A Wife of Noble Character (17 page)

Just then a small group of office workers who looked ready to take off their shoes exited the stairwell. Bucky wished them a good night, his voice altogether beneficent, almost unrecognizable.

Once they were gone, he shook his head. “You kinda ruined things for us.”

Vivienne didn't move. Either she was frozen in place for the rest of time or she was going to explode into a thousand pieces.

“It doesn't happen like that with the girl you stick with,” he said. “I thought you were different, at least with me.” With that he glanced at the door.

She was standing in his way.

“Don't be crazy,” he said. He butted the back of his head against the headrest, then spit onto the pavement, narrowly missing her foot. “It was your idea to take that walk.”

“I thought it was mutual. We were dating.”

Bucky pressed his hands on his knees. “Like I said, it wasn't the way I imagined things panning out, and it isn't what I want.”

“So you were just going to toss me into your truck, even though this isn't what you want?”

“We can do it again right now if you want to have a good time,” he said. “But I thought we were waiting, and things might go somewhere.”

“You wanted to have anal sex. How is that waiting?”

“Lower your voice,” he snapped. “I didn't think you were some girl who—” His words tripped over the dip, and he spit, this time into a foam cup he retrieved from a holder cantilevered over a vent. “—Some girl who wants me to rail her out in the woods drunk. And then the next day you go off with that Presley douche—and while we were supposed to be at
church.
”

“His name is
Preston
,” she said loudly.

“Lower your voice,” he said again, watching her the way he might watch a criminal or a bum, her nearness an offense to his soul. “Look, you don't realize this was hard for me. I had a lot of guilt over that night. Don't come in here guns blazing when you don't know half the story. I don't feel forgiven for that.”

“Forgiven? You'll sleep with any random girl without feeling anything about it, and then if you have sex with a woman you're actually dating you feel guilty? That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense, 'cause I separate those things, and God knows my intentions.” He shifted in his seat, his face eager and pained. “You weren't a random girl, and then we soiled it. I have a lot of guilt about that. And you should too. That was nothing but lust.”

“So just now—what was that?”

“That's why you're not good for me, pulling me back into lust. I want a Christian relationship.”

Her interior voice screamed at her to step aside and let him drive away, not to say another word. But fury covered her reason. “You want a Christian relationship?” she said, stepping close, so that his knee depressed her stomach. “Is that what you were texting Reis about? To tell her you want a Christian relationship?”

He drew back, but she leaned in with his angle. “Because no doubt that's why you're interested in Reis. That's the only reason. It can't possibly be anything else.” She smelled his snuff breath, noticed how the pores below his lower lip dilated over the lump of tobacco beneath. “Does she know that part of a Christian relationship with you means blowing you day and night? Do you think Reis will be up for that?”

He sneered. “She already is up for that.”

“You're so disgusting. I can't believe I apologized to you.”

His face rose to the shade of a boiled beet. Mumbling “Crazy” under his breath, he reached for the door handle. “Move,” he said.

She didn't.

“Move,” he said again, meaner.

Quick as a lizard's tongue, she lunged across his lap and snatched the cup full of dip spit. “Fucker,” she howled, and flicked the cup.

At impact, all she registered was his face: grimacing tight, eyes wrinkled shut, brown juices dripping over his brow line, off the tip of his sharp nose, down his pinched-up lips. Vivienne put a hand over her mouth and backed up. He was spitting it off his tongue and scrambling to wipe his eyes, finally using his shirttail, but before he could speak, she turned and ran, nimble as a hurdler, out of the garage, past the potted ficus trees in the organized office green, through a blinking
DON'T WALK
crosswalk, down three blocks, and into a mixed neighborhood of lofts and crummy row houses, finally stopping in an abandoned overgrown driveway, her chest heaving explosively. Dip spit streamed down her arm. It was late dusk, the sky a spectrum of blue from its crown to the horizon, the street alive with blackbirds ringing on and off the power lines. Over the street rose Bucky's building, its mirrored windows reflecting a shining, distorted sky.

 

III

The pastor bowed his head. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” He paused. “The Word of the Lord.”

“Thanks be to God.”

Vivienne raised her eyes. The pastor nodded. It was time for her reading. Her hands trembled as she approached the podium and unfolded the paper on which she'd written her chosen verse, the Scripture to bless the union of her friends Waverly Blank and Clay Fitcherson.

“Proverbs thirty-one,” she said, to the fluttering of pages. “Verses ten through thirty.”

“
A wife of noble character who can find?
” she read.
“She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.”
She paused to catch the quiver in her throat and looked up, the shock of her own amplified voice hanging in her ears. The Prayerwood sanctuary rustled, over three hundred full. There was Karlie, second in the line of dutiful bridesmaids, clutching her calla lilies. Alongside Clay was Bucky, a groomsman, whom she hadn't seen since the parking garage, with his eyes on the carpet. In the back, wearing a fire-engine-red blazer, Blad. And standing in the vestibule, directly behind Bucky in her sight line, half a football field from where she stood—Preston. She cleared her throat.
“She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet. She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple. Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.' Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

She smiled, and returned to her standing place beside the bride. Waverly reached out and squeezed her hand.

With two flames, the couple lit one candle. Sissy wept. Bracken wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulders and looked on with a proud square face. Sunlight fell through the gilded stained-glass dome above, splashing a rainbow of jagged color across the bridal party, particularly upon Waverly's ivory semi-cathedral train, which Vivienne occasionally knelt to adjust, gently tugging out creases.

As maid of honor, she held the bride's bouquet for the ceremony and stood at the head of the line of maids, all tucked up in Waverly's dress of choice: a boat-necked floor-length fuchsia silk gown with a low gathered bustle. Their hair swept up into subtle bouffants, Vivienne and her team were a picture of exactly what the bride intended them to be: herself.

