Once More with Feeling (3 page)

Laura had wanted to recapture the same poetic feeling created by the director and his cameramen and set designers—without the overlay of tragedy, of course. At the same time she was determined to plan a wedding as unique as the newly formed unit called Laura-and-Roger.

In each photograph there were signs that every element had been personalized, every detail carefully thought out. The house itself was funky, right out of a Grimms’ fairy tale, with its wonderful towers and turrets and gingerbread trim. Huge windows opened onto impressive views, not only of the rich oranges and reds of autumn trees, but also of the sea. The water was a calm expanse of blue dotted with sailboats that, from so high up on the cliff, looked like toys. Dark, old-fashioned oil portraits of stern-faced strangers, picked up at auctions and garage sales, lined the house’s walls. Wicker chairs and love seats, mismatched tables and lamps, and a scattering of throw rugs furnished the interior. The mansion’s most notable attribute, its porch, wrapped around three sides of the house and afforded an even more magnificent view of the water.

The photographs showed how Laura had superimposed over this dramatic backdrop her own interpretations of all the traditional elements of a wedding. The three-tiered cake was chocolate. Her bouquet was a cluster of colorful wildflowers. As for the food, it wasn’t catered by some slick organization that descended like a SWAT team, administering hummus and chicken cordon bleu with coldhearted efficiency. Instead it had been made with love by the friend of a friend with a knack for preparing tricolor pasta salad and teriyaki chicken in cauldron-sized quantities.

Even her wedding dress, on page three directly underneath a shot of the wooden arch Roger had built for the outdoor ceremony, showed Laura’s characteristic touch. She’d had no interest in a traditional wedding dress, one of those white creations, all ruffles and lace and fussiness. Nor had she been lucky enough to have an antique wedding dress stashed in a trunk somewhere, its lace yellowed, its satin ribbons fraying.

And so she’d searched endlessly for the right dress, finally finding it in a boutique in New York’s trendy SoHo district. Because it was meant to be worn at parties without a ‘Till Death Do Us Part” theme, her selection wasn’t white or even cream-colored. It was pale yellow, with large pink flowers and mint green leaves and, around the waist, a floppy green sash. Made of soft rayon, the dress hung flatteringly, the bodice clingy, the skirt giving way at the hips to generous folds that swished and swirled deliciously when she moved.

Yes, she’d been determined that she and Roger were going to do things their own way. They were both going into this with their eyes open. They would avoid the traps other couples fell into. They would be open with each other. They would talk ... and they would listen. Above all, they would never lose the feeling of connection, the conviction that they were two kindred spirits who’d banded together against whatever the rest of the world would be throwing their way.

There’d been compromises, of course. Looking back, Laura could now see the early signs of the problems that would come to haunt them. The first had arisen, of all things, over beverages.

She and Roger had agreed that the only alcohol they wanted served at their wedding was champagne. Champagne was so light and bubbly. So sophisticated. So French. Yet his parents, Sylvia and Fred, were appalled when they learned there’d be no scotch, gin, or other such staples for their friends. After all, the freshly retired men in kelly green pants and their wives, thick-waisted yachting and golf widows, constituted a segment of the population that never embarked upon a social event without a drink in hand.

“Let us take care of it,” Sylvia had insisted. “It’ll be our contribution.”

‘They’re your parents. Just tell them we want to do it our own way,” she pleaded. How desperately she wanted him to side with her. To stand up for what was supposed to be their wedding, custom-designed by this brand-new entity, separate and strong.

Instead, Roger simply shrugged.

“Let’s just do it their way,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “If having an open bar for their friends is that important to them, let them have it. After all, they did offer to pay for it.”

And so instead of the delicate sound of champagne glasses tinkling in the background, the Walsh-Briggs affair was accompanied by the clunk of ice cubes dropping into gin and tonics and Seven and Sevens. Even more of a presence were the roars of male laughter as Fred, playing bartender, would slap one of his buddies on the back and bark out the punch line of an off-color joke.

Roger’s parents got involved in other ways as well. Sylvia, in particular. Laura, looking over her shoulder for Roger’s approval, made a point of asking her mother-in-law-to-be for advice.

