Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) (27 page)

“Well, I’m glad you’re not envious,” Angelica said frostily. She had regained command of herself again; the momentary crack in her composure was sealed over by the carapace of her personality. “Because I never intended to make you
feel that way. And if you did, it wasn’t my fault. But none of you are being particularly supportive,” she said, looking around the foyer at the assembled group. “Caleb having histrionics over his boyfriend, Grandma disappearing, Justine taking the car. And someone”—her voice rose, the angry queen once more—“has gone and stolen my diamond ring! I just can’t believe it. You all want to sabotage this day. It’s clear to me now. Even you, Mom. You’re trying to turn this into
your
day,
your
event. That’s why I hired Pippa: I needed an ally in this family—even if I had to pay to get her.”

“You think
I
was trying to
sabotage
you?” Betsy said; the shock made her voice sound, at least to Gretchen, unfamiliar. “And that Pippa—
Pippa!
—was your ally? Angelica, that is the worst thing you have ever said to me in your entire life.” And, still clutching the dog, she began to cry. Betsy, Gretchen knew, never cried, and the effect on everyone was immediate.

A weird hush settled on the room; even Justine stopped her own crying to witness the spectacle of Betsy breaking down—the loud, wrenching sobs that contorted her mouth and caused red blotches to appear on her cheeks and neck. Swiftly Gretchen walked over to her mother and took both her and her wretched dog in her arms. Betsy let herself be enfolded by the embrace; her small shoulders trembled as she wept. The dog trembled in sympathy. Awkwardly Gretchen patted her mother’s back. Her father looked stricken and useless; even Mr. Know-It-All Don was without a solution.

And then Teddy and Marti came into the foyer; he
wore his tuxedo, and she was in a crisp linen dress the color of toast, with several strands of ivory beads at her throat. Caleb, also tuxedo clad, walked in just behind them. “What’s going on?” Teddy asked. “The photographer is all set up, and she wants all you guys over there.”

“He’s right,” Don said, finally jolted into action. “Betsy, honey, please stop crying. You need to get a grip.” But Betsy kept crying and didn’t answer, and everyone else started talking at once.

“Everyone’s trying to ruin my day! Ruin!”

“It’s always about her; no one else even exists!”

“That was such an uncalled-for comment! So cruel!”

“He’s a murderer!”

“She’s so self-centered! Selfish!”

“Have you all gone crazy?”

“Someone has to take this child in hand!”

“I don’t want Marti to have to see
any
of this!”

“I should have left with Bobby!”

“There’s a thief in this house. A thief!”

Gretchen didn’t know which voice to listen to, what to do next. What had she set in motion here? Was Angelica right in her accusations—that Gretchen was jealous and wanted to spoil things for her? But no. She realized as she listened to all the strident, angry voices around her that was not what she wanted—not at all. They had gathered here to see Angelica get married. And that’s what they were going to do. Everything else could wait.

Putting two fingers up to her mouth, she let out a piercing whistle, something she had not done since she was a kid.
Amazingly she still knew how, because they all stopped; every single one of them shut up and stared. Even Betsy’s sobs ceased, and the little dog’s ears pricked, two perfect triangles on its small, wet head.

“Enough!” Gretchen cried, a stern schoolmarm addressing her unruly charges. “There’s no time for this now. Yes, everyone’s angry. Everyone has an agenda. But for the next few hours, we have to rein it in. For Angelica and for ourselves too. Because otherwise all those people who are about to arrive will think we’re totally out of control and coming apart at the seams. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t believe that about us, and I don’t want anyone else to believe it either.” Gretchen could not remember when she’d had the attention of her entire family all at the same time. “So are you with me? Mom? Caleb? Please?”

Angelica stood with her open hands at her sides; the dress had indentations, subtle but still visible, where she had clutched it. “Thank you, Gretchen,” she said. Her voice broke the spell that Gretchen’s whistle had cast, and again everyone was speaking at once, thanking her and agreeing that, yes, they would all pull it together for the wedding. “I told you I won’t go—” These words, uttered by Justine, were lost in the general buzz as the door opened, and there stood Ohad, surrounded by the dark, noisy members of his family, all chattering in Hebrew. When Justine saw him, she burrowed under Ennis’s arm as if trying to hide.

“I’m going to get dressed now,” Gretchen said. She looked at Justine, who did not return the look.

“So am I,” added Betsy. “Lincoln, would you tell Amber
that we won’t be doing the family photographs before the wedding, but that if she could get some pictures of the two bands setting up, that would be wonderful.”

“Yoo-hoo!” a quavery voice called from above. There at the top of the staircase was Lenore. She wore the shimmering green brocade dress, and her hair had been restored to its bouffant fullness, the dips and waves crowning her head like meringue. Adhesive gauze pads neatly covered both knees, and her ankle was tightly bound in an Ace bandage. Her small feet were bare. “Where are my panty hose?”

“Your panty hose!” cried Betsy, mounting the stairs quickly. “I forgot! Ma, just use a pair of mine—”

“No, I can’t!” Lenore said. “They’ll be too big, and the ankles will sag! And I cannot attend this wedding with saggy ankles.”

