Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) (26 page)

“Nobody looks at the groom.
Everyone
looks at the bride,” said Claire, and there was no reasoning with her.

In any case, although I was as anxious as anyone else to be beautiful on our wedding day, I sure didn’t want a trumpet-style entrance when I came down the aisle.

Like Liz, I couldn’t decide which of my friends should be my maid of honor. I could have chosen my cousin too, and Carol would have been the perfect choice, but she was in Pennsylvania now and had just started a new job, so it wouldn’t be fair to saddle her with all the duties that go along with it. Same for Stacy in West Virginia, Pamela in New York, and Gwen in medical school now, not just premed. Valerie was in Oklahoma, and Abby had moved to Oregon and gone into partnership with her
aunt. Maybe there’s something to be said for getting married while all your close friends are still around you!

It was easy, then, when both Gwen and Pamela suggested that I ask Liz to do the honor, since she was a teacher now and had the summer off. Liz said she’d be thrilled. And Stacy simplified things when she asked if she could be in charge of the guest book, as I’d done for her. So I had my cousin and five best girlfriends in the wedding party, and Patrick said he’d come up with five male friends too, plus Lester. Whew. I figured the hardest part was over.

There was a similar discussion about a bachelorette party and a shower. Pamela was determined there should be some kind of a night out for the gals, but it was hard enough getting people together for even one night, much less two.

And then I got a phone call from Mark’s mother.

“Alice, I would like very much to give you a bridal shower,” she said. “I’m not sure if young women have such things anymore or if they’re anything like the ones I remember when I was a girl, but I’d like to try. It’s been so much fun having Patrick stay with us while your apartment building is being finished, and . . . well, I would just like to do this, too.”

“Mrs. Stedmeister, that would be lovely,” I said. “And I hope it will be just the kind of shower you remember, because that’s the kind I want.”

When I called my bridesmaids and told them, Pamela’s reaction was, “At the Stedmeisters’? We’re going to have a fifties-style shower?”

“They’re not that old,” I said. “And whatever she plans will be fine with me.”

And it was. I had given her my guest list for the wedding. Her name was on it, of course, and Sylvia’s, and we chose the women who were my own special friends, excusing both Val and Abby, whom I wouldn’t expect to fly in just for a shower. I wanted to include Marilyn, who had worked so long for Dad at the Melody Inn, and Claire and my friend Yolanda, and whomever else Mrs. Stedmeister would like to invite.

Les had driven in with Stacy for the weekend, and he and Patrick and Moe said they were going out for the evening, a little bachelor party, they told us—
wink, wink
—and alluded to a night in Baltimore, known for some of the racier clubs. When I arrived at Mrs. Stedmeister’s, however, and remarked on what a beautiful evening it was, she said, “Oh, isn’t it? And a perfect night for a ball game, too.”

The Orioles!
I thought. Those guys had known all along they were going to Camden Yards to watch the Orioles play, but they liked to torment us with thoughts of a strip joint.

“Was Mark a fan?” I asked.

“Indeed he was, and Patrick was even wearing Mark’s Orioles cap when they left. In fact, Ed’s back there watching the game right now.” She nodded toward their study. “I told him to keep the noise down.”

I exchanged smiles with Liz, and we went on into the living room, where I was met with the welcoming faces of so many women I loved.

“Marilyn!” I said. “I haven’t seen you in ages. And Carol!”

The room was full of happy chatter as introductions were made, and I was surprised to find that Mrs. Long had come all the way from Wisconsin. Patrick’s dad was having dinner with a friend from their days in the State Department.

“Edith Stedmeister and I were friends even before we realized we had two sons in the same grade,” Patrick’s mom told me.

“Yes, Virginia and I were in the Republican Women’s Club, and we’ve been friends ever since,” said Mrs. Stedmeister. “Just another reason I’m glad to have Patrick stay with us until the wedding.”

It was a night right out of a bygone age—for me, anyway. Mrs. Long had been given the honor of presiding over the silver tea service in the dining room, and as we each passed the table, having filled our china dessert plates with bonbons and pastel-colored tea cakes, she handed us a cup and saucer, with exactly the right number of sugar cubes on the side and a slice of lemon.

