Amy Inspired (39 page)

As soon as I stood, she took my seat beside Dad. She kept him busy with whispered conversation the remainder of the rehearsal. This could have been a gesture of kindness; however, she seemed more to be controlling the situation than enjoying it, like a small woman walking a very large dog, mindful of the energy on the other end of the leash but fully capable of restraining it.

At dinner afterward I saved a seat for Dad. He never showed.

———

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Friday 5.18.07 11: 05 PM

Subject: the Big Day

Zoë:

Eve of the wedding. Brian is with his groomsmen at the hotel and Marie is sleeping at her house. Is very quiet here now that the Sunday school ladies have left. Mom’s downstairs ironing her shawl for the third time. She’s been worrying this one particular wrinkle since noon.

Amy

———

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Friday 5.18.07 11: 20 PM

Subject: Re: the Big Day

Amy,

weddings are beautiful and lovely and overrated.

above all, be faithful to me. if some man sweeps you off your feet, remind him

you already have a housemate.

love

Zoë

———

I had grown up in a world that lived in perpetual anticipation of the marriage of Christ and the Church, the glorious Bride without spot and wrinkle, the wedding that would kick off eternal bliss. In this world, sex is a union of souls and every wedding a microcosm of the Great Consummation—a mystery belied by the daily mechanics of most every relationship I had ever seen and by the failure of my own parents’ marriage. And so Brian and Marie’s wedding ceremony (lovely, romantic, flawless even) seemed like just another rehearsal, a shadow or reflection of the great thing it aspired to be.

Afterward I rode with Grandma to the reception. Brian and Marie had chosen to rent out the public park beyond the schoolyard, where he and I had attended elementary school. I laughed when he told me. In my mind, the park was as it had always been: a muddy field with a rickety merry-go-round and a dandelion hill only good for dizzying, consecutive somersaults.

My skepticism was unwarranted. Over the years, the swing set had been replaced with a cast-iron sculpture of birds in flight. Carefully cubed shrubs had been planted in place of the rusted jungle gym. Now the park was pure magic. White candles in glass votives had been hung from the overhanging tree branches with white ribbon. The lights swayed in the breeze. Beneath the pavilion, the DJ had begun to play a round of classical dinner music. We ate platefuls of chicken and salad and bread. Laughter burst out overhead.

I worried that enjoying the reception would be a betrayal of Zoë, but despite my best attempts to remain ironically aloof, the festivity worked its way into my blood. Soon I was laughing, enjoying myself. My brother was charming in his tux and well-gelled hair. Marie had lost the anxiety that shaded her face all through the day’s preparations and the aftermath of the ceremony. Everyone seemed happy and relaxed. Everyone was, for that fleeting moment, beautiful. The sun set, but we were too busy to notice. Our plates were miraculously cleared away, carried off, perhaps, by fairies from the trees.

The dancing began shortly after sunset. The crowd was small, most guests married and thereby consigned to one partner, the rest faithful members of the First Fundamentalist Church of God and therefore forbidden to dance at all. As such, there was a severe shortage of male partners. I sat on one of the folding chairs lining the pavilion, watching the fun and trying to be philosophic about it: Elizabeth Bennet didn’t have anyone to dance with either, and look what that started.

Grandma came and sat beside me. “The ceremony was lovely, wasn’t it?” she asked.

“It was.”

For a moment her smile faltered. “It’s all over so quickly.”

“I know. Say a few vows and you’re married. Hard to believe how much work goes into half an hour.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she replied. “Look at Brian.”

He was dancing with the flower girl, who stood with her feet on his. I used to dance that way with my father. It gave me a fleeting vision of Brian with children of his own.
Aunt Amy
, I thought, trying it on for size.

“I always knew he was going to be a romantic,” Grandma said. “It was the way he cared for your mother even as a little boy. Remember how he always bought her flowers on Valentine’s Day? All the way up to high school?”

I spent a moment remembering.

“He will make Marie a happy woman,” she concluded.

“Grandma, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Sugarpie. What is it?”

The blue balls dangling from her earrings swayed on her old earlobes. They made me think of little planets.

“Did Dad make Mom happy? Ever?”

My grandmother did not reply immediately, blindsided by the question. No one in my family discussed my parents’ marriage. Ever. A part of me wanted to take it back, to apologize for ruining the evening. But there was my father, eating cheddar cubes off toothpicks and presiding over the wedding with a certain kind of pride despite the fact that he’d missed every other monumental moment in my brother’s life. And as always we accommodated his presence. We remained somehow righteous in our indifference, as if silence were sufficient absolution for the sins of the past.

Grandma leaned back in her chair with a heavy sigh.

“Your mother was very much in love with Darren once,” she said.

“Did he make her happy?”

“Sometimes.”

“She never talked about him,” I said. “All my childhood. All through high school. And she was aloof at best when he came by— like he was a stranger from the church who had come to visit. She never seemed shaken by his presence.”

“That’s because she didn’t want to worry you kids,” Grandma said. “Don’t underestimate your mother. It took a lot of work for her to hold it together back then.
A lot
of work.”

“I just don’t understand why she refuses to talk about the past. We have a right to know.”

“Did you ever think that maybe this isn’t about you?”

But something in me protested:To some extent it was about me. It was
my
mother who had been left, and
my
home that had been abandoned. He left me too, and after all these years I wanted someone to acknowledge the hurt, to let me know it was only natural to find myself still daily dressing a childhood wound.

“Maybe she just wants to be happy,” Grandma said. “After all these years, it’s finally her turn.”

We were both thinking the same thing.

