My Best Man (39 page)

Before we land, Amity announces, “Power nap!” and falls into a coma. She’s eaten two scones and drunk half a bottle of champagne, and now she’s out. How does she do it? Especially today. It’s as if she’s embracing our future with no trepidation, no caution, as if she’s certain of its sanguine outcome. I look down to the squares of farmland below and realize that the summer harvest is gone and most of the land is relaxing into the coming days of autumn. Amity sleeps through the steep descent and touchdown, and as we’re taxiing toward the private terminal, I wait, clutching my seat, preparing myself for her frightening rise from the dead. But instead, she slowly opens her eyes, like a baby bird in its nest, and blinks sweetly until she’s awake. I relax, let go of my armrests, and smile at her.

“Let’s go, Bubba!” she shouts, springing out of her seat.

“Shit, Amity!” I say, slamming against the back of my seat and grabbing my heart. Fooled again.

She takes a little carton of juice from the bread tray. “Drink some orange juice, Bubba. You’re going to need your energy today!” she chirps, reaching across and grabbing her wedding dress.

She’s right. I pat her hand. Sip the juice. Wait for my heart to descend into my chest again.

As we pull up to the terminal, we can both see my mother and Donald waiting by a shiny gold Mercedes sedan. The car is sitting right on the tarmac, next to several business jets. The pilots shut the engines down and enter the cabin to release the stairs. “After you,” I tell her, and Amity steps out, the glamorous movie star making her return. My mother and Donald wave enthusiastically, and she waves back.

Now that it’s autumn, the sun generously shares the sky with the cool dry air washing down from the Rockies that moves east to mix with the northern winds coming down from Nebraska. Autumn is my favorite time of year in Kansas. I usually welcome its arrival. Today I’m reticent, but Amity continues to hold my hand and lead me on toward the next season.

“There they are!” my mother cries, taking off her sunglasses and throwing open her arms.

“Hey!” Donald yells.

“Susan!” Amity answers, wrapping her arms around my mother.

I shake Donald’s hand and wait for him to slap a lung into my throat. He doesn’t disappoint, and when we’re done, I see that Amity and my mother are still embracing. Amity seems to be holding my mother with predilection, and when she finally lets go, she backs up to take a look at her. “You look great, Susan. Really great.”

My mother’s hair is down again, but pulled back in gold clips. And like Amity, she looks younger, more relaxed than in the past. The crisp breeze ruffles her ecru linen pantsuit as she reaches out to me. “How could anyone not love this girl?” she asks, referring to Amity.

I hug my mother, feeling her new breasts press against my own new built-up pecs, and answer, “I don’t know, Mom. But we sure do, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do,” she answers as we watch Amity wrap Donald

in a hug. “Your parents are here already,” my mother gushes to Amity. “We got a call from them. They sound very nice.”

I look at Amity with surprise. She followed through and invited them. She turns to my morn. “They’ll be very pleased to meet

“

you.

The pilots deliver our luggage to us. Then Donald clears his throat in a nervous gesture, as if he’s about to send us over enemy lines.

“Right,” my mother responds, beaming. “Have you noticed anything?”

“The car?” I ask, pointing to the gold Mercedes. Mom and

Donald nod affirmatively. “It’s not yours, is it?” I ask.

“No, it is not,” Donald answers. “It’s yours.”

Donald smiles, and my mother looks like the cat who swallowed the stomach-bursting macaw. “Well?” she gushes.

I look at Amity and wait for her eyes to spring out of her head and hit the windshield. But instead they mist over, and she most genuinely says, “Susan and Donald, you shouldn’t have. Really. You’ve gone too far.”

“What do you think, Hart’y?” my mother asks enthusiastically. “Have we gone too far?”

Well, it’s not exactly like receiving money. And compared to the trashed, totaled-out BMW, it’s certainly functional. “Not at all,” I answer. “We were actually hoping for a little jet like the one we arrived in.”

“Well, then you have something to work toward,” Donald answers, not sure if I was joking.

“Come on,” my mother says, handing me the keys. “Let’s go home. ‘

I hand them to Amity. “A man can live in a ditch, as long as he’s driving a Mercedes,” I tell her, smiling. “Let’s go home.”

“Home,” she says, making magic of the word.

For the remainder of the day, Amity and my mother are occupied with last-minute arrangements. They leave to check the flower arrangements, sample the reception hors d’oeuvres, make sure the church is prepared, meet with the soloist.

