The Ramblers (30 page)

“You may kiss the bride.”

O
ne step at a time. That's all Smith needs to do. She positions her flowers near her belly button as the wedding planner instructed. She concentrates on going slowly, but this proves a challenge; she's far more nervous than she ever expected to be. All along, she's seen this wedding as a hurdle to clear, as something to get through; not once did she seriously consider that it would shake her up like this. Her lips quiver as she smiles and approaches the front of the church.

She didn't shed a tear yesterday afternoon at the rehearsal. It was all business, a logistical puzzling of who stands where and who walks when and who says what, but today is a different story. When her father and Sally are halfway down the aisle at the vast St. Bart's Church, Smith feels herself welling up. It could be the music. Church
music—its haunting, echoing innocence—has always moved her, but whatever the true cause, she's crying. She tries to keep the tears from falling, worries about her makeup running, but surrenders; it's not up to her. Eyes wet, she peers down at her maid-of-honor bouquet, a stunning spray of white orchids tied with blush-colored ribbons.

She locks eyes with some cousins in from Boston, spies a few of Sally and Briggs's preppy classmates from Princeton, spots Clio and Henry. As she reaches her spot near the altar, she does her duty, crouching down to fan out Sally's lace train on the floor. She takes Sally's bridal bouquet, a more robust version of her own, to hold. She looks around the enormous church, taking in the stained glass and carved wood, and then fixes her gaze on her parents in the front row. Her father is stuffed into his tuxedo and her mother looks positively regal in her navy gown. Smith notices something; they are holding hands. Not lightly, but tightly. They are clutching each other hard, veins popping from their hands. They both have tears in their eyes.

Smith peers out at the sea of guests—the final count was over three hundred—her eyes scanning row by row, but she can't find Tate. The pastor begins the ceremony, welcoming everyone to this happy, blessed occasion. Words rise from him like smoke, familiar words, words Smith's had occasion to hear dozens of times in the past several years. So many friends have gotten married, so many friends have asked her to be a bridesmaid, and she knows that she's become jaded about it all, maybe a drop bitter, but what bitterness has built up is gone now as she stands here. She's thankful for this.

Sally's best friend, Gemma, another Princeton grad and a junior partner at a law firm, stands to give a reading. Sally was willing to get married in a church—an absolute must for Briggs's family—as long as Sally could select at least one nonreligious reading. She and Smith spent hours huddled together on Sally's bed, books splayed open all around them, a laptop cracked for searches, sifting through potential passages, interpreting them, and narrowed it down to an excerpt from
Rilke's
Letters to a Young Poet
. Gemma, a stunning and petite redhead, reads now.

For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation . . . Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person . . . it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances . . .

But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exists, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole before an immense sky.

Smith listens to the tumble of words. The interesting thing, the inspiring thing, is that today they have new meaning. Today, as she stands here at this altar bursting with flowers, wearing her bridesmaid dress, the words feel fresh and she rolls them over in her mind. Love as ultimate task. Loving as inducement for self-actualization. The persistence of an infinite distance between people who love each other. Wholeness before an immense sky.

It is the words that hit her more than the music, more than the portrait of her parents' abiding and complicated affection, these words that are perfect and well chosen, reflective of the complexity and realness of love, of commitment. She catches Sally's eye. They exchange quick sister smiles. The pastor carries on, his words ephemeral and fuzzy, but then sharp.

“You may kiss the bride.”

Smith watches her sister throw her arms up around Briggs's neck. The kiss is neither safe nor scripted. It is real and lingering and they carry on as if they've forgotten their audience, as if they are not in a holy place.

Everyone erupts. Clapping, hooting, hollering. And this is when Smith spots Tate. He's toward the back, off to the right, in the suit they picked together. His Leica—she's learning some photography language—hangs around his neck. He catches her looking and even from the distance, she can make out his wry smile. She gives a small wave.

Clio jogs over, hugs Smith quickly before the wedding guests are ushered back to the Waldorf for cocktails before the reception, but Smith stays put at the church with her family and the wedding party for more pictures. Tate waits with her. She catches him snapping some pictures of his own. When it's time for them to head to the hotel, he inserts himself in the inner circle and links his arm in hers.

“Solid job up there,” he says.

“Thanks. The hard part is yet to come, though.”

Her speech. The thing that she's worried about on and off for the better part of a year, a writing assignment that's rattled her far more than even the prospect of writing an entire book.

“I have a hunch it will go just fine,” he says as they walk. “I'm not sure I've met a smarter person.”

“No need for the superlatives, buddy.”

“It's only the truth.”

“You're embarrassing me,” she says, feeling her cheeks redden. She's got to admit that it's nice to hear these things.

“About earlier,” he says. “I think I know—”

“I don't want to talk about this morning,” Smith says, cutting him off, feeling embarrassed. “Not now.”

They walk ahead of the group and arrive at the Waldorf's main entrance on Park Avenue before the rest of them.

“It's wild that my parents got married here so many years ago,” she says, looking up at the lit-up brick and limestone façade of this historic hotel that occupies an entire city block.

He grins, peers down at the sidewalk. “There's an abandoned train platform—track sixty-one—under us. I guess it was built to carry freight from Grand Central and then it became an underground station for VIPs to secretly enter the hotel. There was this enormous elevator big enough to hold FDR's bulletproof car. And there's a train car down there. I read that Warhol hosted a famous video art exhibition down there in the sixties.”

“Is that so?” she says, laughing.

“Tell me that's not cool.”

“It's cool.”

