocent. “The barkeep and I are just having a little conversation.”

  “You’re goading him. For no reason. What has Luke ever done to you besides get you drunk on the house?”

  “Little bundle of Joy.” Henry sighs. “That barkeep is in love with you and it’s so pathetic I can’t help tormenting him a little.”

  “Not one part of that sentence made anything remotely like sense.”

  “I hear the weather in the state of denial is really nice.” Henry waves at the sweater girl, whose new boyfriend gives us a curious stare. “When did you buy property there?”

  “Did you set fire to insects for fun when you were little? Go wait outside. I’m going to say good-bye to Luke. Go.” I give her a push toward the door. She laughs and ambles away.

  “Are you leaving?” Luke returns to my end of the bar.

  “We have a party. Hey, Luke. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Naw, don’t worry. I’m fine. She was only playing.” He’s a terrible liar. “And you just put that away. It’s on me.” He pushes my hand, and the twenty-dollar bill in it, back toward me. “See you soon?” I nod and turn to wriggle out through the increasingly dense crowd. At the front door, I look back over my shoulder. Luke is watching me go; he gives a wave and a half-smile.

  As I emerge onto the sidewalk, Henry pounces on me and showers me with kisses.

  “Get off.” I push her away. “You’re a bitch.”

  “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,” she vamps. “Oh, lord. Duck!” She grabs my arm and yanks me behind a couple of large potted shrubs that stand at the restaurant’s entrance.

  “Ow, Henry. What the hell?”

  “It’s her again.”

  “Who?” I peek from behind one shrub to see Ora Mitelman breezing through Pantheon’s front doors, golden curls and gauzy skirts aloft. “Ugh. Is she stalking us?”

  “She’s at Pantheon all the goddamn time now.” Henry sighs. “I ran into her here a couple of nights ago. She called me Henley. Come on, toots. Let’s go party with Aunt Charlotte!” She takes my hand and skips down the street, singing “Going to the Chapel” and dragging me along behind her.

  HENRY AND I used to stay with Charlotte when we were in college; we’d come into the city on the weekends and sleep in her guest room. It was an arrangement infinitely preferable to staying with my mother for a number of reasons, our postadolescent vanity not the least of them. As she always had with me and my brothers, Charlotte treated us like adults; she played generously along with our delusional visions of ourselves as terribly sophisticated creatures, listened attentively to self-enraptured monologues about our academic adventures and romantic travesties, and let us come and go as we pleased. She led what seemed to us a very glamorous life: She worked as a fiction editor at a prestigious publishing house, attended parties every night, knew famous authors, and received flowers and phone calls from men whose handsome faces adorned the backs of books that we had heard about. More often than not, on the weekends we stayed with Charlotte, we would arrive home in the small hours to find her still awake, sitting on the couch in a black cocktail dress, picking Chinese food out of paper cartons with her fingers and flipping through an obscure literary quarterly. It was rapture. For girls who feared the ordinary, she was an icon of adulthood sweeter and finer than anything we’d ever laid eyes on.

  Moreover, Charlotte was for me proof positive of a viable alternative to the conventional strictures of marriage and motherhood; though they seemed to have failed every other female role model I had, these conventions still appeared, to my bafflement, to be the prime mover of the herds of fresh-faced and otherwise independent-minded college girls with whom I daily trekked from classroom to dining hall to dormitory lounge. They had ambitious career plans and took lovers in the same casual spirit with which they shopped for summer sandals. At the same time they wanted romance with all the trimmings; they accepted Jane Austen’s novels at face value, wept openly over made-for-television movies in which love conquered all, and returned from family weddings with starry eyes and total recall about the details of the bridal accessories. I was increasingly puzzled by this; increasingly, my peers began to seem very misguided.

