Resurgence

by M. M. Mayle

  “Yeh, I know, I know . . . guard that truth within and without oneself, persist in demonstrating that truth regardless how it’s—”

  “Good lord, you remember verbatim?”

  “I do, actually. I hung on to your every word back in those days.”

  “You needn’t have hung on to that claptrap. And in case you didn’t notice, I was making fun of myself just now. I was such a hidebound, platitude-spouting, hard-ass in those days.”

  “You’ll get no argument there, but I look back on it as you being true to yourself.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me, right?”

  “Not really. Reflecting a bit, like we did on the plane from New York when we couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop reinterpreting each other’s actions in light of new developments.”

  “Is there anything left to reexamine in light of this new development?” Laurel makes a big thing of snugging her wedding band against her engagement ring, and that’s enough to trigger a nostalgic review worthy of a couple married donkey’s years rather than just a few hours.

  They become so engrossed in recounting all that’s happened since they took up life together, they’re only marginally aware of the activity around them. Against a hum of nearby conversation punctuated by laughter, shrieks from the play yard, thwacks from the croquet lawn, sporadic chuffs from the burners regulating balloon height, and distant racketing of thwarted helicopters, they recollect events trivial and significant, happy and sad.

  Laurel emphasizes breakthroughs with the lads, unceasing delight in her surroundings, contentment she’s never found anywhere else. He stresses his daily amazement at the commitment she was willing to make, and the sheer wonderment of her ongoing presence; he gets a bit soppy about it, unabashedly so. Neither realizes how much time has passed till the wedding coordinator and catering manager marshal their respective forces to herd guests into the main marquee for the five o’clock sit-down meal. Simon and Anthony lead the pack of children released from the play yard, trailing strands of Silly String and indications some sort of water fight occurred.

  As they emerged from the church—as a family—the four of them enter the marquee and take their places on the dais set up for the wedding party.

  “There’ll be speeches?” Anthony pulls a face when he spots the microphone at center table.

  “Yes darling, but not until after we eat,” Laurel says whilst securing Simon in his booster chair.

  “Do I hafta stay for the speeches?” Anthony groans and rehearses fidgeting.

  “Yeh, you do,” Colin says, “so settle down.”

  “Da-aad.”

  “That will do, Anthony,” Laurel says with her sister and her new mother-in-law for backup.

  Under their combined glares, the lad subdues into a sulk that fades when food arrives. Then there are a million questions about what this stuff is that he’s expected to eat. One of his new uncles alerts him to the menus they’ve all been provided, and that shuts him up for awhile.

  Accompanied by the civilizing harmonies of a string quartet, the eating goes on for the better part of two hours. Now it’s Simon who’s proving difficult, who’s bleating that he wants to ride in the balloon again. This suggests potential to the other sprogs within earshot and pandemonium threatens till the catering manager thinks to distract by moving up the cake-cutting ceremony that was scheduled to take place after the speeches.

  The actual cutting of the cake is a disappointment for those expecting the bride and groom to smear each other’s faces with the confection. After the top tier is removed for preservation and the ritual first stab made into the towering remains, the catering staff takes over, serves everyone—including the bridal couple—neat slices on plates to be consumed in mannerly fashion.

  With that ceremony out of the way, the more disruptive of the children are executing knee-slides on the dance floor that are worthy of stage veterans. Assorted parents put a stop to it straightaway, but it’s clear something’s got to give or the remaining events will be a shambles.

  Exasperating as this is, it could be worse. A lot worse. If this celebration were taking place a decade ago—even a half-decade ago—the adults would have commandeered the hot-air balloons by now, run a gymkhana with golf carts, drenched one another with vintage champagne, laid waste to the string quartet, and clouded the atmosphere with a wide assortment of illegal pollutants. Before this lot—including himself—survived rock stardom long enough to outgrow the need to rebel for rebellion’s sake, anyone found on his knees on a dance floor would have fallen there, been left there. And better there than in the pool.

  The break comes with announcement that the hot-air balloons are about to be released. In the general exodus from the tent, most of the spectators streak for the great lawn. Over Simon’s loud protest, their little group goes in the opposite direction, to the terrace, where the view is second only to rooftop.

