Slightly Married (12 page)

She only complains to me and my sister, Mary Beth, of course. And only behind my sister-in-laws’ backs. To their faces, she treats them…

Well, as lovingly as Wilma treats me.

Hmm.

Thinking back to when my brothers got married, I remember that my mother definitely put her two cents’ into every decision. She even reduced my most laid-back sister-in-law, my brother Joey’s wife, Sara, to tears at her own rehearsal dinner. Somehow, my mother had it in her head that Sara’s mother would be wearing navy blue to the wedding the next day, so she had bought a powder-blue dress for herself. It turned out Sara’s mother would also be wearing powder blue—and had been planning to all along—and my mother flipped out.

She wound up wearing the royal-blue dress she’d worn for my sister Mary Beth’s wedding, which had taken place so long ago that we convinced her nobody would remember it. Then we rushed around telling each arriving guest to compliment her on the dress as if they had never seen it before.

A year later, when Mary Beth caught her husband, Vinnie, cheating and her marriage hit the skids, my mother decided the dress was cursed. She’s been worried about Joey and Sara ever since.

And, of course, she complains every chance she gets that Joey’s too thin, and we all know she thinks it’s because he can’t eat Sara’s cooking.

Mothers-in-law.

Watching my future one affectionately ruffle her only son’s hair, I uneasily tell myself that at least I’m not marrying my brother.

Then, remembering that my mother has three sons, and Wilma only one, I reach for my wine and chug the rest.

6

O
ne would think there would be plenty of opportunities over the course of a stormy February weekend to have a serious conversation with your live-in fiancé.

But it’s Sunday night already, and I still haven’t had a chance to pin down Jack to talk Wedding.

Friday: I came home from work stressed after eleven straight hours of avoiding all my friends there, who may very well have been avoiding me in return. I still have no idea why I wasn’t invited to Julie’s goodbye party. All I know is that by the time Friday night rolled around, my window office felt like solitary confinement.

I crave carbs when I’m upset about something, so I whipped up a great pasta with everything we had on hand in the cupboard: olive oil, canned tomatoes, capers, black olives, mushrooms.

It was surprisingly good but I wound up eating it alone because Jack worked until after midnight.

Saturday: Jack slept till noon while I killed the better part of the morning reading
Modern Bride
from cover to cover, an incredibly enlightening experience.

Who knew that bustles would be all the rage in wedding gowns by next fall? Who knew that aromatherapists were now creating bridal bouquets meant to evoke a specific mood in the nuptial couple and their guests? Who knew that one could rent a Tahitian honeymoon hut—not waterfront, but right
in
the water, perched in the sea on stilts?

Still waiting for Jack to awaken so that I could regale him with the marvels of modern matrimony, I began pricing honeymoon packages online.

Still no Jack, so I conveniently laid out all our possible honeymoon destinations on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that would appeal to Jack’s media-planner sensibility. I used smaller type for the cost column, but the amounts were still daunting. I could only hope that Jack would be as enchanted as I was by the prospect of Tahiti, Paris, Nevis…

Pricey? You bet your white silk bustle. But it would be a once-in-a-lifetime event, so why not go all out?

By the time Jack woke up, though, there was no time for honeymoon talk. I was leaving to meet Kate at Ruby Foo’s for our engagement-celebration lunch.

She gave me a gorgeous white silk peignoir from Saks as an engagement gift. When I asked her to be a bridesmaid, she told me she’d love to—if she survives childbirth. There seems to be some doubt in her mind about that. She then spent the entire hour and a half either complaining that she felt like she was going to throw up, or in the bathroom actually throwing up, while I gorged myself on maki and saki. Cheers.

She was supposed to come with me to the wedding boutique afterward but said she was sure I didn’t want her to get puke all over the pristine white gowns. She was absolutely right about that.

So I spent the remainder of the afternoon solo, trying on one silk confection after another even though I had always known the dress I wanted from the start. I had coveted it for months in every bridal magazine. In the end, that’s the one I ordered—the simple white gown with a square neckline, elbow-length sleeves, minimal lace and no bustle. Elegant, sophisticated, figure flattering.

