Slightly Married

  Blink.

  Did he just say it’s not available? Or did I imagine that in all my psychotic delusion?

  “It’s not available?” My mother sounds as if she’s echoing Father Stefan, so I guess he did say it. Maybe there’s some rule about the church hall being off-limits to sinners.

  Father Stefan elaborates. “The noon bride already has it booked that day.”

  Hallelujah!

  That’s my sign!

  Thank you, Jesus, Mary, Joseph and also Mary the economical eucharistic minister!

  “Oh, no! What are we going to do?” My mother turns to me, distressed. “We’ll have to change the wedding date.”

  “No, we’ll just have the reception someplace else,” I say illogically.

  “The Beaver Club,” she says.

  “No!” I shout. Then, tempering my voice the best I can, I say, “Ma, I cannot start my married life at a place called the Beaver Club. No way.”

  “Well, where else is there?”

  “Shorewood Country Club.” That, at last, is Jack, breaking his vow of silence.

  Talk about illogical.

  I wave a dismissive hand at him. “Shorewood isn’t available that day.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “I think it is.”

  Is he annoying or what?

  “Well, it’s not,” I say succinctly, “because I checked a little while ago. Somebody already booked it.”

  “Did you ask who it was?”

  “Do I care?” I mean, what kind of question is that? It makes no difference to me who’s having their reception at Shorewood that—

  Wait a minute.

  I’m noticing that Jack is looking mighty smug.

  “Jack…” I say slowly, not daring to hope.

  “Yee-es?” Still smug.

  Can it be?

  I say, without breathing, “Don’t tell me…you didn’t…”

  He nods. “I booked it. It’s ours.”

  “Oh, my—” God is what I was going to say, but I’ve got enough trouble here without taking the name of the Lord in vain, so I leave it at that, and say it again. “Oh, my!”

  Jack grins, obviously pleased with himself.

  I’m more than pleased with him. I am absolutely head over heels with this man.

  I want to launch myself at him and smother him with kisses, but I hug him instead. A decidedly chaste hug, of course.

  I sneak a glance at Father Stefan to see if he’s noticed how virtuous we are.

  He seems to have lost interest in the conversation and is checking his watch.

  “But Jack,” I say breathlessly, wondering if anyone in the history of the world has ever loved anyone as much as I love this man, “what about the money?”

  “We can’t afford Shorewood,” my mother puts in, sounding worried.

  “No, it’s okay.” Jack shrugs. “I sold my stock.”

  “The stock your grandmother gave you for your birthday?”

  “His grandmother gives him stock for his birthday?” my mother echoes incredulously. I can see the wheels turning beneath her Shear Magique hairdo. She’s thinking, No wonder his mother named him Rufus. Obviously, his whole family’s weird.

  “I didn’t want you to have to do that,” I tell Jack, trying to sound mollified, but I’m having a hard time pulling anything other than pure exhilaration into my voice.

  “Why not? I can’t think of a better investment than starting our marriage with the wedding you’ve been dreaming of.”

  I boldly give him a kiss, not caring that Father Stefan and my mother are sitting right here.

  “Thank you, Jack. You’re…amazing.”

  He grins. “You’re welcome.” I’m surprised to see that his eyes look a little shiny.

  And it’s all fallen into place, just like that.

  My parents sit us down that night and tell us they’re going to give us the amount they would have spent on the church hall wedding. We’ll still have to come up with a whole lot of cash by October, but I know we can do it. I just have a gut feeling.

  A girl really can dream.

  From here on in, I tell myself, the wedding-plan nightmare is behind us.

  9

  The next time I have a gut feeling about anything, do me a favor and slap me.

  Back in Brookside in March, I think I actually said something about wedding plans being smooth sailing from there on in.

  As I recall, that was the same day I promised my parish priest that I would separate from Jack for intensive prewedding spiritual preparation.

  Yeah, that didn’t happen. None of it.

