Wedding Season (35 page)

“Survey says no. BEEEEEP. Wrong. I’m fully certain Gabe is not cheating on you, whatever it looks like. There’s just no way. It’s not his style. And also, if he’d shown any real inclination to do so, Ora would have made sure, very sure, that you’d find out about it in no uncertain terms. She’d have confessed it,” Henry makes quotation marks in the air with her fingers, “with big fat crocodile tears, to Joan or somebody and manipulated them into believing it was their obligation to tell you. Kind of like she already did, right? When she told Joan that she and Gabe were spending time together, which Joan just
happened
to mention to you at dinner the other night.”

“Now you’re actually making sense. Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?” I watch as the G.O.D. squad ambles out, their red shirts flaring in the dingy beige room.

“Chicks move in mysterious ways, Jojo. Ask any dyke.

I’m totally positive there’s an explanation for what you saw this afternoon. But even if he were having an affair with every deadbeat memoirist in the city, there’s a better reason for you to not marry him, or anyone else, at least right now. You, young lady, believe in marriage too much. You believe more than any of us—me or Maud or even Erica—otherwise you wouldn’t be so opposed to it.”

“What?”

“When I was six, a bunch of us kids were picked to be angels in the church Christmas pageant.” Henry sees my expression and winks. “Bear with me. I do have a point. We got white robes and gold tinsel halos and really pretty white wings made from real feathers, mounted on these harnesses that went around our shoulders, and they were on some kind of hinge, so they flapped and everything. And one day before rehearsal we were all dressed up and running around in the churchyard flapping our arms and yelling about how we could fly. Then Liza Mack—she’d fallen crazy in love with those wings. She even tried to wear hers to bed one night and I could hear her mother screaming at her from clear down the road—Liza went inside the church and got up into the balcony and opened a window, and she stood on the windowsill waving to all of us. And then she jumped right out. She thought those wings would work. She broke a leg and her collarbone and a couple of ribs and she was in the hospital for the longest time.”

“That’s adorable, Henry. I’m guessing there’s a moral that goes with it.”

“Look, there’s this story about marriage that we’re all told—forever and ever, happily ever after—and you, Joy Naomi Silverman, don’t see that particular story coming true in the world, which is why you don’t think marriage works. Which it doesn’t, for people who have that same idea. I mean, there are other kinds of happy endings. But in some
way you really, really want
that
version of the story to be true. Need it to be true. Can’t quite
not
believe it. Which is why you had to make so much noise about not believing—to convince yourself that you would never, ever believe such a stupid-ass story.”

“Whistling in the dark?”

“Yeah. And if I thought you’d really just changed your damn mind and you were just getting married, I’d give you my blessing and everybody say amen. But I think you
capitulated
to marriage, because you couldn’t figure out how to live without a story—or you thought Gabe couldn’t—and you got scared, and so now you’re hoping the lie is true, you’re hoping getting married will do something that it can’t possibly do. That’s the moral of the story, princess.” She makes a grand flourish with her straw. We stare at each other.

“Don’t take this as a concession or anything,” I say, “but just in case I do think you might have a point, why didn’t you bring any of this up earlier? Seeing as how it concerns the rest of my life and everything.”

“Because you wouldn’t have listened, Jo. You didn’t want to hear it.”

“And what makes you think I want to hear it now, if I didn’t want to hear it before?”

“Nothing. But before you weren’t acting like a complete lunatic freak and stalking your boyfriend. Now that you are, I think maybe I have a moral obligation to intervene. Which I know is very dangerous because if you go ahead and get married you may never speak to me again,” she leans across the table and stage-whispers, “which I hope makes you realize what a big deal I think this is.” She plays a dramatic chord on an imaginary piano. My cell phone rings.

“Saved by the bell,” Henry says as I dig into my purse looking for it.

“Charles?” I answer the phone.

“Joy? It’s Topher. Hey. Charles gave me this number.”

“Oh.” I hate Charles. “I really can’t talk right now, Topher. I have to go.”

“Joy, Joy, don’t hang up. Come on, just a minute. Just talk to me. Why haven’t you called me back?”

“This really isn’t a good time.”

“Okay, look, can you meet me tonight for a drink?”

“You’re in New York?”

“Yeah, just for a couple of days.”

“I don’t think it’s such a fabulous idea to see each other.” I look at Henry, who chews on her straw and watches me through narrowed eyes. She shrugs.

