Then She Found Me (32 page)

I mingle. Dwight’s mother and sister are being entertained by Anne-Marie. From across the room I hear a lot of
Aprils
and
Dwights
in her monologue and know she is telling them her fairy godmother version of us. I join
Bernice’s three employees, bunched together and looking uncomfortable. We have never talked about Bernice. I have always imagined her to be a difficult boss, and imagined if we ever exchanged sardonic glances or rolled our eyes just so, we’d be confidantes forever. I thank them for coming tonight and say, “I’ve never seen Bernice quite like this.”

Gwen, the production assistant with the longest tenure, says, “Like what?”

“Happy, having a good time. Not ‘on.’”

They laugh nervously. I ask if she was in this good a mood at work today. The three look to Bernice in the kitchen. She is wearing pot holder mitts and a red organdy half-apron over her Chinese silk sheath, arranging casseroles on trivets with cheerful energy. She is actually taking directions from the Harvard butler; after the student speaks, Bernice rearranges the crockery to create space for a large salad bowl. She stands back and admires her work, then turns to accept her next assignment.

“She’s probably relieved with the way everything turned out,” says Patti, the secretary. “She was real worried that you might cancel your dinner tonight or that you might really hate the idea of a bridal shower.”

“Imagine if you hated this,” Gwen murmurs. “The party would have been a disaster. All these people would have to be sent home. You’d be angry at her … she’d get angry at you….”

“Was she really that worried?”

They all nod as if it’s not the first time they’ve been brought in to worry about that touchy April. I ask if there’s something else—has Bernice seen Jack?

“Jack?” says Patti.

“It’s not Jack,” says Gwen. “It’s this—her daughter, her turf, her surprise party. She thinks your friends are saying to themselves, ‘Bernice G! I’m the guest of Bernice G!’ No one’s questioning whether she belongs or what her role
is.” Gwen speaks quietly. She is reprimanding me. I look at the others. Their mouths are set, as if they agree with Gwen and are glad she had the nerve to speak for them.

“It’s all she wants,” Patti adds.

After a few moments I say, “I guess you think I’ve been really hard on her.”

Gwen’s speech has made them brave. The second p.a. (Donna? Dawn? I’m afraid to ask at this late date) says, “I guess we hear her side of it, and maybe we sometimes wonder, since your adoptive parents have passed away, why you don’t … I don’t know.”

“Bernice isn’t perfect,” Patti interrupts. “But so what? Nobody’s mother is.”

I know they are repeating what they’ve discussed among themselves for months. Their comments sound packaged, as if they’ve been begged rhetorically at staff meetings, What’s the big deal? What does April
want?

I say, “It’s nice to see how much you care about her.”

Their faces twitch with a need to say “That’s right, April. More than you ever will.”

I thank them for their counsel and excuse myself to mingle. When I look back at them a few minutes later with a smile that hints of remorse and reform, their circle has tightened and they don’t see me.

We eat with plates on our laps. Bernice doesn’t even mention the genuine suede upholstery beneath us. Everyone is given credit for her contribution: Anne-Marie the fruit kebabs, Rita the relish tray, Gwen the baked Brie with almonds, Patti the zucchini quiche, Dawn the pasta salad, Mrs. Willamee and Lorraine the spiral-cut ham and baked beans, Lizzie the gigantic tossed salad, Joan all the dips, Sheryl the homemade four-grain bread, Sonia the calamari vinaigrette.

The Harvard student, whose name is Oren, pours the
champagne and the Perrier. Bernice tells him during one refill that the guest of honor and her fiancé are Harvard people as well. When he carries our dirty dishes away, out of earshot, Anne-Marie asks Bernice if the agency puts out an illustrated catalogue or if she just lucked out.

“Do you believe it? All I said was ‘a guy, over twenty-one,’ and this is what rings my doorbell.” We laugh. Dwight’s mother smiles pleasantly, vacantly, as if reflecting on how nice for us that Harvard boys are as helpful as they are smart.

“Architecture.” Bernice announces quietly. “His fellowship covers almost nothing. He took the subway here.”

