A Wedding on the Banks

by Cathie Pelletier

  Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness…

  Who are these coming to the sacrifice?…

  What little town by river or sea-shore…

  Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

  —John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

  Weddings are almost as popular as funerals in Mattagash, Maine, and just as no one discriminates against a corpse, no one cares whether the bride and groom are an attractive couple, or whether they are well liked. All one really cares about is whether she’s pregnant and how happy he is about the whole deal. But that Amy Joy Lawler, the missionary Reverend Ralph C. McKinnon’s direct descendant, was about to marry a French Catholic added a twist to the ceremony. Everyone in Mattagash was curious to see how happy Sicily appeared throughout the event.

  “Poor thing,” Winnie Craft had gossiped. “She’s been practicing smiling all week.”

  Two inches of late snow had come down upon Mattagash during that Saturday night. It covered up the frozen pepperonis and leftover pizza crusts. It covered up Freddy Broussard’s tire marks where he’d had his rendezvous with death during his flight from the marauding Giffords. It covered all of Goldie’s Christmas lights and promised to enhance the decorations further when evening fell and electricity surged through them once more. Snow buried the autumn leaves still clinging musically to the cement walkway circling Albert Pinkham’s motel. It painted the creamy Cadillac a cool white. It piled playfully on the new mound in the old animal graveyard on Pike Gifford’s hill. It heaped itself in fluffy lumps atop the outdoor pole lights in five of Mattagash’s finest yards. It built up into a neat pile on the seat of Little Vinal’s blue bicycle. It dusted the frozen leaves of Vera’s premature tomato plants like a cold fertilizer. It turned black-shingled roofs into white ones and ate up the tar of the road. Only the surging Mattagash River was a match for the snow, as it gobbled up the helpless flakes and grew a little larger and mightier.

  By the time noon arrived and several cars had spun their way to Watertown, or St. Leonard, the dark tar had emerged once more. By six o’clock, when Floyd Barry, the minister from St. Leonard, fitted his key into the door of the Mattagash Protestant church, several fat flakes were coming down again. By six fifteen, all the ringside pews at the church had been filled, and all the automobiles catching snow out in the large yard had on their backseats colorfully wrapped presents of pillowcases, sheets, towels, irons, ovenware, blankets, toasters, pot holders, lamps, candy dishes, cutlery sets, and a host of other housewares for two young people venturing out into matrimony.

  The family pews still eagerly awaited the arrival of the relatives. Mattagash was anxious to get a good close-up look at Pearl McKinnon Ivy, gone now for over forty years. And it wanted to get a good look at that string of undertakers she had tied herself to down south in Portland.

  The few Catholics stood about the entrance door, allowing Protestants the honor of sitting upon the chairs of their religion. They would take the leftover seats. Whispers fluttered like birds, like shimmering snow buntings, up and down the aisle, in and out of pews, around the IGA flowers arranged in plastic vases at the altar. Gossip flew like snowflakes. What will Sicily do? What does Amy Joy’s dress look like? Are the Frog relatives coming? Does Pearl McKinnon Ivy look as old as she should, or has she had one of them city face-lifts? Will Lola Craft make a boy-crazy fool out of herself when the Frenchmen arrive? Will Amy Joy wear those ridiculous silver streaks? Will Sicily cry? Oh, but weddings were almost as enjoyable as funerals, as delicious, as enduring.

  “What a shame it had to snow,” Dorrie Fennelson said. Actually Dorrie Fennelson Mullins, but she had been married just eleven months and this new name hadn’t had enough time to settle down in the memory banks of the locals. Dorrie Fennelson, Amy Joy’s childhood friend, rocked her new baby.

  “I really thought spring was here for good,” said Edna-Bob Mullins, Dorrie’s mother-in-law. “Looks like she tricked us.”

  “The old-timers called this a sheep storm,” said Girdy Monihan. “That’s when their sheep’d be out grazing and suddenly, with no one expecting it, it’d snow again. They used to lose most of ’em.”

