Look How You Turned Out

by Diane Munier

  I pat her more quickly, too hard I think because she moves away a little, smiles weakly. I pull back my hand, hide my groan. She has no idea of the depth of my 'spastic problems.'

  So there's that…bonding time. And I'm definitely wearing the dress. And in no time, she rushes across the street to get the boys up and going. I have a feeling she'll be rushing frantically for the rest of the day.

  Chapter 48

  Scenes from a wedding part 2

  Oh, I didn't tell you about last night, Saturday night after he does his Pepe Le Pew and I'm making dirty mental pictures about the Casbah, it suddenly gets through, my 'Eureka I think I've got it!' moment--the scene of a wedding in the hospital chapel.

  "Why can't we just get married tomorrow?" I say, by golly.

  He laughs. "That's the spirit, baby."

  I shrug, and he readjusts, moves his neck a little.

  "Are you serious?" he says.

  "Are you?" I say.

  "I…am," he says.

  "Me too," I say.

  We stare. He is standing one step lower than me, and he swoops me off the stoop and squeezes the pee out of me almost cause man do I have to go and I've been holding it, but I have great holding powers…of course.

  But I do giggle loudly into the night, and one might think our houses are surrounded by hyenas instead of coyotes.

  Round we go a few times, and he sets me down, and I'm so dizzy I keep my hands on his shoulders, and I squeeze those a little. "We'll do this!" I say.

  "For real?" he says, this big grin.

  "Why the Sam-hill not?" I say all up in his grill.

  Then he gets those eyes, those, 'I'm gonna take a giant step for mankind,' eyes that make my nethers twitch cause this man doesn't kid around once he commits. "You want me that bad?" he says.

  I try not to laugh. I do want him that bad but…pride. I won't throw up in class. I won't. "Yeah," I say, and it's so weak. Matter of fact I want him right now. "You're like a man-lollipop," I say.

  He laughs and squeezes me some more. I think my back cracks. "I love you so much, baby," he says.

  "I love you too," I say, breathing heavily when he sets me down this time, and it's not just lust, or from surviving that grateful hug, it's some fear I think. I mean, who does this? Crap!

  But once we part, he walks backward all the way home saying cute things and laughing. When he's in the street, I have to yell at him because he needs to move it as a car is coming, and I don't think he even hears its approach. It's like he just got dropped down from the mothership after being held and probed for a couple of weeks.

  He says goodnight twelve times, I kid you not.

  I am worried for him, but I close the door anyway once he's out of the road. I have so much to do.

  And while I'm brushing my teeth his first text comes through, and we start to go back and forth and yep we come up with this instantaneous plan, and it just keeps making more sense. We're doing it.

  "It's a story we can tell our children," he texts finally with a cute little smiling emoticon.

  "You want more children?" I text back.

  It takes him a while to respond to that one. When he does I can feel the worry, "Ha-ha," he writes. "Don't you?"

  "You really think you can get one in there?" I write.

  This answer is immediate, "Locked and loaded baby. Your co-ordinates are on my grid."

  "You don't scare me," I return fire.

  "Scaring you isn't the objective," he writes.

  "What is? Oh yeah. Impregnating me," I correct.

  "By-product of worshipping you," he writes.

  "The objective is worship?" I ask.

  "For life," he returns.

  Now I take a minute to answer.

  "Okay."

  Chapter 49

  Scenes from a wedding part 3

  Elaine insists on driving me to the church in her nice car. The dress is very full, and I am wearing white tights and white shoes with it, ballet slippers. She's tied a white ribbon in my hair. It's borderline, Pollyanna. The hair is, pulled back off my face top and sides, left long down my back, but I don't argue. Because it's all love now, and I have this feeling like when I was little, and I went to a carnival at the Catholic church, and there was a haunted house in the basement, and we approached the cellar doors to go down, and it cost five cents and I reached in my little change purse for my nickel and all of my carefully saved coins that I'd earned over weeks of doing chores so I could save for this very event, all of them spilled at once and rolled down the cellar steps disappearing into the haunted darkness. My two friends, who flanked me, said, "Bedilia, aren't you going to try and find your money?"