Back in the living room, gifts were presented to me one at a time by Mrs. Stedmeister, who read the inscription on each card and remarked on the beautiful wrapping paper, and what a lovely bow. And it was amazing how each of my friends morphed into the atmosphere, as though we were all cast in a movie of decades past, modulating our voices, censoring some of our expressions, and sitting upright with knees together, balancing a teacup on our laps.

I exclaimed over each gift—the electric frying pan, the
blender, the set of silken sheets, the fluffy blanket, the flatware set—and I was glad to get each one, because Patrick and I were starting out with nothing, nothing except a mini fridge, a microwave, some clothes hangers from college, and a very modest trust fund from his grandfather. The Longs, wealthy as they were, believed that once a child had graduated, he had to make his own way in the world, and we agreed. Few children were left trust funds from their grandfathers, it’s true, but until Patrick reached twenty-five, his was only enough to cover car expenses for a year, if that.

“I love you guys,” I told my friends, holding the soft new blanket against my cheek. “I’ll think of you every time I crawl into bed.”

“That will be the last thing on your mind,” Pamela said, and that got a laugh from even Mrs. Long and Mrs. Stedmeister.

At the end of the evening, after I had thanked all my guests, Mrs. Stedmeister stood up to make a little speech—things she remembered about me: my freckles, which grew more prominent in the summertime; my laughter, which she could always distinguish from the others. . . . And as I studied this tall, thin woman with the angular face, only her hair seemed to have changed from the short salt-and-pepper look she used to have to the almost white hair it was now. I could still see her standing uncomfortably at one end of the Stedmeisters’ swimming pool the afternoon she announced that there would be no drinking or pot smoking at their house.

What courage that must have taken for this shy woman
with the soft voice, looking out over the wet heads of us swimmers, who had all gathered at the side of the pool to stare up at her. The gracious woman who had, week after week, put out refreshments for us on their picnic table and then disappeared, who had allowed us to leave puddles in her bathroom and stray towels and parts of bathing suits, which we would find laundered and neatly folded the next time we came. I felt a special love for this woman who had suffered a tragedy I could only imagine, who was somehow softening it by treating Mark’s friends as her own.

She was talking now about my former fear of the deep end of the pool and how I had finally conquered that, of how pretty I’d looked in a new bathing suit, and I realized that she knew far more about us than we had ever guessed, she and her short, pudgy little husband who had spent so much time working on cars in the driveway with Mark.

“I’ll always be grateful to you both,” I said when she’d finished and had presented me with a beautiful little box of thank-you cards. “You and your husband put up with more than we expected or deserved, and if there were a badge of courage for that, the Stedmeisters would have received it.”

I kissed her on the cheek and hugged her to me, then said good night to Mr. Stedmeister, who emerged from the den to “say hello to the ladies” and announce that the Orioles were ahead three to one in the ninth inning.

My bridesmaids helped carry my gifts to the car, and we said good night to Mrs. Long, who was staying in a hotel, and
Marilyn, who had to get home to her children, and Sylvia, who said it was past her bedtime. That left eight of us there on the driveway, including Yolanda and Claire.

“It was like being in a time warp!” Gwen breathed.

“Awesome!” said Yolanda. “Like a contest, to see who could sit all evening without spilling tea in her lap!”

“So what do you girls do for fun down here?” Carol asked. “Now that your guys are out on the town?”

“Are you kidding?” said Liz. “Do you know where they went?”

The others turned our way. “Where?”

“An Orioles game!” I said. “They hinted that it was some forbidden nightclub, and all the while they’re at a ball game!”

“So what are
we
going to do with the rest of the evening?” asked Stacy, tilting her watch toward the house so she could read it in the light from the windows.

“It’s only ten. I think the guys need to be taught a lesson,” I declared. “Any ideas?”

Pamela lifted one finger in the air. “Hold on!” she said. “Let’s see if he’s working tonight.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Someone who owes me a favor,” she said, and got out her cell phone.

We waited there in the moonlight while Pamela made a call. I could tell by her expression that she’d reached the person she wanted, but there were obviously negotiations going on. Finally her face broke into a smile and she nodded in our direction.

