Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701) (32 page)

“Your ex-wife had a boyfriend?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid the one with the
boyfriend
was me.”

Gretchen didn’t get it for a second. And then she did. “So you’re…”

“Gay, yes.”

What, you too?
Gretchen wanted to say, thinking of the sexy guy she’d met earlier while swimming, the one she and Caleb had caught kissing Bobby. What were the odds that two attractive men, both encountered on the same day, would turn out to be gay? But all she said was, “Your ex must have been surprised.” She felt a slight seep of disappointment spreading like a stain.

“Not really,” he said. “I’d felt that way for a long time, and she knew it.”

“Then why…?”

“We were best friends. I wanted to be married, have kids. She said she accepted me, but really she believed she could change me.”

“She couldn’t, though,” Gretchen finished.

“No, she couldn’t,” said Mitch.

“Couldn’t what?” asked Caleb.

Mitch turned to look at her brother, and in that quick glance Gretchen felt the current pass between them: a mutual acknowledgment, a kind of recognition.

“I was telling your sister about my ex-wife,” Mitch said.

“You can tell me too,” Caleb said, leaning in closer. “I’m all ears.”

“Would you excuse me?” Gretchen said to Mitch. But Mitch was so absorbed in something Caleb had said that he failed to hear. Gretchen pushed back her chair and steadied herself against the table. She was not drunk, but when she’d finished the champagne, she had ignored her own decision to stop drinking and had moved on to white wine, so she felt a bit woozy as she made her way over to the teen table. Justine and Portia were both there; Justine was talking to one of Ohad’s many relatives. Satisfied that the girls were all right, she went off looking for Lincoln. She found him seated at the bride’s table, along with her mother, Don, Lenore, and some more of Ohad’s relatives. And it looked, amazingly, like everyone was getting along.

“Gretchen!” Lincoln called out, extending his hand. Gretchen moved closer and took it. “You look terrific.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said. “So do you.” She was puzzled but pleased by his effusive greeting. She could not help but glance at his glass. It looked like it held Coke, but you never knew.

“I decided to stay an extra couple of days,” Lincoln was saying. “Your mother says she can get me an appointment with her dentist on Monday, and I was able to change my ticket with no charge. So I thought we could get together, just the two of us. Lunch, dinner—whatever works for you.”

“Okay,” Gretchen said, surprised. “We can talk about it in the morning.”

“Honey, Angelica’s about to cut the cake,” Betsy said. “Do you want to have a seat?”

Gretchen was just about to slip into an empty seat when a flock of the Israelis—she had trouble distinguishing them, and they really did look like a flock of dark, sleek birds—converged upon the band for what appeared to be a very urgent conversation. After a minute the band started playing “Hava Nagila,” and in the space that had been cleared for the wedding cake, the Israelis joined hands and began to do the hora.

This had
not
been part of the plan; Gretchen was sure of it. She looked over at her mother; clearly Betsy was as surprised as she was. The cake on its chrome-and-glass trolley waited in the wings while the dance quickly took on a life of its own, with guests rising from their seats, as if they’d been summoned, to join in. Tables and chairs were pushed back; the music got louder.

Gretchen did not join the dance; instead she sidled over to where her mother stood, and the two of them watched together. Lincoln and Don were dancing side by side; who would have expected that? Caleb and Teddy had joined in and lovely Marti looked as if someone had uncorked her. Angelica was dancing too, her dark hair flipping back and forth, when two of the men dancing on either side suddenly lifted her in a movement so fluid and graceful that it seemed choreographed. They steered her toward an empty chair, and after she’d sat down, they raised the chair high in the air; others quickly stepped in to help them. Everyone cheered and clapped as she was paraded around the floor. Looking
game, if mildly alarmed, Angelica clutched the bottom of the chair so she wouldn’t fall off.

“This wasn’t planned, was it?” Gretchen asked Betsy.

“Are you kidding?” Betsy said. “The hora is hardly Angelica’s idea of a good time.”

