“Ouch!” the woman at the next table blurts.
“What?” her husband asks. “What’s wrong with you?”
“My eye! You poked me in the eye!”
“Well, can you still see?”
Pause. “Yes…thank God.”
Thank God, I think. A little selfishly, I’ll admit: paramedics would ruin the ambience.
Jack catches my eye as the waiter arrives with our salads. His smile is like hot cocoa on a cold night; sweet and welcome. Warmed by it, I reach for his hand under the table and give it a squeeze.
You know what? Sometimes, you just don’t need words. I have to remember that the next time I’m wishing Jack would be more vocal about his feelings.
You know what else? I was wrong yesterday when I thought that getting engaged had opened the door on a whole new set of problems. Maybe that’s the case with my promotion at work, but not with this.
Jack and I belong together. I must have been crazy to think I could possibly regret never again kissing anyone else in this world—Buckley included.
“You two will have to come up to Westchester this weekend,” Wilma muses as the waiter grinds pepper over her salad, “so that we can get busy.”
“Busy with what?” Jack asks.
His mother sends me a good-natured eye-roll.
Men!
“Busy with wedding plans,” she tells Jack. “What else?”
“Why do we have to come up to Westchester for that?” Jack wants to know…which is exactly the question that’s on my mind, but I don’t dare voice it because I suspect I know the answer.
“So that we can start looking at places for your reception,” Wilma informs us.
Ah. I was right.
Jack’s sisters are nodding. But of course. The reception. In Westchester.
“Actually,” I say when Jack doesn’t jump in immediately—or thereafter, “we’re not sure where we want to get married yet.”
That’s not a lie because officially,
we
aren’t sure.
Privately, however,
I’m
sure.
“So you were thinking of the city?” Emily asks, brightening. “Because we did an awesome shoot last summer at this gorgeous loft space downtown. I think it would be perfect for your wedding.”
“Really? Because I thought you said it would be perfect for
your
wedding,” Rachel says dryly.
“Yeah, well, it looks like I’m not having one anytime soon, so…” Emily shrugs and grandly informs me and Jack, “The loft is all yours.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Missing Jack’s sarcasm, Emily adds, “I have to warn you, though—you’ll pay a fortune to have it there.”
“I bet Westchester is a lot cheaper,” Jeannie comments.
“Not necessarily,” Rachel points out.
“Well, Greg and I had our reception over in Yorktown Heights, and it wasn’t as bad as Bedford, or the city.”
I wait for Jack to speak up and mention that upstate in Brookside, everything is much more affordable than Yorktown Heights or anywhere around here. But he says nothing at all. He’s just chomping away frantically at his mixed greens like a furtive rabbit determined to get back under the fence before the farmer shows up.
“If Jack and Tracey want a wedding in Bedford or the city, they should have it,” Wilma declares, and still, Jack is maddeningly silent. “They should have their wedding wherever they want. After all, you only get married once.”
Coming from her, those last five words seem to land in our midst like a bucket of rocks. Thud. Silence.
We all know how Wilma’s one shot at marriage turned out. And that Wilma makes no secret of the fact that she wouldn’t be opposed to finding someone new, should the opportunity arise.
Starting to feel more bummed than bridal, I look at Jack.
He’s still intent on his salad.
I look harder at him—glaring, if you will. I’m just trying to send him a signal. But I get the distinct impression that he’s deliberately ignoring me.
You know, now is really not the best time for Wilma’s ironic statement to remind me that sometimes weddings don’t lead to happily ever after.
Yes, I’m crazy about Jack. Yes, I’m optimistic about our future.
But you know what? Sometimes, you
do
need words. I can’t help but wonder why my soon-to-be husband is less involved in this conversation than everyone else, including the formerly giddy couple seated at the next table—who, I notice, seem to have run out of things to say to each other and are now eavesdropping while toying with their crab cake and shrimp cocktail.
Is it all that surprising that their conversation has stalled? Really, what is there to say to someone after thirty-five years together?
My own parents have been married about thirty-eight now, and their dinner conversation is pretty much limited to “Hey, how come you shut the window? It’s a thousand degrees in here,” and “Are you sure this is really imported Asiago? Because it tastes like domestic Romano.” That sort of thing.
