Austin and Emily

by Frank Turner Hollon

  Austin said, “I don’t like your friend Angelo very much.”

  “Why not?” Kenneth asked.

  Angelo reappeared with the correct two tuxedos. Austin’s shirt had been specially altered to accommodate his larger tit.

  “How much do we owe you?” Kenneth asked.

  “Half-price rental,” Angelo said. “I look forward to standing at your wedding, Mr. Austin. In my country it is great honor to be best man.”

  Finally, Austin broke away and walked to his room imagining hot bath water and maybe, just maybe, volumes of white bubbles.

  Emily stood in the hotel bathroom looking at herself in the mirror once again. The wedding dress seemed even brighter white in the fluorescent lights. Cremora lay on the bed next to Ulysses. His long orange body stretched as far as possible, and then he rolled onto his back, belly to the ceiling. The room was a royal mess. Clothes and towels were strewn around like a tornado had touched down for a brief second and quickly bounced away. Glenn enjoyed rooting into obscure piles and leaving a few magic drops of tinkle. In fact, he lived for it.

  Cremora usually thought first before speaking, but sometimes, if she was in a very comfortable situation, she would say things as they popped into her mind without a filter.

  “What do you think of Kenneth?” she said aloud.

  Emily stopped adjusting her veil and leaned slowly through the bathroom doorway to look at Cremora. Cremora saw her look.

  “What?” she asked.

  Emily smiled. “You gotta little crush on Kenneth?” she whispered like it was a secret.

  “No,” Cremora countered. “He’s a freak. Besides, I don’t have crushes.”

  Emily leaned back to her spot in front of the mirror. She said, “Sometimes we don’t get to choose.”

  “Wrong,” Cremora explained. “We always choose. Life is about the choices we make and the choices we don’t. It would be nice to believe they’re made for us, certainly would remove the everyday pressure, but it all comes down to me, ultimately.”

  Emily knew better. She’d seen fate collide with her own two eyes, and once you’ve seen it, there’s no going back.

  Emily leaned through the doorway. She and Cremora locked eyes. Emily smiled a knowing smile. Cremora waited for her to go back to adjusting the veil, and then Cremora found herself smiling also.

  Austin lay awake the night before his wedding. It was 2 a.m., and he wasn’t tired in the slightest. Twice he’d gotten up to call his mother, and twice Austin had resisted the temptation and crawled back in bed.

  Kenneth was asleep in the chair in front of the television. The same Mexican game show flashed across the screen with the sound very low. Kenneth’s dog slept soundly at his feet. The hotel accommodations had not been part of the doughnut bargain, but the dog was obviously pleased with the arrangement.

  Austin entertained the thought of packing his bags quietly, sneaking to his red car, and driving away from California. He took the plan in his mind from beginning to end, working through every detail, and then decided not to move from his place in the comfortable bed. He dissected the reasons for his inaction. Fear. Laziness. Or maybe it was just the wrong thing to do. He loved Emily more than anything he’d ever loved in this world. More than he imagined possible the night he set foot in the establishment in Tampa, Florida and balanced on the barstool in front of a cool milk punch. More than his mother had loved his father, or Caesar had loved Cleopatra, or anybody loved anybody, ever, in the history of civilization. And so he didn’t get out of bed and pack his bags, or sneak out to the car, or drive away from California. Instead, Austin McAdoo steadied himself for the ultimate commitment, a promise to love for all eternity, with the fall-back position that the preacher might not be properly licensed to perform a lawful marriage.

  CHAPTER 15

  Emily looked out the window at the new morning. The sky was blue. It was the day she’d waited for her entire life. The culmination of so many wishes. She shook Cremora until there was a moan underneath the blanket. Emily wanted to get down to the street in plenty of time to locate the Julia Roberts star and watch the other people arrive.

  Austin slept a total of thirty minutes before the sunlight from the window caused the insides of his eyelids to turn a creamy shade of orange. He took a deep breath and moved his hands to the enlarged breast. There was still a soreness inside, and the boob filled Austin’s huge hand. He touched the nipple tenderly and then withdrew his hand, feeling self-conscious.

