What I Did for Love (20 page)

In the midst of the preparations, we took the time to attend a party for Robin’s cousin, Stuart van Dehn, who had just landed a job with a hedge fund, a short path to wealth. The party was at the private club used by old money and some new money, for social functions. Stuart’s father had a membership, and therefore the right to reserve the club’s “events room.” When the room was set up for a young people’s party such as we were having, the effect would be a nightclub atmosphere, and it had a flashing retro neon sign that said “Escapes.” Robin and I thought it was a perfectly good name to describe the bankers and hedge fund managers who had escaped prison and fines in the great crash some years before.

Robin had shyly invited Bredon and Ree, to thank them for being so open to our college girl trio during the wedding preparations. They had been charmed but had gently declined, telling Robin that “the young people should celebrate.” As though they were so ancient, though I must confess, I sometimes felt so old compared to my age peers, my life filled with too many powerful events compressed into three short years.

I determined to be the young person that I was, though, and with Robin’s encouragement to find some nice young guys for the party, I invited my cousin Charles, along with Andrew Fortier, my groomsman partner. There must have been thirty of us at the party, including Stuart’s former classmates and longtime friends, and their dates and friends. Because Stuart was in his twenties, as were most of the guests, no one paid attention to the underage status of three young women. It was no problem anyway, because Dina and Robin and I had decided in advance not to drink, just in
case something or someone made trouble at a time so close to Bredon’s wedding. None of us was that interested in drinking anyway, Robin practically never having even wine, and Dina from a family of conservative Protestants whose old traditions held alcohol to be sinful.

We danced and joked and met everyone, but pretty much managed to hold a table for the three of us, to which Charles and Andrew also gravitated after meeting this or that person. Stuart liked Dina, it was obvious, so he spent a lot of time talking with her and dancing with her and just hanging out at our table. And my cousin Charles was the surprise for Robin.

“He’s gorgeous,” she whispered to me when he had gone for what must have been by now the hundredth bunch of glasses of seltzer with lime for our table. “I wish he were Jewish.”

“Actually, he is,” I giggled, watching her grow big-eyed. “His mother is Jewish, so he is too, right?”

“Your cousin Holt married a Jewish girl? Did they make her convert?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t the middle ages.”

“Oh my God, Dray, do you know you’ve pulled off a miracle for me; a guy I like who’s
Jewish!
”

“Think of what your mother will say,” I commented drily, looking pleased with myself. She was speechless, so I said, “It’s like Hanukah in Israel. ‘
A great miracle happened here
’.”

“Ooh, you’re really too much,” she laughingly growled at me, but looking only at my cousin Charles.

He liked her too, and when she could maneuver to sit next to him, she told him as though casually that she was Jewish, and he said his mother was too, and he had been bar mitzvahed and also confirmed, so he was sure to find at least one way to get to heaven. Both of his ceremonies had been small events, not like the all-out blasts that Robin’s two older brothers had had. Robin had declined a big party for her bat mitzvah, preferring a trip with her parents and her younger brother. On they chatted. They
say that weddings are places where future spouses meet, but maybe this party would do a similar magic for Robin.

Andrew, meanwhile, was as courtly and gentle and funny as I could wish, with a sweet sense of humor, that graciousness about him that seemed to be everywhere in Ree’s family. He had me laughing, which delighted him, his eyes warm and bright, very deep brown. The band had started playing a set of standards, the band leader humorously challenging the young people to do their grandparents’ fox trot, so that we swarmed out onto the floor in laughing pairs.

Andrew had taken my waist very tentatively and gently as we began, but I put a firm hand on his shoulder, enjoying his youth and sweetness and the happy disbelief in his eyes that we were so easy and comfortable together. We were just close enough that I could feel his hard, strong body under the formal suit he wore, and he could surely feel enough of my curves to know that I was feeling comfortably slinky in his arms. It felt so long since I had found this much joy in the still-innocent touch of a man, it was like a sweet breeze in my soul.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“So are you,” I replied, and he laughed too, and said, “I’m glad you think so!”

