Sister of the Bride (7 page)

When the meal was served, Gordy was produced and the two families seated. Much to Gordy's annoyance, Mrs. Aldredge admired his red hair, which he did not like and had once threatened to dye. The conversation swung around to the occupations of the men, and Barbara waited patiently while Mr. Aldredge told how he had come out to California and had bought a luggage shop. The
shop had been so profitable that he was able to expand, and now he owned shops in several towns. That takes care of Mr. Aldredge, she thought when he had finished. Now for the wedding.

But no. It was Mr. MacLane's turn. He told how he had worked his way through college in a print shop, where “we used to hand set legals in six-point solid, thirteen picas wide.” Barbara knew this meant nothing to the Aldredges, but they were smiling gamely as if they understood everything her father was talking about. This brought her father to his favorite subject and one that he was proud of—how he had built up the high school print shop from an old-time proof press, until his students were able to handle the yearbook and all the printing for the school district. Many of the printers in the area had been his students at one time. “And now most of those kids are earning more than I do,” he concluded with pride.

Barbara forgot her impatience for a moment in her admiration for her father, who had helped a lot of boys who did not like school get a start in the world. Maybe he was a little exasperating around the house, but she loved him and she was proud of him. She sat at the table reminiscing about one of
her childhood visits to her father's print shop, when he had given her a slug, hot from the Linotype machine, with her name spelled backward. To this day she loved the smell of printer's ink. At the moment this thought was passing through Barbara's mind, she caught the merest flicker of a glance pass between Mrs. Aldredge and her husband. She wondered what it meant. Were they confirming something Greg had told them about her father? Something like, “He's all right, but he does go on about that print shop of his.” Or perhaps they were impatient because her father had talked too long, when they were eager to get on with a discussion of the wedding.

Apparently so. “Won't Rosemary make a lovely bride?” remarked Mrs. Aldredge, after Barbara had cleared away the plates and had served the dessert.

This was a difficult question for the mother of the bride to answer without sounding smug. Mrs. MacLane managed nicely. “Rosemary and Greg will make a very attractive couple,” she said.

“That is just what I was telling Ed on the way over here,” said Mrs. Aldredge. “I said, ‘Ed, Rosemary and Greg will make one of the most attractive couples we have ever seen walk out of a church together.'”

And his brother and I will make an attractive best man and maid of honor, thought Barbara, eager to be part of the picture. The talk was desultory. Young people were so courageous these days to marry and continue their schooling. The Aldredges were willing to help Greg and Rosemary, but they refused to be helped. With such a strenuous program ahead of them, they would have to find an apartment close to the campus. The conversation was pleasant enough, but Barbara felt that the Aldredges were postponing something, that the real issue of the powwow was yet to come.

Mr. MacLane produced a cigar and extended it to Mr. Aldredge. “Care for a smoke?” he asked.

“Don't mind if I do,” answered the father of the groom, accepting the cigar.

Barbara recognized her cue. She fetched the ashtrays without being asked.

“Has Rosemary said anything about her plans for the wedding?” inquired Mrs. Aldredge, as the two men settled back to enjoy their cigars and Mrs. MacLane served the coffee.

Mrs. MacLane smiled apologetically. “I'm afraid she hasn't. It has all happened so suddenly, and I know she's busy studying for midterms, so I've
hesitated to telephone her. But she'll be home next weekend, and I'm sure we can begin planning then. Of course it's entirely up to Rosemary, but I thought a simple wedding, simple but pretty, you know—”

That's what I want when I get married, thought Barbara, and instantly Bill Cunningham, riding down the hill under his black umbrella, came to mind.

“Of course it is entirely up to Rosemary,” agreed Mrs. Aldredge. “Now where did I leave my bag?”

“I'll get it for you,” offered Barbara, even though she did not want to leave the table.

“Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Aldredge smiled. Her magenta lipstick exactly matched the print in her dress.

Barbara went into her parents' room, where she was horrified to find Buster snoozing luxuriously on Mrs. Aldredge's mink stole. He was not only an elegant-looking cat, he had a taste for elegance as well. “Oh, you—” She snatched him up rudely with one hand and picked up Mrs. Aldredge's large patent leather bag with the other. She went back to the dining room by way of the kitchen, where she dumped Buster, who was uttering Siamese oaths, out the back door. She handed Mrs. Aldredge her
bag and glared at Gordy.

Her brother returned her look. “What did I ever do to you?” he demanded.