“Can we ask him to bring in the presents now?” asks Mrs. Willamee.

Anne-Marie has been to countless showers and knows the rituals. She insists we save the bows for incorporation into a loopy bouquet threaded through a paper plate. Bernice is supposed to be recording names for thank-you notes, but she lengthily expounds on each gift, neglecting her job. Oren takes over, producing a numbered list in the beautiful alphabet of architects.

“This isn’t a theme shower.” Anne-Marie tells me.

“It’s not?” I ask.

“You know—kitchen, lingerie, cash—”

“It’s eclectic,” says Lorraine.

The first present is a joint gift from Sheryl and Rita: a clock radio. I say it is wonderful—neither Dwight nor I have a decent enough alarm to bring into the new condo. Anne-Marie tells me not to rip the paper and to please hand her each bow with as much ribbon attached as possible.

Sonia’s is next: a gift certificate for a facial, manicure, massage, and pedicure at Elizabeth Arden. “Nothing for Dwight,” she apologizes.

“Except a gorgeous bride,” Bernice yells.

I thank Sonia and tell her I’ve never had even
one
of these things done to me by someone else, that I can’t wait. I’ll make my appointment the next day.

Anne-Marie’s gift wrapping includes a pair of silver doves in a pipe-cleaner cage. The paper is lacy white; the silver and gold bow, superfluous. “The inside’s not tacky,” she announces.

And she is right. It is a framed black-and-white photograph: an icy wind across the sands of Race Point. Provincetown in winter. I press the frame to me and smile above it at Anne-Marie. A clamor goes up from the guests. I explain, my voice suddenly choking, “Dwight proposed to me in Provincetown.”

They insist I pass it around. Sonia squints at the penciled signature and asks if it’s a Joel Meyerowitz. Anne-Marie says maybe; it came from a real gallery. They helped her choose the frame.

“Hand her the next one,” Bernice orders.

It is from Dwight’s mother and sister—a corkscrew, an electric coffee grinder (large capacity), and espresso cups. “Dwight gave us the idea,” his mother says apologetically.

I tell her I need all of these things, that I wanted them badly, that I will think of her and Mr. Willamee and Lorraine every morning, with every use.

A carton is next—Lizzie and Joan’s joint gift, nesting saucepans with Silverstone linings. They are sleek and long-handled. Everyone has a word of advice: season them with olive oil, use those Melomac spatulas so they won’t scratch, hang them from the ceiling, don’t put them in the dishwasher. “Gorgeous,” Bernice exudes. “Fabulous present.”

The staff of “Bernice G!” gives me a wardrobe of stationery engraved with “April Willamee,” soft gray on pale pink; the notes pale gray with pink edging. “It’s
beautiful. And a lifetime supply.” I say aloud, “April Willamee,” and everyone repeats it after me as if declining a new noun.

There is one gift left, a flat dress box, Bernice’s. I prepare myself for ostrich feathers and transparent chiffon, for pretending to like a honeymoon fantasy outfit. I open the box slowly. Tissue paper swathes something white, something crisper than nylon or silk. I see and feel white handkerchief linen, a long nightgown and a matching robe, exquisitely beautiful. Tiny embroidered knots of pale blue flowers touch the yoke, but everything else is plain. It looks like the work of French nuns; it looks like what Maria would have worn on her wedding night with Captain von Trapp. It is not what Bernice would want me to wear, certainly never anything she’d wear herself. But she picked it for me. It is
my
dream lingerie,
my
idea of what is beautiful. And she knew it.

Lizzie and Joan, with the ride back to Providence ahead of them, are the first to leave. Everyone offers to stay and help, but it is a formality: Oren has washed dishes and packaged leftovers by the time the guests ask. He’s wiped the kitchen with Formula 409, removed the leaves from the table, and is now casually drinking Perrier, awaiting further orders. “He’s a whiz,” says Anne-Marie. “I’m definitely getting him for my next party.”

“Maybe you can give him a lift to the T,” I suggest.

