A Small Matter (14 page)

“It’s a powerful statement,” Vito said. “I
can understand your reluctance. As we get older, we’re more
inclined to try to create a platform for ourselves where we can
feel safe and secure...it’s as though once we’ve made it past
thirty, our thirst for risk-taking vanishes. But yes, to answer
your question, I think with your foxy face and voluptuous figure,
going short would be nothing short of spectacular.”

“You’re very strange,” Vickie said. “And your
assistant, Scotia, is really off the dial.”

“Scotia has a lot of inner power,” Vito said.
“She thrives on truth.”

“And what do you thrive on?” Vickie said.
“Taking scalps?”

“I’m enthusiastic about hair,” Vito said.
“Each time I create a new look, I can’t help but get excited--I
suppose I am a bit overbearing in my desire to have everybody see
what I see.”

“I’m at wits end,” Vickie said. “A few
minutes ago, I thought I’d lost it. I was going to walk out of this
trailer and never look back.”

“A common reaction,” Vito said. “You’re a
beautiful woman who knows her limits. Apparently, Scotia and I have
pushed too hard and gone out of bounds.”

“No,” Vickie said. “I’m really appreciative
of all this attention you’re lavishing on me. I guess the problem
is, I’m losing control and I don’t like the feeling. I’m supposed
to know where I’m going with this marriage--but I don’t. I’ve never
felt more weak and vulnerable in my life.”

“That’s a great place to be,” Vito said.
“It’s real. You’re stopping to listen to your pain. You’re taking
stock.”

“The news of my tumor brought everything to a
screeching halt,” Vickie said. “I guess before I got the news, I
spent my time in a state of hope for what the future would bring.
It was like I was always waiting for things that weren’t coming.
Yesterday, I found out what was coming--an ugly death. Suddenly I
had no future and nothing further to wait for. That’s probably why
I’m getting married on such short notice. I’m starting to realize
that the world isn’t going to turn into something other than what
it really is, so I better quit waiting and start doing.”

“You’ve held on to your long blonde hair for
many years,” Vito said. “Was that part of your waiting?”

“My hair was always my crowning glory,”
Vickie said. “No matter what terrible thing was going on around me,
I had my hair. Now, I’m even facing the possibility of losing
that.”

“Maybe it’s time you let go of your long
hair,” Vito said. “Go for a new look, smart and sleek, one which
will balance the inner and outer realms of your new self. The short
hair will match perfectly the golden dahlias which fill the
chapel.”

“There’s golden dahlias filling the chapel?”
Vickie said.

“The chapel has been completely transformed,”
Vito said. “Dee brought in a large party tent and erected it
inside. The entire inside of the tent has been transformed into a
fantasy of gold, at the center of which will be you. With your
short golden hair, your head will shine like the sun in a galaxy of
golden dahlias.”

“What if I keep my long hair?”

“Of course that’s your choice,” Vito said.
“But it’s my interior inspiration that you’d be making a mistake.
My sense of your present style, the long blonde hair with the baby
braids, is that it belongs in the past, to a person you no longer
are--your long hair is something that you hung on top of your head
a long time ago because at that time, it brightened up your world,
or maybe it was part of some teenage surfer fantasy or something,
but now I sense it’s time for something that will bring into focus
your considerable present beauty.”

“I’m fighting you,” Vickie said. “My greatest
fear centers around losing my hair right before I die in a smelly
sweat.”

“I understand,” Vito said. “I’m sure it must
be exhausting to you to be trying to keep some control over your
life--especially now that you’ve decided to be a bride one last
time. A bride is caught between two worlds. In one world, she must
give love, and in other, she must receive it--it’s when we receive
love that we aren’t in control.”

“What you’re saying is that I’m resisting
your suggestion to cut off my hair as my one last great act of
defiance? As a way to stay in control of something while everything
else is falling apart?”

“You’re a dying woman,” Vito said. “It’s only
natural that you’d be preoccupied with the infinite--your vision is
focused on what’s waiting for you out there--but it scares you when
you travel out there--it’s unknown territory, so you return to the
familiar to reassure yourself. That’s why you’re fighting me about
the direction we should go with your cut--it gives you a feeling of
reassurance because your haircut is finite, and easy to grasp,
therefore easy to control.”

