by Darcy Cosper
“Chapter twelve, how to associate only with other couples.” Charlotte squeezes me. “I’ll make you and Gabe come over and play bridge with me and Burke. We’ll fix canapés and gossip in the kitchen while the boys drink Scotch.”
“Chapter nineteen, family holidays,” Ruth says. “We’ll have big Thanksgivings with lots of kids running around and everyone slamming doors and bickering with everyone else.”
“Your point being,” I ask Norah, “that it’s nothing like that?”
“Of course it is, sometimes.” She smiles and puts a hand on my arm. “Stereotypes have to earn their keep, after all.”
“Don’t worry, Joy.” Charlotte wanders back to the divan and lights another cigarette. “There aren’t any rules. You just make it up as you go.”
Is that possible, I wonder, to make it up as you go? After you’ve chosen to do something the way everyone else does? I hope it is. I can only hope that it is.
Wearing a suit of ivory-colored raw silk, her hair pinned up in a French twist, my mother returns from the bathroom as Gertrude comes in with a bottle of champagne and a handful of glasses. Mom picks up my hand and looks at my ring.
“I’m so glad you’re here with us, darling.” She gives me a distracted kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks, Mom.” I kiss her back. “Me, too.” I am, more or less.
“You aren’t dressed yet.” Gertrude examines me. “You’d better get a move on. The judge just arrived, and the guests will be here any sec now. Hustle, ladies!” She nudges me toward the bathroom, and I comply, dragging the prehensile garment bag and shutting the door behind me. It’s a large, gleaming room, and every inch not tiled in marble is covered by mirrors; I am inescapably everywhere I look.
“Chin up,” I tell my reflections, and we all take a deep breath. “This will all be over soon.” I undress and step into the melon-orange shift my mother selected for the occasion. “Engagement suits you,” I tell them. They look unconvinced. I slip into my shoes, dab on lipstick, and give one of the reflections a kiss. “Make it up as you go,” I whisper to her, and go to join the other women.
My grandmother, the latest addition to our prenuptial coven, reaches up to pat my cheek as I join her on the divan.
“So.” She peers up at me. “I hear you will be married to that nice young man.” Her accent is still so French, I sometimes wonder if it’s a put-on.
“It looks that way, Gran.”
“You like him very much?”
“Yeah, I like him.”
“Okay. Very good.” She beams at me. “I hope you will be very happy. Enjoy, my dear. You want some advice?”
“Of course I do, Gran. What’s your secret for a good marriage?”
“Don’t cook with too much butter,” Gran says. “Or he will get very fat and sweat like a beast, and wheeze like a steam engine when he climbs the stairs.” She makes a little face.
“No butter. Got it. Thanks, Gran.”
“Here.” Gertrude hands around glasses of champagne. “Up on your tootsies, girls! Let’s have a little toast for the bride.”
We circle together, Norah with one arm around my mother’s waist, Gran on her other side. Ruth smiles at me.
“To the bride!” Charlotte raises her glass. “Our lovely friend, my big sister. We wish you all the happiness in the world.”
“To the bride,” we repeat, and touch glasses.
“Thank you,” my mother says. “Thank you so much. I can’t believe it. I actually feel a little nervous!”
“Don’t worry.” Norah winks. “Third time’s a charm.”
“It had just better be.” My mother laughs. “I’m getting too old for this.”
“We are never to old for love, n’est-ce pas?” my grandmother says. I wonder briefly if she has a new boyfriend.
“What a pity,” Gertrude says. “I was hoping to have it out of my system by now. Come on, ladies. It’s time. Oh, the bouquet arrived. Ruth, will you bring it up to her? It’s on the top shelf of the fridge, next to the lox.”
DOWNSTAIRS, JOSH STANDS at the front door greeting the guests as they arrive, while James ferries them to the little rows of white chairs set up in Gertrude’s vast high-ceilinged living room, before a wide set of French doors. Beyond, a narrow terrace overlooks the garden. In one corner, my mother’s fiancé Howie huddles in consultation with his best man and the judge. I walk through the room to my seat in the front row, stopping to greet my mother’s friends—many of whom I have known, as they are fond of reminding me, since before I could walk—and accepting their beaming congratulations on my engagement and their compliments on my ring. As I sit down, James prances over and gives me a kiss on the cheek.
