Commencement

by J. Courtney Sullivan

  Sally was eager for Jake to spend more time with the girls. They had all met him before, but she wanted them to really know Jake, to see in him all the wonderful things she saw. She knew they didn’t quite get him yet—well, maybe Celia, but not the others. He wasn’t any of the things that the girls usually went for—tortured, dramatic, doomed to disappoint. Nor was he particularly complex, something that Sally appreciated, though the others seemed to find this quality suspect. She was self-conscious about talking too much about Jake to any of them, or acting like she had to have him around. In this respect only, she preferred the company of her work friend Jill, who had been married to her husband, Jack, for two years and hardly ever used the word “I.” Instead it was always “We’d love to” or “Sorry, we’re busy.”

  “We-speak,” Celia called it with disdain.

  But Sally found it comforting to be around a woman who was in a committed relationship and always thought of herself as one half of a pair. She imagined that even if they did get married, her Smith friends would never be that way.

  Before dinner, they practiced the ceremony out in the Quad—the girls walked with her brother and two of Jake’s college buddies, and Jake stood at the end of the path, right in front of Wilson House, the same path they had walked when they graduated. As Sally moved toward him on her father’s arm, tears filled her eyes. It finally felt real.

  She had thought about walking down the aisle alone, of asking her father to do something else, like hand out programs. He hadn’t been involved at all during the planning process. Plus, eight years of being friends with April had made its mark on Sally, and the thought of having one man hand her over to another was vaguely nauseating, especially when one of them was her father, who could never have laid claim to her in the first place. It would have been different if her mother were there, Sally thought, but then again, so would everything else. Ultimately, Jake said he thought she ought to just bite the bullet and let her father walk her down the aisle, and Sally agreed.

  After they rehearsed, Sally and the girls stayed behind in the Quad to take pictures for the Alumnae Quarterly. Celia said she wanted shots of them both in and out of their formalwear, so she could show the progression of the weekend. Sally loved the idea, but after a while of posing, she started to get antsy. She never liked arriving late to anything, let alone her own rehearsal dinner, and she couldn’t help but feel a little pulled between past and future—the girls still wanted her to belong to them, but any part of her that could belong to someone was Jake’s now.

  Finally she said, “Okay, my loves, let’s go. I’m nervous about leaving my father alone with the in-laws for too long.”

  They walked into Pizza Paradiso twenty minutes behind everyone else and saw the familiar wood-burning oven, its flames shooting up around bubbling pies. A family sat in the booth by the door, two mothers and their toddler son.

  “It’s good to be back in Northampton,” April said, casting an eye their way.

  Sally laughed, but she hoped Jake’s grandparents hadn’t noticed.

  When they got downstairs, she started to direct the girls to the chairs right beside Jake’s, but Celia took April’s hand and said, “Come sit by me!” and they squeezed in beside Anthony, an investment banker who had grown up with Jake, and whom Celia had decided to make out with when they met at the hotel bar the night before.

  “April, you didn’t get to meet Morgan Stanley last night,” Celia said, presenting her to Anthony. “Morgan, this is my dear friend April, the hardest-working girl in America. Would you believe her boss had her editing movie footage in her hotel room last night while the rest of us were getting hammered?”

  Sally sat down beside Jake, with her eyes still on Celia. Lara came over and kissed Sally’s cheek. She had slicked back her hair, and she was wearing a black pantsuit.

  Sally eyed her mother-in-law and wished for the first time ever that her friends could be a little less like themselves, just for one night.

  Lara apologized for not being around all day and said she had a headache. Sally smiled. “Not to worry, tulip,” she said, though she was already imagining the conversation she would have with Jake later: What was Bree doing in this ridiculous relationship, where she was always miserable, and someone always had to pretend to have a headache or a big work project, or something, because they couldn’t stand to be together in the same room most of the time? They’d had fun together in college, but ever since they had been totally unable to make it work. In Sally’s opinion, Bree was wasting her most beautiful years on a relationship that had been doomed from the start. Whenever she tried to talk to April about it, April immediately accused her of being homophobic, but Sally knew that wasn’t it—Bree wasn’t even gay, for Christ’s sake! Sally had once asked her whether she would date men or women if she ever broke up with Lara, and Bree had said, “Oh men, definitely,” without even having to think.

