Wedding Season

by Darcy Cosper

  Saturday, September 22, 200—

  I’M SITTING ON the porch of a lumbering rustic old hotel in deepest darkest Vermont, in a little town that has been taken over for the week by the friends and families of Henry and Delia. In the chilly morning light, the surrounding hills are already on fire with all the colors of autumn, the air laced with the smell of bruised apples, dry leaves, early frost. It’s beautiful, but though we’ve been here since Wednesday evening I haven’t been able to appreciate it, because I haven’t been able to stop crying since I arrived on Henry’s doorstep Sunday evening. Between then and now, I’ve cried so much I don’t even know when I’m crying anymore. I’ll start crying in the middle of a conversation and won’t notice until I recognize the concerned expression of the person with whom I’m talking. Henry has taken to calling me The Waterworks. She tells me it’s the return of the repressed, and finds it unbearably funny; when she sees me crying she gets the giggles, throws her arms around me, covers my face with kisses, and says things like “The ice queen melteth!” I’ve humored her. I know she means well. She knows I do, too.

  This morning, though, it feels like the deluge may be at an end. My pillow was dry when I woke up, the heavy pressing in my chest had eased, and I clambered out of bed and into the shower feeling something like cheerful—or at least not crushingly miserable. And now, perched on a phenomenally uncomfortable wooden chair with a paper cup of coffee clutched in one hand, I catch myself humming “My Girl,” with which Delia serenaded Henry last night at the rehearsal dinner—a reprise of their early courtship. My musical interlude is cut short by the revving engine and screeching tires that announce Henry’s arrival; she rented a vintage convertible Cadillac for the week, and if the car survives her unique approach to driving, we’ll all count it as a miracle.

  “Off your ass and into the vehicle, freak,” Henry yells. “Get a move on.” She’s wearing a red cowboy hat, a skirt almost too short to qualify as clothing, and an orange T-shirt that reads, in neon yellow block letters, Who’s Your Daddy?

  “Good morning to you, Hank.” I eschew Henry’s preferred method of hopping the door and get into the Caddy the traditional way. “You’d better have a good reason for getting me out of bed at six. The wedding doesn’t start for at least twelve hours.”

  “I do have a good reason.” Henry yanks the wheel around and pulls out of the parking lot, sending a wave of gravel against the cars of the inn’s other guests. “I have the best goddamn reason ever. I’m getting married today, and I want to spend some goddamn quality time with my best goddamn man.”

  “Okay, good reason. Coffee?” I brace myself against the dashboard to keep from pitching out of the car, and proffer my cup. Henry accepts, drains the contents, crunches the cup in her fist, and flings it up into the air.

  “Keep America beautiful!” she screams, lets out a war whoop, and floors the gas pedal as we pass the town limits and hit a stretch of open road.

  “How are you, Henry?” I fasten my seat belt.

  “I’m fine. I’m great! Never better!” Henry lifts her hands off the steering wheel and waves them around. The trees are whizzing by so fast as to be nothing more than leafy blurs. “I’m fucking terrified, Jojo!”

  “Me, too. I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask that you slow down?”

  “No way. Fucking terrified! What a rush! This marriage stuff is better than skydiving.” She laughs, her head thrown back, a crazed movie queen. “And how are you, Waterworks?”

  “Fine. I think the waterworks may have shut down, finally.”

  “Too bad. You look so adorable with your eyes all red and puffy.”

  “Thanks.” I grip the door handle as Henry takes a corner.

  “Oh, come on, I’m just kidding. I think it’s good for you. That stoic thing you had going just can’t be healthy.”

  “To each her own, as James says.”

  “That big fag. He’s a boy. What does he know?”

  “Hen, where are we going?”

  “Shut up,” Henry tells me, and screeches to a sudden stop at the side of the road, just a couples of inches from where the road’s shoulder plunges precipitously into thin air. She points to a sign informing us that this is a scenic outlook. I look. It is. Henry climbs out of the car, reaches into the backseat, pulls out a thermos.