  From across the room, Kenneth said, “Are you touching yourself?”

  Austin sat up. “No.”

  Kenneth said, “I think you touched yourself, thinking about the honeymoon tonight.”

  “You’re a moron,” Austin responded.

  “Maybe,” Kenneth said, “but you got caught touching yourself, not me. It’s time to put on the monkey suits. We’ve got to find this Julia Roberts star. Who is Julia Roberts anyway?”

  “I’m not sure,” Austin said. “I think she’s in the movies.”

  The two men stood in front of the mirror shaving. Kenneth dry-shaved with no cream, scraping across his face. Austin lathered up excessively, carefully negotiating the area under his nose as if the skin was made of paper.

  “You’ve got a clump of fur on the back of your neck,” Kenneth said.

  Austin glanced at Kenneth in the mirror and tried to turn his body to see the clump. He was able to spot a portion of the neck hair, black and unattractive. Austin tried to bend his thick arms to reach the spot but couldn’t quite get there.

  Kenneth shook his head. “Stay still,” he said, moving behind Austin to take care of the problem.

  Kenneth shaved Austin’s neck area with the same lack of caution he shaved himself. The coarse black hairs gathered on the razor until the blade struck something meaty.

  “Ahhh,” Austin bellowed.

  “What?” Kenneth asked.

  But then Kenneth could see the blood. He’d shaved off a large brown mole, the top hanging loose, blood pouring from the hole like a breach in the dam.

  Austin turned on Kenneth, “What have you done? You tried to decapitate me. Lord God Almighty.”

  “Shut up,” Kenneth said. “It’s just a mole. I did you a favor. Who the hell wants a mole on their neck?”

  It took ten minutes to stop the bleeding. The bathroom looked like a M.A.S.H. unit, but eventually the two men stood in front of the bathroom mirror together in their tuxedos.

  “You can barely see the tit,” Kenneth said.

  Austin turned his body for a profile view. Kenneth was right. He could barely tell one breast was significantly larger than the other.

  “I’m not wearing this tuxedo jacket,” Kenneth said. “Instead, in honor of my grandmother, I’m wearing the hair coat.”

  Austin watched Kenneth remove the tuxedo jacket and put on the coat of human hair. He decided not to have a conversation about the coat. There were other things to worry about.

  “Do you have the ring?” Kenneth asked.

  Austin checked his pocket for the eleventh time. He felt the small bulge of the gold ring. For something so tiny, it seemed enormously important. Austin checked for the twelfth time and then once more on the way out the door.

  •

  Glenn and Ulysses wore special collars for the occasion. As flower cats their role was undefined, yet somehow critical to the entire proceeding. Emily, in full wedding dress, carried Glenn down Hollywood Boulevard. She let Cremora tote Ulysses because she decided Ulysses was less apprehensive about the upcoming ceremony and therefore less likely to cause a scene.

  Emily stopped at the first tourist map salesman. “Can you tell us where Julia Roberts’ star is?”

  The older Hispanic man seemed instantly baffled by the question. “Who?”

  “Julia Roberts. The movie star.”

  The man pulled out and opened a large map of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He scanned the names with his finger. Emily watched him, amazed that any professional Walk of Fame
map salesman wouldn’t know the exact location of all 2,156 stars.

  “Julia Roberts,” she repeated sternly.

  The man casually said in broken English, “Today is my first day. I don’t see any Julia Roberts.”

  “Are you stupid?” she asked.

  The man didn’t answer. He finally said, “You want to buy a map?”

  Emily set off, map in hand, wishing she’d listened to Austin that day in the car when he tried to explain map reading. It looked like a random piece of modern art to her, roads and numbers, special colors, with an index on the back listing all the names.

  They walked quickly. “Let me look at the map,” Cremora said from behind, but Emily just went from one star to the next, looking at the names below her feet. They were names she didn’t recognize. People she’d never heard of. Emily stopped and waited for Cremora to catch up.

  “Is there another Walk of Fame?” Emily asked.

  Out of breath, Cremora answered, “No, Honey. Slow down. This is the only Walk of Fame.”