“Sylvia, I need help ordering flowers. Nothing ostentatious. In fact, I’d prefer something simple . . . like wildflowers.”

“Flowers? Don’t worry about flowers,” Sylvia insisted with a wave of her hand. “I’ll take care of it. I’d love to help out.”

Laura was touched, and the fact that Sylvia was willing to do some of the legwork was only part of it. Laura was paying for her own wedding, and with Roger out of work—a temporary situation, he assured her—her budget was already tight.
“Thank
you. Sylvia, that’s so sweet of you. I also need something to wear in place of a veil. I was thinking of a wreath of flowers, something with baby’s breath—”

“I’ll take care of it”

Laura smiled shyly. “What about a boutonniere for Roger? You’re already being so generous, but isn’t that fairly standard?”

“Oh, yes. And one for his brother, and one for Fred, and one for your father ... but don’t even think about it. I’ll take care of it.”

Sure enough, the flowers arrived right on schedule.

Huge bouquets, more luxurious than anything Laura could ever have envisioned. Dozens of roses, yellow and white. A wreath for her hair, exotic blossoms interlaced with baby’s breath. For the men there were white carnations. When the florist delivered them all to the Darlings’ house on the morning of the wedding, Laura was overwhelmed by their opulence. It wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind, of course, but she hardly felt in a position to complain.

After the flowers were brought inside, the florist pressed the bill into the palm of Sylvia’s hand. Without even glancing at it, she handed it to Laura.

“Here, Laura. Take care of it.”

An hour before the wedding, Laura headed out to a field to pick her own bouquet, pink and purple wildflowers, which she tied together with a scrap of ribbon pulled off the florist’s version. In the end, she decided not even to mention it to Roger. She’d already learned an important lesson from
Champagne
v.
The Hard Stuff.

Not that he was around. Though Laura and Roger had agreed to see to all the last-minute details together, he was nowhere to be found. Mystified about his whereabouts, growing more and more fidgety by the minute, she finally decided to take it on faith that he’d show up for his own wedding. She retreated to her hotel room to dress.

As the hour of the ceremony drew close, he still had not appeared. Wearing her wedding dress, her hair hanging halfway down her back and crowned by the somewhat overdone wreath Sylvia and her chichi florist had cooked up, she searched the Darlings’ property. She finally discovered him in the garage, bent over a stack of wooden slats, sawing. He was wearing jeans and a ripped T-shirt, covered in sweat and badly in need of a shave.

“What are you doing?” she gasped. “It’s three-thirty, and the wedding’s at four!”

“I’ll make it,” he assured her, not even glancing up. “I thought it’d be a nice touch to have an arch for the judge to stand in front of. Isn’t that a great idea?”

The local judge showed up a few minutes later, looking spiffy in his suit, playing the role of small-town bureaucrat with impressive skill. Laura, her stomach in knots, tried her best to be gracious. She handed him a copy of the ceremony she’d written. She considered it one of the most important tokens of her desire to personalize her wedding and was proud of it.

Everything was ready. The guests were seated in a collection of odd chairs—folding, lawn, wooden dining room ones—set out in uneven rows on the back lawn, overlooking the harbor. The arch was in place, with yellow roses—incredibly expensive yellow roses—interwoven into the latticework. As four o’clock gave way to five after, then ten after, the crowd whispered and squirmed in their seats. Roger’s scraggly-haired brother, Dirk, wearing shades and what looked dangerously like a white Nehru jacket, was supplying the music for the occasion. He strummed his guitar, glancing around nervously as he launched into his fourth rendition of “Here Comes the Sun.”

“It’s after four,” the judge complained.

“I know,” Laura replied, her head spinning. “But we can’t start yet. The groom isn’t here.”

He checked his watch. “If we don’t get started in five minutes, I’m going to have to leave.”

“You can’t leave!” Laura cried, clutching her bouquet of wildflowers so tightly that a few of the purple blossoms up and died. “There are a hundred fifty people out there! They’re all expecting a wedding. A lot of them drove out here all the way from the city. Most of them brought presents!”

