Part 13 (1/2)

Instead of which, at first it slowed down, as though the driver were suddenly uncertain of his welcome. ”Come on, come on!” shouted an attendant, and ran forward, still waving. The car was a new Caddy-a lot better than most of the cars here-and the driver had the narrow nose and bewildered expression that suggested to the attendants (cousins of the bride) that these people represented the groom's side.

”Park over there!” the attendant yelled, pointing at one of the few remaining slots.

The driver had lowered his window, the better to display his confusion. He said, ”The church...?”

”That's right! That's right! There's the church right there, it's the only thing on this road! Come on, will ya, you're late!”

Someone in the car said something to the driver, who nodded and said, ”I guess we might as well.”

So then at last the Caddy was driven to its slot, all four of its doors opened, and a bunch of extremely unlikely wedding guests emerged. The attendants, waiting for them, exchanged a knowing glance that silently said, Groom's side, no question. Along with the sharp-nosed driver were a short fat round troll, a gloomy slope-shouldered guy, and a mean-looking old geezer. Shepherded by the attendants, these four made their way up the walk and into the now-full church, where the ceremony hadn't yet begun after all, having been delayed by both a sudden loss of courage on the groom's part (being treated now from an uncle's flask) and a screaming cat fight between the bride and her mother.

A tuxedoed usher approached the latecomers, while the attendants went off to the seats saved for them by other cousins. Leaning toward the new arrivals, the usher murmured, ”Bride or groom?”

They stared at him. The sharp-nosed one said, ”Huh?”

The usher was used by now to the wedding guests being under-rehea.r.s.ed. Patiently, gesturing to the pews on both sides of the central aisle, he said, ”Are you with the bride's party or the groom's?”

”Oh,” said the sharp-nosed one.

”Bride,” said the mean-looking old man, but at the same instant, ”Groom,” said the pessimistic-looking guy.

This under-rehea.r.s.ed was ridiculous. ”Surely,” the usher began, ”you know whi-”

”We're with the groom,” the pessimist explained. ”They're with the bride.”

”Oh,” the usher said, and looked around for empty seats on both sides of the aisle. ”Here's two for the bridal party,” he said, ”and two over-”

He broke off, astonished, because the group seemed to be arguing fiercely and almost silently among themselves as to which of them was to be with which. Noticing him noticing them, they cut that business short and sorted themselves out with no further trouble, except for sharp looks back and forth. The usher seated the pessimist and the little round man among the bride's family and friends, then placed the mean-looking old man and the sharp-nosed fellow in among the partisans of the groom.

As he did so, the uncle with the flask (tucked away out of sight) emerged from a side door down by the altar and made his somewhat unsteady way (he'd been medicating himself as well, since the cap was off anyway) to his seat on the aisle down near the front on the groom's side. He was still settling himself and grinning his report on the groom's condition to his neighbors when the mother of the bride, rather red of face and grim of expression, but with shoulders triumphantly squared, came from the rear of the church, escorted by an usher, and marched down the center aisle to sit in the front row.

A moment of extremely suspenseful silence ensued, during which the minister's wife, out of sight in the vestry, placed the needle on the turning record, and a scratchy but full-throated version of Mendelssohn's ”Wedding March” poured forth from the speakers mounted high in the four corners of the nave.

As the music swelled and the minister came out of the vestry to stand by the chancel rail, the mean-looking old guy with the bridal party gave a disgusted look across the aisle at the pessimist among the groom's people. The pessimist gave him the disgusted look right back, then shook his head and sat back to watch the wedding.

The music stopped. The speakers in the corners of the nave said, ”Tick... tick... ti-” And stopped.

The minister stepped forward, crossing the front of the church behind the chancel rail, smiling bland encouragement at the parents and immediate family in the front row. He was a round-faced round-shouldered slender amiable man with a round spa.r.s.ely haired head and round highly reflecting spectacles, and he wore thick-soled black shoes like a cop and a long-sleeved black dress with a white d.i.c.key at the neck. The black dress showed off his round potbelly as he crossed to the pulpit and climbed the circular staircase.

On the bride's side of the aisle, the mean-looking old guy leaned forward and looked significantly across the aisle at the pessimist, who didn't seem to want to have his eye caught. But the old guy kept nodding, and widening his eyes, and waving his eyebrows, until finally everybody else in the immediate area was in on it, so then at last the pessimist turned and nodded-”I know, I know”-which didn't keep the old guy from pointing very significantly with his eyebrows and ears and elbows and nose and temples toward the general area of the pulpit and the climbing minister. The pessimist sighed and folded his arms and faced determinedly forward. The little dumpling beside him kept looking back and forth between the pessimist and the old guy, open-mouthed and eager. Next to the old guy, the sharp-nosed fellow ignored the whole thing, concentrating instead on the cleavage in the dress of the friend of the bride on his other side.

Meantime, the minister had attained the pulpit, from where he beamed out amiably upon his congregation. After pausing to adjust the microphone on its gooseneck stalk in front of him, at last he said, ”Well, we all want to thank Felix Mendelssohn for sharing that wonderful music with us. And now, if you'll all rise.”