We danced on the crowded floor until the end of the set, maybe eight songs, each riffing into the next, then drifted back to the table. Robin had returned with Charles; Dina and Stuart were off somewhere.

I was beginning to fade beyond my happiness to keep me awake. “Andrew, I’m a truly early-to-bed type, and I have to get home. But it’s been so nice, I hate to leave.”

“Let me see you home,” he said eagerly.

“Not necessary,” I replied, reaching into the tiny pocket for my phone.

“Wow, it’s a small one,” he exclaimed, seeing me hit the numbers with one hand, and then the key signaling Bredon’s
driver.

“I hate big phones,” I told him.

Robin added, “And she hates handbags and a long list of other things that most people can’t do without.” She said this with mock resignation, and Andrew, smiling at her, helped bring my shawl around my shoulders and led me through the crowd, attentive, happy.

As we came into the lobby on our way to my car, my happiness and sleepiness competing with each other, Andrew said, “May I call you tomorrow?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Ree will give you my number. Tell her I said you can even text.” That would be Ree’s signal that it was okay to tell him.

As Andrew was handing me into the car, I saw another figure on the steps. Rand. He had a beautiful woman with him, willowy figure, both of them in formal attire. Andrew closed the door and stepped back, and I waved to him, but in a quick glance I saw Rand, turning abruptly toward me as he recognized me, his face darkly serious, angry, startling the woman beside him who evidently had been talking to him.

I pretended to see none of it, and simply smiled through the car window at Andrew, who stood at the curb as we drove away. But my heart had started pounding at the sight of Rand.

The weather for the wedding was glorious, the guests in formal morning attire, white silken banners flying from the tents, smaller banners with the gray-rose and deeper rose accents that were the bridal party colors. A kind of open altar had been set up, the sea a vast expanse beyond the rise of the estate gardens. White veiling flowed over the altar, held to posts by flowers dyed to match the bridal colors, greenery winding downward to anchor the gossamer fabric to the posts. A harpist, a cellist, and two violins, formed a kind of choir at one side of the altar, and the singer was a young woman with a compelling, beautiful voice, another of Ree’s nieces, training at Juilliard. She was singing a Handel aria, the strings in perfect accompaniment. The aisle had been created wide enough for groomsmen to walk down the aisle in pairs and arrange themselves to one side of Bredon and Ren as they stood waiting for the ceremony to begin.

The music started, and the wedding supervisor, who had worked with Mrs. Cleves from the start, and who seemed to become her shadow, orchestrated the procession as we emerged from the garden room of the Cleves mansion. First, the children: one of the youngest nieces held the small basket of rose petals to strew, and her older brother held the great silk cushion with the rings.

I was next, and behind me, Ree’s niece Charlotte Cleves. We wore light rose dresses and gray sashes, followed by the matron and then maid of honor, both of them in slightly deeper rose with slightly lighter gray sashes than the bridesmaids’. Our dresses were draped, the upper parts of our dresses like flowing capes that curved back behind the dress to the waist, very romantic, very unusual. The women’s murmurs had started with the flower girl, in a miniature bridesmaid dress, her brother in a miniature version of the groomsmen’s formal morning dress, and when Ree
appeared, the effect was perfect, so beautiful in its draping and flow, summery but modest, her father controlling his tears as he walked beside her. The bridesmaids had arranged themselves in a semi-circle on the bride’s side of the altar, matching the groomsmen standing on Bredon’s side, and I was swallowing hard to control my tears at the sheer joy on Bredon’s face as he looked at Ree, and her shining face looking at him so lovingly.

Mine were not the only tears. I heard discreet sobbing, but dared not look lest I break down completely. I knew that Robin and Dina were watching me, ready to run up and catch me if I fainted, as they had laughingly promised they would when we had the rehearsal dinner last night. I was beyond grateful to Mrs. Cleves, who without fuss had gathered my friends into the wedding as though they were my sisters, Robin and Dina very much moved by her thoughtfulness. Now, Andrew too was watching me anxiously from the other side of the altar, and I managed a smile once I gathered myself and composed myself.

