Wedding Season (10 page)

“How about the matching set of eunuch servants?” James asks.

“We’ll take the towel rack,” I tell the salesgirl.

“I’ll have to see if we have any left in stock,” she says icily, and marches off with the book under her arm.

“I wanted to get the candelabras.” James pouts.

“Behave, or I’ll make you charge this to your account and
then you’ll be locked up in debtors’ prison.” I march to the register.

“You may very well end up there yourself,” James says, “with seventeen wedding gifts to purchase. And presents for bridal showers. And god knows how many bridesmaid’s ensembles with dyed-to-match shoes.”

“Thank you for reminding me. What would I do without you?”

When the salesgirl returns I hand her my credit card and she rings up the towel rack.

“Didn’t you want the pewter vibrator?” James leans over my shoulder to look at the receipt. “Six hundred dollars? Are you insane?”

“Charlotte’s our favorite aunt, remember?” I sign the slip and push it back across the counter. “Ante up.”

“She
was
our favorite aunt.”

“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,” I tell him. The salesgirl hands me a large bag made of handmade paper with thick, silky handles.

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” James quotes back, as we leave the store. “Paper, scissors, rock. Bible trumps Shakespeare, my darling.”

A
FTER AN UNEVENTFUL
afternoon at the office, I get caught in a spring thunderstorm’s downpour on my way home, and arrive at the apartment drenched. I kick off my shoes by the front door, noting that the living room is newly immaculate. Gabe, hunched on the couch with Francis, glances up as I come in, then returns to his book, something about the history of zines.

“Hi,” I tell him.

“Don’t drip on the floor. I just washed it.”

This bodes nothing good; when Gabe is in a bad mood, he cleans. In fact, he cleans constantly, but in particular when he’s angry or anxious; he claims it’s therapeutic. My predilection to clutter makes him insane. I shake my wet coat out in the hall and hang it in the closet.

“Hi.” I sit on the couch beside him.

“Did you know,” he says, not looking up, “that the printing press was first used in North America in January 1631?”

“No, actually, I didn’t know that.” I wait. He says nothing and continues glaring at the book. “Gabe? How was your day?”

“Great, just great.” He rapidly turns a couple of pages. “The lab ruined two rolls of film. The
Times
magazine photo editor is going on maternity leave and her replacement has an IQ in the negative integers. And my mother insists that I come up to Boston to get fitted for a suit for Christina’s wedding. Apparently there is not a single decent tailor in New York. It was a tremendous day, thanks.” He stares balefully at his book. I lean at him until my face is directly under his. He blinks.

“Hi,” I say. “Let’s take a bath.”

“I don’t want to take a bath.”

“Yes, you do.” I remove the book from his hands and push him off the couch. “I’m freezing, and I want a bath, and I need someone to wash my back. You go run the water and I’ll make tea.”

He sulks at me for a moment, then stomps off toward the bathroom. I go to the kitchen, put a kettle on, and arrange a tray with teapot and cups. I add a plate of the truly disgusting ginger biscuits that Gabe developed a taste for as a child, pour the water, and carry the tray into the steamy bathroom, where the bath is nearly full, and Gabe is slouched, fully clothed, on the edge of the tub, grimly sprinkling in bath salts. I set the tea tray on the floor and turn to him.

“Up.” I pull him to his feet. “Get undressed.”

“I don’t want a bath.”

“You do. But even if you don’t, you’re going to have one.” I begin unbuttoning his shirt, and he stands quietly, watching me.

“Those two rolls of film had some really good shots on them,” he says at last, and sighs.

“They always do.” I slide the shirt off his shoulders. “I’m sorry you lost them.”

“I hate that goddamn lab.” He unbuttons his pants.

“Let’s sue.” I drape his clothes over the toilet, watch him get into the tub, and hand him a cup of tea. “Criminal neglect. Gross incompetence. I’ll see if my mother has some free time.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Molotov cocktails. Assassins. Good old-fashioned execution.”

“We can do that.” I strip off the last of my clothes and climb into the tub behind him. “Henry will pay a visit and talk them to death.” Gabe laughs. I put my legs around his waist and he leans back against me. “What do you want to do tonight?” I ask. “How about if I take you for dinner at Paradiso?”

“No. I’m not fit for public consumption. I’ll end up being rude to the waiters.”