  Here it is many weeks later, and the wedding machine has kicked into high gear. My mental checklist is getting longer by the second—and mostly unfulfilled.

  A few days after we got back from Buffalo, we took the train up to Westchester and told Jack’s father the big news. He didn’t cry and wish us “Cent’ anni,” but he was very—for lack of a better word—cordial.

  Then again, I guess cordial is the perfect word to describe Thomas Candell’s reaction. He shook Jack’s hand, gave me a kiss on the cheek and told us he’d look forward to the wedding.

  “That was it?” Wilma asked, mildly outraged when we stopped by afterward to recap the conversation.

  “What did you expect him to do, Mom? Break out in song?”

  “No, Jack, but I’d expect him to break out the checkbook. He didn’t say he’s going to help you with the wedding?”

  “No, but we don’t need his money,” Jack assured her.

  The thing is…we so do. We’ve been scrimping in every possible way, but I’m worried that we’re not going to have enough to pay for the big day when it finally rolls around.

  “We’ll get money for our wedding,” Jack tells us.

  I want to remind him that we’re in credit card debt, and we want to have a down payment on a house.

  But I can’t say that in front of his Mom, and anyway, I have enough to worry about for now.

  Priority number one: I really need to order the navy velvet dresses for my bridesmaids, and I plan to, tomorrow.

  I thought I had the whole thing nailed months ago, long before I had a ring on my finger. There were going to be eight bridesmaids. Just eight. Plus Raphael.

  As of last month, there were still going to be eight girls, plus Raphael, and I had asked all of them already, gotten their deposits and dress sizes.

  Then I decided I seriously want to have Jack’s sister Jeannie, too. She’s been really supportive in all this. She even offered to make me a headpiece if I can’t find one I like. She’s pretty crafty and made her own for her wedding.

  So far I haven’t found anything that works with my boring straight brown shoulder-length hair unless I put it up. Jack did mention that he doesn’t like it that way, but what does he know?

  I definitely don’t want a tiara or a headband or silk flowers or, God forbid, one of those little hat-type things. And I don’t want a big puffy cloud of white illusion floating around my head, either. So I may take Jeannie up on the offer to make the headpiece. I definitely want her in the wedding party either way.

  I figure Emily and Kathleen can’t feel left out because there are two of them—if there were just one sister who wasn’t getting to be a bridesmaid, it would be a different story. Jack agrees. Or maybe he just said he agrees because he wanted me to get out of his face when he was watching the Yankees’ home opener a few weeks ago, which was probably not the best time for me to bring up anything that needs a thoughtful opinion.

  Anyway, Jeannie was thrilled when I called the other day and asked her to be in the wedding.

  So that brings the bridesmaids’ head count up to nine, plus Raphael. Ten.

  I know that’s a lot, but there’s nobody I’d want to leave out….

  Well, okay, if you want the truth, Brenda, Yvonne and Latisha have been a little distant these last few months. Not that I want to cut them, but…

&nbsp
; An invisible wall seems to have gone up between me and the three of them. I feel like we’re all going through the motions, having lunch and going to the occasional happy hour same as usual—when my schedule will allow, anyway—but there’s something a little…off.

  I’m starting to wonder if they resent my promotion after all. I mean, I know they were the ones who encouraged me to go after it in the first place, and they were really supportive when it first happened…

  Lately, though, I’m just not feeling the love. Good thing I don’t have much time to dwell on it. I’ve been working seven days most weeks, and I’ve had to travel a few times to Cleveland on Client business.

  But it’s Friday night, and I want to forget about everything work related.

  Jack and I are getting ready to go out to dinner with Buckley and Sonja. We’ve been trying to schedule it for months, but everyone’s life has been too crazy, especially with their move and their wedding only two months away.

  Now we’re running late, Jack is still in the shower, I’m missing an earring—and of course, the phone is ringing.

  I grab the cordless and see my parents’ number in the caller ID window.

  Oh, crap, crap, CRAP.