Seeing myself in it at last, I got a little misty—and homesick. I have rarely regretted moving away from Brookside, but this was one of those times that I wished my mother were readily available. I remember when we both went with my sister to get her wedding gown, years ago. There was a lot of crying, laughing and hugging. I was just a teenager and of course I kept envisioning the day my own turn would come.

Now here I was, in an ethereal white gown, and there was no one to see me but me. Oh, and a saleswoman named Milagros who spoke broken English but said
Bee-you
-
tee-ful
several dozen times. I bet she says it to all the brides, but it made me feel good.

When I got home afterward, Jack’s friend, Mitch, was parked on the couch watching a college basketball game with him. He stuck around for takeout Italian and more, more, more college basketball, during which I dozed in a chair before finally going off to bed alone.

Sunday: we woke up to a flood in the kitchen. Everything nonmetal or plastic that we keep under the sink—a box of garbage bags, another of SOS soap pads, the newspaper-recycling bin—was thoroughly sodden.

Jack had to track down the super, who in turn had to track down a plumber—not easy on a snowy Sunday. By the time the pipes were fixed, we realized we were starved and the cupboards and fridge were empty, so we went down the block to our favorite diner.

I thought we might be able to discuss the wedding over lunch, but we ran into a couple of guys who live in our building. They sat with us and talked sports with Jack while I toyed with my moussaka and daydreamed idly about aromatherapy-inspired bouquets and five-star-resort honeymoons.

Now here we are, home again.

It’s sleeting outside but cozy in here. I just changed into sweats and put the teakettle on high. Things are looking up already. I’m in the mood to curl up on the couch and watch
60 Minutes
with a mug of hot tea. I heard that they’re doing some kind of feature on weddings in America.

In the kitchen, I glance at the jumble of waterlogged stuff I pulled out from under the sink earlier, and wonder if I dare put it back yet. The plumber claimed the leak was fixed, but the pipe joint looks suspiciously wet to me.

After deciding to keep the space under the sink empty for now, I open a cupboard door to take out the box of tea—and the knob comes off in my hand. Again.

Frustrated, I break off the tip of a wooden toothpick, shove it into the screw hole and turn the knob on again. It holds…but I know from experience that it won’t be for long.

Have I mentioned that it seems like every time I turn around, something needs fixing around here?

I go into the living room, where Jack’s settling onto the couch,
TV Guide
in hand.

Uh-oh. Should I remind him that
60 Minutes
is starting in about ten minutes? Somehow, I don’t think that’s on his viewing schedule. He’s probably planning to watch
Caddy-shack
for the hundredth time and laugh as hard as he did the first: one of his favorite ways to spend a lazy Sunday evening. He calls it Couch Time.

“Sweetie?” I call him that whenever I’m about to break something to him, and he knows it.

He looks up suspiciously. “Yeah?”

“The knob came off the cupboard door again.”

He sighs. “Which one?”

“The tall one where we keep the cereal and stuff.”

“I’ll fix it with a wooden match later.”

“I already did, with a toothpick, but I don’t think it’s going to hold.”

He sighs again.

“Want a cup of tea?” I ask strategically.

“That sounds good.” He aims the remote at the television.

“Wait, Jack, before you turn that on…”

He looks up wearing an
uh-oh
expression. “What?”

“I think we need to sit down and talk.”

“I knew you were going to say that.” He lowers the remote and leans his head back, staring at the ceiling, clearly brimming with enthusiasm about the conversation ahead.

“Come on, Jack, we have to do this now. Otherwise, we might as well just put everything off for a year or two.”

“That’s exactly what I want to do.”

I stare at him. “But…I thought you agreed that we’re going to get married this year.”

“Oh…you want to talk about the wedding!” Eye contact at last, his expression sheer relief.

“What did you think I was going to say?”

“Never mind.”

“No…what?”