“Hi, baby girl. God, that color is just awful on you. Cantaloupe. Jesus.”
“Mom picked it out. But thanks.”
“Admirable restraint with the guest list.” He glances around the room. “I think it’s only forty people all together.”
“Fewer witnesses. Just in case.”
“Oh, Mom. Bless her heart,” James says. “She does still have one, doesn’t she?”
“She’s actually in pretty good form today.” I straighten his tie.
“Joy, did you—oh, never mind.” James makes his voice high and squeaky.
“Honey, will you find me the—no, it’s right here.” I giggle.
“Darling, where’s my—oh, it’s up my ass,” James whispers. Gabriel sits down next to me, slightly out of breath, and reaches to shake my brother’s hand.
“Our bags are all in the study,” he tells us. “The car service is coming at nine, which will get us to the airport at ten. The plane’s at a quarter to eleven. We get into New Mexico at around one tomorrow morning, and your father’s sending a car to take us to a hotel for the night.”
“You just know Daddy’s hag arranged this out of pure spite.” James snorts. “I’m going to un-feng shui their house while they’re out. Oh, there’s Charles. I’ll be back.” He trots away, waving to our future stepfather’s children, our almost-siblings: a man about Josh’s age from Howie’s first marriage, a woman in her early twenties from his second. They smile at us as they take their seats beside their grandparents on the other side of the aisle.
“Thanks for taking care of the luggage,” I tell Gabe. “I owe you.”
“Just hold my hand when the plane takes off,” he says. “We’ll call it even.”
I nod as my family begins to scramble for the seats beside us, while the judge, groom, and best man take their places at the provisional altar in front of us.
“Here we go again,” James whispers, as Charles kisses the side of my head. Ruth punches James in the arm, and I laugh.
“Look out, brother,” Josh tells James. “She’s not as sweet as she looks.”
“Thank god,” James says. “She’d never be able to deal with you if she were.”
“Hush, children.” Charlotte, seated with Burke one row back, shakes a finger at us. “At least pretend you’re adults.”
James, Josh, and I look at one another and begin to shake with silent laughter. Our significant others are soon similarly taken, until the whole front row is pink-faced with the effort to suppress a bona fide fit of giggles. Predictably, it’s no use. As soon as one of us pulls it together, gasping for breath, we hear the others snorting and are off again. Before long, I hear my step-siblings chortling across the aisle.
“Oh, god,” James begs. “Please stop. Stop, stop, stop. The ceremony’s starting.”
Sporting her corsage like a military medal of honor, our grandmother marches down the aisle, takes her seat beside us, and gives a chilly sidelong glance—accompanied by the ferocious eyebrow-arch she reserves for very dire circumstances, which has its usual sobering effect.
“Please rise.” The judge gives our row a stern look, and the guests shuffle to their feet and turn expectantly toward the entrance of the living room. Clutching her bouquet, my mother pauses under the arched doorway for a moment, and returns our gaze. I
suddenly remember a photograph in my parents’ wedding album, a picture of her posed before an arch of flowers, with the same half-smile on her young, young face, and the same tiny trembling vague fear behind it. I am struck by a ferocious urge to run to her and put my arms around her and keep her from harm forever. This is what she will feel when I walk down the aisle, as she is walking now, I think, and tears flood my eyes. I look over at Josh, and see that he is crying, too. So is James, whose hand I take. He doesn’t turn his head to look at me, but he squeezes my fingers, and doesn’t release them.
The ceremony that follows is short and simple. Do they take each other, to love, honor, and cherish, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health? They do. I hear my mother vow, for the third time in her life, until death do us part, and wonder how it feels. My heart does a strange little mambo as I realize Gabe and I will be saying more or less the same words to each other in the not-too-distant future. The judge turns to the assembly.
