Sandy was seated on my right in the circle and given a net bag the size of a pillowslip in which to collect the bows off the gifts. “Jesus, Pat,” Sandy whispered looking around at the circle. “I feel like we came here in a time machine. You’re gonna help me out, aren’t you?” Although her NYU transcript and FBI file gave her stunning credentials in our office, Sandy Zotikos had no experience with this sort of WASP ritual in which she’d just been given a substantial supporting role. Normally she was irreverent and occasionally coarse in ways that had never bothered me before, but today I hoped that having been an anthropology major, she’d study this tribe and keep her mouth shut.
As soon as I was seated, tradition took over. There were ten minutes of chitchat while I answered questions about my groom and was asked if I had a snapshot of him. I fervently wished I’d had an informal snapshot—one of the ones we took on our trip to Harper’s Ferry, for instance, showing a smiling dark-haired guy in jeans whom these women would immediately accept as fitting. But alas, when Mother’s phone call came reminding me to bring a picture, the only one Josh and I could lay our hands on was the black and white head-shot Moh Chatah had had made of Josh for the Mediterranean Club’s advertising of their jazz pianist. The photographer had achieved the aura of a matinee idol—a dramatically lit three-quarter profile that caught the shadow of his long eyelashes on his prominent cheekbone.
* * *
I fell in love with Josh on our first date, a sunny Saturday afternoon outside the Library of Congress. A group of Peruvian musicians stood in front of the Neptune fountain playing their Andean pipes, a music I always found universal in its simplicity and evocation of heaven. Joshua and I had walked all the way up Capitol Hill from the Tidal Basin, carried along by the fine weather and our excitement over each other. What were the chances of finding someone so perfect! If asked, I would have agreed to walk on to Baltimore, but when Joshua stopped for the music, I felt the tiredness in my legs.
As soon as the first song was over, Joshua grabbed me by the waist and swung me up to sit on a wall by the stairs to the Library. Then he leaned against the wall and folded his arms to listen as the music resumed. Providing me a place to sit on that day was the last thing he ever did that reminded me of my father. The difference was that Joshua then settled down to listen, whereas Daddy would have continued to look for other people he could seat, traffic he could direct, or trash he could pick up.
“He’s a musician but his day job is compiling data on the bald eagle for the National Wildlife Federation,” I told the shower guests without much hope of overcoming the lounge lizard effect of the 8 x 10 glossy I released to float around the room to be stared at by each shower guest. A breathy “Oh my,” was the most frequent reaction. The truth was Josh wasn’t happy at National Wildlife. The administration was very bureaucratic. He had felt smothered by each of the organizations he’d worked for.
But none of that mattered now. I wished these women could have just a tiny inkling of the man Joshua was. He always stopped to listen to street musicians and stayed to talk. Besides being a musician, a performer, and an inveterate music researcher, he was like a cheerleader to the guys who worked out in the weather, as though he couldn’t get over his good fortune at having a steady indoor gig, not that it brought in much money. I began opening packages.
“Jesus Christ,” Sandy whispered, “Sterling silver!” Tense smiles jerked on the faces of Mother’s friends, all unused to hearing their Savior’s name used this way. “Sorry,” Sandy whispered, even more softly.
“Forget it.” I lowered my eyes and tore off another ribbon. The opened boxes were passed around the circle: china and silver in the patterns Josh and I had hastily selected; silver and pewter Revere bowls in various sizes; candy and nut dishes; enameled cast iron and Corning Ware casseroles; and stacks of linens for a double bed. I’d forgotten the generous outpouring that accompanies a church wedding. No wonder they used to be so popular.
In addition to having Sandy as my maid-of-honor, I had invited my only sister Olivia, to be my matron-of-honor. But she wasn’t coming to the shower. The crease between Mother’s eyebrows deepened each time someone asked about Olivia, her life on the commune outside of town, or the progress of her pregnancy. But the pregnancy made a good excuse for Olivia’s absence, and Mother could depend on her friends to accept and expand on any story she wanted to tell.