  Amanda, David, and Emily cluster with them to gape at the eye-popping spectacle of twenty-seven brightly-colored spheres going aloft at moderate intervals. When the last one fades into the beginnings of an especially colorful sunset, it takes with it any tranquilizing effect that may have been felt, because now the grownups are getting antsy, reluctant to return to the confines of the marquee just yet.

  The WC, as they’ve taken to calling the wedding coordinator, is quick to pick up on this and circulate word that the full bar service that was suspended during the meal will resume once everyone returns to their seats. That does the trick; they’re at their places in no time at all, with the Americans banging on glassware, demanding the bride and groom kiss every time the clangor is made, and the natives quite content to quaff their drinks without so much bother.

  Chris takes center stage to deliver the first toast. He handles the mike as if he’d never seen one before, adjusting and readjusting it, tapping it, blowing into it before he’s ready to proceed. The tribute starts, as most do, with reference to the principals and their respective family members. Then should come the revealing anecdotes cloaked in mock solemnity, the borderline embarrassing incidents told over in affectionate tones, wedding night innuendo made with a wink and a knowing leer. But Chris plays it straight. None of his trademark drollery comes through; nothing said is faintly laughable.

  Is he carrying on this way to avoid possible comparison with Rayce, who would by now have had the audience holding their sides, if not their ears? Does he actually feel the need to tiptoe like this because the bride’s not a slag and the revelers are only high on bubbly and spirits? And he’s made no reference to the Michigan calamity and aftermath. None whatsoever. The reason for that is unclear till he winds down with the request to charge glasses and drink to the happy couple, and it’s realized how brilliantly—and how wisely—Chris sidestepped certain elements of the past.

  Emily goes next. To no one’s surprise, Laurel is praised as the savior of a family that otherwise would have foundered in any number of ways. The girl speaks of Laurel’s unqualified love, selfless devotion, flawless character, without going mawkish or tearing up. She cites examples, with her brothers nodding enthusiastic agreement, and Laurel fairly oozing pride in the three of them.

  “I know of no one more deserving of lasting happiness in an atmosphere of choice . . . unless it’s you.” Emily redirects from Laurel to him, extols his supposed virtues like a publicist making a hard sell. “And he’s a really awesome kisser,” she adds, igniting laughter and speculation about how she happens to know. “And I shouldn’t forget to mention that he’s smart enough to know a good thing when he sees it and go after it without delay,” Emily concludes, sparking another ripple of laughter as glasses are again lifted.

  Now it’s his turn and there’s hardly a thing left that hasn’t been said, one way or another. He moves to the microphone, fiddles with it no less than Chris did, and begins, “Laurel Grace Chandler—”

  “Colin, bloody fool! Her name’s Elliot now!” These phrases and cruder variations erupt from a number of cri
tics and from the subject herself, who fortunately laughs at the gaffe.

  He retreats from the mike, assists Laurel to her feet, crushes her to him and says for her ears only, “I love you to bits, Mrs. Elliot.”

  “And I you, Mr. Rock Star,” she whispers before they’re again compelled by the glassware-bangers to kiss, and encouraged by all to hook arms and toast each other in the awkward traditional way.

  They’ve barely taken respective sips of the last of the champagne when Anthony agitates for freedom and Simon demands release. They’re allowed to join the ringleaders darting between tables and taking their chances with quick glissades across the dance floor.

  Sometime when he wasn’t paying attention, the string quartet was replaced by Current Events, ultimate party band, purveyors of a distinctive brand of boogie rock, with a front man who rivals Joe Cocker when it comes to rasping out a power ballad.

  The ballad they’re set to perform now is no surprise; soon after the wedding date was decided, he and Laurel chose the great Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer standard, “Come Rain or Come Shine,” as the tune for their first dance. The vocal artist getting ready to perform it is a surprise, however—a massive surprise when he’s able to believe his eyes. Instead of the Cocker clone, he’s looking at Motown’s greatest diva, the one who brought her incomparable gifts to the first independently produced Verge album, made contributions to several of their other albums, and isn’t that keen about foreign travel.