Ree’s great-uncle James Harlan Cleves, a retired Episcopal bishop, was going to perform the marriage, assisted by the Rector and acolytes from the local church. The old man looked splendid in his red bishop’s blouse, made in pleated silk, no doubt a special gift from Ree’s mother for the occasion. He had a white ceremonial surplice and stole, lace and silk, the embroidery and fabric glinting in the light. One of the acolytes stood off to one side holding the bishop’s staff, its crook facing forward, and on a small table the bishop’s miter. The plain cross set up behind the altar was wood and gold, the altar table holding a Bible and The Book of Common Prayer. Once Ree and Bredon were standing in front of him, he took the book, bound in dark red leather, and opened it where the silk ribbons, red and white, marked the place.

He started with a departure from the usual wording of the service, saying, “In the presence of God, of this company, of those we love who are with us, and those we love whom we
cannot see, but who are among the cloud of witnesses in heaven, we come together for this joyful, solemn purpose, the marriage of Ariana to Bredon.”

Dina and Robin had crept closer to the front, as unobtrusively as they could, for they could see the tears of those who knew my family, and saw me holding myself tightly together, the tears welling in my eyes, which I refused to let fall.

In another departure, the bishop, that wonderful old man said, “Who gives this couple to be married?”

Ree’s parents said, “We do,” her brothers and sisters each murmured, “I do,” I said, “I do,” great-aunt Caroline and Holt and Charles said, “We do,” from where we sat or stood.

With a satisfied nod, the old bishop whispered something to Ree and Bredon, and they turned to face each other, taking each other’s hands.

“Dearly Beloved,” he began the traditional words, “we are gathered here together in the sight of God and in the face of this company, to join Ariana and Bredon in holy matrimony…”

It was such a beautiful service, the rings given, the vows taken, Ree and Bredon never looking away from each other except to slip rings on each other’s fingers. I could see Ren was also deeply moved, perhaps remembering his wife, whom no woman could yet replace in his heart and life.

Then came the final “I pronounce you married, wife and husband, and what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” A mixture of modern and traditional language, with his quick blessing over them, and then, “You may kiss the bride,” to laughter and applause from the guests and Bredon and Ree seemed to glide away together, down the aisle, tightly holding each other’s arms, the bridal party following, into the garden room for a breather before being greeted for the toast and the dancing.

Mrs. Cleves had already arranged that Dina and Robin be waiting for me in the garden room, and they each took an arm,
taking turns giving me a kiss on the cheek, and telling me I looked fabulous. Andrew waited his turn to come up to claim my attention, my friends whispering, “Catch you later,” and running back outside to where the guests were regrouping for the luncheon. Andrew’s presence was assuring, safe, and we said little to each other but smiled a lot as the rest of the party rearranged itself, the children gathered by their parents.

A little path opened and Bredon came toward me, a great hug, wordless, and I gave way to my tears, laughing and crying at the same time, Ree coming behind him, her arm around me, giving me a kiss.

“Dray, I have to admire the way you can cry and not have your makeup run,” she said drily. I laughed, for I wore very little eye makeup, a swipe of color, no mascara, lots of blush to cover my paleness, lipstick which I had to have chewed off at this point.

“Come on,” Ree said to the women, and we followed her into the large powder room with its couches and vanity tables, the bathroom beyond. I re-touched my lipstick but did not add shadow or more blush. The woman who had made us up this morning had done a superb job, and my “face” was mostly intact.

“There’s very little to come off,” she had said as I refused one after another of her proposed colors and tintings and mascaras. Then she said, “Well, that’s the advantage of being so young.” She had sighed comically and said, with mock resignation, “I can’t get away without makeup anymore.” She went on to Charlotte, who wanted much more dramatic cosmetic work.

Charlotte did look beautiful afterward, her eyes outlined and her lashes thickened, high color on her lids. I was afraid Mrs. Cleves would want us to match cosmetically, but that blessed woman said nothing when she saw all of us, varyingly made up. I thought, there’s a feminist buried in there not too far under the surface, I just know it. I felt a growing love for this woman who
had shown such thoughtfulness toward me, without a single direct word to call attention to her noble goodness.