  It may have been merely a question of influence. My father dated so many women from so many walks of life that during one period I ran into them almost weekly on the streets of Manhattan, and struggled to remember their names as I answered their polite questions about my life, their elaborately casual inquiries about Dad (whose charm I had begun to find less charming, more ridiculous). I was fresh from my mother’s second divorce, her tirades about the inherent evils of men, her newfound calling as divorce specialist to the stars. I knew almost no one whose parents were still married, and of those only two or three couples that had claims to anything resembling conjugal bliss. It was during this period that I began to consider marriage an absurd position, a grand delusion, a deeply stupid thing.

  Still, it was what people believed in and what they did; Charlotte served as an excellent lesson that there was another way to live, and I became quite attached to her as a symbol of that alternative. Naturally, then, I was a little disappointed when she announced her engagement, thereby depriving me of my icon, my patron saint of alternate realities. On the other hand, she’s marrying a guy almost fifteen years her junior whom she met when he was hired as her editorial assistant. This departs from the predictable just enough to appease me.

  IN FRONT OF a restaurant on a little side street, Henry stops so suddenly that I slam into her and nearly knock both of us over.

  “Take it easy, cowboy.” Henry prances ahead of me through the big glass doors into the foyer. “We’re here with the Blake party,” she tells the man at the front desk, who exchanges a smirk with the coat check girl and points to a set of stairs curving down into darkness. As we descend, the sound of women’s voices rises to meet us and echoes off the stone walls. Candles flicker in the dim below.

  “I didn’t know this place had a torture chamber.” Henry gropes her way down the last stairs. “I would have come here before.”

  “Apply for a job, Hank. You’re eminently qualified.”

  “Joy? Is that you?” A figure pauses silhouetted in the archway before us, and stumbles forward. “Honey, you made it!” My aunt’s best friend, a tall, slender blonde in her early fifties, emerges from the dark and flings herself on me.

  “Hi, Francine.” I hug her back. “Remember Henry? You met at Charlotte’s birthday party a couple of years ago. And at the engagement party.”

  “Yes, of course!” Francine reaches over and pets Henry’s face. “So nice to see you again! We’re so glad you could come, both of you.” She puts an arm around each of our waists and pulls us in close.

  “Wow,” Henry whispers to me. “Eau de Jack Daniel’s. We have some catching up to do.”

  “You’re just in time.” Francine’s voice is conspiratorial; the effect is only slightly thrown off by he
r slurring. She leans on me and gives a big wink. “We brought some friends for Charlotte. Some friends. They’re getting ready right now.” She nods in the direction of the rest rooms and nods at us, and for no apparent reason, keeps nodding. “Charlotte doesn’t know. It’s a surprise. Joy, baby!” With some effort, she focuses on my nose, swaying lightly. “I remember you when you were just a little, little, little baby girl, baby. Let’s go get you a drink before the show starts.”

  Francine takes our hands and tows us along behind her through the medieval-looking stone archway and into a shadowy banquet hall where, seated at a long table, several dozen women of a certain age are chattering and giggling like adolescent girls.

  “Charlotte, Charlotte,” Francine shrieks. “Look what I found!”

  My aunt is seated at the center of the table surrounded by several women whom I recognize vaguely from her engagement party. She rises in her chair and waves her arms at us as we approach. I’m often taken by surprise by how much Charlotte and my mother resemble each other. They’re both fair-skinned and fine-boned, with wavy, pale brown hair, heart-shaped faces, and eyes an astonishing shade of hazel; Charlotte’s features, though, are softer, and overall she has a less sharp, angular aspect than Mom.

  “Hello, girls!” Charlotte smiles at Henry and takes my hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. You’re our only family representation, kiddo. Your mother declined to join us this evening. Oh, and Dora, Burke’s sister.” She indicates a woman about our age, an evil-looking brunette at the far end of the table.

  “Dora Ingerson?” Henry peers through the dim. “I know her. She worked at the magazine with me.” Henry waves, and the brunette waves back. “What a bitch. I’ll go say hello.”

