A New Lu

by Laura Castoro

  “Yes, I suppose….” I imagine Marj is frowning but not a line creases her brow. The Botox party must have been a success. “You look fine, dear. Fine.”

  “You look so hot!” Stephen says in a way that makes this mother’s heart swell with relief. Going braless has assured Dallas of his attention. He practically vibrates around her. He grabs Dallas’s arm. “Come on, I want to show you off.”

  Marj gives me a tight smile. “And this is your family?”

  I quickly make introductions. Mom and Marvelle are dressed in costumes from an off-Broadway production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, thanks to the ever-changeable KaZi, who volunteered to use her theater connections after she overheard me talking to the Radish about my need for vintage garb. They wear pastel handkerchief-hem dresses with matching headbands with jeweled feather ornaments. I opted for the black-lace number with the ostrich feather hemline Andrea talked me into putting in layaway back in May.

  “And Lu! How clever of you to come as a pregnant flapper.” Marj pats my stomach but then jerks her hand away. “Oh! I thought—That’s a really firm pillow.”

  Unlike Thelma, apparently Marj isn’t a reader of Five-O. Equally obvious, neither Dallas nor Stephen has said a word about my condition.

  Aunt Marvelle gives me the fish-eye and says to her sister, “Come on, Leila. It’s definitely time for that drink.”

  Before I can begin the necessary explanation, Stephen’s dad arrives at Marj’s side, Scotch glass in hand.

  “Hello, Lu.” Preston’s smile is wide and his eyes are bright, really bright. “Sorry to hear about you and Jacob.” He hugs me a little too hard and a few cold drops of his drink splash down my back. “Say, maybe you better cut back on the Ben & Jerry’s comfort therapy. Huh?”

  “Preston!” Marj admonishes in embarrassment. To me she says, “Preston started celebrating early.”

  “Oh, come on,” Preston says, patting my cheek. “We’re all family here, or soon will be.”

  I remind myself that perfectly nice people can get a bit weird when a wedding is involved.

  I slip an arm through one each of theirs. “Since you’re both here, I have a little announcement to make. It’s not a problem. It’s not an issue. It’s just a fact. I’m pregnant. Six and a half months.”

  Preston bursts into laughter but I watch Marj’s gaze focus on the bump beneath my dress. Preston quickly sobers, after a fashion, aware that he’s missed something huge. For seconds the silence is absolute, as the mathematics of gestation becomes a lawn game.

  “Well, well. Isn’t that wonderful?” Marj says finally. “Right, Preston?”

  “Oh sure. Wonderful.” Preston is busy checking his shoe, for he’s stepped in a pile of manure.

  It’s clear Marj and Preston are shocked. Shocked.

  I smile and slip free before they can think of the obvious follow-up questions.

  I’d been warned that wedding rehearsal dinners fall into two types. The first launches joyful festivities that won’t end until the couple is on their honeymoon. The second involves dealing with situations that quickly remind you why you don’t see these people more often. It seems I’ve been dealt the second hand.

  Jacob arrives shortly after this with Davin and, regrettably, Sandra. She wears a thigh-high chemise that looks more like an undergarment, but who’s judging?

  Davin gives me a big hug. “Wow, Mom! You look hot.” Thank goodness for sons who like feathers.

  “Yeah, you look nice, Lu.” Jacob’s face is bright red as he kisses my cheek, and then I get a whiff of gin. Seems like the whole gang thinks being stinko is a good idea.

  Sandra and I smile at each other. I thought she was history. I’m sure she wishes I were. I suppose Jacob didn’t want to show up without a date, in case I had one.

  Funny, I feel no real angst. William wasn’t able to get away. He’s promised to make the wedding. Andrea, alas, had other plans, too.

  Soon after, Cy and Curran arrive. Cy latches onto my elbow. “So, how bad is it?” I give him the look. “I would have escorted you. But you must be the independent woman.”

  “I was wrong. The Pascals don’t approve.” I pat Sweet Tum.

  “They’ve got taste,” he says, “just not good taste.”

  As we make our way through the throng, Curran follows. His camera should be surgically attached. It’s like having my own portable paparazzo.

