All Dressed Up (18 page)

On the
Windjammer cruise?

The cruise
photo sat in her bedroom drawer upstairs. She’d been sneaking peaks
at it. The first couple of times, her whole body would seize up and
twist at the sight of it. They’d been so happy then. She hadn’t
faced up to the fact that it was all built on a bad foundation.

But with each
repeat viewing of the photo, the intensity of her gut reaction
lessened and in some ways she mourned the loss of it, because at
least it had anchored her, it proved something.

All the
reasons she’d been too scared to tell Charlie about Billy back then
still applied.

She hadn’t
wanted to lose him. He was the jock doctor, the future renowned
surgeon, the one who could cut away tumors no one else dared touch.
And it wasn’t the fact that she’d won him over everyone else who
wanted him that was so significant, but that she’d won him for the
right reasons.

She had a
quiet certainty in her bones that she could match him as much as he
needed to be matched, that she would neither outshine him nor
forever be scrambling to catch up. There was a sense that he was
one day – pretty soon – going to be a better surgeon than every one
of his mentors, which meant that not all of them liked him. Some
made him conveniently ‘arrogant’ – although all surgeons were
that.

They said he
had a ‘God complex’ largely because he had God’s attribute of
compassion more than some of the mentors did, and she just loved
him for all of this. She admired him.

And you have
to have that, she thought, you have to have admiration and respect
not just love if it’s going to work in the long term, and if she
told him about Billy now – when she told him about Billy – would
she lose his admiration and respect forever, because of the way
she’d copped out? Would he look at her as if she was a monster?
Would he – this scared her even more – expect her to take Billy
back?

She needed to
call him. Brushing at the dirt over Ralphie’s grave, she tried to
prep herself.

The coast was
clear. The house was empty. There was no one to overhear.

All week she’d
been doing this. The gut-churning anticipation of thinking she
would call.

When? Now?

Then the sick
relief of deciding not to.

I can’t. Not
yet.

But then would
come the creeping, sneaky idea again. Call? Open the wound?
Wouldn’t that help? Should I call? What is he doing now?

Sometimes she
could imagine it so vividly that she was almost in his presence.
She could see him in the shower, or asleep in the on-call room at
Park, or stretching his legs on the on-call bed and rubbing his
eyes and gulping coffee so fast it made him shudder.

She imagined
herself telling him about Billy. She’d never let herself even
imagine it properly, before. She’d been so good at closing those
doors tight tight shut, at telling herself it wouldn’t be fair to
Billy or Mom and Dad or herself or anyone if more people knew.

What did you
do? Did you set it up in advance like a proposal of marriage?

Charlie hadn’t
set up his. He’d just said it one day. They were both wiped, eating
take-out pizza in front of a rented DVD, too exhausted to talk.
She’d been in her second year of medicine at Mount Sinai, he was
interning at Columbia Presbyterian.

“Let’s get
married.” Lazy. Tender. Matter-of-fact.

She’d hoped –
known – that they were heading in this direction but hadn’t thought
he’d say it so soon.

“Yes,” she’d
said, and rolled across the couch into his arms, knocking the pizza
box to the floor, and then they hadn’t gotten formally engaged,
hadn’t made any actual plans for another year and a half.

But she hadn’t
been worried about that. He was the kind of guy who said something
once and then it was true forever.

So should she
call?

Brooke’s mom’s
cleaner had taken the dress home to her place – she lived in
Steeple Point – because she had her sewing workshop there, in her
back room, not at her commercial cleaning premises off of Exit
19.

Driving down
the hill, Lainie asked Sarah, “Did Emma know this was happening? I
noticed you rushed out of the house.”

“She knew. I
said did she want to come, too. Or instead. But no. She was around
somewhere. Maybe down at the beach. Mom wanted to keep it quiet
till we know how the dress is going to look, but she’s bad with
that, hushing things up.”

“Your mom
hushes things up, as a rule?”

“As one rule.
She has other rules which are a little noisier.”

“I won’t
ask.”

“I don’t mean
to make it sound ominous. Just that she’s not always
consistent.”

“Well, who
is?”

Yeah, good
point.