“I have your panty hose!” Pippa, who had just come in, was elbowing her way through the throng of Israelis; she held the package up in the air like a banner. “I have them right here!”

“Why, thank you, Pippa,” Lenore said. “Thank you so much.” Then, calling down softly but clearly to her great-granddaughter, she added, “Justine, would you please be a love and bring them up to me?” And everyone moved out of the way as Justine, now holding the panty hose, quickly ascended the stairs. Gretchen let her go and then went up too. Her dress was laid out on her bed; it wouldn’t take any time to get ready.

But before she reached her room, she was distracted by the sound of loud, angry voices. Or at least one loud, angry
voice. Now what? Bobby had left, hadn’t he? So it couldn’t be coming from Caleb’s room.

“I told you to stop ragging on me about this.” Teddy. That was Teddy’s voice. “I’ll talk to him when I’m good and ready.” Suddenly the door was yanked open and then slammed. Teddy stood in the hallway; his cheeks were pink above the white of his dress shirt.

“This seems to be the day for eruptions,” Gretchen said. “You too?”

“She won’t let up!” Teddy burst out.

“Let up about what?”

“Caleb. She wants me to talk to him. Well, I tried talking to him earlier. He was less than receptive. So when I told this to Marti, she said that’s because I needed to
apologize
to him. Can you believe that?”

“Actually, Teddy, I can,” Gretchen said. “It seems to me you could apologize to a few people in this family.”

“For what?” he said. “For being myself? For having a little energy, a little direction, a little drive? For not being like our sad-sack lush of a dad or our crybaby little bro?
That’s
what I should apologize for?”

“For being such an obtuse, insensitive prick, Teddy. That’s what you should apologize for. You always have been, you know. But you can change. I wouldn’t have thought so before, but I think so now.”

“And why, oh wise one, do you think that?”

“Marti,” said Gretchen, crossing her arms over her chest. “If she loves you, there must be something in there worth loving, even if you’re not showing it to the rest of us.
But if you slam the door and storm out every time you have an argument, she just might not keep on loving you.”

“She does love me,” said Teddy as if reminding himself. “And I don’t want to lose her.” He looked at Gretchen, stricken.

“Why don’t you go back in?” said Gretchen. And when he didn’t move, she stepped closer and gave him a little nudge. “You see, you put your hand on the knob and then you turn it….” With one last look in her direction, Teddy grabbed the knob and pulled hard.

P
eople had already started arriving. Even though her window faced the back of the house, Lenore could hear the sounds of cars pulling up and car doors opening and slamming again. She could picture them too: the Jaguars and Mercedeses, BMWs and Lexuses. A Bentley or two, maybe an actual Rolls-Royce. After disgorging their passengers, the luxury cars would be parked elsewhere on the property by a cadre of young valets hired for the evening, leaving the well-dressed guests to make the short distance to the rose garden, where the cocktail reception was about to begin.

Soon,
Lenore thought; she would go down there very soon. But she knew that her presence downstairs amid the arriving guests could wait. Right now she had to deal with Justine.

“Sit,” she told the girl and indicated the bed, on which now rested only the brocade coat, the gloves, and the clutch purse. She had managed to get into the panty hose with no help from anyone, and though she wasn’t too pleased with the lumpy white bumps created by the gauze on her knees,
she supposed she could live with them. She had cleverly concealed the Ace bandage using one of her smaller silk scarves; she thought it made a nice accent to the rest of the look. Maybe she would even start a trend—silk scarves knotted around the ankle.

Justine sat rigidly; nothing in her face or posture suggested that she was at all willing to talk. Arms crossed over her chest, eyes downcast, mouth held in a tight, unyielding line.
Oh, this was going to take work
, thought Lenore. “So, I hear you don’t want to attend the wedding,” she began.

“That’s right,” said Justine. “And you can’t make me.”

“I wouldn’t even try,” Lenore said. She waited a beat, and then she too sat down, but on the nearby armchair, not the bed. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“What do you mean?” Justine asked. “Everyone else seems to think that I should go no matter how I feel.”

“Well, you know by now that your grandma Lenore is hardly
everyone else
, is she?” Lenore was rewarded by a tiny smile from that tight-lipped mouth. “Anyway, I don’t even want to talk about the wedding. I want to talk about the ring.”

“The ring?” Justine looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“Right before your mother asked everyone to come upstairs, I saw you over by the pool searching in the grass for something. And I have a suspicion that something was the ring. Am I right?” She didn’t look at Justine but instead focused intently on the charming needlepoint footstool Betsy had placed in front of the armchair; it showed a carefully stitched basket filled with yellow and white daisies.

“You saw me out there?” Justine was clearly stalling.

“I did, but I didn’t want to tell anyone right away. I thought I would talk to you first.” Here Lenore felt a pang, because she
had
mentioned what she had seen to Lincoln. But still. Lincoln had not told anyone else; she was quite sure of it.

“Thanks, Grandma L.,” said Justine quietly. “That was…nice of you.”

“So, am I right about what you were looking for? Was it the ring?” She looked up from the footstool at her great-granddaughter.

“It was,” said Justine.