Father of the Bride (17 page)

A wedding was like the experimental explosion of an atom bomb, thought Mr. Banks as he walked out behind his wife, smirking to right and left. You made the most careful preparations for months, then someone like Mr. Tringle pressed a button—and it was all over. There was scarcely any present tense in connection with weddings. They existed either in the future or in the past.

“Stanley, your hat looks like a cat in a thunderstorm,” said Mrs. Banks as they descended the entrance steps of the church. “But it was lovely, darling, wasn’t it?”

He walked out behind his wife, smirking to right and left.

   15   

RECEPTION

It is traditional that, between the church and the house, wedding guests are free agents. This is the one period in the schedule where they can express their own individuality.

The majority appreciate this unsupervised interlude and are apt to turn it into a kind of hare-and-hound race in which the bride, groom and immediate progenitors are the hares, the guests assuming the role of hounds.

The latter are held in check briefly by a few yards of satin ribbon and a rear guard of ushers whose hearts are no longer in their work. Scarcely have the hares disappeared down the striped tunnel of awning than the pack is after them with lolling tongues.

Gone the little pre-wedding courtesies when one car waited politely for another to pull in to the curb and friends exchanged genial words of greeting while trying to crawl out of underslung sedans. Now it is every man for himself,
sauve qui peut,
and devil take the hindmost, for the last man to arrive at the house knows that he must spend the balance of the afternoon standing in the reception line watching his more active neighbors guzzling free champagne.

•  •  •

Mr. and Mrs. Banks arrived at 24 Maple Drive a few minutes behind the bridal party. During their absence Mr. Massoula had taken over completely in accordance with his promises. His Buckingham Caterers were darting about like Walt Disney gnomes.

Mr. Massoula met them at the front door. “Everything is in hand,” he said. “Don’t worry about anything. Go right into the living room. They’re taking pictures of the bridal party.”

In the living room Mr. Weisgold of Weisgold and Weisgold was perspiring freely and photographing the bridal party in various combinations. Those not engaged in being self-consciously photogenic stood about making wisecracks about those who were, between deep draughts of Mr. Banks’ champagne, which had already begun to flow. A Buckingham representative approached with a tray full of glasses.

Mr. Banks took one. He felt like those men in the whiskey ads who go through nerve-shattering experiences in jungles or on mountain precipices, then, their job well done, settle down calmly with friends in the last picture to a glass of their favorite grog. He had also gone through his own private ordeal and, he thought complacently, not without distinction. Now it was all over but the shouting. “Don’t go away,” he hissed to the waiter.

The bridesmaids were being photographed. Finally the Bankses and the Dunstans took their places before the flash bulbs. Mr. Weisgold’s ability to produce an endless supply of bulbs fascinated Mr. Banks. The man must have been a hand grenade thrower in the war.

Over Mr. Weisgold’s shoulder he suddenly noticed a cluster of faces in the doorway of the living room. Behind them were other faces. Faces jammed the front doorway. Through the window he could see them stretching in close formation halfway down the walk. Mr. Massoula blocked the entrance to the living room with firm urbanity, like the headwaiter of the Persian Room on a busy night.

He noticed a cluster of faces in the doorway.

The faces that peered at him were not of the happy, laughing type traditionally associated with wedding feasts. They were, rather, the glum, frustrated faces of those who had broken their fenders to get there early and were now denied the fruits of their sacrifices. They were the faces of citizens who definitely wanted to get this runkydunk over with and proceed with the main business of the afternoon.

Mr. Weisgold stopped flashing. The receiving line suddenly snapped to attention as if at the bark of a phantom drill sergeant. Mr. Massoula stepped aside nimbly to avoid being trampled. Mr. Banks never had a connected memory of the next forty-five minutes.

No one had told him whether or not he was to be part of the receiving line. For a moment he decided against it. Then it occurred to him that if he just stood in the middle of the living room he might be mistaken for the caterer. He slid quietly into place between his wife and Mrs. Dunstan as the first guest began to pump Mrs. Banks’ arm.

It became immediately apparent that one of his duties was to introduce the guests to Mrs. Dunstan. Introducing one old friend to another had always been enough to give him complete aphasia. On ordinary occasions when guests arrived he disappeared into the pantry and busied himself with the refreshment department, leaving to Mrs. Banks the task of making people known to one another.

Those who were now so eagerly pushing forward to shake his hand were, for the most part, lifelong friends. In spite of this he fell immediately into his accustomed groove and could not remember anyone’s name. Occasionally he would recollect their first names, but he couldn’t very well say to Mrs. Dunstan, “This is Joe and Booboo.” For once his retreat to the pantry was blocked.