“Maybe a movie? We could see something with no plot and lots of explosions.”

“Let’s stay home,” Gabe says. “Order Chinese and play Scrabble and make out on the couch.”

“We did that last night. And the night before.”

“God, you’re right. Note to self: Must be less predictable. Let’s order Thai and play Monopoly and make out on the kitchen table.”

“I love the way your mind works,” I tell him. “Hand me the loofah, will you?”

“O
NCE MORE UNTO
the breach, dear friends.” Gabriel straightens his tie in the bathroom mirror and sighs. It’s Saturday evening, and we’re dressing for wedding number two. “Couldn’t we just stay home and log on to their website?”

Yes, it’s true. This evening’s ceremony will be broadcast on the Internet. Meg, the bride du jour, worked for me at Invisible; I referred her to Joan, and she’s now a junior erotica editor at
X Machina
. She met Joe, her husband-to-be, online in the www.xmachina.com chat room. Very shortly after they began dating, before they’d even met in the flesh, Meg and Joe started up a website on which they kept, and still keep, parallel diaries of their relationship. And it is here, amid the pixilated tales of their first phone sex encounters and so forth, that their wedding will be uploaded, live, for all to see.

“This one won’t be such an orgy of conventionality, now, will it?” Gabe’s mirror image looks back at me.

“I’m afraid not.” I stand behind him and rest my chin on his shoulder. Our faces waver together in reflection. “Oh, Gabe. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said yes—”

“Hush. It’s fine. I mean, of course I’d rather not go. But.” He shrugs. “Duty calls.”

“Zip me?” I ask. Gabriel turns and closes the zipper to my dress. He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him.

“You look beautiful, Red.” He pushes a strand of hair away from my forehead. “May I have this dance?”

“With pleasure.” I place my hand in his and we sway around the bedroom and into the living room, with Gabe humming in my ear. We are circling the coffee table when I feel his hands move up my back, and he tugs the zipper of my dress down again.

“Oops. Sorry about that.” He slips his hands inside the dress, and continues to dance, his fingers brushing the bare skin of my waist.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothing.” His lips move against my neck, and his hands slide over my hips. “Just dancing. You’re a great dancer.”

“I’m not going to be dancing for much longer—you’re making my knees weak.”

“You’re not wearing underwear.”

“Yes, I am.” I laugh.

“Not anymore.” He lifts up the skirt of my dress, hooks his thumbs into the waistband of my underpants, and eases them down. He leans to kiss me, looking smug as hell.

“Gabe,” I say through the kiss. “We’re going to be late.” Like I care, at this point. He straightens and pulls away.

“That would be terrible,” he says. And picks me up in his arms, and carries me into the bedroom.

G
ABE AND I HAVE, I THINK
, a pretty average sex life. A few times a week, nothing fancy, and no discussion about it, which is just right for me. I’m not a prude; I don’t have any
hang-ups about sex. I like it. But I like to have it, rather than talk about it. Talking about it seems weird and beside the point. Joan and Henry love sex. They
love
it. But I think even more than that, they love to
talk
about sex. Loudly. In public places. I don’t understand their obsession with it, or their fondness for chatting about it. It doesn’t bother me, particularly; I’m not embarrassed or squeamish or anything. I just don’t really have much to add to those discussions, or any pleasure to gain from them. Sex is sex. It’s fun. It’s fine. End of story.

G
ABE IS STILL
humming as we climb out of our cab and onto a grimy street in the meatpacking district. In the pale, rank twilight, the litter-strewn, industrial block swarms with couples in fancy outfits, picking their way down the cobblestone street past warehouses and storefronts with names like Joe’s Hamburger Quality Chopped Beef, interspersed with a few desperately chic stores and bars. A clutch of transvestite prostitutes looks on from the corner. One entrance is lit up and a red carpet lures and leads us in. We follow a laughing bunch of very young men and women into the building, and stand with them beside the door to a freight elevator.

“An industrial-strength wedding,” Gabe whispers. I punch him in the arm. “Ow. I wouldn’t steak my life on it. I didn’t know you were going to grill me.” The elevator arrives, an operator in black tie waves us in, the great steel doors slam closed on us, and we creak and rattle perilously upward. I examine something on the floor that looks like a bloodstain. Gabe makes quiet mooing noises. Two or three of the other couples look around and titter nervously. At last the elevator grinds to a halt, and the doors open onto a vast, open loft space, ringed with windows and filled with music
and bodies and the burbling of voices. Gabe and I exchange glances.