The judge didn’t look impressed. With a shrug, he told her, “Five minutes.”

“What’s going on, man?” asked Dirk.

“Just keep playing,” Laura hissed.

The judge was still engaged in his countdown when Roger finally appeared, surprising Laura by coming up behind her and throwing his arms around her waist.

“See?” he said playfully. “I made it. And the arch looks fantastic, if I do say so myself.”

Like so many brides before her, Laura took the long, measured walk down the aisle, which in this instance was a somewhat rocky trek from the back of the Darlings’ garage to the handcrafted wooden arch. Standing in front of it was the judge with his Brooks Brothers look. Beside him was Dirk with his Allman Brothers look. She tried to float, rather than merely walk, and to adopt an appropriately serene expression. It wasn’t easy, given her state of agitation over Roger’s tardiness, the judge’s surliness, and the fact that if she heard “Here Comes the Sun” one more time, she was certain she’d scream.

“Friends of Laura and Roger,” the judge began, reading from the crumpled piece of paper in his hands, “today we have gathered together to share in the new life upon which these two kindred spirits are about to embark together....”

Laura relaxed. Glancing to the side, she could see Roger, looking handsome indeed in his borrowed suit. There was an odd expression on his face, a sort of smirk, that she attributed to nerves. She could hardly blame him. After all, she was feeling the same way.

The fact that she was taking a giant step was only part of it. What seemed even more significant at the moment was the fact that the two of them were the center of attention. More than a hundred people had showered and shaved, made up and perfumed, dressed and overdressed, all on their behalf. Over three hundred chicken parts were piled high in the Darlings’ kitchen, smothered in a special teriyaki sauce that had been created in their honor. An embarrassing number of presents were stacked up on the window seat in the dining room, enough glassware, silverware, ceramicware, and small appliances to outfit an embassy.

At that moment, in a blinding flash, Laura came to a terrible realization. All the drama of weddings, the
pomp
and circumstance, the engraved invitations and the quest to find the perfect shoes and the decisions about flowers, napkins, music, the number of tiers in the cake, the type of filling in between the layers of the cake, the color of the sugar roses on top of the cake ... it was all meant to be a distraction. A distraction from a truth so monumental, so terrifying, so incredibly overwhelming, that to confront it head-on would have been devastating.

That truth was that she and Roger, this man who suddenly seemed like a total stranger, were about to intertwine their lives forever.

When she’d sat down to write her own wedding ceremony, Laura had made a point of omitting the clichés. All that business about sickness and health, better or worse, richer or poorer. Especially the part about death. Yet standing in front of the judge, listening to him stumble over words that had sounded so beautiful and so sincere in her own head, she understood that whether those words were spoken as part of the ceremony or not, they still spelled out what she was in for.

What am I doing?
The thought was accompanied by a wave of panic so great that for a fraction of a second she was tempted to flee. But it was too late. Struggling to focus on what the judge was saying in a voice as lyrical as that of a newscaster reciting the Dow Jones report, she realized he was almost at the end.

They were getting to the “I do” part. This was her last chance to change her mind. To back out. Yet through the fog that had enveloped her, she heard herself say the words. “I do.”

There were more of the judge’s mumblings, and then Roger echoed those same words. “I do.”

And she heard, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Snapping out of her reverie, Laura opened her mouth to protest. Wait a minute! she wanted to cry. I wrote that
husband
and wife! We’re both changing our status here, not just me!

She didn’t have a chance to voice her protest. Roger was kissing her. A crowd was surrounding them, cooing like a flock of pigeons. Dirk had launched into a spirited version of
You Are the Sunshine of My Life.

It was over. She was married. This man who was kissing her was her partner for life.

Laura Briggs was no longer simply Laura Briggs. She was a wife.

* * * *

As she heard Roger fit his key into the backdoor lock, the pounding of her heart increased alarmingly. She stashed the wedding album back on the shelf.

“I figured you’d wait up,” Roger said.

Laura just nodded. She couldn’t help noticing he was even better looking than he’d been on TV. It wasn’t only his tall, dark, and handsome look; it was also the way he carried himself, with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.