“Oh, that cat of yours,” she answered impatiently. Then she thought, Oh dear, I mustn't talk this way. The Aldredges are probably thinking, Rosemary is right. Barbara can't seem to get along with her brother. Barbara managed to smile at Gordy. “It's nothing, really. Forget it.” She glanced at Mrs. Aldredge, who was taking something out of her bag and apparently had not noticed that the siblings had narrowly avoided public rivalry.

“Gordy, you may be excused,” said Mrs. MacLane, and Gordy, eager to get out of his white shirt and tie, left the table.

Mrs. Aldredge produced a pack of white cards and used them to fan away the cigar smoke before she smiled and said briskly, “I've already made a list of our friends and relatives who will expect to be invited to the wedding. I have them all listed in alphabetical order on cards, to make it easier for Rosemary. I have put a check in the corner of the card if the person can actually be expected to come to the wedding. You will need to have some idea what to tell the caterer.”

The MacLanes stared at the stack of cards. There
were over a hundred, perhaps closer to two hundred. Barbara could see that the names and addresses were neatly typed; and although she was as dismayed as she knew her mother must be at the size of the list and the mention of a caterer, she could not help admiring Mrs. Aldredge's efficiency.

“Well…” Mrs. MacLane seemed uncertain as to what she should say. “Rosemary hasn't actually said so, but I am quite certain she is planning a…modest wedding.”

Mrs. Aldredge dismissed this by saying, “Every girl dreams of a big wedding.” She fanned through the cards with her pointed fingers. “And for years I have been keeping a list of all the presents we have had to buy for the children's friends—graduations, weddings, showers—you know. And then there are all our relatives, although most of them live in the East and can't be expected to come. And some of our closest business friends. They will all be expecting invitations. Presents have cost us hundreds of dollars, and Rosemary and Greg might as well get some of it back.”

Barbara wondered uneasily what her father would have to say about this eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth philosophy of wedding invitations. He was sure to say something, and she hoped that,
whatever it was, it would not cause Rosemary to have mother-in-law trouble the rest of her life.

Mr. MacLane blew a puff of smoke toward the ceiling before he said, “Casting your bread upon the waters, eh?”

“In a way,” agreed Mrs. Aldredge, missing the barb of the remark.

Mr. Aldredge was more astute. “Now we don't want you to ask more people than you feel you can—handle.” He had almost said “afford.” “Maybe we could go through the list and mark those that are most important.”

“But Ed,” said Mrs. Aldredge, “Greg is our oldest child.”

“Yes, but I told you on the way over here—”

“But Ed—”

The MacLanes exchanged uneasy glances, before Mrs. MacLane leaned forward and said, “I think we should talk it over with Rosemary. After all, we can't make any decisions until we know what she wants to do. I'm sure we can settle a lot of things this weekend, and if she really wants a big wedding, we can manage somehow.”

“Of course we should talk it over with the bride,” agreed Mrs. Aldredge graciously. She hesitated a moment before she said, “Please don't
worry about the expense. Ed and I will be more than glad to help pay for the wedding.”

Barbara felt shocked and humiliated. This must have been the meaning of the glance the Aldredges exchanged when her father had said many of his former students now earned more money than he did. This was why Mrs. Aldredge had cast an appraising look around the living room. The Aldredges thought the MacLanes could not afford to give Rosemary a nice-enough wedding for their friends to attend. They had talked it over on their way to Bayview and had agreed they should offer to help pay for it. Barbara's hurt quickly turned to anger at Greg's mother, sitting there at the dinner table, smiling her magenta smile. She did not like her, not one little bit. She did not like her pointed fingernails and pointed toes or her pointed looks and remarks, either.

Mrs. MacLane, whose face was flushed a becoming pink, said nothing. She was leaving the answer to this proposal to her husband. He took his time about answering. He sipped his coffee and flicked the ash off his cigar before he looked directly at Mrs. Aldredge and said, “No, thank you. That won't be necessary. We will give Rosemary the wedding she wants.” He spoke pleasantly, almost
quietly, but somehow everyone in the room knew there was nothing more to be said on the subject.

After that the two families left the table and exchanged small talk for a short time in the living room until the Aldredges began to mention the long drive home, the heavy Sunday night traffic, work the next day. “Please don't think we are eating and running, but—”

“Dad!” exploded Barbara, when Greg's parents had gone. “Why didn't you tell her off? How could you just sit there and be so calm about it all? That woman insulted us!”