  I probably don’t have to tell you that the Conster isn’t exactly thrilled that I haven’t moved out of our den of carnal sin. Every time she calls, she wants to know if I’ve found a new place to live yet. The first few times she asked, I actually told her I was looking.

  Then I decided it wasn’t fair to lead her on, so I finally confessed that right now a move just isn’t practical—or financially feasible. Of course, I assured her that I’m being virtuous and prayerfully preparing for marriage right where I am. Which is somewhat true, because I’ve been so stressed and exhausted between work and wedding plans that I’m asleep most nights before anything the least bit carnal can unfold.

  Anyway, my mother made the sound she makes with her tongue whenever people go astray and she realizes she can’t lead them back to righteousness. She dropped the subject—but only for the duration of that particular conversation.

  When I see that it’s her calling now, I almost don’t pick up.

  Then I think, what if someone’s dead?

  I learned that from my mother herself. It’s what she would always say whenever the phone interrupted dinner and my father would tell her to just let it ring. (They didn’t get an answering machine until long after they got the dishwasher.)

  “What if someone’s dead?” she would ask.

  “They’ll still be dead in ten minutes, but my food won’t still be hot.” Good old Frank Spadolini logic.

  So I pick up the phone. I swear, if it turns out everyone is alive and well, I’m going to regret this. “Hello? Ma?”

  “Tracey! There you are.”

  “Here I am. What’s up?”

  “Your cousin Joanie said you promised her she could be a junior bridesmaid.”

  Oh, Lord.

  Why couldn’t this have been something easier, like a death in the family?

  Preferably, Cousin Joanie’s.

  Okay, I’m kidding. I love the kid. But she’s been a gargantuan pain in my butt from the day she was born. Literally. She threw up some kind of curdled soy formula all over me in front of Bruce Cardolino, my first crush, and Bruce called me Tracey Puke-alini for years afterward.

  Okay, I know that doesn’t sound all that earth-shattering now, but believe me, at the time, it was tragic.

  And now Joanie’s claiming I promised she could be my junior bridesmaid? Why on earth would she think—

  Wait a minute. Now I remember. Last Christmas back in Brookside, she did ask if she could be my junior bridesmaid if I ever got married. Doubting that myself at the time, I probably said something like, “We’ll see.”

  Or maybe “Maybe.”

  And that has evolved into a promise that now involves my mother because, well, Joanie is a Spadolini and that’s how things work in our family. Give an inch and they’ll puke all over you, then take a mile.

  “I never promised Joanie she could be a bridesmaid, Ma,” I say as I go back to rooting through my jewelry box, looking for my other silver hoop earring.

  “Junior bridesmaid. And,” my mother goes on, sounding as if she’s ticking items off a list, “you’ll have Toni and Donna as bridesmaids, too, because Uncle Cosmo has always been good to you.”

  Again: pretty much how things work in our family. Not that I have anything against my cousins…but do I really owe them bridal-party status because their father used to give me a piece of Bazooka and a half dollar every time he saw me?

  Yes, I do, in accordance with longstanding-family tradition.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love Uncle Cosmo, even if he is graphically vocal about his irritable bowel syndrome. And I love my cousins, too—but there are plenty of people I love just as much, or even more, and I am already leaving them out of the wedding-party lineup.

  “Ma,” I say reasonably—and hastily, hearing the shower turn off in the bathroom. “How can I ask Donna and Toni to be bridesmaids without asking Michaela and Katie?”

  “You didn’t ask Michaela and Katie?”

  “How can I? I’ve already got too many bridesmaids—I can’t add two more. Five more, if I put the cousins in. Jack doesn’t have enough ushers to match up with the girls as it is.”

  Okay, to be entirely truthful, he doesn’t have any ushers—yet.

  It’s becoming a sore subject around our house. So far, Jack has said only that he wants his friend Mitch as best man, but he has yet to officially ask him, and whenever I try to discuss the ushers he’ll probably want to have, he changes the subject.