  And I stood there staring down those dark stairs, hearing the screams of the older kids who were running this part of the carnival, and really, really pouring it on, and I mutely, quickly shook my head. I cared about the money, but fear of plunging into the darkness was greater.

  I have that same sense of preoccupation on me now. I can't worry about the big dress, or my hair, or how much I keep mumbling around Elaine.

  I'm getting married.

  So here I go, and she is driving me, and I see my reflection in the side window, and I think, "You're getting married you fool!" And I smile slyly at myself like my reflection knows exactly what she's doing.

  When we get there, I see Marcus's truck is already in the lot. He's very punctual, and I'm nearly late. He wants this, or he wouldn't be here, he'd be driving for all he's worth straight to Mexico, but he's not. He's here. So that's good.

  Elaine cuts through my thoughts. She says, "Bedilia," and when I look she hugs me. I don't reciprocate because of what I told you. I'm helpless now. I just submit.

  "You're very nice," I say, and somewhere in me I cringe, but I can't feel it. I can't even feel my eyebrows so I move them up and down and I prove it. My whole forehead is numb.

  She pulls back and says, "There might not be a chance later, but I want to welcome you to our family, Bedilia. I am so happy you're marrying Marcus."

  "Th…thanks a lot," I say. When I smile my lips tremble so I make this spastic pucker-mouth, then I rub it away with my shaking hand.

  Yeah, time to get out of this car. I struggle a bit, but I get out and shake out the dress as much as I can. I feel like Betty Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? But no, I rebuke that thought and the devil that inspired it.

  I have Artie's overcoat over the dress, and I pick up the taffeta or whatever you call it, the slick, shiny whiteness because Elaine is just a little taller than me, and I have a quick visual of me going end over end over end in the parking lot, so yeah I'm holding that thing pretty high, so high I'm almost to the doors when I realize I'm feeling the cold air like way up there, so I drop it a little.

  In the lobby, there are a few visitors here and there. This place is new and well designed. We walk along these massive windows. The chapel is at the end of the hall.

  Before I can reach it, I'm overtaken by Teresa. She's wearing her red quilted coat, but underneath she's in her black dress, her go-to for weddings and funerals.

  "I got Connie to cover lunch," she's saying all out of breath. "Here." She helps me out of the ugly coat, and she and Elaine work me over then, and Teresa shoves something into my hand.

  It's a tiny bouquet of white mums. Now I might lose it. I understand now, I feel it…them…mothers. I have two right now.

  This is what mothers do…the things you need that you can't even ask for, and they give you those things, they help you straighten your dress, they put flowers in your hand and smooth your hair, and offer to hold the dress up if you need to pee, and you laugh and protest, but you don't have to worry, they just know, they care, they do because they are mothers. I get it a little. They're kind of valuable.

  "Thanks," I whisper, and Elaine is cooing, and Teresa pats my arm and we continue to hurry down the hall.

  I have a vision then. Through the glass in the chapel doors, I see him, my tall…dark…beautiful…nearl
y husband, dark suit, white shirt collar against his throat, hair brushed shiny.

  I am stopped in my ballet slipper tracks. I am stopped at the window. His hands are in his pockets as he talks to the pastor. He seems calm. He is waiting…for me. He is happy, so happy. I see it. His beauty breaks me wide open like an alabaster box, and the perfume inside saturates me…with love.

  Dad is up there in his chair talking away to David, another deputy who is standing for Marcus.

  Teresa is standing for me.

  "Bedilia," she says, "ready to go in?"

  "What is it?" Elaine asks when I don't move.

  "Marcus," I whisper, but I'm thinking this…Marcus. I see you at the altar and it's our wedding day. You are patient and calm, and you're standing there in your strong way. For me.

  You can't know how I feel inside where maybe for the first time I know a moment of true selflessness, something enormous and generous rooting in me, this stir of devotion…toward you. My love.

  I'm about to promise you…my life. I am about to stand before the people I care the most about…and pledge to love you in every situation life can throw at us, the good and the bad.

  I'm freaked out.

  But I'm sure.

  You have my heart Marcus Stover. I will learn to love you in every profound way a woman can love a man. And I know I'm young…and dumb. But I'm sincere. And I'm willing to learn. And from this day on I will try to get it right, I will seek to talk it out, to listen, to ask you to forgive me and let me start again. If you'll have me.

  And I know you will. My love. My heart. My Marcus.

  I pull the door open, and they turn then.

  Dad spins his chair around, his face…oh, Dad. David moves beside Marcus, and the pastor takes his spot front and center.

  Juney moves into the aisle in front of his dad. His mouth is open. "Dang," he says, and Marcus pulls him back so his hands rest on Juney's shoulders.

  Marcus. His eyes…mine, his smile…for me. Worship. I feel that now. Just like he said.

  My future, my men. A grace takes hold, a peace. And the mothers flank me. And like a bride should, I go to my groom.

  Chapter 50

  Scenes from a wedding part 4

  We stand before the pastor in a bit of a knot. There's Marcus and me center of the cake, our arms locked. Juney is beside Marcus, then David. Other side of me is Teresa first, Artie in his chair beside her. What the…? I may be the only woman in the world to get married with her dad practically beside her.

  The only one not accounted for is Elaine. I can hear her sniffling as she moves around taking pictures.

  So here we are, a crescent shaped throng, but I'm not confused who I'm speaking my vows to. I have barely looked anywhere else. At other's weddings, I've wondered how they can stare for so long into one another's eyes, but it's not hard now, it's where I must look, the sweetest place, my emotions untied, retied…over and over.

  The sweet gaze of my lover permeates me.

  The pastor reads, "The Christian wedding ceremony is rooted in God's creation of marriage from the very beginning. He designed marriage in his wisdom to enable us to handle the difficulties of life as well as to be a source of companionship and joy. May this be true for you as you purpose in your hearts to honor Christ, and to exercise patience and sacrifice for the good of one another. As you come to the threshold of a new life together, I encourage you to take your vows with earnest dependence on the grace of Christ."

  Then to Marcus, "Marcus, do you before God and these witnesses take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife; and do you promise that from this day forward you will be her faithful husband, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do you part?"

  Clear and strong he answers, "I do."

  The pastor repeats this for me…better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health, love, cherish, till death.

  "I do."

  "Repeat after me," he says to Marcus.

  Marcus slides the ring on my finger and looks into my eyes as he repeats, "I, Marcus, take you, Bedilia, to be my wedded wife. And I promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband; in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live."

  He squeezes my hand and smiles. He lifts my hand and kisses over the ring.

  Teresa hands me Marcus's class ring, and I slide it on his finger as I repeat, "I, Bedilia, take you, Marcus, to be my wedded husband. And I promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful wife; in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live."

  Artie sobs then turns it into a cough. I don't look at him.

  The minister says the Lord's Prayer, and Artie is sighing into his handkerchief.

  The pastor pronounces, "Marcus and Bedilia have promised to take each other as husband and wife to live together in a Christian marriage. They have given rings as a token of this covenant. Therefore, they now enter into the holy state of matrimony. As a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I now pronounce them husband and wife. What God has joined together, let no one separate."

  Marcus draws me against him, and we kiss. I am on my tiptoes, and his arms are around me, the tiny flowers crushed between us. "I love you," he whispers when we stop to breathe.

  "I love you," I say, tingling from the warmth of his mouth.