“What did you expect me to do?” asked her father. “Challenge her to a duel?”

Barbara smiled ruefully, realizing her father could not very well open a feud between the two families. That really would spoil the wedding. “Not a duel exactly, but maybe a polite fight,” she said.

“I think your father got his point across,” said her mother. “There was no need to say more.”

“I figured it this way.” said Mr. MacLane. “If Greg doesn't let his mother bother him, why should I? After all, I want to be mature, too.”

Even now her father could joke, now when the family honor had been insulted. “I can't stand
her,” stormed Barbara, “and I feel sorry for Rosemary, having her for a mother-in-law all her life.”

“I'm sure she meant well, even though her offer seems tactless to us,” said Mrs. MacLane. “And I think we should try to remember that she is Greg's mother and that she had a lot to do with bringing him up to be the person he is.”

“I suppose so,” said Barbara grudgingly. It seemed to her that now a big wedding was necessary to save the honor of the MacLanes. I don't care if I am being immature and insecure, she thought, and wondered how Rosemary was going to feel about her future mother-in-law's offer.

The next Saturday morning Rosemary, who had not asked Barbara to meet her at the bus station, arrived home immediately after her appointment with the orthodontist. Barbara, seeing that she was carrying only two books, knew at once that she was not planning to stay long, and was disappointed. She had counted on getting her sister alone to talk about Bill Cunningham, who had given her several rides home on his Vespa and had stopped for cookies and milk. She and Bill, with unwelcome help from Gordy, had eaten their way through a batch of snicker-doodles and were well into a batch of brownies. She felt she had to talk about Bill to someone or she would fizz over like a bottle of ginger ale that had been shaken.

“Guess what?” Rosemary burst out as soon as she stepped through the door. “I got the dentist to admit that he'll take the bands off my teeth before the wedding!”

“For keeps?” asked Barbara.

“For keeps,” answered Rosemary. “No more grillwork, no more trips to the orthodontist, no more monthly bills!”

“I'm glad to hear it.” Mrs. MacLane laid down the coat she was at last finding time to shorten and said, “Rosemary, be sure to phone Aunt Josie and Gramma and tell them about the wedding. They'll be hurt if they aren't the first to hear it.” Aunt Josie was Miss Pennell, Mrs. MacLane's older sister. She lived with her mother, Mrs. Pennell, whom the MacLanes called Gramma.

“And what about Uncle Charlie?” asked Barbara.

“Yes, you should tell your Uncle Charlie, too,” said Mrs. MacLane, “but your Aunt Josie and Gramma should be the first to know.”

“Mother, promise you won't let Uncle Charlie try to sell Greg an insurance policy the very first thing,” begged Rosemary.

Mrs. MacLane smiled. “I can't be responsible for your relatives. Now run along and phone Aunt Josie and Gramma.”

“But, Mother, I have to study and you know how Aunt Josie is,” protested Rosemary. “Besides, I have to go back to school right after lunch.”

“Yes, I do know Aunt Josie,” said Mrs. MacLane. “That's why I want you to tell her yourself.”

I am not going to have a chance to get in one word about Bill Cunningham, not even edgeways, thought Barbara suddenly. This whole morning was going to belong to Rosemary. She was nothing but the sister of the bride.

“Have you thought about the wedding?” Mrs. MacLane asked her older daughter.

“Sort of.” Rosemary looked vague, happy, and unusually pretty. “Not much. Last week I was too busy thinking about what Dad was going to say, and this week I had to write a paper for English on
Love's Labour's Lost
.”

“Next month is June,” Mrs. MacLane reminded her, bringing the conversation back to the wedding. “Hand me that seam tape, will you, dear?”

“I know.” Rosemary was trying to look thoughtful. “I thought I'd be married in a suit. And a hat with a little veil.”

A suit! Barbara did not have to hide her disappointment, because no one was paying the slightest attention to her. A suit would spoil everything.
Being married in a suit might be legal and binding and all that, but it certainly would not be a wedding. And as for Mrs. Aldredge—she would probably be ashamed to invite her friends to such an affair. No, a suit would not do. Rosemary's mind would have to be changed. That was all there was to it.

Mrs. MacLane tore the cellophane from the seam tape. “How many guests are you planning to have?” she asked. “We have to start someplace.”

“Just our families and maybe our roommates. I don't know.” Rosemary's manner was offhand.

