by Ann Warner
After looking at one too many white china plates with silver edges—the ones “our brides” preferred—along with glassware of every type and size, and flatware in a myriad of patterns that varied even less than the china patterns, Clare was tempted to close her eyes and point.
Except why bother when she’d already made up her mind? “These are all much too expensive.”
“But this is your opportunity, dear. To choose something you might not be able to afford otherwise.”
“What if we receive only one or two place settings?”
“I’m quite certain that won’t be a problem with 150 guests. In fact, my recommendation is to put twelve place settings on your list.”
“I’m marrying a university professor. His apartment can’t hold twelve people at once.”
Denise, standing behind the woman, struck a nose-in-the-air pose and Clare struggled not to laugh.
“That may be true now, dear. But you need to think about the future. The china you pick today will be what you’ll eat Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners on for years to come.”
Denise mimed fastidiously cutting food and lifting a bite to her mouth.
“If I receive twelve place settings, where am I supposed to store them in the meantime?”
“Some couples with large weddings rent storage units.”
Clare glanced at Denise who was now giving her the shocked look of an Alice in Wonderland.
“I’m going to pass on the fine china.”
The woman’s lips tightened.
Clare looked around. One display held brightly colored plates that were in a variety of shapes. She pointed. “Can I please see those?”
Once again the registration lady’s lips tightened, then she forced a smile. “That’s part of our everyday collection. Most of our brides would never consider it for entertaining, unless possibly you went with a single shape and color.”
“I think mixing colors and shapes works best for me.” It had become a game, going for that lip tightening. If she worked at it, maybe she could force the woman into a full frown.
“How many settings are you thinking?”
“Eight.” Clare raised her eyebrows at Denise who muffled a snicker as the woman retrieved several plates from the display and set them in front of Clare.
“Perhaps the groom should take a look before you make a final decision? Our brides usually find that’s a good idea. Especially with such a distinctive choice.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.” Rob liked bright colors, and besides, when she asked him to go with her to register, he’d given her a please-let-this-cup-pass look before suggesting she might have more fun with Denise. So, he’d just have to suck it up and live with whatever she picked.
After the plates, on a roll, she chose wineglasses and stainless steel flatware, both in simple patterns.
“Now for linens, towels, that sort of thing. What colors will coordinate with your decor?”
Clare almost did laugh at that—the thought that Rob’s furnishings could be referred to as decor. Fixing up his apartment was something else she needed to think about, but it would have to wait its turn. She scanned the towel-lined wall and selected towels of rose, teal, and buttercup yellow. That, at least, appeared to be acceptable. The registration lady noted the choices on her form then directed Clare to consider sheets and quilts.
But Clare’s attention was beginning to flag. The brace made walking tiring and being forced to make so many decisions in a short time added to her exhaustion.
“I’d prefer to finish another time.”
The woman looked at her list and finally, finally, frowned. Clare suppressed a smile.
“But you don’t have nearly enough selections for your number of guests.”
“I promise to work on my avarice so we can remedy that next time.”
The woman looked nonplussed. “Well, of course, dear. It’s entirely up to you. It is your wedding.”
“Good. Another time, then.”
Denise started giggling as soon as they were out of earshot. “You are so evil, Clare. That poor woman had no idea what you were saying. She was just doing her best to steer you down the right road.”
“Ah yes, the ‘our brides’ road.”
“She wasn’t completely wrong, you know. It is a terrific opportunity to get things you might not be able to afford otherwise.”
“True. If it’s stuff you want. But Rob has a small apartment. It would be a pain to try to find a place for twelve place settings we may use at best twice a year.”
“Well, you could sign up for four place settings.”
“But I didn’t like any of them, and at those prices, I ought to adore it. Besides it’s exhausting deciding what I want to sleep on, drink from, and eat off of for the rest of my life.”
“Let’s face it,” Denise said. “You don’t fit into the ‘our brides’ category.”
“Do you?”
“More than you do, I suspect.”
“Oh, Denise, honey, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m happy for you, and one day I’ll meet the right guy, too.”
Whoever was running the universe seemed to love to throw those kinds of curves—Clare wanting more than anything to dance Swan Lake, and Denise wanting more than anything to be married. And neither of them being granted their heart’s desire.
Clare waited out the last moments before the wedding with Denise in a small room furnished as a parlor with a fake fireplace and an old-fashioned oval mirror in a stand.
Denise reached out a hand. “Touch time, Clare.”
The familiar gesture made it seem, briefly, as if she were about to step onstage. But this was real.