  Despite the fact that this is Dallas and Stephen’s evening, I find I’m the reluctant focus of attention among many guests. Once Aunt Marvelle makes off with Cy, claiming she needs his help with some arrangement, my late-life fertility becomes a pretty good gauge for the mind-set of one’s acquaintances as they greet me with monologue reactions.

  “Well, la-la-palooza Lu!” Dill Graves, my dentist, flashes me a white-porcelain smile, which reminds me I’m overdue for a checkup. “You’re looking quite, quite something I can’t put my finger on.”

  I just smile.

  A moment later I get a big wink from Jacob’s podiatrist. “So, you’re still in the game, huh, Lu?”

  “There goes your retirement,” offers my CPA.

  “I’ve been reading all about it in your column, Lu. You’re so brave. So very brave.” This from a woman whose youngest has just flown the nest.

  Men with exes say things like “Poor Jacob. How’s the old boy handling it? What’s the poor bastard going to do?”

  One of Jacob’s golfing buddies leans in to whisper, “A big girl like you should know better. Now, if you’d come to me, I would have taken care of business.”

  Some men just leer. Really leer, as if my expanding tum is the most embarrassing turn-on since Bob Dole started hawking Viagra.

  Then there are the distant, less sympathetic utterances.

  “—just ridiculous.”

  “—at her age.”

  “Showing off, that’s all.”

  Through it all I smile and behave as if I’m not ready to bolt. Whenever I catch Dallas’s eye, I nod and wave. But finally I decide that if getting drunk is out then a sugar high will have to do.

  Yet as I make my way over to the sweets table, Dallas’s godparents, Jeff and Sarah, waylay me.

  “Lu, Lu!” Jeff begins in mournful tones like the start of a homily on the prodigal child. “How the hell—aw—ouch!”

  Hmm. That’s going to leave a bruise. Sarah never spanked her children growing up. She just pinched them into submission.

  “Lu knows what I meant.” Jeff looks leery as he glances from his wife’s poised right hand to me. “Right, Lu?”

  “Sure, Jeff. It’s a shock. To all of us. Still, we must be brave and do the best we can, under the circumstances.” I quickly step away from Sarah, just in case she’s thinking I’m being a bit too glib. I bruise very easily.

  I smell shrimp, lovely broiled shrimp! I can’t drink, but I can certainly eat.

  Unfortunately, Ellen Jenkins, the spreader of last year’s “clap trouble with hubby,” meets me at the buffet table. “Just between us girls. Who are you seeing?” She says this with the avid expectation she usually reserves for news of a new stylist at a Manhattan salon.

  Thelma, hovering nearby, joins us. “God, yes! Tell us. Is he here?”

  I shake my head and take a large bite of the shrimp on a skewer. Food in mouth will possibly keep me from having to say more.

  “Your news frightened him off.” Ellen doesn’t sound at all saddened by the idea.

  “Men can be such bastards about these little accidents,” adds Thelma.

  Ellen nods. “It doesn’t matter how many tricks you know. Men just won’t stick around if you’re past forty and not rich.”

  “Get a boob job,” Thelma suggests, for abundant reasons. “Men don’t care about wrinkles if you keep a good rack.”

  Ellen swings around on her. “Is the clinic in Jersey?”

  I munch my shrimp and wonder, why do I know these people?

  * * *

  The rehearsal itself is predictably awful. Wh
ile lining up, two groomsmen get into a heated discussion—work issues. The flower girl gets sick and barfs into her basket. Then the ring bearer, Stephen’s sister’s timid son, can’t be persuaded to take even two steps down the makeshift aisle. I keep reminding Dallas that a lousy dress rehearsal is the harbinger of a great opening night or wedding day. It doesn’t help matters that through it all, I remain a constant source of speculation.

  “But if they’re divorced, who’s the father?” I overhear Stephen’s grandmother ask Aunt Marvelle.

  “A fine young man,” she answers, and moves quickly away.

  A little later, Grandma Pascal buttonholes Cy. “Who’s the father?”

  “I am,” he offers.

  She gives him a look of consternation. “I’m not impressed.”

  When it’s time to walk down the aisle Jacob can’t be found. Dallas is frosted. “Why can’t I have friggin’ normal parents like other people?”