  He turns to Laurel for confirmation, but she’s never met Idella Brown other than on video or sound system. Or has she? She’s got that look about her again, the semi-smirk that went with her comparing him to the Pope and subsequently calling herself a hidebound hard-ass.

  “You?” he accuses.

  “With a little help from Amanda,” she says and moves with him to the dance floor that’s been cleared of hyperactive children and the dogs who have somehow crashed the party.

  “Is this what you meant earlier when you said you had something for me?”

  “No, that something is for tomorrow night . . . when we’re alone.”

  They could be alone now as the instrumental music expands with a steady, eminently danceable beat, and the vocal line soars with sheer virtuosity. They are alone when they softly recite to each other every promise contained in the lyrics, every condition to be overcome as a test of love.

  They’re given no time to recover from this stunning rendition before they’re treated to a fabulous interpretation of “Unforgettable,” the Nat King Cole signature tune from the fifties, deemed appropriate for his dance with his mother and for Laurel’s turns around the floor with her brothers.

  Idella spellbinds with a few more old standards before the regular singer reappears and mood and tempo crank up several notches. Laurel works in a request for something the children can enjoy before they’re banished, and the first few bars of “The Hokey Pokey” work better than the Pied Piper at attracting the little miscreants. Emily, Susa, and Amanda join the rush to the dance floor, where Laurel has hiked up her skirts to facilitate foot shaking.

  He moves to the sidelines, the margins of the marquee, where the lads are holding forth with whiskies and cigars. He accepts a whiskey, a rain check for a cigar and continues through the crush, thinking to see where Idella’s got to and find out how she was convinced to journey to these foreign shores.

  He pauses to watch Laurel and the children for a bit, spots a dense gathering on the opposite side of the tent that can only be the crowd around Idella, and heads in that direction. On the way there, he catches sight of Gemma Earle coming from the house at an uncharacteristic trot, makes nothing of it and wades into the throng mobbing Idella.

  “Baby-cakes!” Idella bellows when she sees him, elbows a couple of his peers aside to clasp him to her enormous bosom, then hold him at arms length. “Look at you, precious boy, and look at that woman of yours. She is somethin’ else, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  She gives him a good shake before she lets go and launches into a testimonial to Laurel surpassing anything said so far. Then she details the intricacies and mechanisms of the fantastic surprise with the same level of enthusiasm.

  “That sweet thang even made sure I’d have a piano on the way over and one at the hotel in London, and that little helper of hers, that little doll—you ain’t gonna believe the shit she saw to on my behalf.”

  Thinking to collect Laurel and Amanda, make them witnesses to all this effusive shit on their behalf, he cranes for a glimpse of the dance floor, where everyone but Laurel is to the point of putting their whole selves in and shaking them about. A glance in another direction shows no sign of Gemma, either.

  Idella is still going on about her comped trip on the QE2, swanky accommodations at London’s Savoy Hotel, the car and driver she was furnished with, when he’s forced to make a choice. He won’t hear anything more she has to say till he knows where Laurel’s disappeared to, and if Gemma Earle’s hurry had anything to do with it.

  He excuses himself without explanation, cuts Idella off mid-rave. If she’s offended she doesn’t have a chance to show it because, by now, every charttopper in attendance is vying for an audience with her.

  From the elevated terrace he still can’t spot Laurel, which ought to be a fairly simple thing to do given that she’s the only one here wearing a white frock with the approximate volume of a World War II parachute.

  From the arcade she can’t be spotted inside the house, at least not in the rooms he passes before the kitchen comes in view. And there she is, phone pressed to her ear, Gemma by her side, a worried look on Gemma’s face.

  By the time he’s through the two doors separating them—a span of time more like minutes than seconds—she’s laid the phone down and is just standing there with her back to him. Silent, motionless.

  “Colin’s here, luv. He’s right behind you,” Gemma says, motioning Laurel to turn round.

  She turns, says nothing for a few beats. Then it’s something nonsensical, something about having waited too long. Maybe she means she didn’t get to the phone in time; maybe she means that the caller rang off before she got there.

  He knows damn well that’s not what she means; he knows before she drops like a stone onto the nearest chair what she’s talking about. He knows her father has died before she says so in so many hesitant words.