“Got it!” we heard her say. “Okay . . . in about twenty-five minutes.”

“Where are we going?” I asked as she slipped her cell phone back in her bag.

“To the Source nightclub in DC,” she said. “We are the ‘Sullivan party of six,’ only we’ve added two other guests and hope they won’t mind,” and she gave us the address. “Let’s go.”

“That’s someone’s reservation?” Stacy asked.

“Yep, but they aren’t due until eleven, my friend says. If they show up, I’ll think of something.”

“Whoopee!” Carol exclaimed.

“Pamela!” I cried. “How will we—?”

“C’mon, live a little. If the Sullivans show, we’ll claim we said the ‘Solomons’ and made the reservation five days ago.” Pamela dug around for her car keys. “Relax. I know this guy from theater arts. He got this great job helping design the place.”

We gasped and giggled, and when my car was full, the four others got in Gwen’s, leaving the remaining cars out on the street till we got back.

We left our cars with the valet, and Pamela announced the Sullivans at the door. The doorman, also bouncer, looked us over, checked off the name, and we were escorted inside to an ultratech room of lights and sounds and furniture that resembled seats inside a spacecraft. There were headsets lying about.

Pamela apologized to the maître d’ for having added two more guests to our party but said she hoped he could accommodate us, and he icily pushed two tables together.

According to the menu, we were in the Voyage Room, and by manipulating the controls at the end of our table, something like those on old jukeboxes, we could select our particular spaceship and individual route, which sometimes had us hooking up with one at a neighboring table. A rather sophisticated icebreaker.

“What are we supposed to do with these?” Liz asked, picking up one of the headsets, and in answer to her own question, she put it on her head. We watched as her face became more intent, obviously following recorded directions, and she motioned to the screen at the end of the packed room, where it appeared we were all in space heading toward a distant planet. Three men at a corner table were looking our way, and suddenly another spaceship appeared on the screen at the end of the room. Liz yanked off the helmet, and her face got that old familiar Elizabeth blush that made us laugh, and the men also.

I was handed the drink list, and when I saw the twenty-dollar service charge per person at the bottom of the paper, I almost choked. The drinks themselves were beyond pricey. You could buy two six-packs of Bud for what one glass of wine cost here.

“What are we going to do?” I whispered to Stacy, one finger sliding down unobtrusively to the cover charge.

“Charge it to the guys’ credit cards. Serves ’em right for trying to upset us,” she said. “Wild night, my foot!”

“Amen!” I said. “Champagne, anyone?”

We each ordered a glass of wine. The room was so noisy, we almost had to shout to be heard.

“What did you have to do to get us in, Pamela?” Claire asked her.

“Nothing. It’s a guy from my theater arts school,” Pamela yelled back. “I spent a weekend helping him film a vignette. He owes me one.”

Gwen was looking at a descriptive card about the club that read:
By invitation, guests are welcome to explore the Temptation and Source Rooms, by taking the hidden stairway beyond the purple curtain.
“What the heck kind of club
is
this?” she asked.

“Don’t worry. It’s mostly ‘sophisticated suggestiveness,’  ” Pamela said. “After Antony got hired here, he came back and gave a lecture on ‘The Atmosphere of Desire.’  ”

“On what?” yelled Yolanda from her end of the table.

“Sex,” Liz yelled back.

I could hear my cell phone chime, but just barely. “It’s Patrick!” I told the others, reading his text. “Says they’re on their way back, had a ‘spectacular’ evening, and wants to know if I’m home.”

The girls all hooted. “What are you going to tell him?” asked Claire.

“Out with the girls,” I said, my thumbs sending the message.

“I feel so matronly in this dress,” said Carol, looking down at the navy-blue sheath with the white collar and cuffs. “I feel like an airline attendant or something.”

“Hike it up about five inches,” Yolanda suggested, so she did, showing a shapely expanse of leg.

On the large screen someone’s spaceship had landed, and we seemed to be going back in time, not forward. A wild garden of some sort. I put on the headset and heard a loud cacophony of parrots.

At that moment a thirtyish man dressed in silver lamé, something between a tuxedo and a spacesuit, emerged from the
crowd and leaned over Pamela, then just as suddenly disappeared.