“She’s really fallen for Richard, hasn’t she?” I asked.

“He worships the ground she walks on. You can’t do much better than that.” She watched the party with a wistful glint in her eyes. Parties made her miss our grandfather. They’d always thrown the better steak-fries and birthday dinners. But she was never one to indulge her grief if there was something brighter to think about. She quickly turned playful. “So. How about it? You ready for your turn?”

“Someday, of course,” I replied automatically, though I wasn’t sure it was true. I thought of Brian, dealing with a confusion between his mother-in-law and the minister; our family suspicious of the dancing; Marie’s family bewildered by mine. The scene of barely contained chaos and strained diplomacy seemed discouragingly representative of the married life.

An old friend stole Grandma’s attention, and I took the chance to slip away. The caterers had already begun to clear the dinner dishes. The bare tabletops glowed opalescent in the moonlight. I traded my shoes for my shawl, stowing the heels beneath my dinner chair. The grass felt cool and wet against my blistered feet.

As I returned to the pavilion, I saw my father cross the dance floor with purpose to his step. He stopped when he came to my mother, who sat talking happily with some second cousin. He extended his hand. After a momentary hesitation, she accepted.

This was unprecedented: She did not dance, by rule.

My father led her to the dance floor, placed his arm around the small of her back, and together they began to sway in time. She let him lead, but barely. Her back was stiff, and they stood just close enough to manage a stilted sort of rhythm, the way I’d danced with boys at the junior high prom, elbows stiff and shoulders back. He made conversation. She spoke with the same polite economy with which she danced, calm but wary.

The song had not yet ended when Richard stepped in. My mother beamed at him. A new song began, lively and loud.

To the alarm of the watching Fundamentalists, my mother
danced
.

23

Monday I returned to Copenhagen. I spent the entire day in my pajamas eating cereal for breakfast and lunch, sleeping off the emotional upheaval of the last two weeks. By evening I was wide awake and restless. I got dressed, grabbed
To Kill a Mockingbird
, and locked the apartment behind me. The insects were loud, their invisible metropolis hustling in the trees. Downtown Copenhagen was all but abandoned. Occasionally a car passed. In the sandwich shops and liquor stores the cashiers leaned against their counters reading magazines, not expecting interruption. The entire town had the empty feeling of a house just cleaned from a long, overdrawn party: The crowds were dispersed, the beer bottles thrown out, and the hosts glad of a long-awaited, quiet sleep.

I walked the empty streets to The Brewery. A young man sat in the back corner writing on his laptop. Two older women were talking on the couch beside the front window. I took a seat at the bar. I didn’t recognize the barista who made my drink and was glad I didn’t have to talk to any of Zoë’s friends about how she was doing. Slowly, Harper Lee and the mocha worked their magic. I was tucked away in Alabama, pocketing treasures from a tree with Scout, when a hand bumped mine, startling me back to reality.

Eli stood behind the counter. He was wiping down the bar with a wet rag, the rag he’d collided with my hand. I was more than a little surprised to see him—I’d been keeping track of his schedule, strategically avoiding the café while he was working. And he wasn’t supposed to work nights.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

I showed him the cover.

“I read that in high school,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“You’re reading it again?”

“I read it every year.”

He walked to the other end of the counter, dragging the wet rag behind. “To be honest, I never finished it.”

“Well.” I opened my book up again. “Maybe we can still be friends.”

He grinned, his eyes on the counter where a spot of spilled coffee kept him momentarily busy.

I read two pages without remembering a word.

Within the hour the other customers began to leave. I debated whether to follow suit. I didn’t want it to seem as though I’d come to see Eli on purpose; I didn’t want him to think I was avoiding him either (even though I had been, for weeks). After standing at the door in a moment of indecision, I went back to the office to say good-bye.

He sat at the desk, the blue light of the computer screen highlighting the hollow of his cheeks.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Finish your book?”

“I can’t seem to concentrate.”

He gestured to the calendar on the wall. “Zoë’s on the work schedule,” he said.

“I know.” I ventured over, took a seat beside him. “She’s planning to come home next week.”

“How is she?”

“As well as can be expected.” I paused. “So you’re here for the summer?” I asked conversationally. Hoping.

“Uh, no, actually—” He glanced at me, then quickly looked back to the computer, minimizing windows on the screen. “I’ve been accepted to the Pendleton Artist Residency—upstate New York. I leave Friday.”

He brought up the website, began flipping through a number of photographs, studios, galleries, paintings. But New York? I was so disappointed by his news I overcompensated. When he asked what I was doing for the summer I announced I had no plans with such enthusiasm it was almost grating in my own ears. “They don’t need any more adjuncts for the summer so I’m essentially on vacation with my students. Which would be splendid except for that little problem of money.”

“Maybe they’d hire you here—they’ll need to fill my spot.”

“I could never work here,” I said. “I need somewhere to sit and think that’s not my desk.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. I said I should get going.

“I’ll let you out.”

The chairs had been stacked while we spoke, the lights in the coolers switched off. Outside, the streets were just as abandoned.

“I told Jillian the truth,” he said. “I wanted you to know.”

“How did that go?”

His expression said enough.

“Eli, I’m so sorry. I should never have said the things I did about you—about your family.”

“Stop apologizing, Amy.”

He held the door for me. “You want me to walk you home?”

“I don’t know. That didn’t work out so well for you last time.” We both laughed in a forced kind of way.

He let the door shut behind him. The noise of insects buzzed in the night air. I studied his feet. He desperately needed new shoes; how insane to fall in love with a man who couldn’t even afford shoes.