  Sally gave Lara credit, though, for coming all the way from California, for sending flowers when she got engaged, which was more than any of the others had done.

  She had to stifle a laugh when she saw Jake’s mother staring at Lara’s getup.

  “This crowd loves you, huh?” Sally whispered.

  “Oh yeah,” Lara said. “Since I got to the restaurant, I’ve already been asked if I was in a fraternity in college by one guy, and whether I like k.d. lang by another. And Jake’s grandmother asked if I just moved here from Japan. When I said I’m from Virginia, she said, ‘There’s a Virginia in Japan?’”

  Sally cringed. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

  “Not a problem,” Lara said. “I just can’t wait to see you get hitched. Anyway, now that April’s here she’ll probably take some of the heat off.”

  “Yeah, those dreads are my mother-in-law’s worst nightmare,” Sally said.

  She watched Celia fill a wineglass and hand it to April before filling up her own and downing half of it in one gulp. Just as she started to get annoyed, Jake leaned over and took her hand.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

  “Why? Has my father been misbehaving?” she asked.

  “Nah,” Jake said. “I just missed you.”

  The waiters arrived, carrying trays piled high with Caesar salad, antipasti, and chicken parmigiana over spaghetti. Sally had special-ordered a plate of roasted eggplant over whole wheat ziti for April.

  “You have the vegan entrée, right?” a waiter asked her, and April turned to Sally and smiled.

  “You’re amazing,” April said.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Sally saw Jake’s parents kiss. As annoying as they could often be, Rosemary and Joe clearly still loved each other. Sally knew that, statistically speaking, this probably increased Jake’s odds of being a good husband, but it made her sad when she set them against her own parents and thought of how her mother had never really known love like that. This was something Sally hadn’t realized about weddings until she started planning one—no matter how simple, they were never just about the bride and groom. Those in attendance who were in love felt all the happier; their love strengthened by being in the presence of a new, hopeful marriage. For those who hadn’t been lucky in love, a wedding was like a bad paper cut—annoying and painful and impossible to ignore.

  The dinner raced by, with speeches from Jake’s dad and grandfather, and a few awkward words from Sally’s brother (“Jake’s a really good guy, and we hope he’s going to make Sally real happy, and, umm, yeah”). He did not mention their mother once. Celia talked drunkenly and a little too freely about their college days—about dear Sally and how she had always been the sweetest and wildest girl around. How everyone in King House went to convocation in their underwear each fall, and how Sally had hand-painted Burger King crowns for them all with the words BEST F.KING HOUSE ON CAMPUS splayed across them in glitter. How she once did a series of keg stands at a luau with some Amherst frat guy and gave up on breaking the school record with just one keg stand to go, because said frat guy got a ba
rbecue sauce stain on his Hawaiian shirt and Sally insisted on cleaning it up immediately, before it had time to set.

  Sally saw Jake’s mother’s eyebrows rise as she listened in on this, looking a little too delighted by her own shock. She pictured Rosemary storing this information away as future ammunition, and willed Celia to stop talking.

  “Now Sally’s making the craziest move of all—she’s getting married!” Celia said. “We couldn’t be happier for her. It takes a lot for us to approve of a man, but Jake, as Sally would say, we love you to the moon and back.”

  Sally smiled. That made her happy, at least, because she knew Celia wouldn’t say it unless she actually meant it.