  Cremora scanned the names in the index.

  Emily said, “Maybe her star is under her maiden name.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t have a star,” Cremora said.

  Emily gritted her teeth and looked down. “If they’ll give a star to Pee Wee King, they better give a star to Julia. That’s all I have to say,” and she turned and began walking again, looking down at each star she passed.

  As they stepped out on the street, Kenneth said, “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Austin answered.

  “Why do you wear that idiotic watch if it doesn’t work?”

  “As a protest to international timekeeping methods.”

  “Oh,” Kenneth said. “What a rebel.”

  They arrived at the same tourist map salesman. Kenneth said to the older Hispanic man, “Where is the Julia Roberts star?”

  The man looked dumbfounded. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You don’t know?” Kenneth responded. “Maybe you need to find another job.”

  The man said to Kenneth, “What kind of coat is that?”

  “A human hair coat, my man. Woven from my grandmother’s hair.”

  The man made a face of disbelief and then touched the coat gently between his index finger and thumb. He shook his head up and down, apparently satisfied with what he felt.

  Austin bought a map, and they began to roam the square blocks comprising the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As Austin walked, his shirt collar moved up and down, irritating the place the mole used to be. The spot began to bleed, and the blood soaked slowly into the white collar, causing a small bright red stain.

  As they walked and walked, the heat of the day got underneath their clothes and sweat started to eke out. Kenneth asked the man on the street the time of day.

  “Nine forty-two.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Austin mumbled. “I can’t find Julia Roberts on the list. This is a bad sign. This is a bad omen. We’re supposed to get married in eighteen minutes. Where is Emily?”

  “Don’t panic,” Kenneth said. “I had no idea there were this many famous Pee Wees in the world. Pee Wee Hunt. Pee Wee Herman. I saw a Pee Wee King. Why would anybody let themselves be called Pee Wee?”

  Austin stared at Kenneth as he spoke. Kenneth noticed the blood on Austin’s collar but stopped himself from saying anything. After all, it was Kenneth who sheered off the brown mole and started the flow of blood. There was no sense alarming Austin, he thought. The big man was already alarmed enough.

  Emily was in a total frenzy. The cats were restless. No one they asked could remember where the Julia Roberts star was located. Emily had no idea there were so many stars spread over so many blocks. She felt the sweat under her wedding dress and blisters began to rise where her shoes rubbed. It was nine fifty-nine, one minute before she was to be married.

  Emily suddenly turned around. She saw the enormous frame of a tuxedoed man halfway down the block, emerging from behind a small crowd of tourists. At the exact moment, Austin spotted the outline of a white wedding dress up ahead.

  “There he is,” Emily whispered to Cremora.

  “There she is,” Austin said aloud to Kenneth.

  And they began to move toward each other. The space between them lessened with every step, with the passing of any star, and Emily smiled her beautiful smile, and Austin felt a feeling come to his body like he was walking on water.

  Fifty yards. Twenty. Ten. And then Austin took Emily in his arms and held her like his life dangled by a thread, and Emily began to cry. She looked down to see they were standing on the star of Ann B. Davis.

  “This is where we will be married,” Emily said.

  “What about Julia Roberts?” Austin asked.

  “Right here,” Emily said, “where God has brought us together. Right here on the star of Ann B. Davis.”

  “Who is Ann B. Davis?” Austin asked.

  “The maid from The Brady Bunch.”

  Austin hesitated, but only slightly. “O.K.”

  “Why did you have to wear that coat?” Cremora asked Kenneth.

  Kenneth looked down at the coat. “Let the ceremony begin,” he announced.

  “Hold on,” Austin said. “Cremora, could you call my mother on your cell phone? She wants to hear the wedding.”

  The number was dialed and the phone began to ring.

  “Hello.”

  “Mom?”

  “Don’t tell me any crap about the wedding being cancelled,” she said.

  “No, it’s not cancelled. I’m gonna let Cremora hold the phone for you to hear.”

  Angelo happened upon the scene dressed in his matching tuxedo. “I cannot find a Julia Roberts star.”

