Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) (4 page)

Several large potted hydrangeas—all of them creamy white and at the peak of their form—sat in terra cotta urns on the terrace, awaiting their ultimate deployment. Angelica, God bless her, had superb taste; Lenore had to concede that, even though she was still slightly rankled by her granddaughter’s refusal to invite Lenore’s old friends Bunny and Tess to the wedding.

“Grandma, we’ve been through all of this before,” Angelica had said last night when Lenore brought it up again. “The guest list was getting too big. We had to rein it in.”

“But to leave out Bunny! And Tess!”

“Didn’t I invite Arlene and her new husband? And what about Celia, Claire and Doris? All with escorts?”

“Well, yes, but…” said Lenore, beginning to be mollified but not wanting to let go of her grievance just yet.

“Also the Blooms, the Kremers, and the Steins. Your guests, all of them, Grandma.”

“That’s true,” Lenore admitted.

“So Bunny and Tess were really at the bottom of the list anyway. Besides, Bunny’s not even here. You said she was on that cruise.”

“She would have canceled it for this,” said Lenore, eager to start fanning the flames of her resentment again. “I know she would have.”

“It’s too late, Grandma,” said Angelica gently. “Sometimes you just have to admit defeat gracefully.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?” Angelica had said. Her dark eyes looked genuinely curious.

“Admit defeat gracefully?”

But Angelica had elected not to answer that; instead she leaned in and deposited a light kiss on her grandmother’s cheek—what delightful perfume she wore; Lenore would have to get the name of it—and was gone.

The kitchen door opened, and Betsy’s furry little dog ran out, squatted, and ran back in again. At least it hadn’t relieved itself in the house. Like it had at least twice before. Lenore loved dogs, but this one tried even her patience. It yapped; it quivered; it puddled. She had seen it bare its sharp little teeth more than once (the last time she was here, the dog had snapped at one of the maids), though fortunately not on this visit. Yet Betsy was enamored of the creature and simply ignored any and all complaints lodged by her family against it.

Turning from the window, Lenore looked at the room and its adjoining bathroom; she approved of her lodgings. Betsy had finally done well, though Lenore had wondered occasionally about the mental acuity of her new son-in-law.
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer
was what her beloved Monty, may he rest in peace, would have said. Though Don certainly was what would have been called, in Lenore’s day, a good provider. Where had all his money come from? Lenore had asked Betsy this very question. When Betsy told her that Don had made his fortune with a patent for a particular kind of cabinet hinge, Lenore had felt a flash of kinship. She understood how some seemingly ordinary, even inconsequential item—a hinge, a bra—could spawn an empire. Granted, Lenore’s Lingerie was not exactly an empire. But three successful stores, a new car every couple of years, a brownstone on Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights where she still lived, a summer place on the Island, which she had sold when Monty died—those things were not exactly chopped liver. Lenore, a Brooklyn girl raised in a modest Flatbush apartment—her parents had slept on a fold-out sofa and allowed Lenore and her sister, Dottie, to have the single bedroom—and educated at Erasmus Hall High School, had done pretty well for herself. But Betsy, God bless her, had done even better: Hunter College, and then Columbia, no less, for a MSW. Well, that was the plan, wasn’t it? That the children should do better than the parents, and the grandchildren better yet?

Lenore thought about her own grandchildren as she made the bed, with its ivory sheets and gaggle of small fringed pillows. Betsy would have chided her for this—
That’s why I hired the maid, Ma!
—but Lenore, who liked comfort as well as the next person, had her standards. Certain things should be done for yourself and by yourself. Making a bed you had slept in was one of them.