“Did you know that this is one of the largest art deco structures still standing? An official city landmark. One thousand four hundred thirteen guest rooms, no two alike; forty-seven stories; first choice of the presidents. This was the first hotel to ever offer room service. The Waldorf salad was invented here by a chef named Oscar and it is rumored that he came up with eggs Benedict too, to cure some VIP's raging hangover.”

“You and your city architecture obsession,” she says.

“There's nothing wrong with being obsessed,” he says.

Inside, they climb the plush carpeted steps.

He points down at the mosaic floor. “Here we have the famous
Wheel of Life
. Up there on the terrace, that was Cole Porter's piano.”

When her mother pushed Sally to get married here, Smith thought it was totally narcissistic and egotistical, but now she thinks it's kind of cool, in a full-circle way. Sally didn't want the Grand Ballroom, though. She picked the younger, hipper spot on the top floor with the blazing blue retractable roof.

They walk past the big clock tower.

“It was once at the Empire State Building. Nine feet tall, two tons, made of bronze, created for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.”

They reach the elevator bank, where the rest of the wedding party catches up with them.

“You going to make sure my daughter behaves herself?” Thatcher says, pounding Tate on the back.

Tate grins. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

Thatcher guffaws.

They all pile in and ride the elevator to the top floor. When they step out, they spill out into a hallway lined in black and white photos of the “good old days.” Photos of celebrities—Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, and more. Tate pauses to inspect them.

“In its heyday, this place was a high-society supper club,” Smith says. “Everyone came. Diplomats. Presidents. Sheiks. Endless celebrities. People came to eat and drink and listen to music.”

“Pretty rad,” he says. And this word makes her chuckle. It's such a surfer word.

They keep walking and see that the cocktail hour is in full swing. Smith spies the artisanal cocktail bar next to the champagne bar and leads Tate over. “I don't suppose you want to try lavender-infused champagne?”

“Why not?” he says.

A live musician plays along with a DJ. Sally and Briggs make their rounds. She's taken her hair down and it cascades in natural curls around her face. Guests flock to an enormous seafood bar. Smith takes Tate's hand and leads him over. He loads a plate with shellfish.

“You willing to part with one of your slimy old oysters?”

“Really?” he says.

“Really.”

He lifts the shell and tilts it over her open mouth, watches it slide down. She swallows, cringes slightly, but recovers.

“Was it that bad?” he says.

“Kind of,” she says, laughing, dabbing her mouth with a cloth napkin.

When they all walk into the Starlight Roof, Smith feels as if she's been transported to another time and place.

“Holy crap,” Tate says, sipping his drink.

“Exactly,” she says, looking around. She's only been in the space once before—last year when Sally was scouting locations—but it's been utterly transformed into a Sally-and-Briggs wonderland. Long banquet tables flank the central dance floor for the younger folks. Big, romantic candelabras sit on draped pale gold silk, surrounded by collars of white flowers—orchids, hydrangeas, dahlias. The older set—friends of the parents—are seated at round tables around the periphery of the room, closer to the wall-to-wall windows boasting sweeping views of Manhattan. Tall branches burst from the center of each table, creating a subtle forest effect. A twelve-piece band starts playing on a balcony above. But the ceiling—a cobalt art deco installation—is, by far, the pièce de résistance.

“I've never in my life seen anything like this,” Tate says, looking around, lifting his camera to take photographs.

“We're not in Missouri anymore, Toto.”

“A monogrammed dance floor? Is that normal?”

“None of this is normal, Tate.” Smith laughs. “But we might as well enjoy it.”

They walk around, cocktails in hand. Low-profile white lounge chairs and couches line the outermost edges of the room, by the windows. There are two old-fashioned photo booths.

“What's a selfie station?” Tate says, pointing to a cordoned-off area with an open laptop.

“You don't even want to know. Basically you pose in front of that screen and hit Confirm and it is automatically sent to Instagram under the hashtag sallyandbriggs.”

“They have a wedding hashtag?” he says, laughing. “Smith, this is nuts.”

A voice comes over a microphone. “Let's all welcome, for the first time as a married couple, Sally and Briggs!”

Everyone gathers around the dance floor and looks toward the entrance. Briggs glides Sally over and they slip through a break in the crowd onto the floor. She can tell her sister is nervous because she can't stop laughing.

Everyone waits. The band begins playing the instrumental intro to Frank Sinatra's “The Way You Look Tonight.”

Smith fixes her gaze on the balcony, on the barely visible door. And then it happens. The door opens and Harry Connick Jr. walks through in his trademark dark suit and shirt. She grabs Tate's arm and points up.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit. Are you kidding me?” he says, looking at her, eyes wide.

“Nope. Thatcher pulled it off. I knew he was trying, but I didn't know it would actually happen.”

Harry begins crooning, his unmistakable voice filling the cavernous space. “Some day, when I'm awfully low / When the world is cold / I will feel a glow just thinking of you / And the way you look tonight.”

Smith watches her sister's head swing up toward the balcony and she nearly melts into Briggs. She looks around the dance floor, catches Smith's eye. “What in the world?” she mouths.

Smith watches her parents. They beam. It's plain that they are proud. The crowd goes absolutely wild, many people singing along. Sally can barely dance, she's so beside herself. So much for all those dance lessons. Her smile has never been bigger. Briggs steps on her dress over and over and they continue to dissolve into ebullient laughter, pausing only to kiss.

When the song is over, he stands there,
Harry Connick Jr.
stands there—this is pretty hard to wrap her mind around—and waves down to Sally and Briggs. “Congratulations, you two,” he says. And then he is gone, through that door again, and everyone seems rightfully stunned.

“So. That just happened,” Smith says.