“Joy, please. I need to talk to you. Just talk. I promise.”

“Don’t promise me anything.” All at once, I am exhausted. I consider crawling under the table to take a nap. “You know where Pantheon is?”

“Sure,” Topher says. “Meet me there at seven?”

“Okay. Seven.” I turn the little phone off and stare at it dumbly.

“Fresh hell!” Henry waves her straw at me like a sorceress with a magic wand. I wait for transfiguration, which is not, apparently, forthcoming. “Want another egg cream?” she asks.

I
ARRIVE AT
P
ANTHEON
and find Topher seated at the bar talking to Luke. For some indiscernible reason, this strikes terror in my heart. I watch them from the front door, their faces in profile, and briefly consider turning right around and heading back out into the perfectly harmless autumn evening. Then Luke waves, Topher turns and sees me, he says something to Luke, and they both laugh, and I am trapped. I proceed.

“Hey, little gal.” Luke comes around the bar and lifts me into a bear hug. “How’re you doing?”

“Fine,” I tell him, my feet dangling. “Just peachy. Hi, Topher. Want to sit down?”

O
VER DRINKS IN
a small corner banquette, Topher reveals to me the source of Ora’s ire at Theo and Angelina’s wedding: Two weeks earlier, she’d arrived in Los Angeles to help the bride with prenuptial arrangements and anxieties. At a dinner party a couple of nights later, she was seated next to a recently disengaged Topher. They went home together that night, and the next, and the next, and most of the nights prior to the wedding. She became somewhat attached to him, as people tend to do when they have ongoing carnal relations with individuals they don’t loathe. Naturally, then, she was a touch miffed about finding Topher in the arms of another woman. More than a touch. She had, Topher said, thrown an epic fit, wept and raged, referred to her history of betrayal and abandonment by men, her vulnerability, her deep feelings for him, et cetera. (She did not, as far as I can tell, reveal to him any of her history with me. I leave him unedified.)

As he tells this story, Topher sounds baffled but sympathetic. I am baffled, too—by the fact that any man would fall for such a routine, or that any woman would be shameless, desperate, or stupid enough to stage it. To me it seems totally counterintuitive. I don’t have much of an opportunity to indulge my delicious scorn, however; it liquefies into dread as Topher describes how Ora unleashed her fury in my direction, threatening to reveal the indiscretion to Gabe unless Topher promised he would never see me again.

“So did you?” My voice quakes. I can’t decide which of
the four of us I dislike most at this particular moment, but I suspect it’s me.

“Did I what?” Topher frowns.

“Did you promise?”

“No. Of course not. I told her that I understood how she might feel threatened, but that you and I were old friends, and that if she caused you any trouble, it would be over between her and me.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.” So I’m probably safe for now, though this puts me in the rather awkward position of wanting Ora to find happiness with Topher. Though if she has or hopes to, why is she still pursuing Gabe? It’s not altogether inconceivable that she has a predilection for men I’ve dated. I fleetingly consider negotiations: the phone numbers of my exes, a list notable for its brevity, in exchange for the surrender of my current beau. “So, Toph. How
are
things between you and Ora? Is it going well?”

“Fine, I guess, for what it is. She’s beautiful, she’s bright, and she’s completely insane, which has its charms. The sex is phenomenal. I don’t know how much of my interest has to do simply with how different she is from Evelyn. Very, very different. But I just broke an engagement. I don’t want to get serious with anyone, and she obviously does. And I’m in L.A. and she’s here.”

“Is that why you came to New York, to see her?”

“No, to meet with a producer. I haven’t seen her. I didn’t even tell her I was coming. I guess I wanted to set things straight with you first, and—I don’t know. I’m sorry. What a mess. I’m a mess. Sometimes I wish we were back in high school.” Topher gives me a slightly melancholy smile.

“Hey,” I say. “This is no time to get nostalgic.”

“I’m not.” He laughs. “I swear. But—this is all pretty funny, isn’t it?”

“Funny ha-ha? Or funny like something’s-rotten-in-Denmark funny?”

“Funny like isn’t-it-a-crazy-mixed-up-old-world funny.” He gives my chin one of those gentle, ironic mock-punches. “What-wacky-stuff-friends-go-through-together funny.”

“Well, well. Isn’t this cozy?” a female voice coos. We look up. Ora Mitelman is standing at our table, fangs out and fire in her eyes.