Is that how it’s going to turn out for me and Jack?
Does it happen to everyone?
If you’re lucky enough to make it to thirty-five years and beyond, does the spark die a natural death? Are you reduced to just coexisting?
I look at Jack. He’s thoughtfully eating a piece of tomato and doesn’t see me. Or maybe he’s just pretending he doesn’t.
I turn my attention back to the morning-noon-and-night-I-love-you anniversary couple next to us.
The husband is leaning over to taste the wife’s food.
Aw, how sweet. See?
Wait, the wife’s swatting the husband’s fork away, hoarding her crab cake.
Oh.
Well, at least they’re still together, and so are my parents, which is more than you can say for Jack’s.
I wonder if his being the product of a broken home has any bearing on our chances for making it to our own thirty-fifth anniversary and beyond.
Well, it’s not as if Jack actually grew up in a broken home. I mean, the home wasn’t broken until long after he moved out.
Not officially, anyway.
But Jack has mentioned that his parents always fought a lot. They were, reportedly, just waiting until their nest was empty before they made the official split.
As soon as Emily graduated from college, his father was gone.
I try to imagine how I would feel if my parents got divorced at this late date.
Devastated. Sorrowful. Shocked.
But of course, there’s no chance of that happening. Not only is divorce out of the question when you’re a Vatican-obeying novena queen, but my parents really do love each other. I’d say equally so, although my mother confided to me, back in the days when I was trying to get over Will, that my father was the one who fell first, and much harder. She said he didn’t make her heart crazy, and that she had to learn to love him.
What, exactly, were Connie Spadolini’s words of wisdom? “Marry someone who loves you more than you love him, because he’ll always treat you like gold.”
Something like that.
Hmm.
Does
Jack love me more than I love him?
Somehow, I would find that hard to believe. Then again, he does treat me…
Well, not like gold. I mean, it’s not like he bows to my every whim…and seriously, would I want him to? That would be pretty scary.
Jack treats me with love and respect, though. And he wants to spend the rest of his life with me.
What more do I want or need from him?
Well, sometimes, words.
“I’ll call Reverend Devern about performing your ceremony as soon as I get home.” Wilma has ominously popped back into the conversation like crazy Glenn Close rising from Michael Douglas’s bathtub.
I look at Jack, screaming a silent
Help!!
He pokes obliviously through his salad, on a determined hunt for another tomato.
You know, it’s a really good thing my life isn’t in danger, the way he’s been ignoring my telepathic messages.
Or maybe he just plain doesn’t get it. Which is hard to believe, since he’s read my mind plenty of times in the past. Usually when I’m thinking something I don’t want him to know.
“He’s going to be so happy to hear you’re getting married, Jack,” Wilma goes on.
Reverend Devern—who is affectionately referred to as Rev Dev on the rare occasions Jack has reason to mention him—is the clergyman at the Candells’ Presbytarian church in Bedford. It’s a beautiful two-hundred year-old white-clap-board building with a steeple and stained-glass windows…
And somebody really should mention to Wilma that Jack and I are not getting married there before she books the place and sends out invitations.
“You know, Mom, Tracey’s Catholic, so she probably wants to have a priest do their wedding.”
No, that’s not my noble groom coming to my rescue. It’s his sister Rachel, God love her.
“Oh! I didn’t even think…” Wilma turns to me. “Tracey, I didn’t mean to jump the gun. Did you want a priest instead?”
“I…” Might as well set things straight right from the start, I decide. “Yes,” I say firmly. “I want a priest. No offense to Reverend Devern. I’m sure he’s great.”
“Oh, he is great. He baptized Kathleen’s twins.”
“That’s nice,” I murmur, thinking that a priest probably would have better served their needs, since Rev Dev probably isn’t trained to perform exorcisms.
Oh my God, did I really just think that?
Talk about inappropriate. I mean, Ashley and Beatrice are going to become my nieces. I shouldn’t think such negative thoughts about them…even if they are evil little devil children.