Olivia, who’d formerly had a quick-silver mind, had reportedly dropped out as a thinking individual. On the phone Mother’s quavery voice had told me I would hardly recognize Olivia. Then, in customary fashion, she’d back-peddled and said Olivia probably just had the flu. My sister had long held Mother at arm’s length, never confiding. Besides, Olivia had no phone. I had called my old high school friend Calinda to find out what was going on. She’d seen Olivia only once in front of a wholesale grocery, wearing overalls, loading a flat bed truck with huge bags of flour, corn meal, and cartons of cheap canned goods. “She told me a fortune teller had said her baby would be a girl,” Calinda said. “Other than that your sister can’t be counted on for much more than smiling and nodding, and I don’t think it’s just what they’re smoking out there.”
Evidently, I shouldn’t count on her even for that. Olivia had sent word this morning that she’d just harvested a great heap of zucchini and needed to can it all today before she lost it. Right Olivia, everyone knows how delicate zucchini is.
“Are you going to wear a white dress, Patricia?” Mrs. Ritter asked with an apologetic smile. “I only ask because my own niece got married in her blue jeans.” A sympathetic titter went through the crowd.
“White dress, white cake, bridesmaids, big church wedding,” Mrs. Worth spoke up with as much pride as if I’d been her own daughter. She knew Mother couldn’t gloat, so she, as best friend, did it for her.
Before I got to the bottom of the up-turned white umbrella of presents, Sandy slid out of her seat, retrieved her gift and shoved it under her chair. I frowned at her—what’s going on? “Frederick’s of Hollywood,” she whispered.
Old Mrs. Pryor, invited only because she was the church organist and wedding coordinator, gave me a saccharine smile. “If only the other girls understood the importance of saving themselves for the big day the way Patricia has.” Mother, seated directly across the circle, blushed. No one else in this room would have made such a stupid remark. I looked at my watch. The shower was exactly half over. This time tomorrow I would be married.
On that sunny afternoon in front of the Library of Congress I had sat on the wall and stared down at Joshua’s dark curls and the nascent balding beneath them, at his heavy eyebrows and lashes, the arc of his thin nose above the long upper lip. For some reason I found the physical space between us thrilling as he stood beside my dangling feet, his whole attention absorbed in the music. This man would never need me to inflate his accomplishments, to flatter and cajole him into being a decent human being. He would be an independent heart, full of an aesthetic song for which my father had no ear. And in the coming year, I would come to find his independence—almost an aloofness—erotic.
Mrs. Worth served
petit fours
and a lovely punch made with ginger ale and lime sherbet. It was light, frothy, and not too sweet. The punch bowl and the silver tray were separated on the white cutwork tablecloth by a centerpiece of pink rose buds. A Sterling silver epergne held mixed nuts. There was a sheen to this style of entertaining that only experience and caring could achieve. Brightly polished dessert forks fanned out between the piles of fresh-ironed luncheon napkins and glass punch cups.
Sandy stood alone near the door to the kitchen in her cowgirl outfit swigging down her third cup of punch. “That’s not going to do you any good,” I whispered.
“What
is
it?” she asked and laid her cup on a mahogany buffet. The room was full of chatting women, as warmed and exhilarated as though they’d been drinking champagne.
“Is this how your tribe celebrates?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Too sedate?”
“Anthropologically speaking, I’d say, this bunch looks bankrupt. Everybody’s so calm, like they’ve each had a lobotomy. Nobody’s giving the bride any advice. No songs, no fertility dance, no beer, no dirty jokes. I’m pretty sure none of these women has ever had sex.”
I smiled at her.
“And you. You are unrecognizable. Where’s my friend, the sexy little broad who kept her office rowdy? Weren’t you the one who stood on her desk and sang “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No” from
Oklahoma
?”
“This is almost over.”
Sandy had picked up on the claustrophobia I felt when I was home, but I hoped she’d also get a sense of the goodness here—this perfect white table, these gentle ladies, each keeping her own counsel, each having left experience at home, bringing only best wishes. This was flawless icing over broken cake, our ritual of faith in the power of love.
* * *
The General had pulled the new Buick up under the Worth’s carport and was carrying the gifts out the back door even before all the guests had left. His shoulders had rounded just a little since he’d been an ordnance commander during WW II and later when his guard unit was called up for Korea, but his square jaw still pulsed with the readiness for duty. I noticed he’d arrived alone. Where was Ernest?
“Put that stack down, Mr. Brady.” Calinda, seated at a desk in the sunroom, spoke with the authority of a woman with an important job. “I haven’t finished double-checking those cards.” I stepped down the two steps into the sunroom just as my frustrated father’s face darkened. Without a word he set down the stack of open, tissue-stuffed, gift boxes and picked up another.
