Dave, Ty’s manager.
Edward and Boris, impeccably attired.
And Ty. Gone was the hideous blue suit he had worn to his grandmother’s birthday party. He was wearing a vintage charcoal suit and vest that made him look like a romantic Victorian poet. He was so beautiful I had to look away.
Jean kissed my cheek and handed me a ravishing bouquet of ivory and peach roses. “Ty chose the flowers for you,” she whispered.
I glanced over at him again, feeling shy and weird. It was like we were going to our prom and the most beautiful boy in school was, inexplicably, my date. He was standing with my mom. Listening to her, but looking at me. He came over to me and everyone moved away to the other end of the hall to give us a moment.
I looked up at him. He seemed so calm.
“Ready, babe?”
“Ready to rock!” I replied heartily. His lips twitched. “If I can remember to breathe,” I added.
He laid a warm, firm hand on my shoulder and I felt all the crazy, kinetic energy in me just
settle
. He rubbed my collarbone lightly with his thumb. “This dress is pretty. It matches your eyes.”
I looked up at him, at his autumn eyes, so uncharacteristically serious. I smiled and smoothed the lace over The Bump.
“How’s he doing?”
“Asleep right now. I think I might get through my wedding without a kick in the ribs.”
A clerk came into the hall and called out, “Barnum and Wilkie!”
“You just might.” Ty set a hand on my lower back and guided me toward the wedding chapel. “I’m feeling pretty sweet-natured today.”
Our officiant was a lady named Mrs. Garcia, who had red hair, penciled-on eyebrows, and on the lapel of her jacket, a gold cloisonné pin in the shape of a dragonfly. She took one look at me and asked if I’d like someone to bring me a chair.
I was bewildered and a little embarrassed. Yes, I was trembling, and yes, my darned heels were pitching me uncomfortably forward, given the front load I was carrying. But did I look like I was going to fall down?
Ty put a firm arm around me. “I’ve got her.”
I looked up at him and saw such kindness and patience.
“Perfect,” Mrs. Garcia beamed.
The ceremony was over in two minutes, and was generally very dignified except for the surge of audience participation at the end. There was no long preamble. No sermon. Just do you take this woman? And this man? Peg and Bogue handed us the rings. I almost dropped Ty’s. Mrs. Garcia told us we were husband and wife.
Ty’s hands were warm on my face, his kiss even warmer. And embarrassingly long, for heaven’s sake, with all those people watching. I dropped my bouquet, because I had to grab his arms for balance. Beck stepped forward with a camera and immortalized the moment. Then someone, Nathan I believe, wolf-whistled, and there was laughter and applause.
Bogue yelled for us to get a freaking room.
We took cabs uptown. We had reserved the back room at a French restaurant in midtown that I’ve been going to for years. Not a big deal, but a pretty place, with simple, good food. We all sat at one big table and the waiters poured champagne. Ty told people to have anything they wanted.
I ordered something small and bland. Ty looked at my plate of pommes de terre and frowned.
“It’s all I want, really,” I assured him. “You know how I am with too much excitement. Plus,” I patted the top of my belly, “I don’t have a lot of room for food in here anymore.”
“How about if we come back one day after he’s moved out and nothing big is happening and you can stuff yourself?”
“Deal.”
I watched my mother and Jean chat. It looked like they were connecting. “Look at our moms,” I said to Ty.
He watched them for a while. “What do you think they’re talking about?”
“My mom’s instructing her on how to file for bankruptcy, should she ever need to. Or telling her what she ought to eat next time, and how to order it in French. It’s making your mom a little tense and she’s wishing she could slip off to the ladies’ room and smoke a J.”
Ty laughed. “Damn, you’re probably right.”
“I’m genetically very intuitive. My dad is psychic, did I ever tell you?”
“No way, really? I guess that makes sense.”
“How so?”
“The baby paintings. That’s some way deep shit going on, there.”
“Speaking of babies, he dreamed I was pregnant before I told him.”
Ty looked at me. “Hard to pull the wool over his eyes, eh?”
“Impossible.”
“What does he say about you and me?”
I shrugged and went for a casual bite of potato. “He thinks we really love each other.”
Ty nodded slowly. Thoughtfully. “Hmmm.”
I looked at him and he gave me the kryptonite smile, which caused me to lose control of my small motor skills and drop my fork on the floor. He picked it up for me.
After dinner the waiters wheeled in an outrageous two-tier wedding cake.
“One layer is lemon pound cake and one is chocolate,” Julia told us. “White chocolate icing. You can eat the butterflies!”
We got up to cut the cake. I pointed at the clever, lacy, butter-cream hydrangea. “You know what that reminds me of? That corsage you made for me.”
“Oh, yeah.” Ty touched the hydrangea and licked blue icing off his finger.
“Ty!”
“Baby, we’re about to eat it.”
“It’s so pretty.”
Ty picked up the knife. “It’s like field-dressing a deer, you just gotta be willing to mess up that perfect exterior.”
“That is the grossest analogy I’ve ever heard.”
I set my hand on his and together we wrecked the cake.
Over coffee Julia told us that she had ordered the cake from a very expensive gourmet bakery and that Dan didn’t know it yet, but he was paying for it. She still had his credit card number on file for the wedding that never was.
“Julia!” I was appalled.
She flipped a hand at me. “He’ll thank me. It lets him be here for you.”
I looked at Ty. One corner of his mouth turned up dryly.
“Maybe you’re right,” I grumbled.
“I know I am.” She turned away to say something to José.
“Argh,” I said to Ty. He squeezed my shoulder.