  “Joy, let me move over so you can sit next to your aunt.” The portly, henna-haired woman on Charlotte’s right heaves out of her chair. “How are you, dear?” She looks distractedly around the room.

  “Maggie Bean,” Charlotte whispers into my ear.

  “I’m fine, Maggie. Nice to see you again. And you?”

  “Oh, good. And you? You’re looking pretty tonight.” She pats my cheek. “You girls talk. I’m off to the ladies’ room.” Maggie waddles off into the dark.

  “I met her at your engagement party?” I lower myself into the seat she’s vacated, which is still warm.

  “One of the most powerful women in the literary world, believe it or not. An agent. We’ve worked together for years. And she introduced me to Burke. Her son went to school with him, and Maggie sent him to me for the assistant job.” Charlotte gives me a little smile. “Look. The girls are back.”

  Henry and Francine weave toward us, both giggling and spilling cocktails as they proceed across the room.

  “Joy, why didn’t you tell me you knew a floral designer?” Henry slaps the side of my head, sloshing part of her drink down my back. “Francine is going to do the flowers for my wedding. She did the arrangements tonight. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

  “You girls will have to come down to the shop and talk bouquet design with me next week.” Francine smiles modestly and reaches over to fondle the centerpiece in front of Charlotte, a vaguely pornographic-looking topiary sculpted from sweet pea blossoms and ivy. “A September wedding is such a nice challenge. Not that I won’t love doing yours, Charlotte. I think it’s time for a toast, don’t you, Henrietta?” Francine climbs unsteadily onto an empty chair and Henry clinks a fork noisily against her martini glass. The chattering buzz of the room quiets, and the several dozen women of a certain age turn their eyes toward us.

  “Ladies, thank you for coming.” Francine wobbles dangerously on the chair. She puts a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Ladies,” Francine continues, “why are we here? Because. Because our friend Charlotte has robbed the cradle, that’s why. God bless her!” Cheers and applause from the crowd.

  “Nice work,” Henry tells Charlotte.

  “No, no, no.” Francine waves her arms. “Seriously, now, we’re here because our dear friend Charlotte has found true love.” More cheers. “With an infant,” Francine slurs. Louder cheers. “Maggie Bean, this is all your fault.” Francine raises her glass in Maggie’s general direction. “Could you find an assistant for me, too, please?”

  “And for me,” a pretty woman in her early sixties calls out.

  “Maura, you’re already married,” Francine giggles.

  “Twice,” says Maura.

  “Good help is the secret to every successful marriage,” says the woman sitting to Charlotte’s left.

  “Now, girls,” Francine continues. “Our friend Charlotte has had a good run. She pursued her work and made her way as a single woman in the city while most of us were getting married. And divorced. And married and divorced again. God bless her. She was a rebel. She was a career girl. She got to sleep with all the men we didn’t. And we were sick with jealousy, weren’t we, ladies? But now. Now! She’s been brought down by a mere child. See how the mighty have fallen.” The crowd roars. “See how the mighty have fallen, ladies. A toast. To Charlotte! We love you, honey.”

  “To Charlotte!” The women around the table clink their glasses together with great enthusiasm; at the other end of the table they do it with such enthusiasm, in fact, that someone breaks a glass. I watch Charlotte laughing back at her friends as they wave their glasses at her, and wonder to myself, is this what Charlotte has had to put up with for the last two decades out of wedlock? Is this what waits for me? The subtle jibes, the tiresome loving concern, the passive-aggressively manifested resentments and fears of women who pity or envy me for what I won’t do? Maybe it’s a generational thing. It occurs to me that Charlotte may be getting married less because she wants to be married and more because she’s too exhausted by what is involved in not being married.

  “Oh, my.” Francine points theatrically as she climbs down from her chair. “Oh, my. Look at that. What could they be doing here?” Emerging through the dim archway are three large, plastically handsome men, one dressed as a policeman, another as a priest, and a third in a business suit, carrying a briefcase.