  I make no comment about the fact that Stephen’s father is piss-faced in the corner. Instead I join the volunteers to locate her father.

  We find Jacob with Sandra behind the barn having an argument over “that pregnant cow,” his ex-wife. Nice to know I made that good of an impression.

  “You’re needed for Daddy duty,” I say, startling them both. “Not new-daddy, old-daddy duty.”

  But Dallas has had it. She won’t walk down the aisle with Jacob, she won’t even make a show of it. She screams at him something like “Hate you” and “Grow up!”

  Then Davin, feeling protective after all these months, lights into his father for bringing Sandra. “What were you thinking? In front of Mom!”

  In the midst of this impressive family moment, Stephen and Dallas slip away, not to be seen again for the rest of the evening. It’s too much to hope they have decided to elope. No, we’ll all have to gather together again tomorrow and do this all over again.

  When we can reasonably head for our car without seeming to bolt, Aunt Marvelle wobbles up and grips my arm for support. “Tell me. How the dickens did I get so drunk?”

  “I know I wish I were.”

  She nods, her feather bobbing over one eye. “It was too much to take in sober.”

  39

  Dallas returns home at 6:15 a.m. as I am making tea for Aunt Marvelle and me. She has on sweats, a baseball cap and the biggest smile I’ve seen since she slipped on Stephen’s engagement ring. She hands me Grandmother’s beaded dress, carefully rolled up in a shopping bag, kisses my cheek and says, “The only thing in the dark!”

  “I suspect S-E-X,” Marvelle says when Dallas has floated off to bed.

  “You think?” I answer, and then we both break out in a fit of giggles.

  There are some things I’d rather shave my head than do. Right now facing wedding guests is one of them. But at least I’m visually prepared thanks, again, to Andrea.

  “It’s a loan from a client,” Andrea said the day she brought it for me to try on. “His third wife was pregnant when his son from his first marriage married in Honolulu in April. She was a cow by then. Not that I think you are, okay? She was this petite thing before the pregnancy. You are taller and big-boned.” What are friends for?

  Mother-of-the-bride is wearing a three-piece suit of deep rose silk. The jacket has a swing-away cut, the skirt pencil-slim to mid-calf. The bodice is strapless, fitted over the bosom, then flares like an umbrella over Sweet Tum. I hate to admit it, but we are just too cute!

  I’m even wearing heels, open-toed, in case my feet swell like yeast buns before the end of the day.

  The wedding is what all weddings are, lovely. The fans and cascades and trelliswork, the drape of greenery, bows, swags and sprays all mesh to give the impression one has stepped into a hothouse love chapel.

  And the bride is radiant.

  Dallas is still smiling, even when laced into a gown with a waist size I’m sure I haven’t seen since I was ten. She’s a glorious bride, and her happiness makes all the mess and the fuss and the bother and the expense—okay, most of the expense—worthwhile.

  As we line up to be escorted into the church I start to chuckle.

  “What?” Cy is keeping me company because William has yet to make an appearance.

  “Marj is wearing beige.” And so, by the way, is Preston. At least that skinless baked-chicken complexion of his is a comparable shade. The chuckle becomes giggles.

  “What?” Cy’s expression is now serious.

  “Stephen’s dad is—is a chicken-bone pastel,” I sputter. “Pastel, not Pascal. Get it?”

  “Nerves.”

  Cy’s brows lift in warning, as in I better quit before I get started.

  I sniff hard to sober up, and look away as the mother and father of the groom start down the aisle.

  On the bride’s side of the church, Aunt Marvelle, Mom and Dad—who had the sense to avoid the rehearsal—and Davin and his ladyfriend of the moment are all seated near the front pew. I notice that Jacob is alone today, but then he gets to walk Dallas down the aisle.

  “This is like, so cool!” Curran murmurs repeatedly as he clicks away at everything and everyone for a change.

  He looks super-good in a tux. I’ve often thought every man in the world should be photographed in a tux. It makes the short tall, the skinny brawny, the broad robust and even the ugly passably cute.

  I try not to think about William, who called earlier because he’s stuck in traffic somewhere on I80 East. I’ve decided that I have to tell him that some things, like the rest of this pregnancy, are better done alone. So I suppose I should get used to his not being there for me.