“I must be going crazy,” Vickie said.
“Because for a moment, there, you were starting to make sense. Why
don’t you spit it out and tell me what you want me to do.”

“I want you to give me your hair,” Vito said.
“I want you to surrender all of your hair to me.”

Vickie sighed deeply. “Go ahead,” she said.
“It’s yours. I’m through fighting.”

“Are you sure?” Vito said.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “Go ahead, Vito,
make my day. Cut it all off.”

Chapter 21

“I love Mulroney,” Vickie said, “but in the
back of my mind I wonder if this wedding isn’t my way of making one
last defiant gesture at my cancer.”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” the
tailoress said. “It’s as though the cancer has the power to
dissolve in an untimely fashion your sacrament of marriage--by
getting married, you’re standing up to it.”

The tailoress and Vickie were in the
hospital, in an empty patient room commandeered by the
ever-resourceful Dee, fitting precisely to Vickie’s full figure the
Flower of Ireland, in all its magnificence. The tailoress, a woman
in the median span of life who called herself Afshaan and appeared
to have hailed from India, having been raised there, and educated
in Catholic schools, and of no small beauty herself, worked
expertly and quickly through the various sections of the garment,
correcting trouble spots on-the-fly while at the same time
encouraging sympathetic discourse into the weighty matters of
cancerous tumors and their effects on the great moments of life.
Thus far, Afshaan had not permitted Vickie a glimpse in the
portable three-way mirror, which stood in the corner covered with a
sheet from the hospital bed.

“You’ve got to go with what you’ve got,
that’s all I know,” Vickie said. “In a way, it’s really a battle
with Mother Nature herself.”

“It’s a tough battle,” Afshaan said. “You
can’t make Mother Nature do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“True,” Vickie said. “Thus far, my battle
with her has cost me a lot of energy--and most likely, I’ll lose
anyway.”

“Don’t give up,” Afshaan said. “Sometimes,
Mother Nature accepts our humble efforts and lets us win. I hope it
goes that way for you.” Afshaan stood up, stepped back, and
regarded Vickie with a close eye, walking around her three
times.

“It’s finished,” Afshaan said, checking her
watch. “And not a minute too soon. It’s almost midnight.”

“Tell me what you think,” Vickie said.
“Before I look in the mirror, I want to hear it from you. Don’t
hold back. I want the truth.”

“The truth is, your transformation is that of
a goddess,” Afshaan said. “When you first walked in here, I sensed
the possibilities, but now I must admit, your unmatched beauty is
something I will remember always.” Afshaan stepped to the mirror
and pulled off the sheet.

Vickie turned to the mirror and sucked in a
quick sharp breath. She did not immediately recognize herself. It
was as though, under the onslaught of heavenly images generated by
the inlaid handiwork of the garment, her mind had lost the ability
to hold its focus. Time passed. The radiant linen sparkled with
life and energy as she turned this way and that, feeling the silky
synergy of the cloth moving in close counterpoint with her
breathing. Her eyes wandered over the garment slowly, gradually
adding up its uncountable sum until at once the many facets sprang
together as one, presenting her with an image of perfect purity and
innocence, an angelic forming of eternal wholeness. She found
herself in a space where the fullness of time enfolded her, and the
music of the Flower of Ireland’s visual harmonies vibrated into the
core of her heart and soul.

She came back to herself again as the door
opened and Dee walked in holding the bouquet, followed closely by
Mary-Jo, both women flushed, excited, shiningly sartorialized in
little gold-sequined dresses.

“Oh my,” Dee said. “You’re beyond
beautiful--I’d shriek with delight, but we are in a hospital.”

“It’s like a splinter of Heaven broke off and
landed in this room,” Mary-Jo said.

“The waiting is over,” Dee said. “They’re
ready for us in the chapel.”

“It’s time?” Vickie said.

