by Rona Jaffe
She didn’t want to have bridesmaids because they would have to be the Satins and that would be a farce. Luckily, they found a minister who said he would marry them in the little chapel outside the main room of the church, so all she needed was someone to give her away, and she decided that would be her older brother Arthur. Old ape-face Libra actually looked disappointed—he had thought she was going to ask him! What did he think she was, an orphan with no family at all? She bought Arthur a groovy tux, and he would wear a little flower in his lapel, maybe lily-of-the-valley if there were any that early.
She ordered a great big three-tier white wedding cake, with a bride and groom on top, and told the baker that the bride and groom weren’t going to be white. There would be champagne and canapes, and then a big dinner with roast beef, and cherries jubilee, flaming. And she would have a bouquet to toss after the reception when she and Bobby rushed away. She went to Bendel’s and bought a little suit to rush away in, because she wouldn’t be caught dead in one of Franco’s jobs with the shoulder pads and peplum.
Where were they going to rush to? The theater to do their evening performance? The idea seemed sacrilegious. Silky pleaded with the producers of her show, who had been invited to the wedding, and they agreed to give her a week’s vacation as a wedding present, so they were going to go to a ski lodge in Vermont. Neither she nor Bobby could ski, but snow and quiet and a roaring fire in a big room seemed very romantic, and it wasn’t very expensive, so he could manage to pay for their honeymoon himself, which was what they both wanted. A friend of his was lending them a car to drive up in. Mr. Libra gave them a matched set of Vuitton luggage—six pieces—for a wedding present.
She went with Bobby to pick out a wedding ring, and they decided on a plain platinum band because it looked nice with the little diamond bracelet he’d given her for Christmas, which she never took off. She got him a matching ring.
There were so many things to do and so little time to do them in, with their shows every night and two matinees. Lizzie Libra even made her go to register her silver and china patterns at Tiffany’s so that people could give her wedding presents, which Silky thought was ridiculous because nobody in her family had any money except what she and the girls gave them, and everybody they knew gave cash for a wedding gift anyway. Besides, she was living in a sublet, and then they would be renting in California, so who wanted a lot of dishes and silverware to lug around all over the country? Still, Lizzie insisted, saying that was what a bride did.
“What do you want, paper plates?” Lizzie said. “Are you going to register your china pattern at Hallmark?”
The invitations went out, really a formality, because Silky had already telephoned her family and told them all the details. She knew they would be impressed with the engraved invitations. She arranged for their transportation and hotel rooms for them to get dressed in, and sent her Auntie Grace a check so she could buy anything she wanted to wear. She knew that would make the twins mad, because they bought Auntie Grace more fancy clothes than she wanted, but it was her wedding and Auntie Grace was the closest thing to a mother she had.
Bobby was patient with all the plans and the shopping and actually seemed to enjoy it. He always enjoyed nice things, and everything at their wedding was going to be very nice, in perfect taste. Silky decided one thing no one would ever be able to say at her wedding was that here was an ex-slum bunny getting married.
The night before the wedding the kids from the show chipped in to give Silky and Bobby a party at her understudy’s apartment. She noticed with surprise that it was really kind of a dump, and she realized that actresses didn’t make much money unless they were stars like she was. Silky had never been to the homes of any of the kids in the cast, and the party gave her a warm feeling. It was funny how when you had a man everybody got very nice to you and wanted you around. She decided that after she and Bobby were married she would give little dinner parties for people at their apartment. She’d never invited any of the kids up there before.
And then it was her wedding day. She and Bobby woke up and looked at each other and at the sun streaming in from the terrace into the living room and realized it was their wedding day, and it made them both feel strange and shy. It was like opening in another show. She was almost sorry they hadn’t eloped, after all. She put on her robe and went out onto the terrace alone. The air was cold and crisp and there was some snow along the edges of the tops of small buildings far below.