  “I lost all my daffodil bulbs,” Edna-Bob said, as though they were more important than sheep. Edna-Bob had been given her burdensome name because there were two other Ednas in Mattagash, that being a popular name back in the teens when all three were born. This Edna’s husband was Bob, so she was distinguished from Edna-Ray and Edna-Jim. The same was true of Martha-Will and Martha-John. It had served well for Sarah-Albert, now divorced from Albert Pinkham and living in New Hampshire, and for Sarah-Tom. If these women had minded the maleness of this roll call, it wouldn’t have mattered. The town did the naming, and there was no stopping the machine.

  “How low did the temperature drop last night?” Edna-Bob Mullins asked.

  “Lola Craft is running after Pearl McKinnon’s grandson,” said Girdy.

  “Good heavens!” said Dorrie, and rocked her cooing baby on her knee. “Have you got a real close-up look at him? I think he’s on some kind of chemical.”

  “His mother takes medication all day, so it’s no wonder,” said Girdy.

  “Who told you that?” asked Dorrie.

  “Winnie said Sicily told her, and then asked her not to tell.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Dorrie.

  “They’re all packed into Albert’s motel like a bunch of big shots,” said Edna-Bob. “They could’ve stayed with Sicily, but you know how Pearl McKinnon always had to make a big time of everything.”

  “She made Sicily open Marge’s old house, and even had a telephone hooked up,” said Dorrie, and hoisted the baby up to her shoulder where it burped loudly. “Them Gerber carrots make him do that,” Dorrie explained.

  “I wonder what Ed Lawler would think of all this if he hadn’t gone and shot himself,” Edna-Bob said.

  “You know,” said Dorrie, “I barely remember him. And you’d think I would, him being our principal and all.”

  “At least Sicily ain’t seeing Chester Gifford walk in as the groom,” said Edna-Bob.

  Dorrie belly flopped the baby across her knees and it farted, a social comment on the Giffords perhaps, bringing laughter in the church, and a redness to Dorrie’s face.

  The menfolk launched into a different kind of conversation, a sort of occupational gossip.

  “Is that Jonsered chain saw any better than the Partner?” Donnie Henderson asked Teddy Monihan.

  “Not much,” Teddy answered. “Leastways, I can’t see any difference in my paycheck.”

  “Who you cutting for now?” asked Bob Mullins.

  “Old Man Henley,” answered Kevin Craft.

  “I lost another skidder chain,” said Amory Hart. “I think there’s elves in the woods.”

  “I lost a chain saw and a toolbox,” said Teddy Monihan. “I’d come right out and say the woods is full of Giffords and leave the elves alone.”

  “It’s getting harder and harder to make a living nowadays in the woods,” said Teddy Monihan. “The upkeep on my equipment alone is about to send me under.”

  “Well, if the Dickey–Lincoln dam project ever comes through,” said Amory Hart, “this whole area’ll be underwater and we’ll all be eating sandwiches in Connecticut.”

  “That dam ain’t never going through,” said Bob Mullins. “That dam’s been in Congress for years, and it’ll be in Congress long after you and me is gone.”

  “Harder and harder for a man to make a decent living,” said Teddy Monihan again. “Makes you kinda understand the Giffords.”

  “Whose Cadillac out front?” asked Bob Mullins.

  “Belongs to Pearl McKinnon’s son. It’s been parked out in front of Albert’s place.” Amory spit softly on the floor and then covered the foamy little mass with his shoe.

  “Must be hard on gas, a fancy car like that,�
� said Kevin Craft.

  “They can afford it,” said Donnie Henderson. “They got caskets stuffed full of money back in Portland.”

  “This weather keeps up and we’ll be having winter all over again,” said Amory Hart. “I heard on the radio this morning that it’s been twenty-five years since we had a May snowfall.”

  By six thirty the small Protestant church was bulging with new shoes, new neckties, new gloves, new dresses, new coats, new purses. The cars outside, with their prettily wrapped presents that would end up on the gift table at the gymnasium after the wedding, were slowly crusting over with snow. Energetic boys, wishing to be outside frolicking among the new flakes, were given stern looks by their mothers. Young girls tittered about their dolls and discovered each had dressed her Barbie in a splendid wedding gown for this special occasion. As all potential babysitters were in attendance, Mattagash babies were compelled to come along with their mothers. There were five babies, two sleeping, one laughing at his mother’s tickling fingers, one staring with the blankness of newborn uncertainty at his father’s yellow “Partner Chain Saw” cap. The fifth baby was Dorrie Fennelson’s, and he was crying loudly and annoyingly. The only other wedding he had been to was when his mother married his father.