  “Come on, Joyless.” She tosses her hair, cocks her head at me, and climbs up onto the hood. “Best seats in the house. Get over here and keep me company.”

  We lean against the windshield, drink coffee straight from the thermos, and stare out at the bright valley below us. After maybe twenty minutes of silence, the longest I’ve ever known Henry to hold her tongue, she flops her head toward me.

  “Jojo?”

  “Whatever you’re going to ask, the answer is no.”

  “About that stuff I said at the deli about you getting married—”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, but listen. I’m sorry. I mean, I still think I was right, but I’m sorry if I got you freaked out and that somehow ended up—”

  “Hank, really. Don’t worry about it.” I turn on my side and look her in the eye. “You were right. I didn’t know, and you did, so you told me. You get thanked for that, not pardoned.”

  “Too bad you didn’t. Get thanked. Or pardoned.”

  “Ah. Well. The truth set me free, I guess.”

  “Funny. You’re a funny girl.” Henry rolls over and puts her head in my lap. “Maybe he’ll come around, Jo.”

  “Maybe. But probably not. Did I tell you he accused me of caring more about being right than being happy?”

  “You know what, freak? Maybe you do.” Henry pokes me in the ribs. “So what? That’s who you are, and we all know it. It’s your blessing and your curse. You always used to tell me there’s no point in having principles if you’re going to toss them out the window when they become inconvenient, right?”

  “Great. My principles are intact, but I’m heartbroken and miserable.”

  “Jojo, you’d have been miserable if you’d gone ahead and got married. That’s the whole point to all this. If you’re not doing the right thing, you’ll never be happy anyway. That’s what I was trying to say the other day.”

  “I know. I mean, I believe you.”

  “Hey, there’s always Topher.” Henry lets out an evil giggle.

  “Ora can have him. She should get something for her troubles.”

  “How about Luke?”

  “I thought maybe you were going to keep him. On the side, just for kicks. What was that all about, anyway, that little scene in my parents’ bedroom?”

  “Hell if I know. I haven’t kissed a boy since I was seventeen. I guess I just thought I’d check to see what it felt like.”

  “And?”

  “It felt okay. But I’m in love with somebody else. And I still say Luke’s hung up on you. I think maybe he just kissed me because he couldn’t kiss you.”

  “You’re delusional, Henry.”

  “I bet he’s a better kisser than Gabe. How about you give it a shot, and find out?”

  “How about you shut up and drive me back to civilization so we can get ready for your wedding?” I put my hand over her mouth. She takes it away, flips onto her hands and knees, and puts her face close to mine. “Mea mihi conscientia pluris est quam ominum sermo,” she intones, and kisses my forehead.

  “Careful. They don’t take kindly to Pentecostals up here.”

  “That’s Cicero, baby. A man among men.” Henry slides off the hood and hops over the front door into the driver’s seat. “It means ’My own conscience is more to me than what the world says.’ And not in a reactionary way, if that’s even possible. You should get it tattooed on your ass. Do you want to come back to town with me, or not?”

  “Henry?”

  “What, freak?” She leans on the horn twice. The noise echoes and ebbs across the valley.

  “Henry, I do.”

  WE RETURN TO THE HOTEL, where we are met
by a hysterical entourage who were not informed about our field trip, and in our absence became convinced that Henry had decided to jilt Delia. It takes some doing to calm everyone down, assure them that the wedding is still on, and get caravans started from the hotel out to the nearby country estate where the ceremony and reception will be held. I drive up with Erica, Maud, and Miel, all of us leaning out the windows of the minivan and laughing like lunatics. I am provided with an update on Joan, whom the girls visited at the rehab facility on their drive north yesterday. Maud proposes that we get Joan and Bix a honeymoon suite at Betty Ford; Miel, in a marvelous and uncharacteristically catty moment, suggests his-and-hers restraining orders. When we arrive at the estate, we find the lawns and hallways already swarming with the brides’ families: Henry’s Louisiana drunks and dropouts, Delia’s Chicago Methodists and private school graduates, the Southern white trash and the Northern black elite. I’ve never seen such a surfeit of aunts, sisters, female cousins, and lady friends as the mob that dances attendance on Hank and Delia. It’s amazing that the brides manage to get dressed and make it to the altar at all, with all that well-meant meddling—but they do.