“We have to take care of the business end of things,” says Bernice sharply. “And there’s actually more straightening up to do.” She calls him into the foyer to help me carry the gifts. In two trips down to the building’s garage, Oren and I pack the car. I repeat Anne-Marie’s offer—does he need a ride to the T?

Oren smooths back his dark, close curls with a confident hand and says, “No, thanks.”

We wait for the elevator back up. “Your sister tells me you went to Harvard,” says Oren.

“Bernice?”

“Yeah.”

“I did. A long time ago. Before you were there.” Before you were
born,
I think. I ask him how old he is.

He smiles and says with assurance, “Twenty-five. I took a couple of years off after college.”

We ride up in silence. “One of the nicer showers I’ve done,” he says.

Bernice is sitting on the sofa, holding the bouquet of bows coquettishly.

“Thank you so much,” I tell her. “I’ll never forget a moment of this.”

“I’m giddy!” she shrieks. “I am so relieved I’m giddy! It was fabulous, wasn’t it? I throw a great bridal shower.”

I kiss her, and she kisses me back in spunky, sisterly fashion. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she says.

I say good night and thanks again; I call her Sis.

“Drive carefully,” says Bernice. She throws the bouquet at me.

“Nice meeting you, Oren. Thanks for everything,” I say, backing out.

“Have a nice wedding,” calls the dark and handsome Oren.

M
y dress is a pearly gray satin, just as Lucia imagined in her vision. She has deepened and widened the V neck of the original and given me long sleeves, which she pushes up to just below my elbows. The skirt is full—two and seven-eighths yards of satin. There is a crinoline sewn into the waist, just like the party dresses of my childhood. Bernice’s pearls are around my neck, ostensibly the “something borrowed”; later she will insist I keep them.

Jack sits next to Bernice in the front row, two seats in from the aisle. After Freddie walks me to Dwight, he joins them, takes the first chair. My back is to them now, but I imagine Bernice welcoming Freddie to the row with a quivering smile. There is my family, three abreast, Freddie, Bernice, and Jack.

They cry during the ceremony. At least I attribute the sniffling from the front row to be the work of all three. Judge Baskin raises his voice to be heard above them. Jack
honks into what I imagine is a big white golfer’s handkerchief. He is tanned already, only days after summer arrives at the Ponemah Country Club.

Dwight and I exchange the civil vows, our hands on his mother’s ancient missal. Lorraine comes forward to read from the New Testament and Freddie, my only candidate, in a yarmulke, says a Hebrew blessing. Bernice, in a polkadot taffeta suit, reads salient stanzas of Tennyson’s “Demeter and Persephone” as if she’s spotlit on a blackened stage:

She reads endlessly and sits down. There is an embarrassed shifting by guests who expected a poem of love and celebration. Judge Baskin smiles like an emcee moving on to the next talent and asks the guests to indulge him in a civil benediction. Dwight and I relax our stance and listen with our fingers entwined over our new gold rings. He says a judge’s work makes him cynical and pessimistic, even sad and angry. He sees the dark side of human nature, of people, and wonders if that evil has eclipsed all that is good and bright, if love can take root and flourish. But when there are forces in this world that bring together people like April and Dwight … well … how bad can things be? No couple seems better suited; no marriage he’s performed has made him happier. He winks at me and says he is going to show off his Latin for the occasion, then booms out,
“O si sic omnia!” Oh, if all were thus…
.

Then he says, “On to business. By the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Dwight wraps his long arms around me for a serious kiss, and I reach up to circle
his neck. Here the photographer begins the candid shots; this first one-Dwight calls it “Woman Marries Giraffe in Civil Ceremony!”—will be framed and hung, like religious art, on the wall above our headboard.

There are too few of us for dancing, so we eat and drink champagne. Freddie wants everyone eating and happy. Guests with empty plates are led laughing and protesting to the table where a chef custom-carves the hotel’s most expensive cut of beef.

Bernice holds herself in check, playing guest instead of mother. She circulates; talks for a long time, I notice, with Anne-Marie in strapless emerald green. I drift their way and ask, “What are you two conspiring over?”