“Nope,” Calinda said, “Leave all the rest of these. You’ve already taken the only ones that can go.”
My father puffed out a breath. He was unaccustomed to being spoken to so brusquely. This was painful to watch. I had thought I had no sympathy for him, but I guess I did. As I stood there, saying goodbye to my Mother’s friends, I realized that I’d never told my father anything of importance, especially about any trouble in my life. Aware of how he reacted to disorder, I took any prickly problem to my mother. Olivia and Ernest had done the same. And she probably hadn’t been all that willing to share the precious confidences we brought her.
So for gratification my father had only the steady accomplishment of the tasks he assigned himself.
Mother had been back in the kitchen with our hostess and now she rushed out to the sunroom. “Oh, darling, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, giving him a pat on his militarily braced shoulder.
“Hello, Cecil,” Mrs. Worth said. “Don’t you look nice. Would you like some punch and cake while you wait for Calinda? She is the most conscientious recorder I ever saw. Patricia will be able to thank all the right people for their gifts.”
“Come on into the kitchen, Cecil,” said Mrs. Ritter. “There are cashew nuts. I know you like those.”
Oh, good grief! My sympathy for him vanished. Did he have any idea how they managed him?
* * *
“You missed an other-worldly experience,” Sandy said to Ernest who was sitting at the breakfast table when we came in the back door laden with packages. Well over six feet tall, lean, broad-shouldered, with massive, flying hair, untrimmed beard and tiny wire-rimmed glasses reflecting the afternoon light, my little brother Ernest looked like an old Bolshevik. He was a senior in college, a quiet organizer who’d led numerous demonstrations on the Oberlin Campus and who’d gone door to door for Gene McCarthy in ‘68.
He eyed the door to see if The General was behind us. “I was dis-invited,” he whispered and rose to help with the unloading. Tension paved the driveway as Sandy, Ernest and I, under close supervision, emptied the car. We carefully stacked the boxes under the dining room table and in the corner by the hutch. The table itself was already covered with unopened boxes from relatives, friends, and civic colleagues of my father. After Josh arrived, he and I would open these.
Sandy, Ernest and I sat down at the kitchen table. Outside the window a plume of water rose from the hose. The General had polished the Buick early this morning, but he would rub it now over and over until he felt better.
“Do I want to know why you got dis-invited?” I asked Ernest.
“Suffice it to say there is no way in this house that withdrawal from Vietnam can be interpreted as a courageous act. I tried to tell him McGovern-Hatfield wasn’t traitorous.”
“You filthy pinko,” Sandy said.
Ernest leaned back in his chair to bask in the older woman’s praise.
“Are you going to be okay with the tux?” I asked.
“You’re the boss.”
“Look, if I can put on high heels, a long white dress, and lipstick, you can—”
“Patty, this is not a problem. The tux will be my cover. People will think I’m President of the Young Republicans.” He grinned then dug a note out of the pocket of his jeans. “Incidentally. A guy called and wants you to know he’s arrived and is sacked out in the motel.”
I jumped up, grabbed my purse and headed out the back door. “Daddy, I need the car. Josh is here.”
“Good,” he said, rising from polishing the mirror on the driver’s side. “I need to talk to him.” He opened the car door.
“Maybe tonight at the rehearsal dinner.”
“No, I’ll go now. He’s at the Sooner Motel?” He got in and started the car.
“Daddy! He’s not expecting you. Please don’t. This is my fiancé!”
“And I haven’t even met him!” he said, revved the engine and backed away.
“Daddy! Stop!”
* * *
The groom, an only child, had lost both parents in an accident when he was in college. And because his best friends were all musicians, unable to afford a flight to Oklahoma, he was borrowing Ernest to be his best man. So, when Josh showed up that evening at Deschner Memorial Methodist Church for the rehearsal, he was a man traveling light. A condition I secretly envied. I ran toward him as he and the General got out of the car in front of the church. The limber, dark-eyed musician, his coat flapping in the wind rushed toward me. The stark contrast between him and the buttoned up soldier-engineer, thrilled me. I threw my arms around my groom—slim ribs, the smell of Dial soap, the bluish cast to his well-shaven chin—I felt home again. With the General closing in behind him and Mother and Ernest stepping out of Deanna’s car behind me—Josh didn’t give me a real kiss, just a quick, warm nuzzle at my ear.