This was not the way to plan a wedding, thought Barbara. A wedding should have lots of guests, a whole churchful, in their best clothes. Gloves, flowered hats, everything. She could see her mother was about to say something but was choosing her words with care. There were so many things Barbara wanted to know that she could hold back no longer, and she seized the moment of her mother's hesitation. “When do you get your engagement ring?” she asked.

Rosemary smiled at her sister, but it was a new kind of smile, a smile one might bestow on a lovable and amusing child. “I'm not going to have an engagement ring. Just a plain gold band for the
ceremony. We have so many more worthwhile uses for our money—tuition, for instance—and, anyway, engagement rings are so sort of, I don't know, middle-class.” They were not even married yet, and already it was
their
money.

Barbara and her mother exchanged a glance at this astonishing statement. Mrs. MacLane, who wore a modest engagement ring, raised one eyebrow and said, “It is certainly news to me that engagement rings are middle-class.”

“Oh, Mother, you know what I mean,” said Rosemary vaguely.

“I'm afraid I don't.” Mrs. MacLane's tone was tart, but she continued on a gentler note. “We want you to have the kind of wedding you want. But don't you think it would be a happier occasion if you were married in a pretty dress instead of a suit? If it's the money you're worried about, don't worry. We can manage a nice little wedding. Something simple but pretty.”

Barbara was eager to encourage her sister for the sake of the family honor. “And Greg's mother thinks you should have a real wedding. She says, in her heart, every girl wants a big wedding.”

“I don't,” said the bride. “And Greg wants us to have whatever I want, and I am not going to have
a big wedding just to impress his mother's friends. My family is giving the wedding, not his.”

As much as she longed for a big wedding, Barbara could not help admiring her sister for the stand she was taking. Rosemary had grown up in the past year. She was no longer the kind of girl who would choose a dress simply because it bore a good label.

“But a suit seems a little severe,” said Mrs. MacLane mildly.

“Oh, Mother, a wedding with bridesmaids and everything would be an awful bother. I'm just trying to be practical,” said Rosemary. “You know how Dad is always saying how impractical I am. Well, this time I'm being practical. That's all.”

Well, wouldn't you know! thought Barbara, as her dream of a lovely wedding faded like a bruised gardenia.
Now
Rosemary had to start being practical, after a whole life of being impractical. Next she would probably say she wanted pots and pans for wedding presents. Or a vacuum cleaner. Or a pail and scrubbing brush. If Rosemary decided to be practical, she would be all-out, one-hundred-percent practical. Rosemary, according to her father, always overdid things. In this mood she would probably decide to be married in a tweed
suit, which would wear forever and grow baggy with age. “The bride, attired in sturdy Harris tweed of a sensible shade of brown, was given in marriage by her father,” the papers would say, “and was attended by her sister, in gray tweed, with a bouquet of geraniums picked in the backyard.” Or Rosemary would probably dismiss the thought of any attendants at all as being impractical.

“But a wedding should be an event to remember,” protested Mrs. MacLane. “It is not a time for being practical.”

“Of course it isn't,” Barbara agreed, pleased with her mother who, she now felt, was showing an unexpected streak of poetry in her soul.

Rosemary flashed her mother and sister an amused smile. “Honestly, Mother, I can't see why everybody always has to get so sentimental, just because two people decide to get married.”

Now it was Mrs. MacLane's turn to look amused. “A wedding
is
an occasion for sentiment, and that's the way it should be. You can't escape sentiment, so why not have a pretty wedding?”

“Besides, think of the presents,” said Barbara, as long as Rosemary was bent on being practical.

“Oh, presents.” Rosemary dismissed wedding gifts with that irritating air of sophistication she
had sometimes assumed since she had gone away to college. “They are mostly just
things
. Greg and I want a life free of
things
.”

“Now what on earth do you mean by a remark like that?” Mrs. MacLane's exasperation was rising to the surface once more.

“I mean that if we have our lives cluttered up with a lot of
things
, I'll have to waste my time dusting them and taking care of them when I could be doing something more constructive. Except for books and records we want a life free of possessions,” explained Rosemary.

Barbara considered this with interest. She thought of her own half of their room cluttered with
things
, stuffed animals, a poster advertising a school play, faded pom-poms, and party invitations. Rosemary was right. Tomorrow she would clear out a lot of
things
, so her mother wouldn't spend so much time telling her to straighten up her room. At the same time she was upset at the idea of a wedding with no presents. Opening packages would be half the fun.