  “Who was that?” Austin’s mother asked.

  “Angelo,” Austin said.

  “Who the hell is Angelo?” Lila McAdoo asked.

  “My best man,” Austin said reluctantly.

  “Never heard of him,” Lila said.

  “Just be quiet, Mother. Kenneth is going to start the ceremony.”

  “Kenneth who?”

  “Kenneth Mint.”

  “Little Kenny Mint? The kid from your school? He’s a shithead.”

  Austin gave the phone to Cremora who held it up while she grasped Ulysses in the other. Before Kenneth could begin, Buckshot Lemule was suddenly standing next to Emily.

  “Hey, girl,” he said.

  “Oh, you made it. Thank you,” Emily said.

  Buckshot looked at Austin and asked, “What is this jackass doing here?”

  “This is Austin McAdoo, my fiance.”

  Alvin Lemule squinted his eyes and held his tongue for the sake of Vanessa.

  “How do you know him?” Austin said, pointing at Buckshot Lemule.

  Before anyone could answer, Kenneth said, “Can we get this show on the road? This coat is hot as hell.”

  In the phone they could hear the sound of a barking white poodle.

  “Shut your trap, Lafitte,” Lila McAdoo said through the phone loud enough to be heard by everyone at the ceremony.

  Austin rolled his eyes. Angelo saw the blood on the white collar, now twice the size as before.

  “You bleeding on my shirt,” Angelo yelled.

  Austin put his hand to the spot and felt the warm blood pouring from the cut. He suddenly felt dizzy and swayed noticeably. Angelo positioned himself on one side of the groom, Buckshot Lemule on the other. Austin found himself supported by two small men he never imagined appearing on his special wedding day.

  Kenneth began, “The greatest misconception is the belief we must fully understand anything of true importance in this life, especially love.

  “That having been said, God has decided to cast his spell on Austin McAdoo and Emily Dooley, empowering and crippling them at the same time with the wonder of love. A love for one another so strong, so enduring, it surely will last beyond this life and into the next.”

  A few people on the street stopped and watched the
proceeding. Glenn released one of his patented howls, but the sound brought no response. Lila McAdoo, standing in her kitchen in Birmingham, felt her eyes well up for the first time in many years. She took a short drag of her cigarette and pushed the phone harder against her ear so she wouldn’t miss a word.

  Austin began to feel his legs again. Emily’s smile was remarkable.

  “Austin?” Kenneth said. “Do you take Emily Dooley to be your lawfully wedded wife? Do you promise to love her even when you might not like her, lust for her when she becomes old and saggy, and cherish her as your best friend, companion, and wife for all eternity?”

  Austin looked at Emily in her white dress holding Glenn.

  “I do,” he said, and he meant it.

  Cremora felt a weakness just behind her knees, and a lump in her throat. A few more people gathered, and they all stood in a semi-circle in the sunlight on Hollywood Boulevard.

  “Emily?” Kenneth said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you take Austin McAdoo, the giant pilgrim, to be your lawfully wedded husband? Do you promise to take care of him when he drives you nuts, respect him no matter what the day brings, and provide him lots of physical love when you don’t feel like it?”

  Kenneth winked openly at Austin.

  “Also Emily,” Kenneth said, “do you promise with all your heart to love Austin for eternity, so help you God?”

  Emily looked up at Austin, the blood trickling in a small line down the edge of his collar.

  “I do,” she said, and she meant it.

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Lila McAdoo offered through the phone.

  “The ring please,” Kenneth said.

  Austin felt for the familiar bulge in his pocket. He pulled out the diamond ring, held Emily’s free hand, and slipped the ring on her finger.

  Emily was mesmerized. She held the ring to her face and stared at the diamond. She pulled it off her finger and examined the prize. Inside was an inscription. Emily held it up and focused on the tiny words. Out loud she read, “You’re a fine piece of ass.”

  Austin looked at Kenneth in horror. Kenneth had forgotten the long-ago love-induced inscription. His eyes widened in surprise. Austin swallowed hard. He turned back to Emily, expecting the very worst, prepared to explain everything.