Sister of the Bride (16 page)

“I don't know what I am doing here,” he said. “My mother said I had to come.”

Barbara laughed. “You are here to keep me company,” she told him, “and I am not one bit flattered by your attitude.” She looked around the room admiring everyone. Even Millie, in heels instead of those beaded moccasins and with her hair becomingly arranged, turned out to be almost pretty.
Looking up at Greg's brother, Bob, she seemed a different person. Maybe, thought Barbara, in the midst of all these strangers she feels insecure enough to care how she looks.

“Hey, that's swell. I'm glad I'm supposed to keep you company.” Tootie extended the nut dish to Barbara. “Have a nut?”

“Thanks,” she said absently, picking out a cashew nut. She noticed Anne talking to Gramma, and realized that Anne's brother was the only single college man present. That left Anne without anyone, unless you counted Gordy, who was a most unwilling guest. It was nice of Anne to be kind to Gramma. She looked as if she really enjoyed her conversation with the old lady, who was a stranger to her. Barbara decided she liked Anne a lot.

“I feel sort of young,” Barbara gloomily confided to Tootie. “You know. As if my mother was letting me stay up late because this is a special occasion.” Rosemary was flashing a dazzling smile of straight white teeth at everyone. Barbara hoped she would get used to being without her bands before the ceremony. A bride should not walk down the aisle showing off her teeth.

“It's all these college students.” Tootie was
understanding. “I just tell myself some of them are only a couple of years older than I am.”

“All the girls wear eye shadow,” observed Barbara. “My mother would just about kill me if I wore eye shadow.” She noticed that Aunt Josie and Mrs. Aldredge seemed to be enjoying one another's company, and she wondered if they admired each other's thin figures.

“A girl as pretty as you doesn't need to wear eye shadow,” said Tootie.

“Why, thank you.” Barbara found herself liking Tootie more than she had realized. It was pleasant to have a boy tell her she was pretty, after weeks of being merely the sister of the bride while Rosemary got all the attention.

“I don't see why girls wear it, anyway,” said Tootie. “It looks like gooky stuff to me.”

“It is gooky,” agreed Barbara. “I tried Rosemary's once.” The bits of other people's conversation that she caught seemed so much more sophisticated than this superficial discussion of the gookiness of eye shadow. Talk centered on final examinations at the University of California—the stiff questions asked in Mycology 101; the tricky true-false, multiple-choice examination in Psych 112; the examination in The Novel taken by George's wife, who
was saying that the whole examination consisted of just three words: Discuss the novel. How inclusive could a professor get, anyway? She had filled up one and a half blue books answering it.

Mrs. Lessing, the hostess, tried to shoo everyone toward the buffet by reminding them that the wedding party had to leave promptly at a quarter to eight for the rehearsal. Anne graciously served Gramma, so she would not have to get up. Barbara and Tootie moved toward the buffet with the MacLanes and the Aldredges while the college crowd went right on talking about final examinations. “You would think this was a party to celebrate the end of finals instead of the beginning of a marriage,” Barbara remarked to Tootie, as they filled their plates and looked around for a place to sit. Tootie solved their problem by pulling a small table from a nest of tables and setting it between two chairs in a corner of the room. They sat down, and Tootie rearranged a slice of turkey that was hanging over the edge of his heaped plate. Voices were rising in the crowded room. Talking seemed an effort to Barbara who, like Tootie, was hungry. She and Tootie ate in silence while she watched the college crowd gradually move toward the buffet.

“Finals just before my wedding. I nearly died,” she heard Rosemary say, “but I'm pretty sure I got a B out of econ.”

Barbara, longing to be part of the older group, thought of the newspaper story she had read about the university's raising its entrance requirements, and she despaired. “Are you going to Cal?” she asked Tootie, lifting her voice so that she could be heard.

“I'm going to apply at Stanford, but if I don't get in I'm going to Cal,” he answered. “I'm going to major in music, and I'll probably play in the university band and the symphony.”

“Are you sure you will get into Cal?” she asked.

“Sure I'm sure. If you meet the requirements the university has to take you. It isn't like a private college,” explained Tootie.

Barbara wished she was as assured of her education as Tootie, who had not only chosen his major but his activities as well. It seemed to her that she was the only person in the room tormented by uncertainty. Wistfully she watched the college crowd move toward the buffet. Millie was smiling back over her shoulder at Bob, who was intent on what she was saying. They all seemed so happy and so poised, particularly the two married
couples. Just being in the same room with them made Barbara feel as if she were still in mental bobby socks.