  “Oh, Francine.” Charlotte laughs as music begins to play and the men come slinking around the table. “You really shouldn’t have.”

  “My god, it’s like a borscht belt joke.” Henry elbows me. “Did you hear the one about the cop, the priest, and the lawyer?”

  “What’s the punch line?” I ask, but Henry doesn’t answer. The other guests are, for the most part, on their feet instantly, whistling and clapping. A few titter and bury their faces in one another’s shoulders, a few others remain seated and apparently oblivious, engrossed in their conversations. Francine and Henry howl with glee and press dollar bills into the hands of the women around them. The dancers have arrived next to us, and begin to circle around me with big, fixed grins, stagy and lascivious.

  “Wrong girl,” I inform the priest, pushing him and the cop toward Charlotte. The men lift her onto their shoulders, carry her across the room, and seat her on top of the bar. Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” moans out of the speakers at top volume, and the men line up and begin their bump and grind of the seven veils. Henry elbows me and nods in the direction of the doorway, where several of the restaurant’s waitstaff cluster in the shadow of the stone arch. The guests have gathered around the men in a wide semicircle, waving bills and screaming with delight as articles of clothing are removed and come flying into their midst.

  “They take their clothes off,” Henry tells me. “That’s the punch line. Wow, look at his ass.”

  “I’ve heard that joke before,” I say. “It was on an episode of The Honeymooners, wasn’t it?” But she’s run off to tuck a tip into the priest’s G-string.

  Sunday, April 29, 200—

  ON THE BRIGHT SUNDAY of Charlotte and Burke’s wedding, I spend the first hour of the morning in bed with the covers pulled over my face while Gabe tries valiantly to coax me into action.

  “I’m spending quality time with my hangover,” I growl through the sheets, wh
en he tries to bribe me with coffee.

  “Tell your hangover you need to reschedule.” He sits down on the edge of the bed. I reach my hand out from underneath the blankets for the coffee cup. “Not until you’re actually vertical,” Gabe says, moving it out of range. I pull my hand back in and burrow deeper. “Joy, we have to be at the wedding in two hours. Less.”

  “What wedding?”

  “The one we had a rehearsal dinner for last night, remember? Come on. If we survived that, we can manage this. Get up.” Gabriel puts his head under the blankets and looks at me.

  “I don’t think the dress I was going to wear today is really suitable.” I roll on my side to face him. “Do you happen to know where I can pick up one of those lab suits doctors wear to work with the flesh-eating virus that liquefies you from the inside out?”

  “Red.” Gabe climbs in beside me, pulls the covers over both of our heads, and lies on his side, facing me. “You could let a wedding make you crazy, but don’t, okay? I’d miss you if I had to send you to the loony bin.”

  “Even if I survive this one, there are fourteen more left.”

  “You have an excellent sense of humor. Or you used to. That should help.”

  “I seem to be missing the joke.”

  “Apparently.” A rare and, I know, perfectly understandable note of impatience has crept into Gabe’s voice.

  “The last time I checked, you weren’t such a raging fan of the marriage ceremony, either, Mr. Winslow.”

  “Look. None of these ceremonies is my wedding or yours, right? There are other things I’d rather be doing with my weekends, too, but I’m fairly certain marriage isn’t contagious.”

  “That can’t be right. It’s clearly a virus, and it’s spreading. Like the flesh-eating disease.”

  “But we’ve been inoculated, okay? We’re immune.” Gabe throws the covers back and sits up. “Here. Take your medicine.” He hands me the coffee, goes to the bathroom, and comes back with a bottle of aspirin. He shakes a couple of them into my hand, and as I chase them down with a swallow of coffee, he makes the sign of the cross over me and intones, “Body of Christ, blood of Christ.” Then he starts doing a bayou voodoo queen dance around the bed, moaning a gibberish chant and waving his hands over the body of the novice prone on the altar.