Ed tapped his spoon on his champagne glass and stood.
“Grace and Tyler, there’s a wedding gift from us waiting for you back at Peg’s. It’s a DustBuster. Not really! It’s something far more useful. You’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, we have another gift for you. A reading.”
Boris handed Edward a book. He opened it and I saw the lettering on the spine.
The Prophet.
Oh God.
He proceeded with “On Love,” the reading from their wedding that had inexplicably disturbed me. I wished I could put my fingers in my ears and lalala, but that was not an option.
There was all this stuff about love shaking your roots. Threshing you to make you naked. Grinding you. Kneading you. Baking you. And also, FYI, you can’t direct the course of love.
Fair enough.
It was during a passage toward the end that the familiar unhappy twinge began. There was something about being like a running brook. Something about tenderness, and being wounded, and bleeding willingly.
My eyes were watering. I looked around. So were Jean’s and Nathan’s. Allison blew her nose. Ty set a hand on my leg under the table.
Ed finished the reading and he and Boris came around to us. Ed handed Ty the book and he and Boris gave us hugs.
“Congratulations to you, baby girl,” Ed said in my ear. “Be strong together. Be good to each other.”
Beck snapped away with the camera. Then she came over and hugged me, quite firmly.
“Take care of my brother, eh?” She gave me her sharper version of Ty’s sweet smile and graciously left the words
or else
unspoken. Which I really appreciated.
Then Peg came over and knelt by my chair. “I need to tell you something.”
“Please, no.”
“No, it’s good! I’m going to California.”
“You are? When?”
“Now.” She pointed to a suitcase tucked in a nearby corner.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m going to stage-manage the San Francisco production of the show for a few months.”
I had known she was looking to move on; the show had been running for three years now. Antonio Banderas had left long ago and they had gone through a succession of replacements. Now it was Tony Danza. She was pretty burnt out.
“Who’s going to play Ricky out there?” I asked.
“Javier Bardem, apparently he sings.”
“
Oh
. That’s what I’m talking about.”
She smiled. “Yeah.”
“I bet he smells good. You’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“The minute I get a whiff.”
I smiled. But she was
leaving
. “What about Jim?”
“He’ll come out to visit. It’s not forever, I’ll be back.”
“I don’t want you to go, Peg. What about when the baby’s born?”
“You don’t need me for that now.”
“Well, why do you have to go tonight?”
“They want me to start Monday. This gives me a few days to settle in. And it gives you and Ty some privacy, now, and after the baby comes.”
She was so good at big-picture clarity. I hugged her. Held her a long time. “I love you, Peg.”
“I know. Take pictures of the baby and e-mail them to me, okay?”
My back was killing me. And it was taking a long time to get out of the restaurant with all the good-byes and well-wishing.
Bogue asked me where we were going for our wedding night.
“Home.”
He frowned. “What is he, too cheap to take you to a hotel?”
“He offered. But at this point in the pregnancy I just want to sleep in my own bed.”
I had my hand on the door. We were almost out, but Mr. Personality stopped yet again, for a few friendly words with José.
Typical manly small talk, till Ty heard that José was a cop in New Jersey. He looked sharply at José and, suddenly, spoke in tongues. “NJFOP?”
“Yeah, man.” José grinned.
“No shit?”
“No, man.”
Ty laughed and the two of them engaged in one of those complicated buddy-buddy, shoulder-bumping secret handshake things that men are genetically programmed to do. Then they went into a huddle.
I looked at Julia, wondering if she was as mystified as I was.
She smiled tightly and tapped José on the shoulder. “Hey, let’s let these two get on with their wedding night!”
“Oh yeah.” José kissed me and offered his hand in the normal way to Ty. “Congratulations, man.”
I wanted to take the subway home. Ty balked.
“Come on, it’s only a few stops.”
“What if the train gets stuck in the tunnel and you go into labor?”
“That’s not going to happen. I’m not due for four more weeks.”
A man gave me his seat. Ty looked so cute, straphanging in his wedding clothes. I couldn’t stop looking at him. He winked at me. He knew how cute he was.
The woman next to me got off at Thirty-fourth and Ty sat down.
“Where did you get my ring?” I asked. It was lovely and old-fashioned. White gold, carved with a wandering vine.
“It was Gram’s. She used to say it would be for me one day, to give to my wife.”
“Oh . . . Ty. I love it.”
“You’re not going to cry, are you?”
“Of course not!” I said stoutly.
He put an arm around me and kissed my shoulder. We were quiet till we got off at Christopher.
a breath away
Ty was in boxers and a T-shirt. I changed into the cute little nightie I’d bought at the maternity store, covered up by my plaid flannel robe.
We plopped down on the couch and turned on TV Land, just in time for the second episode of
Andy Griffith
. It was the one where Opie meets this horrible, spoiled boy and starts imitating his awful behavior.
At the second commercial, Ty made an offhanded comment about Andy just needing to give Opie a few licks with his belt. Alarm surged through me. I muted the TV, laid a protective arm across my middle, and turned to him. “I hope you know, this child will not be spanked.”
He looked rather askance at me and smiled like,
We’ll see
.
“I mean it, Ty.”
“Okay,” he said. “But what if he drinks motor oil? Cuts the heads off all your mums? Calls you a dumb-ass dickhead? Smokes weed in the garage with his buddies at age ten? What if he sets the house on fire?”
With each listed offense I felt increasingly challenged. Ty almost had me rethinking corporal punishment, and the miscreant was still in utero!
“Did you do all that?”
“And much, much more.” He looked frighteningly self-satisfied.