Bygones (13 page)
When the limo doors had closed everyone inside, Randy, in the lead car, said, “Something’s going on between those two.”
Lisa said, “Oh, I hope so.”
In the trailing car, Michael and Bess sat on the white leather seat, a careful space apart. Michael turned his gaze on her and said, “That felt just like when we used to leave for church on Sunday mornings.”
“I know what you mean.”
The day suddenly became charged with possibilities. The climate was right-seductive even-and the trappings romantic. Neither of them denied that the past and the present were both at work, wooing and weakening them.
“Bess?”
Michael covered her hand on the seat between them. It took a great deal of self-restraint for her to withdraw it.
“Let’s be sensible, Michael. We’ll be bumping up against nostalgic feelings all evening long, but that doesn’t change what is.”
“All right,” he decided, “if that’s the way you want it.”
They rode the remainder of the distance, without speaking, but she felt his eyes on her a lot, and it was exhilarating, and bewildering, and oh, so threatening.
The Padgett family had already arrived at the church. The entire party went inside, where the photographer was setting up. The women went to the bride’s changing room. The flowers were waiting there in flat white boxes.
Bess helped Lisa don her veil before a full-length mirror, while the Padgett ladies fussed with their own last-minute adjustments.
“Now my bouquet,” Lisa said. “Would you get it, Mom?”
Bess opened one of the boxes. There, nestled in waxy green paper, was a bouquet of apricot roses and white freesias that exactly duplicated the one Bess had carried at her own wedding.
“No fair, darling,” Bess said emotionally.
“All’s fair in love and war, and I believe this is both.”
Bess felt her composure giving way as she lifted the, bouquet.
“You took our wedding pictures to the florist, of course.”
“Of course.”
Lisa approached her mother and lifted Bess’s chin, I smiling into her glistening eyes. “It’s working, I think.”
“You naughty, conniving, conscienceless girl.”
Lisa laughed and said, “There’s a flower in there for Daddy, too. Go pin it on him, will you? Maryann, would you do Randy’s?”
In the vestibule, Randy saw Maryann
coming
toward
him dressed like some celestial being. Her hair hung in a cloud against a dress the color of a half-ripe peach. Her collarbones showed, and the entire sweep of her shoulders above the wide V neck.
Maryann walked toward Randy thinking that in her entire life I she’d never met anyone as handsome. His ivory tuxedo and apricot bow tie were created to be modeled against his dark skin, hair, and j eyes.
She’d certainly never gone with wild boys, but he represented an element of risk toward which she gravitated, as all habitually good girls will at least once in their lives.
“Hi,” she said quietly, stopping before him.
“They sent me with your flower. I’m supposed to pin it on you.”
“Okay,” he said.
She pulled the pearl-headed pin from an apricot rose and slipped her fingers beneath his left lapel. They stood so close she caught the scent of his after-shave.
“Maryann?”
She looked up.
“I’m really sorry about last night.”
Was his heart racing like hers? “I’m sorry, too.”
“No girl ever made me watch my mouth before.”
“I probably could have been a little more tactful about it.”
“No. You were right, and I’ll try to watch it today.”
She finished pinning on his flower and looked into his face again. He was so handsome, he was beautiful.
His obvious infatuation with her resounded within some depth of womanliness that had lain dormant in Maryann until now.
Today, she thought, for just one day I will bend my own rules.
BESS, too, had taken a boutonniere from the box, and gone out into the vestibule to find Michael.
When she saw him, embers were I stirred, much as when they were dating years ago.
“Michael, I have your boutonniere.”
“Would you mind pinning it on for me?”
“Not at all.”
She slipped her hand beneath his lapel, and when the boutonniere was anchored, she stepped back. “I suppose you noticed Lisa picked the same colors we had in our wedding.”
“I wondered if it was just a coincidence.”
“It isn’t.”
“This girl is serious about her matchmaking, isn’t she?”
dust
then someone interrupted. “Is this the fellow who’s been
“ sending
me Mother’s Day cards for six years?” It was Stella, coming at Michael with her arms spread.
“Stella” he exclaimed.
“You beautiful dame!”
They hugged with true affection.
“Ah, Michael, you get better-looking every six years! Now come on-you, too, Bess-I want you to meet my main man.”
They had barely shaken hands with Gilbert Harwood, a goo1looking silver-haired man with a firm grip, when the bride appeared. She stepped into the vestibule, and both Michael and Bess lost communion with everything but her.