“That is all very well, dear,” Mrs. MacLane said to Rosemary, as she pinned the tape to the edge of the coat, “but there is such a thing as being too practical. Your father and I couldn't have a wedding
during the war, and although I didn't really mind, I'm sure your father wished things might have been different. It was all so bleak. The army camp had just been built, and it was nothing but a chapel and a PX and a lot of barracks in a sea of mud. Not a tree or a shrub anywhere. And your father about to go overseas.”

Both girls looked with surprise and curiosity at their mother, who until now had always made a gay and funny story out of her wedding. An old snapshot came to Barbara's mind. Her parents had posed in front of the chapel in the army camp, which they had always described as being in the middle of nowhere. Their father, then Corporal MacLane, looked young, and his ears loomed large beneath his raw GI haircut—he had not yet begun to lose his hair. And their mother—how often the girls had poked fun at that snapshot. Her suit, which barely covered her knees, had the padded shoulders that were fashionable at that time, and her hair, brushed high in a pompadour in front, hung in a fluff to her shoulders. Just like somebody in an old movie on TV, her daughters had often said. And those enormous shoulders, Mother, they had exclaimed whenever they saw the picture. You could have played football in the
suit with all that padding.

Rosemary was not to be swayed. “Just because you couldn't have a wedding, Mother, is no reason why I should have one. I just want to get married in a suit without a lot of fuss and expense.” She rose from the bed as if, as far as she was concerned, the matter was settled. “I'll go phone Aunt Josie and break the news, and then I simply have to study.”

When Rosemary had gone into the kitchen to telephone, Barbara picked up the discarded wrapper from the seam tape and rolled it between her fingers. “What does Rosemary mean, an engagement ring is middle-class?”

“It's just one of those notions she has picked up at the university,” said Mrs. MacLane. “Of course I wouldn't want her to go away to college and not get new ideas, but it is a little trying at times. She'll outgrow it. After all, my generation scoffed at a lot of things as being bourgeois.”

Barbara did not like the suggestion that her sister was still young enough to outgrow an idea, as if it were a dress or a pair of shoes and she was a child. “Well, I just hope she hurries up and changes her mind about the kind of wedding she wants.” Barbara wanted her sister to change her
ideas, not outgrow them.

“I imagine she will,” said Mrs. MacLane. “Rosemary really likes pretty clothes, even though she has taken to wearing drab colors since she has been going to the university. I only hope Gramma doesn't bring up her wedding veil.”

“What wedding veil?” Barbara had never heard of such an heirloom in the family. “You mean she has a real wedding veil?”

“Oh my, yes,” answered Mrs. MacLane. “Her own. A long one that calls for an elaborate wedding. I wasn't able to wear it for my wedding and Aunt Josie never married, so it has been packed away for over fifty years. I do hope Gramma has forgotten about it. You know how her memory is lately. Sometimes it's clear, and other times it's a little vague.”

The veil, Barbara was certain, would be lace, yellow with age, and in her imagination it resembled an old lace curtain she and Rosemary had used for a veil when they were little girls playing bride. Barbara, who had pictured her sister floating down the aisle in a cloud of tulle, conceded that an old lace veil might be better than no veil at all, simply because it might persuade Rosemary to give up the idea of being married in a suit. Barbara fervently hoped that this was one of those days when her
grandmother's memory would be clear. “You don't suppose she's going to be so practical she'll want to get married in the city hall, do you?” asked Barbara, wishing Rosemary had assured her she would have a part in the wedding. “She might think it would save the gasoline it would take to drive to the church or something.”

“She'd better not,” said Mrs. MacLane. “Her father would put both feet down on any daughter of his who wanted to get married in the city hall.”

Rosemary returned to the room. “Well, wouldn't you know,” she announced. “Aunt Josie is all in a dither, and she and Gramma are going to rush right over. I tried to tell her I had to study sometime today, but you know Aunt Josie. She just doesn't listen.”

“That means lunch.” Mrs. MacLane folded the coat and laid it aside. “You go study until they get here, and I'll have your father drive you back to school as soon as lunch is over.”

“If I can escape Aunt Josie,” said Rosemary.

“Now, Rosemary, you mustn't mind your Aunt Josie. I know she's difficult, but she loves you,” said Mrs. MacLane.

“I know,” said Rosemary with a sigh. “Sometimes I feel she loves me to pieces.”

“And you will find,” added Mrs. MacLane dryly, “that being loved bears certain obligations whether you like it or not.” Then she left to investigate her kitchen cupboards to see what she could produce for lunch on such short notice.