Sarah and Emma
had had a few Emma-initiated talks this week about odd things, not
about the things that really counted.

Billy saved my
life, Emma says.

Sarah was
still thinking about that, and about the way Emma had yelled at
her. The stuff about in-vitro, tube-fed grievances. Was it true?
Was that how she came across? Was that what she was really like?
Was that why she was still such a mess – not a mess, but adrift –
over Luke? Why she could count one tiny gesture with an expensive
shopping bag as progress? Because she nurtured the pain? Needed it?
How could she need something like that?

She remembered
the first time she held Billy in her arms, and the first time he
smiled at her. Oh yes, so precious, so simple and happy. But she
wondered, even if what Emma said was true, how much it unfairly let
Emma herself off the hook. Emma hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose
as an act of charity to provide sixteen-year-old Sarah with renewed
meaning and an emotionally nourishing future.

Meanwhile,
Emma asked if Sarah or Billy had anything to draw with. She made
cupcakes and cookies. She expressed the opinion that the canoes
needed painting and repair, and bought some sandpaper, marine
sealant and paint, but somehow the project stalled. She was
restless. Like Charlie, she didn’t deal well with space even when
she needed it.

Billy took
little notice of her. He never had. Mom monitored her closely and
decided that whatever she was doing or dwelling on or failing to do
must be necessary, they shouldn’t question it, they should leave
her alone. Dad had only arrived from Jersey at eleven last night,
after his working week, and had gone off with Billy right after
lunch, but he would agree with Mom about Emma because he almost
always did.

Lainie and
Sarah drove by the church and turned left up the side street that
went right beside it. The Reverend Mac had a wedding on. There were
cars glinting in the sun, pulling to a stop in the lot, women
climbing out carefully in bright outfits and fragile heels.

With the
windows down, Sarah and Lainie heard someone say, “Oh, she won’t be
on time.”

In a house
higher up the hill, a few minutes later, Angie’s cleaner was a
bird-voiced, squab-bodied woman who so wanted to get this right.
She ran through the three options, posed new swansdown and marabou
against the original feathers, pinned up the hem, showed samples of
possible beading.

“Let’s try the
new feathers first,” Lainie said. “And if it doesn’t work, Emma
will have to make the decision. She’d have to be the one, at that
point.”

“When exactly
is the wedding?” the birdy lady asked. Carol, she’d said to call
her. “Mrs Lang didn’t say.”

They
explained.

“Well, you
never know…” Carol said.

No, you never
did.

“It could be
an omen,” Carol decided. “If I can get these feathers patched
up…”

Yes, maybe the
bride and groom would patch things up, too.

Patch things
up. The phrase didn’t fit what had gone wrong, Sarah thought, but
Carol was so happy with her omen. Lainie didn’t seem to want to
disillusion her, either. “Let’s hope that’s what happens,” she said
kindly.

Coming past
the church, their way was blocked by a horse and carriage waiting
in the narrow road. Something was amiss. “The bride hasn’t even
shown yet,” someone said to the carriage driver. “They haven’t even
started.”

Lainie and
Sarah both leaned their heads out their windows in hope of working
out what was going on, whether they should backtrack and find
another route. The driver of the horse and carriage was insistent.
He’d been booked for an hour, starting now. He had to leave again
at four, for another event. The guests were milling about,
hostility in the air.

Someone said,
“If she shows at all.”

“So should I
wait?” the driver asked.

“I sure hope
it goes ahead,” Lainie murmured. “This would be the second weekend
in a row for Mac to have a dramatic cancelation. His congregation
might begin to wonder. He could…” She spread her hands, taking them
off the wheel. “…lose business, I’m talking as if he’s a
realtor.”

They saw Mac
himself come out, flanked by two men and led by a woman in peacock
blue, marching in her stilettos. He didn’t see Lainie and Sarah,
although Lainie watched him like a dog watching for table scraps.
He nodded and frowned and tried to put a word in edgeways while his
companions fought each other for his agreement on whatever issue
had opened a chasm between the guests.