Judging from this wedding, Angelica certainly was doing well. Yes, Betsy and Don were contributing a sizable amount, but Angelica and her fiancé, Ohad, had also pitched in. Such a handsome young man, that one. Like a movie star, with those teeth, that hair. A good match for Angelica—their babies would be drop-dead gorgeous. Ohad had been born and raised in Israel. Jerusalem, no less. He’d been in the army. Of course they all were: the young men and the women too. But Ohad had been both a pilot and a commanding officer. Angelica had revealed this with something akin to embarrassment, but to Lenore, a staunch supporter of Israel since the nation’s earliest days, it was heroic. Yes, Angelica had made the right choice. This lavish wedding was the sort of solid proof Lenore sought: big, showy, and public, it confirmed, in her eyes, that Angelica was proud of her decision and wanted everyone to know it. Lenore was not worried about Angelica.

Then there was Teddy, head of his own company and seeing a very nice girl who was a lawyer. Of course she did go by a boy’s name, which Lenore had trouble remembering. She stopped what she was doing to think. Marti, that was it. Now why would such a smart and pretty girl let herself be called Marti, especially when her given name was Martine? Lenore was stumped; she could not fathom the ways of the young. But, still, Teddy had found himself a prize. Teddy too was on his way.

But it was different with Caleb and Gretchen. Caleb was the sweetest boy on God’s earth. Tender, considerate, always thinking of someone else. Yet he was, it had to be said, a
faygele
. Not that there was anything wrong with that; Lenore knew you loved who you loved. End of story. But other people were less understanding, and she worried about him, her boychick. When he was a child, she had wanted to protect him—from the world and from the obstinate vulnerability of his own gentle soul—and though he had not been a child for years, the impulse was still there, strong as ever.

So Lenore had been instantly on guard when he introduced her to Bobby, the glib young man whom he had invited as his escort to the wedding. She didn’t trust him, not for a second, and while the rest of the family fairly swooned for his muscled, blond good looks, overplayed Southern accent, and slightly risqué jokes, Lenore was not charmed.
Can’t you see that he’ll take Caleb’s heart and break it in two?
she had wanted to yell.
Break it and stomp on the pieces?

Lenore gave the pillows a final smack. It was still early, though there would be plenty to do today. She wanted a long, soul-restoring soak in the tub before the wedding. And she planned to steam her dress, since the steaming of special garments was another task that Lenore felt a person should not entrust to anyone else. Angelica had offered the services of the visiting hairdresser, manicurist, and makeup artist to anyone who wanted them. Betsy and Marti had signed on, of course, as had Lenore. So had two of the bridesmaids, friends of Angelica’s, who were due here soon. But Lenore was not sure that Gretchen would take advantage of this generous offer, and the girl’s refusal vexed her.

Gretchen was the other worrisome grandchild, the one who could or would not take her place in the world. Oh, she had gone to college, where she had done quite well, though Lord only knew what it was she had studied; it seemed to change every other month. And after she graduated, she continued to bounce around from this job to that, never settling on any one thing in particular. Lenore could smell the indecision on her, ripe as the scent that emanated from a bunch of soft, spotted bananas.

One thing Lenore had approved of was that her granddaughter had married young and given birth to twin girls shortly thereafter. Lenore remembered feeling relieved that Gretchen seemed to be acquiring some heft, some substance, even if the husband—a poet, of all impractical things—was never going to be a good provider. Still, he’d had a job teaching poetry (imagine
paying
for your children to
potchke
with such a thing!) at Brooklyn College, which was where Monty had gone; he and Gretchen owned a pretty brick house not far from Lenore’s Midwood store. The house had a backyard, a deck, and a wood-burning fireplace.

Lately, though, there had been some major trouble between them, and it all went to pieces: Gretchen and the girls were alone, while the husband—for he still was her husband—had found himself a room in an apartment that he shared with two other men, both strangers. Now where was the progress in that? The situation was clearly not good for the girls, Lenore’s only great-grandchildren. One had a four-inch streak of hot pink running through her hair; the other had a pierced eyebrow, nostril, and God knew what else; both went to a
meshugenah
school where such things were not only permitted but encouraged.