“This is my last day as a single woman,” she said to the world. She wondered if Bobby minded that it was his last day as a bachelor. It was much harder for men to get married. They had so much to give up. But she would make it up to him. She would make him happy. She would never let him regret what he had done for her.
The wedding was beautiful, like a dream. Silky cried a little, Auntie Grace cried a lot, and even the Satins looked touched. Then they all rushed over to the Plaza in rented limousines and they had the most perfect reception Silky could ever have imagined. Even though there were more strangers there than she would have liked, it didn’t matter. Everybody was all dressed up, and they ate and drank and danced, and nobody got drunk and made a scene … it was lovely. Really, it was like a wedding in the movies. She never would have imagined, when she was a kid going to see movies where rich people got married, that someday she would be having a wedding that was much like that but ten thousand times better. It was her party, the first real party she’d ever had in her life. It made up for all the birthday parties she’d never had. It almost made up for everything. Everybody liked each other, and everybody liked her, and she liked all of them, even old ape-face Libra there, unwillingly dancing with his wife. Bobby would never treat her the way Libra treated Lizzie, not even when they were old. But looking at Bobby’s beautiful face it was hard to imagine that either of them would ever grow old. It seemed now in this magic time that they would both stay young and beautiful forever.
At the end of the reception, just before Silky and Bobby rushed away, Silky threw her bouquet to Gerry. “You’re next!” Gerry pulled out one of the white carnations and put it into Mad Daddy’s lapel. They both looked so sweet together. Honey was looking mad because she had hoped Silky would throw her the bouquet for luck. Fat chance. That one needed more than a bouquet for luck.
When Silky and Bobby returned from their honeymoon, Mr. Libra told them he’d gotten an offer for Bobby to be the lead dancer in a television special, with billing. Their marriage had gotten a lot of publicity and people were calling to offer him jobs.
“It always happens that way,” Libra said.
Didn’t it always! When something wonderful happened and you were really happy it seemed as if everything good started happening for you after that. Silky knew that there was no stopping them now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Damn Telethons anyway, Gerry thought. Here it was March, still freezing cold, and everyone would have to sit in that hot, overcrowded room in their winter clothes, waiting for hours to go in front of the cameras for one minute, bored, miserable, and not even getting paid. The worst was that Mad Daddy hated telethons so much, and she had to go with him to hold his hand and keep him happy when she didn’t feel exactly happy about the whole thing herself. He was dawdling in the bathroom, combing his hair, changing his tie three times, doing anything to be as late as possible.
“Libra acts like the great man of charity,” Mad Daddy had told her, “but the real reason he makes all of us do so many benefits is it’s free publicity. He couldn’t care less about the cause.”
“Hurry up,” she called. “I want you there early, before the crowd.”
He came out of the bathroom, tieless again. “Do I have to go?”
“You know you do. You promised, and they announced that you’d be on. You can’t back out now.”
“They’ll never miss me,” he murmured miserably.
“You know they will.”
“There’ll be that mob outside …”
�
�We have the limousine. There’ll be cops. I’ll hold your hand. Come on, don’t be silly. Let’s get it over with.”
“I’m glad you’re with me,” he said. “Even though you are little.”
“I love you,” Gerry said.
“I love you, too.”
The person who was probably happiest about the telethon that night was Barrie Grover, president of the now-defunct Mad Daddy Fan Club of Kew Gardens, its only surviving member. When she’d seen on TV that Mad Daddy was going to be on the telethon she decided she would go, and meet him at last. She knew it was going to be on all night, so she told her mother she was going to sleep overnight at Donna’s house so they could study together, and then she put on two sweaters under her winter coat in case she had to stand outside the stage door all night. She took her schoolbooks so her mother wouldn’t suspect anything, and dropped them off at Donna’s.
“If she calls, say I’m in the bathroom or something,” she told Donna.
“You’re crazy,” Donna said. “There’ll be two million people there and you’ll never see him.”