Denise threw her arms around Clare. “You are so lucky. Rob’s a wonderful man. You’re going to be happy. I know you are.” She stepped back, swiping at her eyes. “Oh, damn. I’ve mussed your veil. Here, let me fix it.” She pulled at the veil, frowning in concentration.
“I’m scared.”
Denise switched her attention from the veil to Clare’s face.
“It’s all happened so fast. I worry that I didn’t take enough time to—”
“You love him, though, right?”
Clare nodded, but it had never been a question of whether she loved Rob. What she questioned was whether that love was enough to make the step she was taking today the right one.
A tap on the door was followed by the wedding planner’s head. “Is the bride ready?”
As she had before, Clare wondered if the woman remembered her name or just the correct binder color.
“Give us a moment,” Denise said. When the door closed, she gripped Clare by the arms. “Deep breath, Clare. It’s okay to have the jitters. It’s perfectly normal. You’re going to be fine. That’s a good man you’re marrying.”
Denise was right. Besides, it was too late to back out now. She took a breath. “Okay. Ready.”
One last spasm of panic hit after Denise reached her place at the altar and the organ notes swelled. The guests surged to their feet, stirring up faint drifts of scent—a mix of candle wax and floral notes. Faces turned toward Clare, as anonymous as any audience, and she was tempted to turn and flee, but from what she couldn’t have said. Perhaps the peering looks and whispers from the strangers filling the church. Perhaps from the future this ceremony initiated.
Butterflies. Jitters. Familiar and usually transitory. But not today. Today the butterflies refused to settle, even as, in response to the music, Clare and her father started down the aisle—their steps slow and careful, limited by both the solemnity of the moment and the remaining stiffness in her leg.
Clare fixed her gaze on the man waiting for her at the altar. The man who would shortly be her husband. Oh, my God. This is so wrong. I can’t...I mustn’t do this.
Despite the frantic beat of her thoughts, she continued walking toward Rob, until she was close enough to place her hand in his. Halfway through the exchange of vows, black specks obscured her vis
ion. The priest made a quick grab, but it was Rob’s arm that steadied her until the faintness receded. The priest pronounced them man and wife, and Rob kissed her on lips numbed by the words she’d just spoken.
As they walked out of the church, she stumbled and Rob steadied her, again. “Are you all right? Are you hurting?”
She shook her head, although the stumble had nearly caused her to gasp in pain.
Her new mother-in-law descended on them. “How clever of you to pair such a simple dress with an ornate veil.” But the way Mrs. Chapin’s lips pursed told a different story—that she found the dress too plain and the veil, Clare’s grandmother’s, a disappointment.
Her mother’s assessment of Mrs. Chapin had been, “She’s a bit of a gorgon, isn’t she? But Rob’s one of the good guys.”
At the reception, Clare watched her gorgon mother-in-law dance with her good-guy husband. The tux fit Rob well and, unlike many men, he looked comfortable wearing it. The dancing was another battle she’d lost to the senior Mrs. Chapin.
“But there must be dancing, dear. It’s expected.”
“The bride can’t dance.”
“Well, I know you won’t be returning to the ballet. But a waltz. At your wedding. Surely you can manage that.”
At the casual cruelty, Clare ground her teeth.
Mrs. Chapin simply went ahead and made the plans without discussing them further, something Clare discovered when they arrived at the reception.
“I can’t do it, Rob. I can’t dance.” She gripped his hand so tightly, he winced.
“It’s okay, Clare. I’ll take care of it.”
And he had. When the music started, he rose and escorted his mother to the floor, announcing he didn’t want to put his new bride’s delicate toes at risk. Clare was so grateful that when he returned to her side she leaned over and kissed him. He gave her a startled look and blushed.
It was the best moment of the day.
When Rob suggested Vieques for their honeymoon, Clare thought it a peculiar choice since the tiny island off the east coast of Puerto Rico was periodically used by the U.S. Navy as a bombing range.
“I know it sounds weird, but Lynne and Jim said the island is peaceful. And it has a bioluminescent bay.”
Could she possibly look as blank as she felt?
Rob grinned. “Living lights, in the sea. Produced by microorganisms called dinoflagellates. Marine fireflies, if you will. Lynne said it was magical.”
It didn’t sound magical.
“Unless you want to go somewhere else?”
He must have looked like that as a young boy, hoping for a special boon, his first bike maybe, or the chemistry set, and Clare couldn’t refuse him.
It was the least she could do to make up for agreeing to marry him in spite of her doubts. “Vieques sounds...intriguing.”