“She looks like she’s having fun,” Gretchen observed.

“She’s adaptive,” Betsy said. “She may be controlling, but she can roll with the punches when she has to.”

May be
controlling? Who was her mother kidding? But Gretchen did not say anything. When the chair was finally set down again, Angelica was out of breath and smiling. Then it was Ohad’s turn in the chair, and finally Lenore was the one lifted up, up, and up. She seemed thoroughly delighted as she waved to the cheering crowd.

It took several minutes for everyone to settle down and for the tables and chairs to be restored to their previous positions. Angelica, still flushed, started moving toward the large, pale, five-tiered cake—covered in buttercream frosting and dotted with candied violet petals—that was being wheeled in. Ohad was right behind her.

But then she paused and put her hand on Gretchen’s shoulder as she passed. “I think we should talk,” she said. “It won’t be until after the honeymoon though. I hope that’s all right with you.” Angelica asking Gretchen if something were all right with her? Asking, not telling, demanding, ordering? Was anyone else registering or even listening to this? She ardently hoped so.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Just fine.”

Angelica kept moving until she reached the cake. She
posed with the knife; Ohad was at her side. Gretchen was making her way back to her own table; she heard the collective sigh when Angelica cut the first piece.

“There you are!”

Gretchen turned. Ennis was standing in front of her, blocking her path.

“Were you looking for me?” she asked.

“I was. You ran away from me before.” He moved a step closer.

“I didn’t.” She stepped back.

“You did!” He looked at her and laughed. “We sound like Portia and Justine, hey? About ten years ago?”

“I guess we do.”

“I’m glad she came to the wedding after all. What did you say that got her to change her mind?” Ennis said. He was inching toward her again.

“It wasn’t me; it was my grandmother.”

“Ah,” said Ennis. “Lovely Lenore.”

Waiters began circulating with trays of sliced wedding cake; Ennis nabbed a plate and offered it to Gretchen. She hesitated and then asked, “Do you want to share?”

“With you?” He moved still closer, and this time Gretchen did not move away. Instead she offered him a forkful of the cake. “Did we do this on our wedding day?” he asked.

“Don’t you remember?” Gretchen instantly felt huffy.

“Of course,” he said. “I just wanted to see if you did.” He accepted the morsel of cake.

“You know I did,” she said in a low but intense voice.
She was slightly drunk, no doubt about
that,
and her earlier good mood was quickly evaporating. An eddy of self-pity lapped at her: their failed marriage, their troubled daughter, the prospect of having to look for a job—again. She willed it not to happen, but she couldn’t help it: she started to cry.

“Gretchen,” Ennis said, and he tentatively put his hand to the tangle of her hair. “Ah, Gretchen, don’t.” She had stepped back as if scalded. She didn’t want him touching her; it brought back too much. And she didn’t want to make a spectacle of herself either. Gretchen looked down at the plate with its barely nibbled slice of cake. “Here,” she said, thrusting it into his hands. “You eat it.” And she turned and headed swiftly for the house.

“Where are you going?” he called after her. He set the plate down and followed her into the foyer, across the marble floor, up the staircase, down the hall until she reached the door to her room. She was crying harder now, and when she turned to tell him to please,
please
go away, nothing came out but a small hiccup.

“Gretchen, you’re getting yourself all upset,” he said. He didn’t touch her, though she could tell he wanted to.

“No, you’re getting me all upset!” she said. “You—showing up here uninvited—”

“Your sister invited me, hey?”

“You shouldn’t have come, Ennis,” she said, pressing her back to the door. “You have no business being here with my family.”

“I
am
your family, remember? I’m the father of your children, and I’m still your husband. We’re not divorced yet.”

“Too bad you didn’t remember that when you were screwing Eve!”

“But that’s over, it’s done, it’s not going to happen again! How many times do I have to tell you? That baby was
not
mine.”

“Is that all this is about to you? The baby?”