“You're not worried about getting into the university, are you?” asked Tootie.

Barbara's mind had wandered since he had last spoken. Unprepared to take up the conversation where they left off, she looked at him, and was surprised to see how interested and concerned he appeared. She also discovered that it was very pleasant to have a boy look at her this way. “I'm sort of worried,” admitted Barbara. “I mean, I read this article in the paper that said that fourteen-and-three-tenths percent of this year's high school graduates—I think that's what it was—were eligible to go to the university, but that next year only twelve-and-five-tenths percent—I think—would be eligible. And I just know I'll fall in the middle of the two percentages and won't get in.”

Tootie looked sympathetic. “Are you sure?” There was nothing insensitive about Tootie at all. He was a sensitive, understanding boy.

His sympathy was comforting. “I know I'm not quite in the top ten percent of my class, so I must be someplace in that no-man's-land between the two percentages.”

“How did you do in your preliminary college boards?” he asked.

“All right,” she admitted, “but it wasn't my day for geometry. I'll have to do better next spring.”

“You could still go to a state college if you don't get into the university,” Tootie pointed out.

“But I don't want to,” Barbara insisted. “I want to go to Cal. Everybody in our family has gone to Cal, and now they have to go and raise the standards just before it is my turn.” She nibbled moodily on an olive. “I want to go and, besides, it will be terribly embarrassing if I can't get in. Both my parents being teachers and all.”

“And you don't know that you won't get in,” Tootie reminded her. “You still have your senior year to bring your grades up.”

By now Barbara was fairly basking in Tootie's concern for her. He seemed so much more attractive than she had ever realized, especially since she had lost Bill, and she wondered if she had ever really looked at him. He had such nice gray eyes that were so understanding it was strange she had never noticed them before. “And I don't know what I want to major in if I do get in,” she said. “I read Rosemary's catalog of courses, and the university has so much to offer, things like criminology and
Slavic languages and literatures and the religion of ancient Egypt, that I get awed.”

“That's one reason for going to the university,” said Tootie, “to find out what you want to do. That's why you have to take a variety of courses your first two years.”

“I guess you're right.” Barbara had heard her parents say the same thing, but somehow she would rather hear it from Tootie.

“Look,” said Tootie, “I have this pamphlet on how to study. I got it at the university bookstore when I was visiting the campus once. It sure helped me. Would you like to have it?”

“Oh, yes. I need something like that.” Barbara smiled at him across their empty plates and wondered why she had refused to go to the movies with him the one time he had asked her. Perhaps it was his ridiculous nickname that had made her feel there was something a little ridiculous about the boy. Well, she had been wrong.

“I'll tell you what I'll do,” said Tootie. “I'll stick the pamphlet in your mailbox the next time I pass your house.”

Barbara's impulse was to say, Don't do that. Ring the doorbell and come on in. But having hurt Tootie's feelings in the past, she hesitated. Instead
she said, “Do you go over to the university often?” and immediately regretted muffing the opportunity that had been open to her.

Tootie nodded. “I go over to concerts quite often. Hertz Hall is small and has good acoustics. It isn't like sitting in the third balcony at the opera house or anything like that.”

A date for a concert at the university would be much more interesting than sitting through a double feature with a bag of popcorn at Bayview's one movie. “That must be fun.” Barbara hoped her hint was not too obvious.

Tootie was apparently unaware that her remark was intended as a hint. “I enjoy it. The university offers a lot of good things. They have a good organist, too. I like to hear him play.”

“I like organ music,” said Barbara, growing bolder.

“You ought to go over and hear their organist sometime,” said Tootie.

“I'd like to.” Barbara felt she could not possibly make her meaning more clear without coming right out and asking him to take her to a concert, and that she could not do, not after the way she had treated him at school. Before Tootie had a chance to respond to her remark, she was
aware of someone standing over them.

It was Greg's mother. Tootie rose awkwardly to his feet. “I've been watching you two young things over here in a corner by yourselves,” she said playfully. “Now tell me, what are you being so serious about?”

Barbara did not appreciate being called a young thing any more than she appreciated the interruption at such a crucial moment, but if Greg did not let his mother bother him, she would try not to be bothered either. “We were discussing the admissions standards of the University of California,” she answered gravely.