“I’ll see him. He knows me.”
“Sure he does.”
“He does!”
“You really going to wait there all night?”
“Maybe he’ll be on early.”
“Well, if he is,” Donna said, “be careful coming home. You’d better take a cab.”
“I haven’t any money. Do you?”
“Are you kidding? I bought false eyelashes this week and I have to use my lunch money for bus fare. You should have asked your mother for money.”
“For what?”
Donna shrugged. “Well, just be careful. You shouldn’t run around by yourself in the middle of the night.”
“I’ll be all right,” Barrie said. But she was scared. Love was stronger than fright, and she knew she had to go, but she was scared. She just wouldn’t think about that dark, lonely walk from the bus stop. Maybe she wouldn’t have to come back till morning, and then she could go straight to school.
“Will you bring my books to class tomorrow?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Don’t forget.”
“I won’t. Good luck.” Donna grinned. “Maybe he’ll ask you out for a drink.”
“Ohhh, wouldn’t that be great?”
“Here, listen, let me fix your eye make-up.”
Donna was a great expert on make-up by now, and she skillfully put eye liner and shadow on Barrie’s eyes, making them look twice as big. Barrie could hardly recognize herself. She really was pretty. Maybe Mad Daddy would ask her out for a drink. Stranger things had happened!
“Here, use some of my perfume,” Donna said. “Why do you have to wear all those sweaters? You look fat.”
“I do? Oh, then can I leave one at your house? You can bring it with the books.”
She did look better without the bulky sweater; she looked cute. Donna combed and teased her hair for her and sprayed it lightly because Barrie hated a lot of spray. They both observed the results in the mirror.
“You look older,” Donna said. “You should fix yourself up like that all the time.”
“For what?”
“For school, you ding-a-ling. Then you’d meet somebody.”
“There isn’t anybody in school I want to meet,” Barrie said. Donna walked her to the door and she went out into the street.
It was dark, but there were cars going along the block and she walked carefully near the curb, not close enough to the dark shadows between the houses so someone could jump out at her, and not close enough to the street so anyone in a car could get the idea she wanted to be picked up. A car honked at her and she heard the raucous laughter of boys. She felt cold. She hated those boys she didn’t know, who didn’t know her but made rude remarks, but she wasn’t really afraid of them. What she was really afraid of was some unknown grown man who might drag her into an alley. The sound of her boot heels clicking along the sidewalk sounded very loud and too feminine, too enticing. She tried not to walk too fast, so her footsteps would not sound afraid. She wondered if anyone lurking there could smell her perfume. She was sorry she’d let Donna put it on. She knew that in her purse was the little knife she’d bought to protect herself with, but she also knew that she’d never have the courage to use it. She looked straight ahead, and finally she saw the bus stop and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Some maids were waiting there—she could tell they were maids by the way they were dressed and the tired way they stood. She was glad to see them. Supper was over in all the houses, and the dishes were washed. Many lights were out, and she could see the blue light coming from all those TV sets. The telethon would start in half an hour. She climbed on the bus to Manhattan, feeling a great surge of joy. Mad Daddy! Oh, she loved him so!
The stage door to the television studio was at the end of a wide alley between two big buildings. The alley was crowded with people waiting to look at the stars who were coming in and going out. A few police held them back so there was a narrow place for the performers to enter the stage door. Limousines and cabs pulled up to the curb, and every time someone got out the crowd would make a rush to see who it was. If it was someone very famous they would ooh and ah, and if it was someone they didn’t recognize they would ask each other who it was until someone knew, and then they would rush forward again, but not so enthusiastically. There were kids with autograph books, but what surprised Barrie was that there were so many adults. Sleazy-looking adults with dead, stupid faces. Some of the fans seemed to know all the stars, and called out to them by their first names when they went by. She stationed herself at the edge of the crowd until she saw a little space to dart through so she could get closer, then waited again, then darted again. Because she was so small it was easy to get under people’s arms by ducking and weaving, and to squeeze by them before they could stop her. Most of the people seemed friendly and curious and just plain stupid, but she was surprised by the vicious ones, who didn’t seem to know what they were waiting for but were determined that no one should get anything they didn’t get first. She even saw some well-dressed middle-aged women in fur coats, who had probably been attracted by the fuss and had stayed when they saw what it was all about. She noticed with pleasure that there were no really pretty girls who Mad Daddy might single out to like. They were all standard kids, like her friends.