“You know, I’m sure that if your priest wanted to fly down and perform the ceremony with Reverend Devern, he wouldn’t have a problem with that,” Wilma tells me unexpectedly. “Fortunately, the rules of our church are pretty flexible.”
“Unfortunately, the rules of ours aren’t,” I say, as if that’s news to anyone. “I don’t think Father Stefan will go for our not getting married in the Catholic church. And my parents definitely wouldn’t, either.”
Silence.
Then Wilma smiles and says brightly, “You know, I really can’t wait to meet them, Tracey. I hope they’ll be able to come down for the engagement party.”
“Engagement party?”
“We’ll wait until the weather warms up so we can have it outside,” Wilma decides. “That’s what we did for the girls.”
“Uh…Mom? My engagement party was in January,” Jeannie contradicts.
“She’s right, it was, because I wore those Ralph Lauren boots Daddy got me for Christmas,” Emily points out helpfully.
“
Was
it January?” Wilma muses. “Huh. I must be thinking of Kathleen’s.”
“Hers was in June. I remember because I had on that black Armani strapless dress,” says Emily. In case you haven’t noticed, she tends to recall special occasions strictly by her choice of personal attire.
“Well, we can have your party in June, too,” Wilma tells me and Jack. “What do you think?”
“Sure,” Jack says with a shrug. “Whatever. That sounds good.”
“You really don’t have to throw us an engagement party, Wilma.” I can’t help but shudder a bit at the thought of my family traipsing down to Westchester to meet the Candells.
For one thing, my parents are hardly world travelers. Their last actual trip was to Schenectady on a church bus trip to some shrine around there somewhere. I remember it because they got me a T-shirt that reads Schenectady: The City That Lights and Hauls the World, which is some ambitious motto, don’t you think?
Needless to say, Mom and Pop haven’t visited me in New York since I moved here after college. Did I mention that they were absolutely crushed when I left Brookside? No one else in my family ever has. I’m sure they’re still thinking I’ll get over it and go back home where I belong.
Of course, now that I’m marrying Jack, they’ll probably suspect that I might actually be here to stay…but that doesn’t mean they’ll approve. Or visit.
What if Wilma goes to all the trouble of throwing an engagement party and my parents refuse to come?
“Really,” I tell her, “it’s not necessary.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tracey. Of course I’m going to throw you an engagement party,” she says as if it’s all settled. “I just wish we still had the house so we could have it there.”
The sprawling family home in Bedford was sold after the divorce. Now Wilma lives in a condo community.
“You really can’t host a big party at your place, Mom,” Jeannie points out.
“I know, no worries, we’ll just have it at a restaurant,” she says briskly. “I’ve got it all under control.”
Well, better that than the wedding itself, I tell myself.
I’ll just have to try and convince my parents to get on a plane to New York in June—then make excuses to my future in-laws when they refuse.
Meanwhile, Jack and I have to have a conversation about our actual wedding plans before his mother takes over.
It’s ironic for me to even consider that possibility, because Wilma never struck me as the overbearing mother-in-law type.
Not that she’s overstepped her bounds…yet. I mean, she’s probably just excited, wanting to help, like she said.
But the sooner Jack lets her know that we’ll be getting married at Most Precious Mother in Brookside with a reception at Shorewood afterward, the better.
Mental note: Let Jack know ASAP that we’ll be getting married at Most Precious Mother in Brookside with a reception at Shorewood afterward.
“You know,” Wilma is saying fondly, “I still remember what fun I had planning my wedding all those years ago. This is such a wonderful time in your lives. Enjoy every minute of it.”
“We will,” I assure her, and Jack leans over and kisses her on the cheek.
“Thanks, Mom.”
She’s a little shiny-eyed all of a sudden, I notice. Well, he’s her son. And being single, she depends on him for things a husband might otherwise do—like helping her move heavy furniture and keeping track of investments.
It can’t be easy for her to realize that another woman is going to come first in his heart from now on. Maybe she feels as if she’s losing him. It’s kind of amazing that she’s been so supportive of me right from the start, never showing the slightest bit of jealousy or resentment.
Then I think about how my own mother still adores and babies my brothers, and how she frequently criticizes their wives for what she considers inadequate laundry, parenting and, especially, cooking skills.