I lie on my bed most of the day, thinking about Nicolo and what life with him would have been like. I imagine us in every possible situation. Riding horses on our land in Argentina. Feeding our dogs … two Labrador retrievers and a beagle. Nicolo, like his father, writing for a noble cause. Me studying Spanish and enrolled in law school, realizing my father’s dream for me to become an attorney. My strictly pro bono practice would be for those who could not afford representation otherwise. Nicolo’s mother and I would patch things up, and she would live in the guest house on our property. We’d equip her with a beautiful kitchen where she could create every piquant native dish of her desire. And Nicolo’s brother, his kindred spirit I’ve yet to meet, could live in the house with us.

As the day passes, and I can’t stand to lie in bed any longer, I stop by the kitchen to pour myself a beer, then move to a reclining chair by the pool. Donald approaches, pulls up a chair, and gets a look on his face that tells me I’m supposed to listen up. “Now, Harry,” he tells me, as if I’m a soldier under his command. “I have some things I want to say to you.” He sits sturdily in his chair, as if he’s daring me to knock him out of it.

I want to run through the yard, onto the golf course, and down the fairway. But he’s caught me in a sand trap. “Yes, Donald?” “Harry, I assume you’ve never been with a woman before.” This ought to be good.

“There are some things you should know about women.” He stands and starts to pace back and forth along the edge of the pool. “Women have a different chemistry than you and I. You see, men think with their brains. Oh, sure, women like to tell us we think with our dicks, but we don’t. No, our brains, and the chemicals

inside our brains, are what motivate us, guide us, make us who we are. Right?”

“More or less,” I say agreeably.

He stops. Points a finger at me. “But women are controlled by their vaginas.”

What ?

He starts to pace again. “Their vaginas make them laugh, and their vaginas make them cry. Their vaginas make them sad, and their vaginas make them happy. But only because their vaginas make them think first.” He speaks with great commitment, the way he might when giving a speech at the officers’ club. “You see, all the chemicals that control a woman’s reasoning are right… down..” there.” He points at his privates.

I slowly ask, “Why are you pointing at your crotch?”

“Because this is where my vagina, or my brain, would be if I were a woman.”

“I see,” I tell him, with a wrinkled brow. “How high is your

IQ?”

I hope he’ll laugh. He doesn’t. “That depends on how much stimulation my brain gets. Do you understand me, son?”

I’ll never understand you, Donald. “Go on.”

“If you want Amity to continue to be smart, outgoing, agree able then you need to stimulate her brain. And I mean stimulate it good. Because if you don’t, it’ll go dry on ya. Like the desert floor of Death Valley. And then you’ve got trouble on your hands, son. Because once a woman stops using her brain, it dries up, and she stops thinking clearly, and becomes nothing but emotion. And you’ll lose control over her. I guar an-fuckin’-tee ya.”

“So you think I should keep control over Amity?” “Absa-fuckin’-lutely,” Donald says, his eyes in a squint. “I don’t give a shit what generation you’re from. Women are women, and men are men. Now,” he states, clearing his throat, opening his eyes, “I understand that your soldier is used to standing at attention for a different commander. But listen to me. I have no doubt your soldier is ready to fall in line and penetrate the foreign border with the rest of them. Don’t be afraid, son you can do it. And if you have any questions, don’t be afraid to report back to me. You got that?”

I nod. Stand. “Donald?”

“Yes, son?”

“Does my mother have a … high IQ?”

“She’s a fuckin’ genius, buddy.”

No wonder she married him in six weeks. I reach out my hand. “Thank you.”

He shakes my hand while breaking nearly every one of my fingers. “Don’t mention it.”

Amity and I are in the large bathroom off our bedroom in my mother’s house. I’m sitting on the edge of the tub, watching her poo up for the last time as a single girl. My mother has had a bottle of champagne sent out to us, delivered by Marzetta, who politely but sadly hands it over, and Amity forgoes the glass provided to swill out of the bottle. She’s skipping a lot of the poo up steps. “How come you’re not curling your hair?” I ask.

Her hair is still pulled back in a ponytail; she’s lightly brushing mascara on her eyelashes. “I’m feeling kind of natural today, Bubba.”

“Should I take you to see a doctor?”

“Stop!” she scolds, picking up the bar of soap by the sink and throwing it at me.