“Ora.” Topher stands, flustered, reaching for her. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

“I’m here rather often.” Ora draws back, gives him a subzero stare. “As your good friend Joy knows perfectly well. So nice of you to let me know you were coming to town, Christopher. We really must stop meeting like this, you know, the three of us. People will talk. Who knows what they might say? You can imagine, though, can’t you, Joy?”

“You know what?” I can’t look at either of them. “I’m going now. Lovely to see you both. Have a great evening.” Getting up from the table, I trip over a chair, steady myself, and depart the restaurant with as much dignity as I can muster, which is approximately none.

W
HEN I GET HOME
, Gabe is on the sofa with the dog; they are watching a television program about Tibetan monks in exile. I sit between them and stare blankly at the TV.

“Hi.” Gabe jostles my knee with his. “You look like you had a rough night. What’ve you been up to?”

“Aggh.” What can I possibly say at this point? Everything. I could say everything, I could tell all, I could clear the air, I could confess, I could tell the truth, I could ask for the truth. I could. Ora will probably be calling to tell him her version anyway.

“What does ’aggh’ mean in this particular situation, exactly?”

“It means… I had dinner with Henry.”

“Henry.” Gabe peers into my face, confused, compassionate.

“Yeah. She just kind of wore me out with wedding talk, that’s all. I’m going to go to bed, I think.”

“Okay.” Gabe gives me a forehead kiss. “Sweet dreams. I’ll join you in a bit.”

“Thanks.” I give him a little wave and head for the bedroom. Walking down the hall, I consider the implications of what I have just done. I consider my options, my obligations. I have just, in no uncertain terms, lied. It was a small lie, but there it is, a lie. And I am suddenly, perfectly, and hideously aware that it crowns, like a sad tiara, a season of lies of omission, lies of neglect, silence, misdeeds and deeds undone, willful blindness, denial—lies, damn lies, and so on.

Peekaboo. Where’s Joy? Where did Joy go?

A
FTER MANY ICILY GRACIOUS
discussions between Gabe’s mother and mine, our engagement party this evening has been organized to take place at my mother’s apartment on the Upper West Side. So here I am, at ground zero of all my childhood traumas and delights, surrounded by cherished friends and family who have gathered to celebrate and sanctify this singular and unexpected occasion of my betrothal to Gabriel. And I can’t think of anywhere I wouldn’t rather be.

It’s an unseasonably warm evening and the air-conditioning in here is prehistoric and there are a hundred overdressed people crushed into the living room and dining room, crammed into the den, clustered in the hallway, sweating and flapping their hands at their faces and drinking vodka tonics like they were going out of style. And almost everyone seems to have gotten up on the wrong side of bed; the general mood ranges from imperceptible edginess to barely contained hysteria. My mother and Mrs. Winslow are both perched near the front door, vying for hostess-greeting-guests position, the pretense of cordiality wafer thin and getting thinner as the evening wears on. Henry and Delia are in the kitchen conducting a fierce whispered argument that rises every few minutes to shouts that the other
guests pretend not to hear. Josh and Ruth are doing their level best to make conversation with Gabe’s youngest sister and her new, incredibly uptight husband, and failing spectacularly. My mother’s husband, Howie, has inadvisedly decided to make the acquaintance of Nana and Papa, my father’s parents, while Charlotte and Burke attempt to run interference. One of Gabe’s old friends, a real estate developer with a taste for much younger women, arrives with his latest arm-charm, a scantily clad coed who turns out to be a maniacal False Gods fan; she corners Tyler and Maud by the fireplace and gushes at them about Tyler’s erotic power on stage. Erica and Brian stand fidgeting in the company of postadulterous Vassar playwright Tom Beggs, his new poetess wife, and their infant son, who wails without ceasing. My Gran chats with Charles, the wretch, who brought as his date the owner of Boîte. Gabe’s father shrinks in fear beside her as the boys camp it up, Charles putting on a full floor show for the benefit of my brother. James, for his part, oozes jealousy and makes loud, arch remarks to Max and Miel, upon whom his sarcasm is completely lost, and to Myrna and Luke, upon whom it is not. Pete and Anabel canoodle in a corner; when they arrived together, Tulley burst into tears and shut herself in the guest bathroom. It took fifteen minutes of coaxing at the locked door to get her out.