  They are married at sunset on the porch of the old mansion, situated on several acres on the top of a hill with a view of the Green Mountains. The brides both wear voluminous white dresses and veils. Henry is given away by her father, Delia by Miss Trixie, who is resplendent in an ornate orange ball gown accessorized with matching tiara and magic wand.

  I stand beside Henry, who cries through the whole ceremony, and watch the faces of a hundred guests in the fading light. I am surprised by how much grief I see there, how much sorrow and fearful hope. I find it strangely comforting. Henry’s father follows his daughter’s lead and weeps his way through the vows while her mother beams and giggles and pats her plump knees over and over, as if inviting a child into her lap; Henry’s younger sisters sit on either side of their mother, blushing and shushing her. Delia’s mother uses one hand to dab at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief, and her other to hold the hand of Delia’s stern and poker-faced elder brother who, I am told, still hopes that his sister’s preference for women is just a phase. Her father refused to come altogether, about which the girls were initially outraged but eventually philosophic; three out of four parents, they reasoned, was not bad given the circumstances. James and Charles are here, together. James apparently flew into a jealous rage after the engagement party and called Charles every hour on the hour for two days until Charles agreed to see him. I have neither been asked for comment nor offered any. Anabel is here with Hector; she catches my eye and smiles. Aunt Charlotte is here with Burke; her friend Francine, who designed the flowers for Henry after all, is accompanied by her date, a gorgeous boy at least fifteen years her junior; they are seated with my girlfriends and their husbands. An empty chair is held in honor of Joan—like for the prophet Elijah at Passover, Henry said. Not a single one of us makes it through the ceremony without tears. I begin crying as soon as the brides appear, and one after another my friends join me. I suspect we are setting a world record for greatest amount of smeared mascara per capita.

  I’ve never been able to figure out, really, why people cry at weddings, but now I think I understand it. And it’s not because they’re so happy, which is what people say, and maybe what they want to believe. I think people cry from regret, tenderness, loneliness, helpless bewilderment over how time passes, out of profound, protective, possessive, desperate love, and out of longing—a dangerous, perilous, impossible desire for something we won’t lose.

  Henry and Delia exchange vows, rings, kisses. The guests rise to their feet as one and cheer, and I along with them. The brides run down the aisle holding hands, the tiny chartreuse lights of fireflies spangling the dusk at their feet. At the reception, they dance their first dance to a stellar version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” arranged and performed by the members of Mercy Fuck. The brides’ families and friends mingle and dance, Henry’s giggling mother with Delia’s stern brother, Henry’s father, loosened by several glasses of champagne and still weeping, with Miss Trixie. I dance with Max and watch Delia’s mother whirl by with a gallant James, and Charles with a tiny niece of Delia’s who has fallen madly in love with him.

  Henry cuts in on Max and puts her arms around me.

  “Hey, Waterworks.” I take her hand.

  “The rain, it raineth every day,” Henry says. “You want to lead, or shall I?”

  “Hank, let’s both lead.”

  “Good idea.” Henry assumes the junior-high-slow-dance position, her hands on my posterior and her head lolling on my shoulder. “This is so romantic. Ready to give your toast, bestest man?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, come on, Jojo. You’re going to be great.”

  “I hate public speaking, Hank. Can’t you get someone else to do it?”

  “Joy, you promised.” Henry wags her finger at me. “And I know how you feel about promises.” She kisses my cheek. “Go dance with Delia. You’re practically in-laws now.”

  AFTER DINNER, the guests arrayed around picnic tables on the lawn, the dance floor lit up by torches and candles, the speeches begin. I sit between Charles and James and tremble. After toasts by parents and friends, by Delia’s maid of honor, by Miss Trixie, I find that I have stalled all I can.

  “Where’s my goddamn best man?” Henry yells to the crowd. “Give that girl a hand. Joy, get up here.” The guests begin clapping and chanting my name. I turn to James.