“Young people are all so serious nowadays,” said Mrs. Aldredge, as Mrs. Lessing's cleaning woman, who had been pressed into service for the occasion, removed the plates and set dessert on the little table between Barbara and Tootie. The moment for discussing concerts was gone. Barbara had muffed her opportunity. Tootie had not taken her hint. And what could she expect, she asked herself severely, after all the ducking and dodging she had done to avoid him at school once she had become interested in Bill Cunningham?

Suddenly it was time for the wedding party to leave for the rehearsal. The party at Mrs. Lessing's
would continue, but Barbara was sure Tootie would not be there when she returned from the church. First Bill Cunningham and now Tootie Bodger, gone from her life. “Thanks for listening to my troubles,” she said to Tootie with a smile as she prepared to leave.

He returned her smile. “That's okay. I remember how you listened to mine when it seemed as if everybody in the world was trying to make a basketball player out of me.”

Barbara wisely refrained from saying, I did? As she left the party she recalled the how-to-study pamphlet that Tootie was going to put in her mailbox. Naturally the polite thing to do would be to telephone him and thank him for how helpful it was…. Or if he did not bring it, she could call him and remind him….

I'm a scheming woman, Barbara told herself happily, and she ran down the steps and climbed into the car beside her father.

The day of the wedding! The MacLane family awoke early, and Barbara's first thought before she climbed out of her sleeping bag was, Happy is the bride the sun shines on. Except for Gordy, no one felt much like eating breakfast.

“My wedding day.” Rosemary looked dreamily out the window while her toast grew cold on her plate.

“Now just relax, dear, and try to eat something,” Mrs. MacLane told the bride. “You don't want to be all worn out when four o'clock comes.”

“Today is the day I get to give the bride away,” remarked Mr. MacLane. “I'll give her away all right. I'll tell Greg she makes terrible coffee and
hangs her nylons in the bathroom.”

“Oh, Dad!” chided Barbara.

Rosemary merely smiled at her father in an affectionate and absentminded way.

No one seemed able to settle down to anything. An hour or so later the bride said to her mother, “Can't you relax, Mother? Everything is under control. You don't need to flitter about so.”

“Am I flittering?” asked Mrs. MacLane, her mind elsewhere. “With six people wanting to take showers before the wedding, perhaps I had better write out a schedule and post it on the bathroom door.”

“Me first,” cried Rosemary, and twirled around in the middle of the living room, “because I'm the bride, the bride, the bride!”

More packages arrived, and Rosemary joyfully attacked the wrappings with the butcher knife while Barbara and Millie carted the paper and excelsior out to the incinerator. Another electric blanket, another wooden salad bowl with servers, a silver pitcher. Where would she find room for them all? Greg telephoned, and Rosemary murmured into the mouthpiece, her eyes radiant above the black instrument. No, of course he could not come over. It was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the ceremony on her
wedding day. She could not wait for four o'clock to come.

An Amy arrived with a casserole and a molded salad, so no one would have to think about food before the wedding. Surprisingly everyone was hungry, particularly Rosemary, who had two servings. Barbara did not quite approve of her sister's healthy appetite. A bride's thoughts should be on…well, spiritual things.

After lunch the florist's truck arrived with boxes of flowers for the wedding party. “They're beautiful!” cried Barbara, lifting out her nosegay of yellow daisies, each blossom wired primly into place.

“Perfect!” agreed Millie, trying her band of daisies on her hair in front of the mirror in the hall.

“Beautiful!” breathed Rosemary, holding up her bouquet. “And Greg sent white orchids for going away.” Then she laughed. “Orchids for the ride back to Berkeley! I adore his sense of humor. I'll put them in our refrigerator and wear them to class on Monday.”

Then Mr. and Mrs. Aldredge arrived with Anne, who was carrying her bridesmaid dress on a hanger. Suddenly the bedroom was a flurry of girls and clothes and filled with the rustle of taffeta slips. Disaster threatened when the zipper on
Anne's dress stuck, but Barbara took care of it with a sharp tug. Nothing must go wrong on Rosemary's wedding day.

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” chanted Rosemary, as she pulled a blue-lace garter, the gift of an Amy, into place. “I need something borrowed.”

“That's the wedding veil,” said Millie. “It's both old and borrowed.”

“Don't anybody sit down,” said Barbara, as she took her turn at the mirror to adjust her headband of daisies. “The wedding book says we mustn't have wrinkles on the backs of our dresses when we walk down the aisle.”

“How do we ride to church?” asked Millie. “Standing up?”

“Perch on the edge of the car seat with your skirt hitched up behind you,” answered Barbara. “That's what the book says.”