“And do you, who have witnessed these vows, promise to do all that is in your power to uphold these two persons in marriage?”
We do—before I even have time to consider what that would involve. But, I tell myself, I do promise. Whatever it means.
As Mom walks back down the aisle on the arm of her new husband, all of her children are weeping openly. The guests get to their feet and follow the new couple out into the foyer. James mops his face with a handkerchief and hands it to me. It occurs to me that I have cried more this summer than in the last five years put together. Maybe it’s because everyone else gets so emotional about weddings, and I’ve caught their histrionics, like a summer cold that’s going around.
“What the hell is wrong with us?” James sniffs. “I’ve gone soft.”
“We’re getting old,” Josh says, handing a handkerchief to Ruth.
“Early form of incontinence?” asks Charles.
We’re under the influence of wedding season, I think to myself.
AFTER A LONG DINNER and an exhaustive, exhausting string of toasts, I am leaning over the back of my chair to talk with my new stepbrother when a doorbell rings in the distance, and Gabe looks at his watch.
“It’s nine,” he says. “I bet that’s the car.”
“Mom.” James pushes back his chair. “We have to go now. Give me a kiss.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” my mother says, standing and wobbling slightly. She raises her glass. “My dear friends,” she calls out. “May I have your attention, please? I want to propose a toast to my children. My sweet children.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Josh touches her shoulder. “We really have to go.”
“Sit down,” my mother says, swaying. “I’m toasting.”
“She’s toasted,” Charles whispers to us. “I’ll go get your bags.”
“Where was I?” my mother asks. “Oh, yes. My dear, sweet children.” She stops and smiles lazily at us, and suddenly her eyes well with tears. “It hasn’t been easy for my kids,” she tells her guests. “It hasn’t been easy for any of our kids, has it? In my line of work, I see a lot of families going through very hard times. The divorce rate is great for my business, but I’d give anything to never see another divorce. There was a time when I thought none of my children would ever get married, and I could hardly blame them. How could we blame them? Look at us. We haven’t made it look so good, have we? We haven’t been very good examples.” Her voice catches in a sob. “But we try. We do our best,” she continues. “And look. Look at them now.”
“Look at us running very late,” James whispers, as Charles returns to the table. “We’ve really got to go.”
“The driver is waiting,” Charles whispers back. “He says traffic is really bad. You have to hurry.”
“Look at my babies,” my mother says, wiping tears from her face. “They didn’t give up, in spite of everything. They had hope. And they found love, they found wonderful partners. Ruth, and Charles, and Gabriel—who could ask for better sons- and daughters-in-law, or better kids?” She hides her face in her hands. James taps his watch at me. I shake my head.
“Mom,” Josh says quietly, “we really need to leave.”
“They’re the best kids in the world,” my mother says, choked up. “The very best. And they’re not afraid to love. They’re taking chances. They’re so brave and good. And I’m so proud of them. To my children. I love them so much.”
“Help,” I whisper to Gabe, and hand him a glass. “Say something.”
Gabe takes the glass, and stands up.
“To Claire,” Gabe says. “A woman among women, who, fortunately for Ruth, Charles, and me, brought three beautiful children into the world, and raised them to be the extraordinary people you see here before you today.” He pauses for the guests’ laughter. “To the bride and her lucky groom,” he says, raising his glass. The rest of us grab glasses and hold them aloft.
“To the bride,” we tell her. And, blowing kisses and waving, we flee.
Sunday, July 22, 200—
“YOU HATE MARRIAGE!” the bride screeches at me. “I know you. I know all about you, Joy!” My father’s betrothed—a reputedly sweet-tempered New Age interior decorator, just four years my senior (or so she says)—flings herself back and forth in front of me, her bridal gown flouncing, her blonde pageboy flipping, her teeth gnashing, her face gone almost lilac with fury. “That’s no reason to ruin my wedding! How dare you? How dare you do this to your father and me? How dare you do this to your family? How dare you act out your personal issues on me, on my wedding day?”
It is just after eleven in the morning, with an hour to go before the wedding ceremony begins.