Except for two tiny towns, Vieques turned out to be rural and as quiet as advertised. They stayed at an inn high on a hill overlooking the ocean, and there was peace in both the view and the slow rhythms of their days. Mornings, they went swimming, often encountering a herd of wild horses near the beach. In the afternoons, they returned to the inn and made love in the bright, cool room. The rest of the time they lay under the shade trees by the pool, and Clare began to believe marrying Rob was the best decision she’d ever made.
“No moon tonight,” he said, the third day. “It means conditions are perfect for dinoflagellate observations.”
“You make it sound irresistible.”
“All part of the plan.” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned.
As the twilight deepened, she and Rob, along with twenty other people, boarded an old school bus. After a short ride, the bus turned off the paved road to rattle along a dirt track that ended on a dark beach.
There they boarded an electric-powered boat, and as the boat moved silently away from the shore, the water in the wake began to glow. The captain announced the glow was being produced by Rob’s dinoflagellates, trillions of them floating in the warm salt waters of the bay. He stamped his foot, and large fish were outlined in light as they darted away from the boat.
A distance from the shore, the boat stopped so they could swim. Rob and Clare floated away from the others, who clustered near the boat, laughing and splashing. They faced each other, buoyed by the ski belts the crew had required everyone to wear.
“Lift up your arm. Like this, Clare.” Rob dipped up water and let it run in a sparkling stream down his arm.
She tried it, feeling a soul-deep delight as the tiny lights flashed and winked. Again and again, she scooped up handfuls of water and watched the glitter running down her arms.
Then she twirled and lifted her arms over her head and pointed her toes, every move outlined with a pale glow. The music in her head, silent since her injury, burst into a glorious allégro. She laughed with the sheer joy of being able to move without pain or the worry she might reinjure her leg, and her dance was partnered by light.
After a time, the music slowed and stilled. She lay back in the glowing water and stared at the stars arching overhead. Rob put his arms around her, holding her gently, sprinkling diamonds onto her shoulders and breasts, then he whispered in her ear. “They’re telling us we have to get back on the boat.”
No. It was too soon. She needed more time in this perfect place. In Rob’s arms, but freed from guilt. Suspended from grief, loss, and unknowing.
Chapter Ten
Capriccio
Quick, improvisational, spirited
“Damn woman. She savaged Hatsume,” Rob said.
Clare handed him a glass of wine. “Who did?”
“Joyce Willette. She’s trying to get back at me.”
“Why would she do that?” Gradually Clare translated what they were talking about. Hatsume was one of Rob’s graduate students, and she was defending her thesis—today, wasn’t it? But Joyce Willette wasn’t a name she remembered hearing before.
“We dated for a while.” Rob frowned and took a quick sip of wine.
“Was it serious?” She picked Mona up and sat on the couch next to him.
“It might have been. I got out just in time.”
“How long ago were you and she—”
“God. No, Clare. After you and I went out the second time, I broke it off.”
Clare wondered what had been in her face that made Rob feel he needed to comfort her so strenuously.
Rob suggested they have a few of his favorite colleagues over for dinner. As he greeted the last two guests, Clare knew something was wrong. And when he turned to introduce the two, she understood what. The woman was Joyce Willette, who’d come as the date of one of the invitees.
After drinks were served, Clare retreated to the kitchen. She pulled the casserole from the oven, the irony of the situation hitting her—Rob, so pleased to be introducing her to the people who were important in his professional life, and who showed up but the one person he’d cross the street to avoid. And Joyce knew it. So why...? The potholder slipped and the dish slid to the floor, burning her wrist. She ran cold water over the burn, trying to clamp down on laughter that began to feel like something more.
She retrieved what she could of the casserole, a mix of chicken, pasta, walnuts, and pesto. Then she boiled more pasta and added a leftover slab of brie before mixing it all together. Feeling guilty, she watched their guests eat with gusto.
It reminded her of a story she’d read once about a Frenchman who always spat in the soup before he served the Nazi officers who came to his restaurant to eat. So it was true. People could eat anything if they didn’t know what they were eating.
Once again, she felt like laughing, but if she did, they would think her mad. Instead, she ate salad, that hadn’t sojourned on the kitchen floor, and joined the conversation as needed, playing hostess, as if it were a role.
Throughout dinner, Joyce pitched frequent comments into the conversational mix. Clearly, she was intelligent, and given her lush figure and thick blonde hair, Clare un
derstood why Rob had been attracted.
“Enough about us,” Joyce said. “I want to know something about you, Clare. Didn’t Robbie tell me you were a ballerina or something?”
“Clare was the prima ballerina for Danse Classique.” Rob’s tone had a steely edge.
“Of course. Now I remember. You were injured. Last spring, right before the end of the season, wasn’t it?”