  “I can’t,” I tell him.

  “You can, baby girl. It’s your moment of truth. Make it a good one.” He kisses my hand, helps me up, and gives me a push toward the stage. The crowd applauds as I stumble forward and take the microphone, which quivers in my hands. I look at my feet. I look out into the dark. I look for Henry and Delia, who are seated at the front table, beaming at me. And I open my mouth.

  “Just before I drove up to Vermont,” I can barely manage a whisper, “I was looking through my parents’ wedding album, and I found a copy of this poem that someone read for them at their fifteen-year anniversary party. Three years after that my parents were divorced, but that’s not the point.” The guests roar with laughter at this, which takes me by surprise. “No, really. It isn’t. Or, I don’t know, maybe it is. At the time, they loved each other. They were as happy together as people can be. And sometimes, as I suspect anyone here married for fifteen years will tell you, that’s not very happy.” More laughter. I’m beginning to enjoy this. “But they did the best they could, my mother and father, and they had faith that everything would come out right. And it has—not as they expected it to, but in its own way. And I’m beginning to think maybe that’s how marriage works. So I have faith, in this, if in nothing else: that no matter what happens for you, Henry and Delia, whether it’s just as you wish or beyond what you can foresee here, now, tonight, things will come out right. This is an excerpt from that poem,” I tell the brides, raising my glass. “It was written to commemorate the marriage of a couple with whom the writer was friends, and I offer it to you, a poet’s benediction and blessing.”

  ideas are obscure and nothing should be obscure tonight

  you will live half the year in a house by the sea and half the year in a house in our arms

  we peer into the future and see you happy, and hope it is a sign that we will be happy, too, something to cling to, happiness

  the least and best of human attainments

  I raise my glass and look around the room—at Henry, who is weeping again, and Delia, who clasps Henry’s hand against her cheek and looks serious and elated both at once, at my brother, who is kissing my business partner, at all my friends and all the strangers. I think, briefly, of Gabe, and I think that this moment is both identical to all such moments, and also like nothing else that has come before or will be hence, and I think that I am, in my own way, happy.

  Acknowledgements

  THANKS TO THOSE WITHOUT WHOM: friend and agent non
pareil Elizabeth Sheinkman and the staff of the Elaine Markson Literary Agency; my patient and provocative editor, Kristin Kiser, her assistant, Claudia Gabel, and the staff at Crown Publishing Group; El Staff and fellow members of the NYC Writers Room.

  Thanks to dear friends and esteemed colleagues Ingrid Bernstein, Tania Bertsch, Andrea Codrington, Dave Daley, Lisa Grace, Geoff Kloske, Andrew Hultkrans, William Monahan, John Reed, James Sanders (from whom I steal all my best lines), Kevin Slavin, George Stantini, Karen Steen, Rob Tannenbaum, and Chris Weitz, and to generous beta testers Ned Cramer, James Geppner, Jocelyn Mason, Alex McQuilkin, Jules Merson, Jack Murnighan, Julia Murphy, and Molly Ringwald.

  For inspiration and encouragement at various junctures, thanks to Elizabeth Bogner, Sarah Burnes, Dawn Davis, Linda Rattner, Sarah Saffian, and Cheryl Willems.

  Particular thanks to John Bowe, David Gates, Panio Gianopoulos, Scott Karambis, Bill O’Neil, Pavia Rosati, and Alice Vernon, for invaluable editorial guidance, and for their sustaining enthusiasm when my own flagged.

  Finally, thanks to Anthony Steele and to my family-Alice Bradie, Elora Cosper, Skip Cosper, Lenore and Stanley Furman, Steve Johnson, Alex and Ginny, and Mimi Maduro—whose support makes everything possible.

  About the Author

  DARCY COSPER is a writer and book reviewer. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, the Village Voice, Nerve, and GQ, and in the anthologies Full Frontal Fiction and the forthcoming Sex & Sensibility. She lives in Los Angeles and New York. This is her first novel.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: