Warm sunlight washed across her face, the stained glass glinting up above her. Her father was crying a little, just the right amount. She willed herself not to look over again, knowing she would immediately begin crying also. She fixed her gaze on George, who looked magnificent at the end of the aisle, towering over the hunched and sleepy-eyed Minister Thaw.
Minister Thaw had some things to say. Sara could barely hear them. Something about there being this small village in Italy somewhere that had a silver statue of Saint Bartholomew. During his feast they routinely carried the statue around the village. One day it became mysteriously heavy and the villagers were forced to set it down. Just then the rocks ahead of them collapsed into the valley. The very ground they had been about to pass over completely disappeared. Had it not been for the sudden miracle of the statue’s weight, everyone in the village would have died. Then many years later, the village was captured by enemy raiders who sought to pillage anything of value. When they came to the statue, however, they found it was light as a feather. Thinking it was a fake, they let it be. This, according to the minister, was a perfect metaphor for the miracles of marriage. It could sometimes be surprisingly heavy, keeping the couple grounded—and yet at other times it could be as light as air—invisible, unfettering, even uplifting. And just as God had protected the faithful villagers, so would He protect his faithfully wed.
Sara could see George almost wanting to argue with the man right then and there—how could he claim that God, with any great consistency, protected true believers? You couldn’t cherry-pick miracles when they made for a nice homily. That was just bad methodology. But no, he was letting it go—just a cute little eye roll to Sara, as if to say they knew better, and nothing else mattered. She squeezed his hands.
This was happening. This was really happening. Her sister was standing up and reading the passage from The Velveteen Rabbit: “‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’ ‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit. ‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’”
Franklin was next, with good old Psalm 121. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand . . .”
Now Minister Thaw was recounting Christ’s first miracle, performed at a wedding in Galilee. That word always made George think of the song, “Puff the Magic Dragon” who had “frolicked in an autumn mist in a land called ‘Honah Lee’”—but as a boy he had misheard it and had for some time believed that Puff was from northern Israel. He looked up at Sara, and he could see her lips were moving, mouthing the words to the song she knew was in his head in that moment. They smiled, and Sara wished, a little, that they could recite the song instead of the vows that the church required, and she hoped this wasn’t as sacrilegious a wish as it felt. George’s eyes bugged a little, as if to ask if she could believe this was all really happening, and hers bugged back as if to say that she couldn’t, but it was, and that through everything that had happened, over all the years, they had made it here.
Of course none of the guests could see any of this happening. They fanned themselves with programs, strained to hear, and subtly adjusted their clothing. Grandma Pertie unwrapped a lozenge midway through the vows, irritating more than a few people nearby, but it was quickly forgotten. There was an audible buzz when Franklin Murphy got a text message from American Express, concerned about that morning’s suspicious $103.22 breakfast charge—he hadn’t notified them that he would be traveling out of the Midwest. Beth forgot herself at one point and could be heard softly humming the theme to SpongeBob. Jacob, standing to one side in the front with the other groomsmen, was mentally rewriting his poem and wondering what the hell William was doing wearing a fedora in the back row.
Then there was a sudden blasting on the organ pipes, and a cheer that rose through the pews, with people flying to their feet in applause, for Minister Thaw had just told George that he could kiss his bride, and (with gusto) he was doing so. Beaming, proud, resilient: they came then down the aisle arm in arm, waving and smiling at everyone. Both of them had assumed that since they had known each other so long and had lived together for years already, the moment would feel no different, really, than a million prior moments—but it did. They both were a little surprised, but there it was. A strange sense of having expanded. As if they had been, until now, living in two neighboring apartments and finally had knocked down the wall between them.
They had no receiving line—no time! It was right on back to the limousines, where the first round of champagne awaited them. Sara had arranged for four bottles of the more expensive Krug NV Grande Cuvée Brut, to be shared by the wedding party members only, then stepping down to the more reasonably priced Moët. They went around the corner and up the three blocks and back around to the gorgeous Palm Ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria. The crème marble floors were polished, and the mahogany wood was gleaming in the chandelier light. The band was playing something light and jazzy that everyone could talk over.
The cocktail hour flew by, with people steadily arriving from the church, met by a steady revolution of servers with hors d’oeuvres: crostini with duck confit and rhubarb marmalade, green tomatoes with balsamic and crispy serrano ham, elegant mini mac-and-brie cheeses, a festive French play on pigs-in-a-blanket that involved tiny croissants wrapped around an authentic andoulliette, and the coup de grâce, a gloriously orange spoon made out of Mimolette cheese that contained a single scoop of Prishibeyev caviar topped with crème fraiche. These were passed out with shots of Gray Goose, but there were also blood orange gin and tonics, a ginger bourbon lemonade, and George’s newly refined blackberry sages. There were thick lines at both bars at first, probably because of the hand-carved ice cubes, but within fifteen minutes, at the most, everyone had a glass in hand.
They were young but once. For one night and one night only, let there be no heartburn, no traffic, no bedtime, no chafing, no fears. George and Sara wanted to create not just a moment but a memory—a moment that lives beyond its borders—and the usual shrimp cocktail and steely Chardonnay wouldn’t cut it. There would be nights ahead (oh yes, there would be) as there had been nights before, where nothing would go right, where the memory of a tulip and sea grass centerpiece on a perfectly set table would be needed. Where a turmeric-flavored butter would be remembered. Where a spring vegetable salad could be recalled, along with the way the dressing perfectly prepared the tongue for the truffle in the wild mushroom soup that followed. The earthy quality of which was then met and cleansed from the palate by the perfect purple scoop of beet sorbet that followed. And the steam released from the phyllo-dough parcel containing juicy red lamb loin encrusted with macadamia nuts and a swirl of potatoes mashed with Roquefort . . .
Father danced with daughter; mother danced with son. Sisters made tearful speeches in which they both spoke the truth and lied through their teeth in wishing the happily couple nothing but the very best. Brothers told what light-blue stories they could of George’s love life before Sara (the story of his serial kindergarten proposals came up in both their speeches).
And then Jacob unfolded his hotel stationery and smoothed the wrinkles out against his sleeve. A big cough, a steadying look in George’s direction, and a good throat-clearing.
“This is just something—Sara asked if I’d read something brief. A poem. Anyway. This is part one, of, I think, three parts, about what was maybe the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Which was meeting these two people and following them here. Anyway.”
And he began to read, “‘We came to the city
because we wished to live haphazardly, to reach for only the least realistic of our desires, and to see if we could not learn what our failures had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never died . . .’”
He went on and on. George had never heard anything like it from Jacob before. Was it technically even poetry? It wasn’t exactly brief. His mother was looking around as if someone were supposed to flash the lights, but others were laughing, and Sara was crying for the first time all night—oh well, she’d almost made it. The poem (if it was a poem) was about them (all of them) as they had been before. She could hardly remember when it had been like that.
When Jacob finished, no one quite seemed to know what to do, so George stood up and loudly cheered and clapped, and it being his day, everyone else followed his lead. Jacob took a bow, and then a drink, and dessert was served.
Six tiers of alternating Opera and St. Honoré Cakes with a vintage topper from the 1920s, obtained on eBay after a vicious auction in which Sara had left several competitors eBleeding on the virtual floor. The cake was served with the special-roasted coffee (with a shot of Napoleon brandy added by those in the know) and then a series of passed postdessert munchies: champagne wine gelée, a sour cherry-filled soufflé, and a perfect madeleine stamped with an M.
Dancing late into the night, for hours without slowing down, as the older folks steadily said their goodbyes and returned to their rooms, the young folks felt more and more free. All past time seemed to disappear, and friends who had long ago dated and ended things awkwardly were seen boogying to the band’s cover of Sisqo’s “Thong Song” in utter violation of all normal rules of engagement. At one point Jacob somehow successfully swung Sara between his legs during “Take the A Train,” and he and George got up and did their old air guitar routine to “Paradise City,” and when the lights, finally, blasphemously, came up after Zacharie’s fifth warning that they were past their contracted usage of the space, there were cries from all around to keep the party moving—to grab their wedding favors (custom-monogrammed shot glasses) and take the action down the road to the Turtle Bay Saloon or the new Midtown 3015 nightclub.
But George and Sara knew it was time for them to call it a night and let the others go on without them. She got out her bouquet, and all the single women crowded around to play catch, but Sara expertly rocketed the flowers right where she wanted them to go: over Eddy’s head and into Beth’s waiting hands. Bull’s-eye.
Then Sara grabbed George’s hand, and they left: barraged in their exit by catcalls, cheers, well-wishes, and charmingly lewd comments. Someone (top suspect: Jacob) threw a condom at George, which missed and got lost in a chandelier. It was up there with William’s hat, flung excitely during “Under Pressure.” Zacharie was on it already. Sara had already made both Jacob and William agree they’d all get together soon after the honeymoon so she could give them their souvenirs. There was talk of brunch, and George knew she would make it happen.
Then alone together at last in the elevator, George and Sara fell into each other’s arms, kissing rhapsodic and hungry, chasing the tail end of the evening’s high, fumbling with the cuff links and hairpins that still restrained them. They managed to find their way blindly into the bridal suite, which had been cleaned and filled with fruit baskets and flowers and chocolates and two more bottles of champagne in ice buckets. They bypassed these and found, finally, the enormously wide bed; the last hook on her gown; the buckle on his vest; the wedding night underwear, so carefully picked out by Sara’s sisters—soon removed and flung far in their flurry. Grasping, giddy, they pawed at each other’s bodies as if they were brand-new. Floating on an ocean of down comfort and the scent of lilacs and the wide constellation of city lights outside their flagrantly opened curtains, George and Sara made love as they hadn’t in months—or honestly, years—love like neither of them could specifically recall having made in the early days of their relationship but that they were equally certain they had made. And as they pressed their heads together on the pillow and closed their eyes and lost sight of the other for the first time since the morning, they both felt that things were right and good, and that everything they’d been through had led them to this place at last.
• • •
It was still dark in the room when Sara woke up. Lights from the neighboring buildings shone through the open curtains and made gray shapes upon the bed. Which was empty, except for her. She rose slowly and walked to the door, which had been carefully closed just to the point where the latch didn’t spring into the hole and make a noise that might wake her. She eased it slowly open. A flickering light cast on her bare toes and the rug beneath them. She looked up, knowing what she was about to see because she had seen it before so many times. The television was on, volume down low to a commercial for dish soap in Spanish. There on the couch, completely naked, empty bottle of complimentary champagne beside him, was George—her husband, George—sound asleep. And on the couch beside him, under one of his arms, was the dull metal urn containing Irene’s ashes. Just as she did most nights, Sara tiptoed into the room, willing herself not to cry, and gently lifted George’s arm from the urn. In the morning he wouldn’t remember taking it out of the bowling ball bag, just as most mornings he didn’t remember taking it off the mantel and putting it on the couch cushion beside him, as if she were somehow watching.
• • •
From his blue beach towel, George spent hours watching the yachts and cruise ships moving back and forth across the glassy surface of the Golfe de la Napoule. Every fifteen minutes Sara’s cell phone would vibrate, and over on her own adjacent blue towel, she would rotate. Once an hour she would sit up and apply a fresh coat of lotion to her arms and legs, wordlessly leaning over toward George so that he could do her back. That morning she had gone for a five-mile run on the beach, except she’d gotten caught up in it and done seven. After a quick dip she’d eaten half a sandwich for lunch and plopped down onto the towel to rest and try to get some color. George tried not to stare at the topless French women just down the beach. The white sand was almost polka-dotted with rosy little nipples. You sort of got used to it, after a while. Sara wondered how many more lavender lemonade spritzers the waiter boy would have to bring before she’d unhook her bikini top. “I don’t see the problem,” George had said an hour earlier, maybe two, as he’d reapplied her lotion. “Personally I like a nice tan line.”
“Oh you do, do you?”
“Yes,” he said decisively. “Like a frame around a painting. Makes them look official.”
“I think I might take my top off,” Sara said.
“Okay.” George reached to the hook.
“Not yet,” she said, batting his hand away. “I meant later.”
“Okay,” George said, capping the lotion and watching Sara flop down again.
Up and down the beach, George saw other couples sitting just as he and Sara were, some talking, some not talking. It was early in the travel season, and the beach wasn’t crowded. Little tables sat empty, with umbrellas open to shade the vacancies beneath them. Everyone was quiet, except once in a while a group of students would pass by, at least five or six speaking loudly in Czech or Swedish or Polish. Sara thought it was probably Europe’s spring break. There had been a lot more of them around last night, wearing cheap wristbands and neon-banded sunglasses and sneakers without socks or laces.
Suddenly Sara sat up, businesslike, a good ten minutes before her timer would go off.
“Hi,” George said quickly. “This is nice, isn’t it?”
“I think we should take our hike to scatter Irene’s ashes tomorrow.”
He was surprised. “I thought—we had it planned for the, um, end of the week, after Monte Carlo and all that.”
“I think we need to get it out of the way. Don’t you feel like it’s sort of hanging over us? As nice as this all is, I can’t quite relax.”
She could tell that George was anno
yed, possibly even a little upset. Which was just as she’d suspected all along—he really didn’t want to scatter her ashes. Maybe even he was hoping that by the end of their ten days in France, he’d be able to persuade Sara to abandon the plan. Here he was, trying to wallow in the waist-deep water, and she was going to make him go right ahead and cannonball into the deep end of the pool? But she couldn’t take it anymore. The sulking, the despondency, the pondering. He was a born problem solver, a doer of puzzles. And she believed in him. She believed he would comb through the data on 237 Lyrae V and correctly identify the variables and reengineer his hypotheses until they were tested and proven. He would discover great things, but this—this couldn’t be solved. The answer to grief didn’t lie in the appendix of a philosophy book or even in Ecclesiastes. He would never be able to drink enough scotch, or stay up late enough on the couch, to unravel it. X equaled nothing. Not zero, nothing. X equaled a waste of time. But what could make him see that? What could make him let it—her—go? Day by day she tried to make their love the greater problem to be solved.
“Let’s do it,” George agreed. “Tomorrow first thing.”
Sara leaned her back against his chest and felt his arms wrap tight around her and his chin rest firmly on top of her head. Together, at last, they stared out at the waves at the shoreline. One of the bands of roving students was passing by. Someone with green streaks in her hair did a cartwheel and fell backward into the water, laughing. Another grabbed a cigarette from the hand of a third, and a game of keep-away began, with the red-hot ember flying around like a sparkler. George wondered if they had ever been that young; Sara remembered that they had been.
Why We Came to the City Page 41