Mrs. MacLane came into the bedroom in her mother-of-the-bride silk suit with her orchids on her shoulder. “Girls, you look lovely,” she said. “You look like flowers yourselves. Now hurry along. The Aldredges are waiting to drive the bridesmaids to the church, and Dad has the car waiting for the bride.”

Barbara suddenly did not want to leave her sister or her mother. “Do I go with the Aldredges?” she asked.

“No, stay with me.” Rosemary turned from the mirror to smile at her sister.

“The wedding book says the bride's mother is supposed to leave before the bridesmaids,” Barbara pointed out.

“I can't help what the wedding book says,” answered Mrs. MacLane. “This house is just too crowded.”

The bridesmaids were gone, and Barbara was left alone with her sister and her mother. Rosemary's veil was pinned in place on her red-gold hair, and her lipstick was modest. She looked as a bride should look—radiant and beautiful. “Isn't it funny? I seem to be the one who is nervous,” jittered Barbara, making sure that her band of daisies was secure in her hair. She wondered if she had time to fasten it with one more bobby pin just to be safe.

“Remember, it's my wedding, not yours,” Rosemary reminded her.

“I know.” There had been moments when she had felt as if it was as much her wedding as Rosemary's, but that feeling had passed.

“Do you have Greg's ring?” asked Rosemary.

“Oh!” Barbara was stricken. She flew to the dresser where the gold band rested in its velvet slot and slipped it on her little finger. She clenched her fist, so the ring could not slide from her hand.

Mrs. MacLane kissed the bride. “You look beautiful, dear, and I'm sure you are going to be very happy,” she said. “Come, it's time to go.”

“So soon?” Somehow Barbara wanted to postpone the departure a few seconds.

“Let's not keep him waiting at the church,” the bride's father called from the front door.

“How do I look, Dad?” Rosemary asked gaily, as she hurried down the hall with her skirts rustling.

Mr. MacLane smiled at his older daughter. “Beautiful,” he said gently, and kissed her.

“Gordy. Where's Gordy?” Mrs. MacLane looked around for her son.

“I'm feeding Buster,” Gordy answered from the kitchen.

“Well, come
on
.” Mrs. MacLane lowered her voice and shook her head. “Sometimes that boy positively works at being exasperating.”

At last the family was going down the front steps. Barbara was about to shut the door behind her when the telephone rang.

“Let it ring,” said Mrs. MacLane.

But Barbara was a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She could not, she simply could not, let a telephone ring without answering, if only long enough to find out who was on the line. She ran into the kitchen and snatched up the receiver with her right hand. She did not dare unclench her left fist even for an instant for fear she might drop the wedding ring. “Hello?” she said breathlessly.

“Hi.” It was Bill Cunningham. Of all people. And of all the inconvenient moments for him to call.

“I can't talk,” Barbara cried wildly. “We're leaving for the wedding!”

“Yes or no. Bowling tomorrow night?” Bill sounded like a telegram.

“Yes, yes,
yes
!” Barbara hung up and ran out the front door, slamming it behind her. Bill would have to understand. Careful not to sit on her dress, she climbed into the backseat of the car beside Rosemary.

“All set?” asked Mr. MacLane from behind the wheel.

“Barbara, did you remember to try the front door?” asked Mrs. MacLane. “I wouldn't want anything to happen to Rosemary's wedding silver.”

“Relax, Mom,” said Gordy, who was sitting beside his mother in the front seat.

“Yes, Mother.” Barbara was now impatient to start for the church. “I mean I slammed it good and hard.”

Rosemary laughed. “I think everybody should stop telling everybody to relax. That's all we've said all day.”

Mr. MacLane turned on the ignition and stepped on the starter.

“Who called?” asked Rosemary, who shared Barbara's feelings about ringing telephones.

“Bill Cunningham,” answered Barbara, still feeling incredulous. “He's taking me bowling tomorrow night, and I didn't think he would ever call me again. He said he would, but I didn't believe him.”

“That's nice.” Mrs. MacLane answered automatically.

A mail truck was coming down the street. “Please, let's go before we have to stop and sign for more packages,” pleaded Mrs. MacLane.

“Yes,” agreed Barbara. “Let's get out of here before something else happens.” Bill really had called her. It almost seemed as if she had imagined the call, it had all happened so quickly, but she knew it was real. She also knew that she had learned something about Bill. After this she should take him at his word. His regrets, however jauntily
presented, had been sincere after all.