“Well, it certainly seemed like a big deal. At least to me,” said Ennis.

“And to me too!” she shot back. “Believe me, I am so relieved it wasn’t yours after all.”

“Why?” he said, stepping closer. “Because it means that now we have a clean slate and can start again?”

“Only in your delusional mind, Ennis!” Gretchen said. “I told you: I’m so relieved that the girls aren’t going to have to deal with a new baby brother. But it doesn’t change anything between the two of us. You still cheated on me; you still broke my heart.”

“I want to fix it,” he said simply. “Only first you have to let me.”

“Too late,” Gretchen said.
Is it?
she thought.
It is really?
“I don’t care anymore.”

“You’re lying,” he said, suddenly cool.

“Lying?” Clutching the knob in her hand, she pressed herself harder against the door. She could fling it open, go inside, and slam it—right in his face. He would deserve it too. But she didn’t. “What makes you think that?”

“Because I think you do care. You care very much.”

“And on what exactly are you basing that statement?” She still had her hand on the knob.

“You’re still here arguing with me, aren’t you? You could have gone inside and closed the door, but you didn’t.” He looked so smug.

“You’re right. I will go inside—right now. Good night, Ennis.” She yanked the door open, but he was faster and slipped in ahead of her. They stood facing each other, a pair of boxers in the ring before the fight had begun. “I’m going to ask you to leave quietly,” she said. “And I think you will because you don’t want a scene any more than I do.”

“Do you remember that night in East Meadow?” he said, abruptly changing the subject.

“What are you talking about?”

“That night in your house in East Meadow. You had brought me home for the weekend to meet your parents.”

“What about it?” she said, wary.

“Just that they put us in separate rooms, but you snuck out and came down to find me in the den after they’d all gone to sleep. And we tried to be so quiet, not to wake them, but then that dog—”

“It was a Jack Russell terrier, and he belonged to our next-door neighbor,” Gretchen supplied. “They let him out at night, and sometimes he came wandering into our yard. He dug up my mother’s flowers, and whenever he killed a chipmunk, he left its poor little mangled corpse in front of the door. If we heard my mother shriek in the morning, we knew he’d done it again.”

“The dog must have heard us going at it, because it started barking like crazy, and your father came down to find out what all the racket was about and—”

“And there we were,” said Gretchen, smiling in spite of herself. God, how much she had wanted him back then! How mad she’d been for his touch, his kiss, his everything. Where had all that gone?

“There we were,” he said softly. He shook his head as if to dislodge the memory. “All right, then. I’ll go now. Good night, Gretchen.”

“No, wait.” Were those words really coming out of her mouth? “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she said.

“You want me to stay?”

Did she? Just for now? Or for good? She did not know, but she nodded anyway. While they were talking, she had sat down on the bed, the ridiculous, overdone virginal bed with its poufs and its pillows, its flounces and its flowers. Only right now it didn’t seem so ridiculous at all; it seemed an appropriately bedecked and fitting stage for the moment that was about to unfurl if only she would sit still and let it happen. Because it was going to happen; she saw that. She wanted it to. She wanted him. Maybe not in the pure, unclouded way of their youth. But, yes, she wanted him again.

Ennis moved toward her and once again reached for her hair. This time she didn’t push him away but submitted to the caress that quickly traveled from her hair to her cheek, her throat, and then her breasts.

“I missed you so much,” he said, burying his face in the soft, abundant flesh that spilled over the top of her bra.

“I missed you too,” she said as her arms wound around him, drawing him closer. But then she stopped and moved her face back a few inches.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Justine,” she said. “Justine is wrong.” Earlier today she had felt confident she could deal with her daughter’s problems but now suddenly their enormity loomed like a terrifying wall of water.

“It will be better when we deal with it together,” he said, leaning close to kiss her again. “You’ll see.” Ennis’s shoulder knocked one of the eyelet pillows to the floor as he and Gretchen eased their way down onto the wide and welcoming surface of the mattress.