  Finally, Jake stood up. “Thanks, Cee,” he said. “Wow. I’m not so great at speeches. But here in front of everyone we love, I have to say something about Sally, this girl—sorry Smithies, this woman—who has totally changed my life. I’ve always been a pretty happy-go-lucky guy, but I never knew how happy I could be until I met Sally. She is my best friend, the love of my life, the smartest person I know, and apparently a keg stand champion. Ever since we met, I wake up with butterflies in my stomach every morning, excited just to see her again. And I know I’m still going to wake up with butterflies when we’re ninety-three years old and both of us have lost our teeth, and Sally’s brown hair has turned white. I’m so glad you are all here with us as we start our journey together, and I know Sally’s mom is here, too, guiding us along. Thank you all for coming and for not throwing up—one other thing I know is how nauseating cute couples can be and, well, we’re pretty damn cute.”

  He leaned down and kissed Sally. Her eyes filled with tears.

  Their courtship ran through her head like a cheesy montage in a Meg Ryan movie—meeting in the sandwich line at Au Bon Pain, Jake stumbling over his words and saying, “I’m not a crazy person, I swear, and I never talk to strangers, but you’re beautiful. Can I buy you lunch?” Then there was their first date, and their second, and all the hundreds of dinners and movies that came after; the car rides spent singing Elvis songs to each other; the long talks about family and friends; the trips to the Cape with Jack and Jill, sipping Coronas on the beach, grilling hamburgers, and going for long runs, making love in the sand at dawn before anyone else had woken up.

  “I love you,” she whispered to Jake now, and part of her wished that everyone in the room would vanish except the two of them.

  By the time dessert arrived, Celia was plastered.

  “That was the most adorable toast I’ve ever heard,” she said to Jake, louder than she needed to, her words slightly garbled. “Are you guys gonna get a dog? Oh, I’ll be so jealous! I’d do anything to have a dog, but I live in a shoe box. Can I live in your attic and be the spinster aunt to your ten children, if I promise to take care of the dog?”

  Sally felt slightly panicked, glancing over at Jake’s relatives, but Jake just laughed. “Absolutely,” he said, lifting his glass to toast Celia. “To spinster aunts!”

  Celia clanked her glass hard against his, splashing red wine onto the tablecloth and down the front of her dress.

  “Oopsie daisy,” she said with a shrug. “Gonna dash to the ladies’! Be right back!”

  They all watched her run off, silenced for a moment before the room once again filled with conversation. Everyone dug into the tiny chocolate éclairs and big bowls of sorbet. It was enough food for three times as many people, Sally thought happily. The dinner had been a success on the whole, although her wedding weekend was passing by far too fast.

  Sally watched Anthony lean in toward April. She strained to hear their conversation.

  “So you know Sal from college?” he asked.

  “Yup,” April said blandly.

  He was a bit of a McSmarm, Sally knew, and of course April wasn’t particularly interested in talking to him. But she didn’t have to be rude. Unlike Celia, April was safe from his advances—men like that did not go for flat-chested white girls with dreadlocks and unshaved armpits.

  “They’re a great couple,” he said, trying again.

  “Mmm-hmm,” April said, taking a bite of her sorbet and looking over her shoulder toward the steps, visibly willing Celia to return from the bathroom.

  “My name’s Anthony,” he said. “Just in case you didn’t catch it the first time.”

  “April,” she said, her mouth full.

  “Right. So what was your major at Smith?”

  “Double major—government and SWAG,” she said.

  Sally sighed. Oh brother, April.

  “What’s SWAG?” he asked.

  “The study of women and gender,” she said, as if it should be obvious.

  “Ahh, that’s a specialty of mine as well,” Anthony said, and then he winked.

  Christ. She knew that April believed firmly that no man under sixty-five should ever wink, and that she had just decided without reservation that she hated him.

  Just then, Celia returned, a wet spot running down her dress. “What are we talking about?” she said, leaning in.

  Anthony looked relieved. “So, Celia, you work in publishing. Maybe you know my cousin. Her name’s Andrea Panciacco. She’s at Simon and Schuster.”