As the MacLanes finally started down the street, the possibility of a flat tire, a most unwelcome thought, popped into Barbara's mind. No, she told herself fiercely, I won't think about such a thing. If I do it might happen. She fastened her eyes on her nosegay of daisies and tried to think serene, beautiful thoughts appropriate to the spiritual occasion. She thought about how love made Rosemary beautiful, about how cool and fragrant the flowers smelled, and about how kind everyone had been.

“Can't you drive just a little faster?” Mrs. MacLane was plainly nervous.

“It is three forty-seven,” said Gordy. “Plenty of time. Don't get in a sweat.”

“Not legally,” answered Mr. MacLane. “It's less than a five-minute drive to the church. If we drop down to the freeway, we'll make it in plenty of time. Anyway, I imagine Greg will wait a minute or two for Rosemary.”

No one spoke as they rode down the winding street toward the freeway. The clock in the tower on the city hall said three forty-nine. Still plenty of time. They approached the railroad track beside the approach to the freeway; and as they started up the incline to cross the track, the signal began to
wigwag noisily back and forth, and the black-and-white arm descended in front of the car, blocking their path.

“Dad!” cried Rosemary. “Can't you do something?”

Mr. MacLane glanced at the traffic behind him. It was too late to back up to turn around. Cars had already pulled up behind him. Helplessly the MacLane family sat trapped by the clang-clanging signal.

“Wouldn't you know?” said Barbara. She thought, It's all my fault. If I hadn't stopped to answer the telephone…But if she hadn't answered it, she would have gone off not knowing it was Bill who called.

“I wonder where the train is?” Mrs. MacLane peered down the track. “Oh, here it comes.”

The diesel engine honked at the crossroad, and the engineer waved, saw that he was holding up a wedding party, grinned, and waved some more.

No one in the car had the heart to wave back.

“A
freight
train,” cried Rosemary in despair.

“Naturally,” said Gordy. “Passenger trains don't run on this track anymore.”

The freight cars began to click past. Barbara stared at their red and yellow sides as if hypnotized.

“‘Santa Fe all the way,'” Gordy read from the side of a car. “‘Illinois Central, main line of Mid-America.' ‘Hydra-cushion for fragile freight.' ‘Be specific—ship Union Pacific.' Who do you suppose thinks up these things?”

“It's a mile long.” The bride was near tears.

“It can't be. It just seems that way,” said her father, as the cars continued to click by. “I think there is a law limiting the length of freight trains.”

“‘The Milwaukee, route of the Hiawatha,'” Gordy read on. “And here's ‘Santa Fe all the way' again.”

Mrs. MacLane had been counting the cars in a dreamlike voice. “Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…”

“‘Lackawanna, route of Phoebe Snow,'” read Gordy. “Who do you suppose Phoebe Snow is?”

“Maybe she's a friend of Hiawatha, who has his name on the Milwaukee freight cars,” suggested Mr. MacLane.

“Mother.” The bride sounded frightened. “This is the last time we will all be together. Here, right this minute, with those freight cars going by.”

Mrs. MacLane stopped counting to look over her shoulder at her daughter. “We'll be together many times, and Greg will be with us, too.”

“But things will be different after I'm married.” Rosemary, still frightened, looked wan and defenseless.

The caboose passed, the signal stopped, the black-and-white arm lifted, and the car moved forward onto the approach to the freeway.

“Of course things will be different,” answered Mrs. MacLane serenely. “You wouldn't want them to be the same, would you?”

“No…no, I wouldn't.” Rosemary seemed reassured by the calm in her mother's voice. “Of course I wouldn't.”

Two minutes later the car turned off the freeway and drove along the winding street to a little brown church beneath two redwood trees. The trees had been planted too close when the church was new, and now their trunks were crowding the front steps, the branches laced above the entrance. As Barbara stepped out of the car, she could hear the organ playing, and she felt as if she were stepping into a dream. A few guests were hurrying up the steps past the bridesmaids, who were waiting in the vestibule. It was all happening too fast. Gordy had gone into the church, her mother was starting down the aisle on the arm of an usher, the bridesmaids had taken their positions.

Still in a dream, Barbara adjusted the folds of her sister's wedding veil. As her fingers touched the fragile stuff, she discovered a bee crawling inside the lace. It was a lovely bee, yellow and black and furry. Barbara admired it and could not be alarmed. It seemed to be a bee in a dream, it was so beautiful. She lifted the veil and the bee buzzed and flew out, soaring up into the redwood branches that met over the door of the church. It had not been a phantom bee after all. It was a real bee that might have stung the bride. Barbara's hands began to tremble.