AT THREE this morning, my brothers, Ruth, Gabriel, and I checked into the Santa Fe Grand Oasis Hotel and Golf Resort. In all our jet-lagged, under-rested glory, we rose at seven a.m. for a breakfast in the hotel restaurant with the happy couple’s families; this was followed by a mercifully brief wedding rehearsal. Afterward I returned to my hotel room with Gabe and passed out.
I woke to a severe kink in my neck, a ringing phone, and the groggy revelation of my tardiness. Snatching up the garment bag that Gabe had packed for me, I raced, with my head tilted about thirty degrees to the left on my aching neck, to the room where Desiree and her other bridesmaids were dressing. So far, not so bad. Until I opened the garment bag and discovered that it contained: the wrong dress. The garment bags for my summer wedding duties had been hanging together in chronological order on one side of my closet, so they wouldn’t get lonely. Knowing this, Gabe had packed the first in line. What he didn’t know was that I hadn’t vetted them. Instead of the jaundiced peach, puff-sleeved horror that Desiree had selected for her attendants, I found the sparkly electric orange, off-one-shoulder, disco-ruffled gown I didn’t wear as Maud’s bridesmaid. And Desiree, who needs seven puffy-peach-clad bridesmaids—no more and no less, corresponding to mystical strictures and numero-logical dictates the importance of which I am apparently too spiritually bankrupt to grasp—is not happy at all. Nor, for that matter, am I. As Desiree bellows like a drill sergeant in tulle about my passive-aggressive act of connubial sabotage, the six appropriately dressed bridesmaids cast baleful feline glares at me and do their ineffectual best to soothe the bride.
“No, I will NOT calm down!” Desiree shouts at her maid of honor. “She’s wrecked my wedding! You can’t stand the idea of Sheldon being happy, can you? You’ve just never dealt with your abandonment issues, and your life is full of negative energy, and this is how you’ve decided to take your revenge on your father. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Um,” I tell her, trying to get my head into an upright position, and failing. I wonder briefly if I’m delirious from sleep-deprivation, and hallucinating this whole business.
“Where is Marina?” Desiree whimpers. “Someone get her up here!”
Marina is a retired second-string movie actress who, after a highly publicized plastic-surgery fiasco and subsequent nervous breakdown, moved from Los Angele
s to New Mexico. She is now a practicing shamaness and, as Desiree’s primary spiritual adviser, she’ll conduct the wedding ceremony. I met her at breakfast this morning; she called up the local spirits to bless the wedding breakfast, and burned wands of sage in the ballroom during the wedding rehearsal.
“Desiree, honey,” the maid of honor says, “don’t add to the bad vibes. Lie down. Let’s just take some deep breaths and center ourselves. Kendra, do you have your healing stones?”
Desiree allows herself to be guided to the bed, and collapses in a great pouf of billowing white fabric. One of the bridesmaids arranges the skirt of Desiree’s gown. Another sits beside her, opens a little fabric bag, and takes out a handful of shiny pebbles, which she arranges on Desiree’s face and chest, humming quietly and whispering. If I weren’t so tired, I’m relatively sure I’d laugh. Instead, I move toward the phone by the front door to call James, and Desiree sits bolt upright, scattering healing stones in all directions.
“Don’t you move,” she says. “You’re not leaving this room.”
“I was just going to make a phone call,” I tell her. She looks at me severely, but sinks back onto the pillows under the hands of her attendants. I am reaching for the phone when I hear the lock click, and the door swings violently open, clocking me in the face. I fall over. Several bridesmaids shriek. Marina bursts into the room, her purple shamaness gown swirling around her like a minor tornado. She takes note of me: on the floor at her feet, clutching my face. She turns to Desiree, who is laughing and kicking at the bedclothes.
“What’s going on?” Marina asks her.
“Instant karma,” Desiree says. Her giggles edge toward hyperventilation.
“Drop dead,” I contradict, and struggle to my feet.
“Desiree, breathe, for goddess’s sake,” says Marina. “Does anyone have any sage? I’m all out. We need to burn some sage and cleanse this space. Now, what seems to be the problem?”