  The minister introduces us to the flash of Elaine's camera. When the bright spot ebbs in my vision, I see a couple of patients sitting in the back and a couple of nurses. The nurses are clapping for us.

  About that time I realize Juney is standing in front of me, speechless for once. I hug him, and his hands touch me lightly and briefly in return. "Just call me Mommy, Dearest," I whisper.

  "Nahhh!" he is saying with a tortured smile as I let him go. "You look like Belle from Beauty and the Beast," he kind of accuses with this awkward look on his face.

  I have to laugh right before Marcus crushes me in another hug.

  Then Dad is tugging on me. His eyes are red. "Come here kiddo," and I am bent over now hugging him in his chair.

  "Where's your pants?" I ask, taking note during the hug that he still wears his sweats.

  "I couldn't get those damn things on," he says. But he wears the shirt and tie, and he has one of those thin and folded white hospital blankets sort of over his legs. "Congratulations, kiddo. You look beautiful."

  "Thanks, Dad," I say straightening. I will not cry.

  Artie pumps Marcus's arm, then David, then David hugs me, then the minister shakes our hands and Marcus reaches inside his jacket pocket and gives the minister an envelope. "Remember, about three sessions," he says to Marcus before he leaves.

  "Three sessions of premarital counseling," Marcus says.

  "Those guys…always making deals," I say.

  And so we leave the chapel arm in arm and go to the conference room where Teresa has set up the small buffet meal. It smells like Billy's in here, and while others gather around and fill plates, Elaine asks us into the hall and down to the fireplace where she takes some more pictures. Then she gives Marcus an envelope. "Don so wanted to be here," she says.

  "I know," he answers.

  Don is out of town.

  She tells him how proud she is, and he says he knows. We go back to the room, and he asks me if I'm hungry, and I'm not. "Me either," he says.

  "Well, everyone thanks for coming. We're going to shove off," Marcus says.

  "A bag from me is in Marcus's truck," Elaine whispers.

  "What bag?" I say.

  "Be good," Marcus says to Juney.

  "Don't worry about a thing," David says.

  "What?" I say, but I'm ignored.

  Pretty soon I have Artie's big coat thrown over my shoulders, and Marcus is pulling me at a break-neck pace to his truck.

  "We have one night in the city. The honeymoon suite,"
he says. People are staring, nurses are laughing, and he swoops me up, right off my feet, and I whoop a little because I wasn't expecting it, and he carries me in my floating white retro cloud out to his truck.

  Chapter 51

  Scenes from a honeymoon part 1

  Marcus carries me from the hospital to the truck, and we get there, and he puts me on my feet and says, "Take off the coat, I'll keep you warm…Wife."

  Big grin and he is already pulling Artie's coat from around my shoulders, and he wrenches the door open and crams the big coat behind the seat. Then he takes off his suit jacket and says, "Put this on," and I do, and he helps me get on the running board, then in, and he says, "All the way over." And I scoot to the middle of the seat as he slams my door and he rounds the truck in warp speed and gets in the driver's side.

  "You're kind of bossy," I say, and he laughs and kisses me and whispers, "Mrs. Stover," and he rubs his nose a couple of times with mine and I hate to tell him but he's probably got a little Bare Minerals on there now.

  He starts the truck and cold air blasts out of the vents and Christmas music blares out of the radio, and we look at one another and laugh cause we know who that was…Mr. Juney.

  He turns down the radio and the air, and smiles at me and puts it in gear and I'm holding onto that arm, and I feel the muscles shift as he drives. Our bodies are touching wherever they can.

  "Well, we did it," he says, eyes on me as much as the road, maybe more.

  "Yeah," I say. He'd called me wife. Mrs. Stover.

  "Happy?" he says.

  "Ecstatic," I answer.

  "Me too." He looks so proud of himself. Then back at me, "You look beautiful, you know," he says.

  "This old thing?" and my hand takes a pinch and lifts it and lets it poof.

  "You," he says. "Beautiful."