Shckr-shckr-shckroop.

”Very good, very good.” The minister's face and smile were at the pulpit, but his voice came from the four upper corners of the nave. ”And now,” he said, ”we will all turn to our neighbor, and we will greet our neighbor with a handshake and a hug.”

Embarra.s.sed laughter and throat-clearing filled the church, but everyone (except the mean-looking old guy) obeyed. The sharp-nosed fellow very enthusiastically embraced the friend of the bride next to him, while the pessimist and the dumpling hugged each other in a much more gingerly fas.h.i.+on.

”Very good, very good,” the minister's voice boomed down at them from the four corners of the nave. ”Resume your seats, resume your seats.”

Schlff-schlff-fflrp.

”Very good.” The minister's eyegla.s.ses reflected the interior of the church, creating gothic wonders where none in fact existed. Beaming around at the congregation, giving them back this much more interesting reflection of themselves, he said, ”We have come here this evening, in the sight of G.o.d and man, mindful of the laws of G.o.d and the laws of the State of New York, to join in holy wedlock Tiffany and Bob.”

He paused. He beamed his sweet smile into the farthest corner of his domain. He said, ”You know, the blessed state of matrimony.......”

His voice went on, for some extended time, but the words did not enter one brain in that church. A great glazed comatosity o'ercame the congregation, a state of slow enchantment like that in the forest in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Like the residents of Brigadoon, the people in the church drifted in a long and dreamless sleep, freed of struggle and expectation.

”....... with Bob. Bob?”

A slow sigh escaped the slumbering a.s.sembly, a faint and lingering breath. Shoulders moved, hands twitched in laps, bottoms s.h.i.+fted on the wooden pews. Eyes began to focus, and there was Bob, as if by magic, a bowed beanpole inaptly in a black tux at the head of the central aisle, standing with his look-alike best man-slightly heavier, grinning in nervous relief, left hand clutching jacket pocket (no doubt to feel the ring still safe within)-the two of them in profile to the crowd, Bob blinking like the terrorists' kidnap victim he was, the beaming minister descending the pulpit and striding toward the lectern set up just within the chancel rail. The speakers in the corners, said, ”Tick... tick... tick...” and a slow, heavy-beated, orchestral version of ”Here Comes the Bride” battered the people below.

Now it all began to move. Tiffany, on her father's arm, and her attendants made their uncertain way down the aisle, trying but failing to keep pace with the music, stumbling and tripping prettily along, concentrating so totally on their feet that they forgot to be self-conscious. Bob watched them as though they were an approaching truck.

Bride and groom met in front of the lectern and turned to face the minister, who beamed over their heads at the people and announced, ”Bob and Tiffany have written their own wedding service,” and everybody went back to sleep.

When they awoke, the deed was done. ”You may kiss the bride,” the minister said, and some smart-aleck pal of the groom said, ”That's about the only thing he hasn't done to her,” perhaps a little more loudly than he'd intended.

Bride and groom made their hasty grinning way up the aisle as the congregation stood and stretched and talked and cheered them on, and from the speakers high above came the Beatles' ”I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The mean-looking old guy turned to the sharp-nosed fellow and said, ”If I had a gun, I'd shoot somebody.”

”I wouldn't know where to start,” the sharp-nosed fellow answered in agreement.

”How about with these two?” the mean-looking old guy said as the happy couple hurried past.

Across the aisle, the round troll dabbed his moist eyes and said, ”Gee, that was nice. Better even than Princess l.a.b.i.a's wedding.” The pessimist sighed.

Most weddings take place in daylight, but there'd been a certain urgency in the planning of this one, and all the potential daytime slots here at Elizabeth Grace Dudson Memorial Reformed Congregational Unitarian Church of Putkin Towns.h.i.+p had already been taken. The mother of the bride had been determined that her daughter would have a church wedding, and women who successfully name their infant daughters Tiffany do tend to get their own way, so an evening wedding it was. Exterior lights had been turned on at the end of the ceremony, so that when the wedding party emerged, laughing and shouting and throwing superfluous rice (it was unnecessary to wish fecundity upon Tiffany and Bob), the scene looked more like a movie than real life. Many of the revelers, becoming aware of this, started to perform wedding guests rather than be wedding guests, which merely increased the general air of unreality.

Inside, the church was nearly empty. The minister chatted up front with a small group of ladies, a few other relatives and friends drifted slowly doorward, and the four latecomers sat stolid in their pews, as though waiting for the second show. A departing aunt said to them, ”Aren't you coming to the party?”

”Sure,” said the pessimist.

She continued on. ”Come along, now,” said another exiting in-law.

”Be there in a minute,” the sharp-nosed fellow a.s.sured her.

”It's over, you know,” kidded a grandmother with a grandmotherly twinkle.

Twinkling right back, the b.u.t.terball said, ”We're looking at the pretty windows.”

The minister, pa.s.sing with the last of the ladies, smiled upon the quartet and said, ”We'll be closing up now.”

The mean-looking old guy nodded. ”We wanna pray a little more,” he said.