  As the music swells to signal the beginning of the procession, Cy offers me his arm at the same moment Curran comes up and does the same.

  For a second I’m tempted to say, “I can do this on my own,” but the truth is, I’m not alone. I’m surrounded by love and friendship and loyalty. I take one arm each, smile at Dallas, and head down the aisle.

  We make a good-looking trio. How do I know? The groom’s side of the aisle is twittering. And it’s not just over Aunt Marvelle’s diamond birthday gift winking wickedly at my throat. Sweet Tum looks good in rose silk.

  Halfway down the aisle, I hear a door slam behind me and then voices and then the sharp click of heels. When I look back over my shoulder I see a very handsome man in a tux rushing up the aisle. It’s William. He smiles as he nears, picks up the back edge of my jacket as if it were a train and nods for us to continue.

  “Now, that must be the father!” I hear Stephen’s grandmother say in that carrying voice peculiar to the hard of hearing.

  I should be so lucky!

  * * *

  I dance until I can dance no more. I dance with Stephen and Jacob and Cy and Davin—even Curran. But when I’m at last in William’s arms, I realize that if I don’t sit down soon, I’m going to drop like a rock.

  “I guess that answers the question of my appeal,” William says as he begrudgingly pulls out a chair for me.

  I smile and cup his cheek when he’s sitting beside me. “I prefer you horizontal to vertical. But just for the record, you do dance well, don’t you?”

  He grins. “Turn horizontal to vertical. Now, what do you think?”

  Ooh, baby, baby!

  And then I remember my decision, and that I’m really rather hot and sweaty already. I slip off my jacket, revealing the pregnancy-enhanced proportions of the strapless bodice. William just stares at me in a way that makes me wonder who I was before I met him.

  Of all the times I should have been embarrassed when I’ve been with him, I suddenly feel a deep flush creeping up my neck. “I could use a cup of punch.”

  He sees right through me. “Hold that thought. I’ll be back.”

  But he’s gone awhile. And I notice Cy and Aunt Marvelle on the floor, and Mom and Dad, and Andrea and…that’s Dr. Yummy!

  Then I remember something that I forgot to tell Dallas.

  I rise quickly and start across the floor. Only I don�
��t go in any direction but down. A leg that suddenly has no feeling in it folds under my weight, and I slip toward the floor.

  I hear cries of alarm but, really, all I’ve done is sit rather hard on my bum. Suddenly Cy and Curran are bending over me. William appears and then Jacob.

  “Lu! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” they all ask at the same time.

  “No!” I’m only horribly embarrassed that I’ve drawn even another eye-flicker of attention my way.

  William bends down to bring his face on a level with mine. “What’s hurt?”

  “My pride.” I lean forward and whisper, “Please, get me off this floor!”

  That requires me being lifted front, both sides and rear by four men. If that doesn’t make a girl’s day I don’t know what will.

  “Drinking.” I hear someone whisper.

  I whip my head in that direction and bark, “No, pregnant!”

  When I’m rather inelegantly seated again the hovering continues, joined by Dallas, Stephen and Davin. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  I give them a thumbs-up. “The baby’s just getting heavy,” I say, dimly recalling a similar incident with Davin that revoked my driving privileges during the last two months. “Leg went numb. Sweet Tum must be sitting on a major nerve or blood vessel.”

  “Maybe we should call an ambulance,” Cy suggests.

  “Absolutely not! One thrill ride per pregnancy, that’s my limit.”

  William is watching me like a doctor. “You’re sure?”

  “Where’s my punch?” I scowl at Curran because he seems the easiest of the group to intimidate. “I—wow!”

  I grab my middle in amazement. Instinctively, other hands mimic my reach for the tum.

  “What’s the matter, Lu?” William says anxiously.

  “Nothing.” I look up with a big smile into camera flashes that leaves me blind. “Sweet Tum just did a Rockette high kick.”

  40

  It must be a really slow news week. The picture of me with “hands on” Curran, Cy, Jacob and William was picked up by wire services nationwide. That has been enough to keep my phone buzzing since the first paper hit the first porch eastern daylight time Monday morning.