  When Pearl, Sicily, Winnie Craft, and all the Ivys filed in and took their places in the front pew, a constant drone of words hung over the crowd. The finely tuned gossip buzzed in the old church. Look how heavy Pearl McKinnon is now. Ain’t her son fat? The whole family’s stuck-up. Is that her son’s wife? Did somebody drug her or something? Look at the grandson’s eyes. Has the daughter-in-law got some kind of animal around her neck! Is it alive? Is Sicily gonna pass out?

  When Monique Tessier slipped in the front door and was given a seat by an enchanted high school boy, the gossip shifted gears and modulated. Who is she? She ain’t from Watertown. Monique took off her heavy winter coat, a burdensome accoutrement that would have already been packed away until next winter had she stayed in Portland. She wore a light blue woolen dress with a gossipy neckline. That woman ain’t wearing a bra! Has she no shame? The potholes will teach her a good lesson. She looks just like Elizabeth Taylor. Oh, who do you suppose she is!

  By a quarter to seven, when none of the Watertown participants in the wedding had shown up, the gossip modulated again, into a shrillness that was bouncing off the walls inside the tiny church.

  “Where are they?” folks whispered, and then pointed to the empty front pew on the groom’s side.

  “Probably took a wrong turn and ended up in the swamp,” Donnie Henderson said to Bob Mullins. “You know how Frogs are!”

  Sicily and Pearl spoke briefly to each other, stirring up even more interest behind them. The waves of whispers beat as steadily against the beams of the Protestant church as the ancient river, which had brought the beleaguered ancestors of all gathered.

  “Did our ancestors come here to worship God as they wanted to?” Amy Joy had asked Sicily, one Thanksgiving Day when she’d just returned from a school play about the vicissitudes of the Pilgrims.

  “Pine trees,” Sicily had answered her daughter. “They come here for pine trees.”

  Lola Craft had loaned Amy Joy her red maxi coat to wear over the mini wedding dress and then she had driven her to the back door of the Protestant church in the Crafts’ big 1968 Oldsmobile, which had been the most respected car in Mattagash until the Cadillac breezed in. In Floyd Barry’s office, Lola had pampered Amy Joy’s curls and inspected the silver streaks.

  “Your makeup looks real good,” she assured the bride, who was squinting into the tiny mirror of her compact.

  “What time is it?” asked Amy Joy.

  “Six fifteen,” said Lola. “You nervous?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “Me too.”

  “Is everyone out there already?”

  The maid of honor came back from peeping out at the flock from behind the curtains to report to the bride. It was Lola’s bridal task to be of any service to Amy Joy, to help ease her stress. And one day Amy Joy, as matron of honor, would cater to Lola’s every temperamental nuptial whim.

  “Jean Claude’s family ain’t here yet,” said Lola.

  “Is he?” asked Amy Joy.

  “Nope. At least I can’t see him. Randy’s in the front row, though.” Lola beamed. When she married Randy, her matron of honor would also become her first cousin. It didn’t matter that she and Amy Joy were cousins a dozen times already, back there in the entangled generations of their ancestors. This was a straight-out, noticeable relationship.

  “Did you talk to Jean Claude today?” Lola asked.

  “No,” said Amy Joy, and began nervously to finger a silver streak of hair. “It’s bad luck for the bride and groom to see or talk to each other the day of the wedding.”

  “I thought it was bad luck to see each other,” said Lola. “I didn’t know about talking.”

  “I talked to him last night, just before his stag party.” Amy Joy opened the small overnight case she’d brought with her. It held her high-heeled shoes. She’d worn sneakers so as not to slip and fall on the snowy steps. It also held makeup, panty hose, spearmint gum, the Clairol silver spray, and two Pepsis.

  “You want one of these?” Amy Joy found her bottle opener and pried the cap off her bottle. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

  “Naw, I don’t guess so,” said Lola. “Not unless you got a bag of peanuts to dump in it. It’s real boring without peanuts.”

  “No peanuts,” said Amy Joy. “How do I look?” She slipped off the maxi coat and posed for Lola. The maid of honor caught her breath.