The bridal
limousine arrived at last, and the driver of the horse and carriage
reluctantly agreed that he should go park his conveyance over by
the church. Lainie put her Buick into drive gear, but then two of
the guests suddenly starting screeching at each other right in the
road in front of the horses, and one, in leopard print, ripped off
the other’s fascinator hat, tearing her up-do apart.

It fell in
wacky, unintended loops on the back of her head where she couldn’t
see, and she screeched more, and a man who was probably the bride’s
father jumped out of the white bridal limo and strode up to one of
the men flanking Mac.

The man threw
a mighty punch, which Mac managed to deflect with a great, deft,
lightning fast handcuff of a grip onto the puncher’s wrist, right
after the instant when he saw Lainie sitting in her driver’s seat,
engine idling.

Sarah saw
Mac’s face, alert and panicked and glitter-eyed and pleased all at
the same time, his strong hand in the perfect grip, and beside her
at the wheel, Lainie flushed to the roots of her hair and buried
her face in her hands. “Oh God, he’s not going to have a clue what
we’re doing here, that we’re only trying to drive by.”

Mac saw
Lainie’s dropped head and pressed his lips together, but his
attention was required elsewhere. The horse and carriage began to
move forward. In another half minute they would be able to get
through.

“You like him,
Lainie, don’t you!” Sarah accused, as if they were both twelve.

The bride had
gathered her big puffy dress and rushed out of the limo. “If you
ruin my wedding, you skank – ” It wasn’t clear to Sarah if she was
talking to the woman with the tumbled up-do, or the one in leopard
print. “ – I will burn down your goddamned house!” Her face said
she knew how to pour gasoline and light a match. “Dad?” She grabbed
his arm and swept into the church and seconds later a loud
recording of Pachelbel’s Canon started up.

Mac put the
intended punch victim in the hands of the tumbled up-do lady,
because it didn’t seem as if she had any immediate intention of
hitting or screeching at him. Leopard print hissed at the other
man, “Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?” With firm
touches to their backs and shoulders Mac coaxed them all into the
church without further profanity or violence.

“Wow,” Sarah
murmured. “So Emma’s wedding could have been worse.”

“Poor Mac!”
Lainie drove shakily down to the main road. “Didn’t he handle it
well? I wish I could speak to him…”

“Oh Lainie,
you… like… him…” Sarah repeated, then immediately wanted to
apologize because Lainie looked hunted and mortified, and why act
as if they were twelve? That probably wasn’t appropriate or fun
when you were something like fifty-two. The age difference involved
in this friendship suddenly seemed significant, in a way it hadn’t
over the margaritas on Monday night.

Lainie flapped
her hands. “It’s all right. It wouldn’t have worked. We’ve been
through that already.”

“What, you and
Mac? But I think he likes you, too. From the way he looked at
you.”

“But he said –
“

“You’ve talked
about it?”

“People under
thirty aren’t the only ones who ever go to bed on the first date,
you know. Not that we did that. Or kissed, or anything. But we had
such a good talk at the wedding rehearsal and when I went back on
Sunday to look for the garment bag, it was a bit obvious and we had
coffee, but we started talking about God and our views differed and
that was that.”

“Your views
differed? I want to tell you that’s pathetic as a reason for not –
But I guess maybe not, since he’s a man of the church, but the way
he was looking at you, all panicky and important, I have to tell
you, Lainie, I don’t think this is over.”

“I know.” She
buried her face in her hands again. She’d paused at the stop sign
on the corner. “I don’t think it’s over, either. I could use a
drink.”

“Me, too.”

“Seriously?”

“At the
Craigmore? If we want to be ironic…”

Lainie
laughed, then added, “But it’ll have to be a quick one, and then
I’ll drop you home. I’m meeting some buyers at one of my listings
at four-thirty.”

So they went
to the Craigmore, not because of the irony of it being Emma and
Charlie’s reception venue, as well as the place that Sarah had
presented gift-wrapped to treacherous Luke, but because it was so
gorgeous there, out on the island, sitting in the bar with the big
semicircle of French windows opened up to the summer air, sipping
mimosas and watching the boats on the lake and the shadings of blue
on the mountains. Emma and Charlie would have had the most
spectacular wedding reception here.