Barrie had no interest in any of the stars except Mad Daddy. She noticed idly that the King James Version, carrying instruments, were coming in, their hair as long as girls’ hair. Michelle would be thrilled: the lead singer was her new crush from afar, but her feeling for him was nothing like her feeling for Mad Daddy had been. Michelle just liked him and bought their records. The kids in the mob started to scream when the group pushed their way through, and the cop who was trying to hold back the crowd near the group had a mean look on his face. Barrie wondered idly if the cops would decide to start hitting people on the head with their nightsticks. She stood there very quietly, making no noise, tensing her muscles so no one could push her away from her good place. She was right in front of the opening for the stars, and no one who entered or left could get by without her seeing him.
Where was Mad Daddy? Maybe he wasn’t coming after all. Maybe he’d come early, before she got there. Maybe he was going to come really late, near the end. It wasn’t cold any more because of the big crowd, all sending off heat from their bodies. Some of the people smelled bad. There was a smell she absolutely hated, of old cocktails drunk at dinner, and cigarettes smoked all day. She breathed into her glove.
Some of the people in the crowd left and new people squeezed in. It was like a dirty river, always moving, pushing its trash up against her. Her feet began to feel numb, but she couldn’t hop up and down because there wasn’t room. People really were disgusting, she decided. She could imagine all those stomachs digesting all that food, all those mouths with decaying teeth, all those female organs hidden under girdles and pants, dirty holes yearning for sex and never getting it bec
ause their owners were so old and ugly. Why didn’t those women go home to their ugly husbands? Maybe they had no one to go home to. Ugh … pigs.
Someone stuck a sharp elbow in her shoulder. She smelled dusty cloth from someone’s winter coat. Up high in the sky she could see the clean stars, twinkling far away. She held her head up and tried to breathe clean air from the heavens. She pushed her sleeve up and looked at her watch. It was midnight. She’d been there forever. Those stupid pig faces looked so happy, just because they could look at famous people who didn’t know or care that they were alive. Mad Daddy would be glad to see her. He would smile when he recognized her from the picture she’d sent him and remembered all those nice, sensitive letters she’d sent him and all those thoughtful presents she’d made.
“I’m Barrie,” she would say.
“Barrie!” And he would reach out to shake her hand and pull her from the crowd. “Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you ever come to see me before? Do you mean you’ve been standing out here in the cold all night just to see me? Oh, you must be cold and tired. Why don’t you come into my nice warm car and I’ll buy you a nice cup of hot chocolate? Unless, of course, you’d prefer a drink? You look old enough to drink. I thought you were just a little girl when you wrote me.”
“I was, then,” Barrie would say. “But I’ve grown up.”
Grown up? She’d aged ten years standing here in this icky mob. Where was he? Where was he? Where was he? One o’clock. She was so tired and aggravated she thought she would die.
Two o’clock. Her feet really were numb. But she’d stay here the rest of her life if she had to, just to meet Mad Daddy. He was everything that was good and beautiful and funny in this world. He made everything worthwhile—all the loneliness, the strange depressions she seemed to be falling into more and more, lately, the dreams, the nightmares she had at night. She felt more sense of purpose standing here waiting for him than she ever did at school or with her family and friends, doing what was supposed to be real life. Tonight was her destiny: she could feel it. After tonight everything would be different. Nothing would be boring again. Everything would be good.