But none of this would deter Lenore from fighting back, because she was a fighter by nature. She would fight for Gretchen, whom she pitied as well as loved. And for Caleb, whom she flat-out adored. Ostensibly she was here to celebrate Angelica’s wedding, and celebrate she would. She had new shoes—gold—and a brocade dress with rhinestone buttons and a matching coat, though she did not think she would need the coat today. She had big glitzy earrings, satin gloves, and a satin evening purse. She had…what was that word she had just learned…bling, that was it. She had bling. She could see herself all decked out in the front row, weeping delicately into her hanky. Later she would make a champagne toast to the newlyweds and dance with any and all of the available gentlemen at the reception.

But Lenore had other less visible, though equally compelling, agendas. This wedding provided her with multiple opportunities to deal with her wayward grandchildren. She would find a way to prove to her grandson that this Bobby person, this opportunistic schnorrer, was not for him, and that he should give his tender, trusting heart to someone who would cherish it.

And unbeknownst to her granddaughter, there was a man she was destined to meet at this wedding, a man whose presence had carefully been orchestrated by none other than Lenore herself. He was forty-one, divorced, with a daughter, and he was the only son of Lenore’s old friend Celia, that very same Celia whom Angelica had finally deigned after much pleading on Lenore’s part to invite. And since Celia’s husband was dead, it was perfectly appropriate to ask her son Mitch to be her escort. Lenore did not, however, tell Celia about her matchmaking scheme. Celia was funny that way; she might not like the idea. No, better to just invite him, introduce them, and see what happened next.

So Lenore had made sure that Gretchen and Mitch would be seated at the same table. She would not be at the table herself, but she would stop by to make sure the two met and to point out the many things they had in common: both divorced, with teenaged girls…. Lenore couldn’t think of anything else at the moment, but that was a start.

Then tomorrow, after the wedding, she would find out if Gretchen liked this Mitch person—he was an ophthalmologist, a profession that did not exactly rank with the sort of medicine practiced by Angelica or her young man, but still—and perhaps coax the girl into making something like a plan.

Plans were what kept you going; plans were what kept you alive. Lenore understood this as surely as she understood anything, and she hoped to make Gretchen understand it too. With her own plans quickly gelling in her mind, Lenore opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, ready once more to face the glorious day—one of the nearly thirty thousand that life had so far granted her—that quivered and danced just ahead, just beyond the range of her still-avid, still-seeking vision.

J
ust as Gretchen’s hand touched the smoothly carved banister for the second time that morning, she heard her name and turned. There was her grandmother Lenore swathed—that was the only word for it, really—in a ruffled pink garment whose enormous collar—seemingly borrowed from a clown’s costume—made her head, with its shellacked blond waves, appear small and doll-like

“Good morning,” Gretchen said, sorry she had been caught. Conversations with Lenore were never short; by the time this one was over, her chance to escape from the house for a little while would have disappeared.

“Good?” Lenore fairly accused. “I hope it’s more than good. I hope it’s great. No, even great is not enough. It should be spectacular, magnificent, and life altering.”

“That’s a lot for just one morning, don’t you think?” Gretchen smiled. Her grandmother was a piece of work, all right. But a lively piece of work. How old was she now, anyway? Eighty-five? Eighty-six? Whatever it was, she showed no signs of slowing down.

“It’s not just any morning. This is the morning of the day that Angelica’s getting married. Married! I can hardly believe it. Just yesterday she was a little
vildechaya
, running around the house without her underpants, and grape jam smeared all over her face.”

“I’m sure she’d love it if you reminded her of that,” Gretchen said.

“Are you making me fun of me?” Lenore leaned closer and peered into Gretchen’s eyes.

“Only a little,” Gretchen admitted. She took her grandmother’s hand and squeezed it briefly; slightly gnarled by arthritis now, the fingers were still covered in rings, and her nails were painted a pale, impeccable peach.