brides try to lose weight at the eleventh hour, but never a bridesmaid. I felt for her, but the crunching was getting on my nerves. The three musicians, a hotshot local sax player and two cronies on bass and clarinet, stood in one corner exchanging sardonic remarks and looking bored. Or maybe that’s how jazz players are supposed to look. Their music certainly bores me.
The ceremony was to be simple enough: jazz stylings for the prelude, processional and recessional, readings by both bride and groom, and brief remarks before the vows from an eminent judge too busy to join us tonight. Much as I disliked the music for this wedding, I loved the readings, which were just as quirky and personal as such things should be.
Paul was going to recite a Yeats poem, Had I the Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths, and Elizabeth would reply with the lyrics to a charming song from the 1940s, “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Monica thought it was all very odd, which pleased Elizabeth no end.
“How nice to see all of you,” I said brightly, deciding to press on without Aaron. “This will be an informal run-through, and then you can all go out and enjoy the museum.” Or jump off the Space Needle, for all I care.
As the music started, I had Zack and Scott practice escorting Chloe and Monica to their seats, and then lining up at the front of the room with Paul. Corinne came down the aisle, stiff and self-conscious, with me following, and with everyone in the room trying not to think about Mercedes and Angela. Tommy Barry made a happier thought; he was home from the hospital, in his daughter’s care, and might actually make it for the ceremony.
“All right, Patty,” I called to the sisters, now waiting at the theater’s doorway. “You’ll be next. Listen for your cue from the trio…. OK, nice and slow… now Burt, you take Elizabeth’s arm…”
We made it through the processional, and Paul delivered his poem in a rushed, impersonal voice; the last line—“Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams”—was certainly ironic, given Elizabeth’s demeanor tonight. After he finished, there was a long pause, as she stood facing him but not meeting his eye, her lips tight, too irritated to speak words of love.
“Elizabeth?” I prompted.
“I’ve rehearsed it already,” she snapped. “I’ll be fine.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Elizabeth, if there’s something you’re not happy about concerning the ceremony, please say so now—”
“Hi, guys! Sorry I’m late.”
We all looked back, startled, toward the doorway. Aaron’s sudden entrance set off a barrage of reactions: Paul and Zack erupted in laughter, the fathers grinned, the mothers gasped, and the bride boiled over.
“How am I supposed to be happy with that?” she wailed.
She was referring to Aaron’s face, and she had a point. Aaron was sporting a black eye of spectacular magnitude, swollen almost shut and positively pulsating in shades of deep purple and olive green.
“What happened?” Chloe and I asked simultaneously, but by now Aaron was chortling as well and couldn’t answer. Howard and Burt joined in the hilarity, and even the musicians looked entertained.
“They were playing football in the office,” said the bride venomously, over the men’s howls of laughter. “Like a bunch of children.”
“Honey,” Paul managed to get out, “be a sport, would you? It’s no big deal—”
“It is to me! You’ve ruined everything!”
And with this histrionic pronouncement, Elizabeth stalked up the aisle, past Aaron, and out of the building, leaving an uncomfortable silence in her wake. Everyone looked at me uncertainly.
“Well…” I said. Why is it again that I love weddings? “Well, I think we’re done for this evening. Good night, everyone.” Then, as the room emptied, “Aaron, can I talk to you for a minute?”
He came down the aisle, looking a bit guilty, and then a bit irked as he tried to kiss me and I turned my face away. “Hey, is it my fault if I fumbled a pass?”
“Shut up and listen,” I told him. “There’s going to be a stylist here tomorrow, an hour before the ceremony. I’ll tell her to bring stage makeup for you, so for God’s sake, be on time.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’m not wearing makeup just so some self-centered bride can—”
“Self-centered! You think she’s self-centered? Tomorrow is one of the most important, most public moments of Elizabeth’s life and everyone will be looking at you. She’ll have photographs she’ll want to show her grandchildren, and all they’ll want to know is the story behind