Waverly wept through her vows. Clay wiped a tear from her cheek as he said,
I do
. Vivienne watched with a pierced heart. Bucky hadn't made eye contact. She scanned the pews to see if Preston was really there and found him beside Blad. Was he wearing a tie? The idea of Preston selecting a tie touched that tender gummy spot inside Vivienne that believed wedded felicity was possible for all but her.

The declaration of man and wife made, Clay scooped Waverly up and kissed her, over and over until she pulled away, giggling. Mendelssohn's march bellowed from the organ's shining stacks as the newlyweds led the procession down the aisle, reaching out and wiggling fingertips with the many joyful faces affirming their love. Vivienne trailed over a cushion of pink rose petals and waved at Blad as she passed. He was clapping; Preston was smirking. Once the couple had crossed the threshold out of the church and into the day, Vivienne returned the abundant bouquet to the bride and, at the curb, lifted the outpourings of her gown into the waiting black limousine, folding in the train before waving them off with a kiss.

*   *   *

T
HE BALLROOM AT
the Bayouside Club rang with happy atonal chatter, drowning out the string quartet playing beside the bar. Drained from the photo session in which she was asked to jump up in the air in unison with the other maids, lie sprawled on the manicured club lawn with her chin cradled in her adjoined fingers, and pose with invisible guns like Charlie's Angels, Vivienne, permitted finally to detach her bustle for the party, took a seat at a cocktail table to scope out the men before the newlyweds made their grand entrance. Blad brought her a drink.

“It's a passion-fruit cocktail,” he said, toasting up his own. “Tastes like Hawaii.”

“Thanks, I'm thirsty,” Vivienne said.

He pressed a finger to his cheek. “Is it just me or do I stand out here?”

Vivienne laughed. “Thanks for coming.”

“Are you kidding? This is incredible.” He popped his red collar. “It's like Disneyland, except everyone's mean to me.”

“Not everyone's mean to you,” Vivienne said, swallowing the cocktail a little greedily.

“Please,” he said, leaning an elbow on the table. “I'm a kitty at the dog show. Look at that guy…”

She turned to Blad's sight line and found a chubby-cheeked guy staring deadpan at Blad. “That's Bucky's old roommate. He's not staring at you. He just looks like that.”

Blad cringed. “He looks like a boar.”

“Bucky hunts boars.”

“Oh, I know that guy,” Blad said, pointing out a striking forty-something man in a gray suit.

Vivienne recognized him, and the woman on his arm, from photos in the
Chronicle
's “Out and About” column.

“How do you know him?”

“The Korean spa,” Blad said, still looking at him.

Now they were both staring at the man. “I thought you worked at a Thai spa.”

Blad laughed. “You're so innocent. This was at the
Korean
spa. Very different sort of spa. We jerked each other off.” He shrugged. “I doubt he'd recognize me. The context is too different.”

Vivienne examined this man and the immaculately coiffed woman at his side. The context was in fact so different that she had trouble believing such a thing was possible. “I wonder what he'd do if he did recognize you.”

“Nothing,” Blad said. “It's a mutual understanding; we both pretend.”

Vivienne shook her head. “I wonder if she knows.”

Blad laughed again. “Of course she doesn't know. And if she does, she's also pretending.”

“I would know if the guy I was dating was gay,” Vivienne said.

Blad pursed his lips. “Everyone has their own blinders.” He lifted his finger again, subtly, toward a tubby guy with a head of sandy curls waiting in line at the bar. “Remember him? I had sex with him in high school.”

Vivienne's jaw dropped. “Greg Garfield?” She leaned into Blad's ear; it was too loud to whisper. “You had sex with him?”

“In the bed of his truck. After a field party.”

“You're lying.”

“I promised him I'd never tell. And I actually never did until just now, so don't say anything.”

The image of Greg Garfield, nose tackle for the football team, who sat next to her in chemistry and always cheated off her work, and who, last she heard, was a manager on Governor Perry's presidential campaign, giving it to—or taking it from—Blad gave the ballroom and all its glisten a deeper, contorted dimension.

She reached out and squeezed Blad's forearm, feeling guilty that she'd fallen asleep worried that bringing him as a date would be alienating—and here he was enlightening her, and she loved just sitting next to him. “I hope you're not uncomfortable. You can leave whenever.”

“I'm enjoying myself fine,” he shushed. “But thanks for the get-out-of-jail-free card.”

In his high lilt she detected a deliberate diminishing of how he really felt, but he was valiant in that way. As he often said, he didn't grow up queer in Texas for nothing.

“What did you talk about with Preston?” Vivienne asked.

“I knew you were going to ask me that,” he said. “We talked about how old-man-hot Bracken is.”

“Come on,” Vivienne pleaded.

“He said the dress looked like a melting cupcake, and I laughed,” he said. “Now I'm going to find the bathroom.”

Blad gone in the crowd, Vivienne cupped the stem of her empty glass and admired the centerpiece she had helped design: a bundle of white hydrangeas in a low rectangular vase, a dark palm leaf wrapped around the perimeter of the glass. It was as dazzling as she'd envisioned, but for all she'd given to create it, it only conspired to remind her it wasn't her own. Beside the bandstand, a pocket of guests danced to the background music,
Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee
. The room was crowded and growing loud. Vivienne wanted another drink, but a long line had formed at the bar. She settled into her stool, nudging away an encroaching sense of disappointment. This party was supposed to have been fun, liberating, the day she shed her sodden summer skin and met someone new, so that she could put the trauma of Bucky fully in the past. But unfortunately, because she knew both the bride and groom, there were scant new faces, and those new ones she caught had perspiring, receding hairlines. She found herself looking around for Preston.