  “Beautiful!” Lola Craft gushed. “I mean, to the max!”

  Amy Joy smiled. It felt wonderful to have slimmed down. It would surprise the whole congregation when they saw her. It was a perfect exit from Mattagash. Although she’d never been more than thirty pounds overweight, Amy Joy had heard the fat jokes for years. There were plenty of girls in Mattagash lots fatter, but she was a McKinnon’s daughter.

  “What time is it?” Amy Joy asked.

  “Six thirty.”

  Amy Joy drank her Pepsi and stared at the pile of letters on Floyd Barry’s desk. A small calendar on the wall warned The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away.

  “Not a sign,” said Lola, returning with the latest bulletin. “The church is almost full, but so far I don’t see anyone from Watertown, or Jean Claude. Mr. Kenney is asking when you’ll be coming around to the front door so he’ll know when to be ready.”

  “Well, at seven o’clock, I guess,” said Amy Joy. Her hands had begun to shake. She was cold in the mini dress, and Floyd Barry’s office offered little warmth on such a chilly May first. But it was another kind of chill that was inching its way up her legs and arms, a small terror yet undefined. And there had been bad dreams the night before. She had heard a gun fire repeatedly—bang! bang! bang!—yet she couldn’t see it or see who was firing it. She’d dodged bullets all night long and now here she was, feeling as if she were about to face a firing squad. Thank God for Pepsi.

  “What do you suppose is keeping them all?” Lola asked nervously.

  “The weather,” said Amy Joy.

  “The weather.” Lola nodded agreement.

  “That road is crappy even in the summertime.”

  “Crappy,” agreed Lola. “Can I have that Pepsi now?”

  “Help yourself,” said Amy Joy. Her shoes had begun to hurt.

  “It was sweet of Mr. Kenney to give you away,” Lola said after her second nerve-calming sip.

  “His being the school principal is kinda like representing Daddy,” said Amy Joy, and tears came to her eyes. Daddy.

  “I don’t suppose we should call?” asked Lola.

  “No, I don’t think so. Even if his mother threw a Catholic fit, Jean Claude would still come.”

  Amy Joy sat do
wn by the window and looked off into the white snow, which was coming down more steadily, the flakes growing into larger patterns of themselves. She could be pulled into the snow, if she let herself, could be hypnotized enough by those unique snowflakes to go right out into it, in her mini dress, and curl up under some fat old pine tree, let it cover her completely so that not even the little roses on her stockings could be seen.

  “What time is it?”

  “Five minutes to seven.” Lola’s hand shook as she held her wrist out to read the watch’s numbers.

  “Give me the phone,” said Amy Joy when Lola returned from a final report that the bridegroom appeared to be a no-show, as did his immediate family and friends. Amy Joy dialed the number slowly, making sure, very sure.

  “Al-lo?” It was one of his sisters. His sister! Why wasn’t she on her way to Mattagash?

  “Is Jean Claude there? This is Amy Joy. He’s not at the church yet and we’re getting nervous.” The words burst out. She’d met his sisters once, at the Acadia Tavern, and she had been treated rudely by them.

  “Jean Claude is very sorry, him,” the sister said. “But he’s go to Connecticut to work with Rene and Guillaume.”

  “What?” Amy Joy gasped. “What are you saying?” The door to Floyd Barry’s office opened and Sicily appeared.

  “Amy Joy dear,” Sicily began, but Amy Joy silenced her with an upraised hand.

  “What are you saying?” she asked the woman who should have been her sister-in-law in a few minutes.

  “He’s not get marry, him. He go to Connecticut last night with Guillaume and Rene.”

  “Oh,” said Amy Joy, and the word trembled. “Why didn’t you call me this morning and tell me?” Why didn’t Jean Claude call her?

  “Mama, she say, let him get down dere firss.”

  Amy Joy thought about this. What did they imagine? That she’d rally the police in three states to bring him back?

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. Her voice was thin and vague. She was dreaming. She must be dreaming. Oh please God, please Ed Lawler, please Chester Lee Gifford, please Aunt Marge, please all the spirits and ghosts and gods out there in the realm where all the answers lie to all the really big questions, please tell her she’s dreaming.