“I thought after the plumbing thing this morning and now the cupboard knob, you were going to bring up moving to the suburbs again.”

“Oh…well, now that you mention it—”

“Forget I did. What kind of wedding details do you need to talk about?”

I hesitate. The suburbs discussion is tempting, since he’s the one who brought it up and it has been in the back of my mind.

But by the time we hash out all that, he won’t be in the mood to discuss the wedding.

As if he is now, I think, watching his itchy trigger thumb on the television remote.

Still, the door has been opened at last, so I decide to barge right through it.

“We’ve got to figure out when and where we’re going to have it, what kind of wedding it’s going to be…” Stuff I’ve already worked out in my head, basically. But I need his official approval before we can move ahead.

“Relax, it’s only February, Trace,” he says as I reach into the drawer of the end table for the honeymoon spreadsheet printout I stashed there yesterday. “I thought you wanted a fall wedding.”

“I do, but it’s not ‘only’ February! It’s already February! Weddings take ages to plan if you do it right. We’re running out of time.”

“Okay. Well…when were you thinking for a date? Third Saturday in October, didn’t you say?”

“I did.” And I’m pleasantly surprised he remembered.

“Good. So we know
when
.” He ticks that off on his finger and looks at me. “What else?”

“
Where
,” I say, starting to unfold the spreadsheet. “And luckily, Shorewood is available!”

Good, we’re just breezing along here. At this rate, we’ll be booked into a private Tahitian hut with time to spare before
60 Minutes
.

I ask Jack, who has yet to react, “So what do you think?”

“I think it sounds like you don’t need to know what I think.”

“Of course I need to know.” I perch on the arm of the couch, feet propped on the cushion beside him. “So…what
do
you think?”

“Honestly?”

I nod.

“I think we should take our time and look at a bunch of places before we make a snap decision where to have the wedding.”

Take our time? Is he kidding?

“Like my mother said,” he goes on, dead serious, “there are plenty of places up in Westchester or in the city.”

Okay, I really wish I hadn’t asked him, because he was right the first time. I don’t need to know what he thinks. Basically, I just need him to agree with what
I
think so that I can forge ahead with the fun stuff like the flowers, the food, the music.

But I try to sound accommodating as I point out, “Shopping around would be a good idea…except that places around here will cost us a fortune.”

“Not if we have a small wedding for just family and a few friends, though.”

Aside from the fact that it would still cost a fortune…

“We both have big families and a ton of friends, Jack. We can’t leave people out.”

“Well, we’ll just have to keep the list limited to immediate family and the closest friends.”

“That’s still going to be a lot of people. And expensive around here.”

“Well, Shorewood can’t be
that
cheap,” he says disagreeably. “It’s a country club, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, a country club, Brookside-style. It’s nothing like a Westchester country club and nowhere near what we’d pay here.”

“Well, what about some other place in Brookside? Why does it have to be there?”

“Because that’s the only place in town that can hold as many people as we want to have.”
Aside from the Most Precious Mother church hall, which is out of the question, and the Loyal Order of the Beaver Club, also out of the question
.

My father and brothers are all Beaver Club members. They have a big, no-frills clubhouse where they hold events like their weekly spaghetti dinner, and, yes, weddings.

But like I said…

You are cordially invited to the nuptials of Tracey and Jack at the Beaver Club?

Uh-uh. Out of the question.

“So what do you think?” I ask Jack again, trying hard to be diplomatic.

“It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind, Trace. What do you need me for?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jack. I need you for…well, for everything. It’s
our
wedding. Not just mine.”

He shrugs, watching the TV—which, by the way, isn’t even on.

I sigh, folding the spreadsheet again, thinking now is not the time to bring it up.

He flicks a glance my way. “What’s wrong?”

“Just—come on, Jack.”

“Come on, what?”

“I just feel like I’m the only one who cares about any of this,” I hear myself say.

Definitely not a good idea.

He flicks a dark gaze at me. “Well, if I honestly thought I had any say in how this goes down, I’d probably care a little more.”