  Celia shrugged. “Nope, don’t know her. I’m at Circus Books. But she probably knows this guy I used to work with. He went over to S and S last month.”

  Thus began several rounds of the Maybe you know game with Celia asking Anthony whether he knew her childhood friend who worked for Deutsche Bank in Boston, her high school boyfriend who graduated from Berkeley three years after he did, and her cousin who played in his soccer league (no, no, and no). Anthony, it turned out, had many former friends and acquaintances who worked in New York, though some of their last names escaped him: “You might know Liza something or other who’s a producer for Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann or one of those guys? She was in my Sunday school class as a kid.”

  Celia said she thought the name sounded familiar.

  Finally, she and April switched seats. Sally was happy for that at least. She walked over to April’s chair and squeezed her hand.

  “Thank you for being here, sweetpea. It means the world to me,” she said. “And thanks for not slugging Anthony over there.”

  “It was an effort,” April said.

  “I could tell,” Sally said. “Believe me, I could tell.”

  She could be pissed at April, but what was the point? Sally wanted all the memories of her wedding to be special, joyous. Plus, she knew that April was out of her comfort zone here, just as she herself had been a year earlier, when she had flown to Chicago.

  April had been begging her to come for months so they could have some time alone, just the two of them. They chose a week when Ronnie was supposed to be at a conference in Miami.

  “Oh, drat, I was hoping to meet her,” Sally had said over the phone, though in truth she hated the very idea of Ronnie—the danger she put April in, the way she demanded all of April’s time, even forcing her to move in, the fact that she paid April next to nothing and never gave her any credit for her work. Sally couldn’t imagine what she might say if they ever met.

  But she wanted to see April’s hometown. She pictured the two of them strolling along the water, taking one of those scenic bus tours, drinking frozen hot cocoa at Ethel’s Chocolate Lounge. (She had found the place online, a little pink-and-purple oasis right in the middle of the city, with plush sofas and dim lighting and chocolate everything. Of course April had never heard of it, but she said she would go along.) Everyone always thought of April as this crazy counterculture hippie because that was what she projected to the world. But when Sally got her one-on-one, she was just April-sensitive and funny, smart and kind.

  As soon as she saw April’s face in the airport parking lot, Sally knew something was wrong.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “Ronnie’s fucking livid,” April said, breathless, not even giving her a hug. “The army is trying to block funding for our movie from going
through, she canceled her trip, and she says we need to start working now, maybe get the ACLU involved, maybe bring a First Amendment suit if we have to.”

  There was a long pause before she said, “Sorry, Sal, I know this isn’t what we had in mind for the weekend.”

  Sally could tell that April was under Ronnie’s spell now, and there would be no snapping her out of it. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I can help you.”

  In the car, Sally looked down at her ring. Jake had proposed just one week earlier, and she was still in the habit of gazing at it for long stretches of time. She had told herself repeatedly on the plane not to be disappointed when April didn’t notice it. Sally knew a ring just wasn’t the sort of detail April would take in, let alone gush over. But for some reason, it still made her a little sad. They were best friends, but they were so very different in nearly every way, and the more time they spent out in the real world, the more apparent their differences became.

  April and Ronnie’s apartment reeked of cigarette smoke. The place was in a nice high-rise with a doorman at the front desk and a chandelier in the lobby. It was huge, with bright track lighting and wide windows. But as far as decorating went, they had only the necessities—a couch, a small dining table, a TV, and bookshelves sagging under the weight of bulky academic texts. There were no picture frames, no paintings or photographs, not even a carpet on the hardwood floor or lamps on the end tables. It looked exactly as Sally had expected.

  She wished she could spend the weekend warming the place up, putting little accents here and there—some bright throw pillows on the sofa, maybe; a soft area rug, or perhaps a sisal; old Rosie the Riveter posters from the forties in worn gold frames. She was about to suggest this to April when Ronnie burst into the room, a cordless phone pressed to her cheek.