I duck as the bullet flies past. “This is going to be really weird,”

I tell her, picking the soap up from the floor. I don’t say it negatively, just honestly. “Whoever thought we’d really get married? God, I wonder what we’ll be doing five years from now?”

She looks into the mirror, and instead of looking at herself, she looks at me.. as she did on the first day she brought me home.

“Don’t worry about it, darling’. Life never plays out the way you think it will, I guarantee you.”

“No shit. Whoever thought Jacqueline would turn out to be a shaman?”

“What’ st hat “In this case, it’ sa tall priestess who repeats herself while wisely sorting through all the muck.”

“Besides you, Harry, she’s my best friend.”

“You’re right.” If I weren’t afraid of hurting Amity’s feelings, I’d tell her how I proposed to Jackie that she take Amity’s place at the altar and how Jacqueline refused me on Amity’s behalf. “She’d never do anything to hurt you,” I tell Amity.

“I’d never do anything to hurt her either,” Amity responds.

I want to tell her, “But you did!” She doesn’t know I’ve been made aware of her tryst with Jackie’s former boyfriend Arthur. And this is the thing that bothers me most about marrying her. her ability to revise her history at will. At the same time, I realize I’m the yin to her yang, since I’m revising my future at will. I wonder if we’ll ever stop altering the past and the future and just let things be as they are.

“Do you think we’ll be happy?” I ask.

Now she looks at herself in the mirror and smiles. “We’ll be happy, Bubba,” she tells me with surety. “We’re going to cut the shit and get on with it.”

Amity and I are driving to the church in our new Mercedes. My mother had ordered a limousine for us, but Amity convinced her to cancel it. She’s insisted on traveling in full regalia in her new car. My mother and I practically had to sit on her huge dress to get the whole thing stuffed behind the steering wheel.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive?” I had asked.

“No way, Bubba!” she’d told me.

We have the windows rolled down, and the fall wind rushes through the car, blowing the lace ribbons in her hair. “Look at

us,” Amity squeals. “We’re straight out of Town and Country/ This would be the most killer ad for Mercedes!” She’s right. A brand-new gold sedan, the bride behind the wheel, the groom along for the ride. My mother and Donald are in front of us in their Cadillac, leading the way, and Jacqueline, after arriving at the house just an hour ago, is behind us in her rental car. a train of madness, with Jackie serving as the caboose. Tina Turner is singing on the radio, asking us “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” It’s a valid question. In the beginning, the answer would have been nothing. But now, love has everything to do with it, I can tell by Amity’s repose. She’s happy and at peace, rock-solid peace. But even in the cool breeze, I’m sweating. Amity looks over. “Harry, for heaven’s sake. Stop your worrying. It’s not like you’re going to the executioner. It’s just a bunch of fancy-ass people in expensive clothes, and some nice old guy, who probably hits the sauce a little too much and fondles the altar boys, standing there in a big ole white robe, and you and me. Believe me, darling’, this whole thing will be over sooner than you think.”

“Good,” I tell her, wiping my clammy palms on my tuxedo pants. “How are you staying so calm?” She glances over at me, takes my hand, and gives me a heartfelt smile. “Because this is the most wonderful day of my life. You’re doing something for me that no one else has ever done, Bubba. Ever. You’re loving me for who I am. No conditions. No rules. You’re putting my happiness before your own. And that’s the meaning of true love, Harry. I want you to know how much you’ve inspired me.”

“But, Amity,” I say, “that’s how your parents love you.” She glances at me briefly, then concentrates on the road. “I suppose,” she sighs. “And I love them too, but they just don’t get me. It was the wrong family, the wrong house for me. I couldn’t stand pork and milk. I hated riding that stinky old school bus for miles on dirt roads, just to get to Waco to go to school. My brother

and sister thrived in FFA, while I thrived on THE. It was the only way I could accept my boring life. But I always knew it wasn’t permanent. My cousin came to visit me when I was six, and she loved our farm, but I told her, “This dump is just a place to hang my hat until I can strike out on my own!” “

“Jesus, Amity, you said that when you were six?”

“I was an honest six. And I wanted more than a farm family in Waco could offer. I wanted a family with a good name. A family who drank martinis instead of cow’s milk. I wanted the clothes and the house and the style. I wanted to be famous. Oh, I know it’s shallow and disgusting, but why not? It’s not like I’m some horrible bitch.”