Dee took her by the hand and led her through
the door. The procession--Dee in front, Vickie in the middle, and
Mary-Jo bringing up the rear, her job being to hold away from the
floor the long, delicate train--made its way through the warm,
dimly-lit hallways past the amazed faces of night shift personnel,
arriving at the chapel door beyond which Vickie’s destiny in the
form of a man in a gold tuxedo stood waiting. Music played. A solo
violin. The Ave Maria.

“You forgot something,” Dee said, pinning the
golden Tara brooch, and pulling down the veil. She handed Vickie
the bouquet. “There. Perfection has been accomplished.”

Vickie stood beneath the veil, her heart
beating fast, her thoughts suspended--there was no longer past or
future--not at this moment--not with the door about to open and
show her the path to Mulroney, her beloved, awaiting her at the end
of her walk down the aisle. A silence filled her soul completely,
as though there was nothing more to say, no more stories to tell.
The door opened revealing a stunning, intimate interior world of
shining gold, the results of many hangings of exotic fabrics
combined with the largesse of a half-thousand of golden dahlias.
The single violinist bowed up the wedding march and Vickie began
stepping forward towards Mulroney, the big man standing stiffly at
attention, eyes fiercely reaching towards her, his framework
closely lieutenanted by a smiling Dalk. The big man consumed her
eyes, to the point where she felt his life forces were pulling her
towards him through the air, as though the solid world had
evaporated, leaving only the two of them to complete their dance. A
single white-hot stab of pain from the tumor shot through her upper
abdomen, but she steeled herself and kept on marching to the
singing strings of the violin.

We’ll never be so young again as we are
tonight, she thought. We’ll be married and we’ll never regret
it.

Mulroney stepped forward and steered her in
front of Father Larry. She understood without thinking that she’d
done all she could--her life had brought her to Mulroney. She found
it enough, and was content, for the moment, to lay aside the dreams
and fears of elsewheres and other realms.

The wedding had begun.

Chapter 22

“We’ll begin,” Father Larry said, “in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Up close, Vickie noticed, Mulroney
appeared--in spite of the brilliance of his shiny gold
garments--pale and washed out somehow, as though the afternoon and
evening of Dr. Lerner’s “poking and prodding” had been hard on him.
His face, however, was set in a determined fierceness, like that of
a downed hawk--injured, but still game for whatever lay ahead. A
slight coughing noise from the corner of the tent drew her eye to
the spectacle of Kilkenney glaring from his cage. Absurdly--somehow
during the afternoon, the big man had arranged for his cat to be
here at this most important moment.

Her attention refocused on Father Larry, who
had apparently for some time been reading from Genesis. “Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother,” he said, “and shall
cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.”

Father read a psalm and a portion of the love
chapter--Corinthians 13. He set his small wedding book aside and
looked lovingly over his charges and beyond to the small group
assembled, which included Vito, Scotia, and Afshaan. Vickie felt
the pain in her back begin to spread and with a start realized she
was losing feeling in her legs in the same manner as she had that
afternoon. She braced herself inwardly.

“It is my great privilege to welcome and
congratulate Vickie and Patrick here,” Father Larry said, “for by
their committed action of coming together in this holy sacrament of
marriage, they have shown us that life is so much more than a pilot
episode for a possible future series. Mulroney and Vickie, here,
have taught me that right here on earth, it is possible to forge a
code of survival and love that I believe amazes even the angels,
which are, no doubt, in strong attendance here at this early
morning uniting of two souls.”

Oh no, Vickie thought. He’s going to be
long-winded.

“The most heartbreaking moments of life,”
Father continued, “often set the stage for our greatest
triumphs--this marriage of Vickie and Mulroney is such a triumph.
It is all the proof of heaven that anyone could ask, for we can see
in their shining expressions a sweet message delivered to us here
from a world beyond this one.

“The sacrament of marriage reminds us that we
have a duty and right to be here on this earth--and a God-given
right to freedom from the despair and loneliness we find facing us
in the world outside.

“I want to say to the two of you, that this
moment is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever encountered. In the
days to come, whenever I’m feeling weary and indifferent to life, I
will look back fondly on this moment and draw renewed strength from
it for my own journey.”