Mrs. Banks felt herself jabbed from the rear with a thumb. She jumped slightly and turned toward her husband with the injured look common to all people when jabbed unexpectedly from the rear. “Sing out the last names,” he whispered desperately.

Mrs. Banks glanced at him anxiously. She knew he had been going through a considerable strain, but she had hoped with all her being that he would hold together for another couple of hours. “Why, Jack and Nancy
Hilliard\
” she cried gaily. “My dear, you look adorable. Yes. Wasn’t it. I am so glad you thought so. And Grace
Lippincott
, I am so glad you could get here.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Lippincott,” mumbled Mr. Banks uncertainly in the general direction of Mrs. Dunstan. “I mean—that is to say—Mr. and Mrs. Hilliard.”

He gave it up. He found that, by turning to the next pair of guests before they left Mrs. Banks, it was possible to pass up the whole business and let Mrs. Dunstan rock along as best she could. After all, she would probably never see any of these people again. Maybe she had something there.

Mr. Weisgold struggled through the line. “Look- it,” he complained. “You told me you was goin’ to have somebody with me to tell me who to shoot. I can’t shoot no specials if I dunno who they are.”

Mr. Banks looked despairingly around for Ben and Tommy. He had covered this point with the greatest care. Both had assured him that they would not leave Mr. Weisgold’s side come hell or high water. Now they had disappeared. “Good God,” he said. “Find one of the boys. Find one of the ushers. I’ve got my hands full here and besides I don’t know who these people are any more than you do. Shoot anybody for all I care. Shoot them all. How do you do. So nice to see you. Wasn’t it? Yes, she
is
a grand girl.”

“O.K.,” said Mr. Weisgold. “You’ll get what you get. I ain’t no mind reader.”

A battle-ax of a woman was wringing his hand. “Buckley is my sweetheart,” she was saying. “I have known him since he was a little boy.” She released his hand to indicate how very tiny Buckley was. “He used to visit us at North Deering, you know. I expect he’s told you all about me. I am Mrs. Butterton. Mrs.
Matilda
Butterton. Buckley was a darling little—” Mr. Banks took her great hand in both of his and transferred it to Mrs. Dunstan.

If only people wouldn’t stop and talk. There should be a law requiring them to pass silently in front of receiving lines the way they did before the biers of statesmen. They were still pouring in the front door. Glancing through the window, he could see the line extending beyond his field of vision. God knew where it ended. Had someone issued a general invitation by radio?

“Well, well, well.” It was Joe Bludsoe and his diminutive wife. Joe was exuding good-fellowship and looking as if he might have apoplexy at any moment. “So you’re on your way to joining the grandfather’s club, eh? Well, well, well, I’m glad you lived through the wedding. God, you certainly looked awful when you came down that aisle. I said to Martha, ‘Let me go out and drag him off the course. He’s never going to make it.’ You don’t look so good now either. Still look green. When Mary was married—”

He continued to pump Mr. Banks’ arm rhythmically. Mr. Banks transferred him to Mrs. Dunstan without causing him to miss a beat. “How do you do, Mrs. Karp,” he said. “It was good of you to come. Oh, excuse me. Of course. Mrs. Park. Why, of course I knew it. Yes, we couldn’t be happier about the whole thing.”

It was over at last and not a minute too soon. If another person had injected himself into the living room the receiving line would have been squeezed into the fireplace.

Something was wrong, very wrong, with Mr. Massoula’s “circulation.” Theoretically the guests were supposed to slither off the end of the reception line, through a French door, and into the marquee where Mr. Massoula had set up his bar and buffet tables. It was all laid out like a pinball game.

Something was wrong with Mr. Massoula’s “circulation.
”

The first few couples to come off the line, however, had chosen the French door in which to hold a long, eager conversation. Those who followed had merely rebounded from this obstacle back into the living room. The pinball idea still held, but it was not working according to plan.

Mr. Massoula’s gnomes were so efficient that no one needed to go to the bar anyway. They slid like eels through the melee, mysteriously carrying trays full of champagne glasses where no amateur could have transported an uncorked bottle.

It seemed to Mr. Banks that these busy little figures must be paid on a piece basis—so much per glass dispensed. Never had he seen men more devoted to their work. The moment a person tilted his glass they were at his elbow waiting eagerly with a fresh supply. It was true that he had told Mr. Massoula to keep things moving. He had merely been thinking of other weddings where he had stood around for hours with an empty glass talking to someone whose name he did not know. It was one thing to avoid that and another to hurl the stuff down people’s throats every time they opened their mouths.

The sickening idea occurred to him that at this rate it would be all gone in half an hour. For the third time that day he felt damp and clammy. His emotions were beginning to set up a distasteful system of hot and cold running perspiration.