“What a meat market,” he tells me solemnly. “Don’t be cowed by it, though.”

I laugh, take Gabe’s hand, and together we plunge into the chattering crowd. The contrast between the street below and this shiny, flawless white space with its gleaming hardwood floors is fantastic; waiting at the bar I overhear someone telling someone else that it’s a photography studio.

“Gabe, look.” I point to the windows. “You can see the river.”

“And New Jersey.” Gabe guides me up to the bar and waves at a server. “But what the hell is that?” Against one wall are two giant screens, filled with scenes of parties that aren’t this one.

“They’re videoconferencing San Francisco and Seattle,” the bartender says bitterly. “Friends who couldn’t make it out here for the happy occasion.” He hands us glasses of champagne. “There are computers set up over there, if you want to join the live chat. Though there seem to be quite a few people in line ahead of you.” He sneers in the direction of one corner, where a crowd clusters around glowing monitors set up on pedestals.

“Do you suppose I could check e-mail?” Gabe clinks his glass against mine.

“Can I disapprove of a tradition and its perversion at the same time?” I ask him.

“Hello, children.” Joan’s face appears inches from mine. She kisses my cheek. “You made it at last! We’d given you up for dead.”

“Hullo, Joy! Hullo, Gabriel!” Bickford St. James delivers a hearty smack to the small of Gabriel’s back, and the latter chokes on his drink. Bix reminds me of something I read once about a mark of the aristocracy being their carelessness
of dress. Tonight he is wearing what looks to be a very fine and expensive suit that’s been crumpled in the dusty back corner of a closet for several months. His sky-blue silk tie, which dangles loosely from his unbuttoned collar, has a cigarette burn at the bottom edge, and his pale brown hair sticks up in all directions, but his eyes are wide and bright, his skin as flushed and pure as a child’s. He’s already drunk. He wrings Gabe’s hand in a long handshake, and turns to kiss me.

“Joy, you look stunning this evening. How are you? Good, good.” He turns to Joan. “A drink, dearest?”

“Several, please, dearest.”

Bix elbows his way toward the bar, and Joan slips one arm around me and the other around Gabe.

“So,” she says, “it sounds like you two were discussing the happy couple’s very modern arrangement?”

“We were discussing their hardware, if that’s what you mean,” I answer.

“No, dear, I was talking about their software.” Joan smirks. “They have an open relationship. They’re going to have an open marriage.”

I blink at her, but before I can say anything, noisy clinking on glasses draws the attention of the crowd to one end of the room.

“Let’s get started,” a man standing on a chair exhorts the crowd. “Grab your seats!”

The guests bump around against one another and herd toward the round tables that line the room. Joan hails Bix and the four of us find a table and sit down. Across the room, at another table, I see Pete and Tulley waving to me. On the video screens, the ghostly distant crowds cluster close, waiting with us.

“That’s the CEO of Joe’s company.” Joan indicates the
dreadlocked, goateed white boy standing between the two computer-topped pedestals. “He got a marriage license on the Internet so he could perform the ceremony.”

Bix reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of old-style 3-D glasses, paper frames with red and green plastic lenses. He puts them on and turns to us.

“I want the full effect,” he says.

“Hush,” Joan hisses. “It’s starting.”

The room dims and fills with the unmelodious strains of techno music. One spotlight creates an aisle of light from the CEO and the computers to the opposite end of the room, where Meg and Joe emerge together. Meg is wearing a white leather bustier and a long tulle skirt spangled with shiny sequins. Joe is wearing black tie and tails. They are both wearing top hats, white and black respectively.

“Oh, my,” Joan whispers. “They’ll never get anyone else to fuck them looking like that.”

I feel Gabe’s hand tighten on mine. His expression is pained.

“Want to try the glasses?” Bix offers them to me. I decline. Meg and Joe have reached the CEO. The music fades.

“Dear friends,” the CEO’s voice cracks. He clears his throat. “Dear friends, you here in New York, in Seattle, in San Francisco, and those of you joining us from all over the world on the Web, we’re here to celebrate as two amazing people get together to celebrate their unique and special union together, and share this amazing moment with all of us.”