  “We’ve got plenty of family he can use,” is my mother’s solution. “Your brothers, your uncles, Fat Naso, and I’m sure Aldo and Bud would love to—”

  “Ma, no.” I shudder at the thought of marching down the aisle behind my teenage cousins, who, word, think they’re gangsta rappers these days. Or, God forbid, behind my father’s compare, Fat Naso, or my uncle Cosmo and his spastic colon.

  “Tracey—”

  “Ma, please. Jack has his own friends. I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon.”

  Not really, but I need to get off the phone.

  “Well, make sure you call Joanie as soon as you can. She really has her heart set on being in your wedding party.”

  “I will call her,” I say agreeably as Jack comes into the bedroom wearing only a towel, “and I’ll let her down easily, I promise.”

  “Let her down? No, that’s not what I—”

  “The dresses are already ordered,” I cut in, crossing my fingers and telling myself it’s only a white lie. And less than twenty-four hours from now, it will be the full-blown truth.

  “Tracey, Joanie’s going to be very—”

  “Listen, we’re really late for this dinner we’re going to, so I’ll talk to you soon. I love you. Bye.”

  I hang up the phone and toss it onto the bed with a frustrated scream.

  “Your mother?” Jack asks, dropping the towel in front of his dresser and opening a drawer.

  “How’d you guess? Because I said I love you? How do you know I wasn’t arranging a rendezvous with my othah lovah?”

  “Because lately you’re too stressed out to rendezvous with one lovah, let alone two.” Ha, point taken.

  Mental note: later, no matter how tired you are, be sure to Put Out.

  “Speaking of stress, what’s up with the Conster this time?”

  “She wanted to add three more bridesmaids to the herd,” I tell Jack.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I said what the hell, the more the merrier.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did not. Hey, speaking of the wedding party…”

  “Please don’t.” He pulls out a pair of boxer shorts.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t ask me if I’ve asked Mitch to be my best man yet, because I haven’t had a chance.”

/>   “That’s not what I was going to ask—but Jack, I mean…how can you not have had a chance? You see him all the time.”

  “All the time? I do not.”

  “You just went to the Yankees game with him last night.”

  “That’s not all the time. That’s one occasion.”

  “You could have asked him then, though.”

  “In the middle of the game?” he asks, poised with one leg in his boxers.

  “Why not? You both love baseball, the Yankees were winning big from the first inning on…I think that would be a perfect place to ask him.”

  “I’m not proposing to Mitch, Tracey.”

  “Right, if you were proposing to him, I’d expect you to take at least another six months.” I stick out my tongue at him.

  He laughs good-naturedly. Then he gives me a closer look and asks, “Are you wearing that to dinner?”

  I look down at my black crepe dress. “No, just threw it on to clean the toilet in. I’m going to change.”

  “Good, because I was going to wear jeans.”

  “Jack, hello, I was being sarcastic. Yes, I’m wearing this.”

  He groans. “What kind of restaurant is this? Is it fancy?”

  “I doubt it. It’s just some tapas place in Chelsea.” Having found my other earring at last, I put it on and check myself in the mirror. I look great, if I do say so myself. I’ve lost about seven pounds since Valentine’s Day without even trying. No time to eat.

  “So if it’s not fancy,” Jack asks, holding a folded pair of jeans hesitantly, “why are you all dressed up?”

  “I’m not.” I feel my face growing hot. “I mean, it’s not like I’m wearing a gown or something.”

  “Well, how can I wear jeans if you’re wearing that?”

  “You can wear whatever you want.” Just don’t accuse me of getting all dressed up for Buckley’s benefit.

  Not that he would ever suspect that’s what I’m up to.

  “Up to”? Interesting choice of words, don’t you think? Inner Tracey pops up to ask. Why would you be up to anything? You’re practically someone’s wife.

  Of course I wouldn’t be up to anything, don’t be ridiculous, I tell her.

  The fact that I decided to look especially nice tonight has nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t seen much of Buckley in ages and I miss him.