As Lisa began moving toward them Michael’s hand found Bess’s and gripped it.
She was so pretty-the synthesis of her mother and father-and as she moved, the dress rustled just as it had when Bess wore it. The bouquet might have been preserved intact from that day.
“Mom, Dad,” she said, reaching them, “I’m so happy.”
“And we’re happy for you,” Bess said.
Michael added, “Honey, you look absolutely beautiful.”
The photographer interrupted.
“Everyone, please!
I need the wedding party at the front of the church right now.”
For the next hour the photographer set up pose after use. Finally he called for members of the bride’s family only. Moments later there they were-Michael, Bess, Lisa, and Randy-on the steps in St. Mary’s, the church where Michael and Bess had been married, where Lisa and Randy had been baptized, where they had gone as a family during all those happy years. “Let’s have Mom and Dad on the top
step,
and you two in front of them,” the photographer said. He pointed to Randy.
“A little to your left.
And Dad, put your hand on his shoulder. Now everybody squeeze in a little tighter.”
Michael placed his hand on Randy’s shoulder and felt his own heart swell at touching him again.
And Lisa thought,
Please
let this work.
And Bess thought, Hurry or I’ll cry.
And Randy thought
,
Dad’s hand feels good.
And Michael thought, Keep me here forever.
During the final minutes with the photographer, guests began arriving-neighbors, aunts and uncles, and Lisa’s old high school friends. Soon the last of the guests were seated and the vestibule quieted. It was time for the ceremony to begin. The organ rumbled, and the strains of
Lohengrin
filled the church.
Bess and Michael took their positions on either side of Lisa and watched Randy head down the aisle with Maryann on his elbow.
When their turn came, they stepped out with Lisa, their emotions running as close to the surface as at any time since the plans for this day began. They passed a sea of faces and gave up their daughter to the waiting groom, then stood side by side until the traditional question was asked: “Who gives this woman?”
Michael answered, “Her mother and I do,” then escorted Bess to the front pew, where they took their places, seated side by side.
Father Moore smiled benignly and told the gathered witnesses, “I’ve known Lisa since the night she came into this world,
so
it feels quite fitting that I should be the one conducting this ceremony today. I know many of you who have come as guests today to witness
“ these
vows.” His eyes touched Bess and Michael, and moved on to others. “How wonderful that by your presence you not only do honor to this young couple who are about to embark on a lifetime of love and faithfulness to one another, but you express your own faith in the very institution of marriage-one man, one woman, promising their fidelity and love to one another till death do them part.”
“Till death do them part . . . .
”
Bess saw Michael turn to look at her. His expression was solemn, his gaze steady. She felt it as one feels a change of season on a particular morning when a door is flung open to reveal that winter is gone.
She looked down. Her concentration was besieged, and the words of the priest became lost on her.
She emerged from her preoccupation to find the guests getting to their feet, and she followed suit. When they sat once more
,
Father
Moore said, “During the exchange of vows the bride and groom invite all of you who are married to join hands and reaffirm your own wedding vows along with them.”
Lisa and Mark joined hands. Mark spoke clearly, for all to hear. “I, Mark, take thee, Lisa. . .”
Tears rolled down Bess’s cheeks. Michael put a handkerchief in her hand, then found her other hand and squeezed it hard. She squeezed back.
“I, Lisa, take thee, Mark. . .”
Lisa, their firstborn, in whom so many hopes had been realized, during whose reign as the center of their world they had been so unutterably happy.
Now Lisa had them holding hands again. “By the power vested in me . . .
I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
While Lisa raised her happy face for Mark’s kiss, Michael squeezed Bess’s hand so hard she feared the bones might snap.
In consolation?
Regret?
Affection?
It mattered not, for she was squeezing his right back.
Bess and Michael participated in the remainder of the Mass together, received Communion as they had in the past, and tried to figure out what it had meant when they’d held hands during the vows. When the organ sounded the recessional, they were smiling, following their children up the aisle. When the bridal party burst from the doors of St. Mary’s, their guests burst out right behind them. The hugs and felicitations on the church steps were accompanied by a quick shower of wheat, and a retreat to the waiting limousines.
Chapter Eleven
BESS and Michael rode to the reception, at the
Riverwood
Club, in the leather-wrapped privacy of the limousine, each on half of the seat. Finally Michael turned, letting his knee cross the halfway point on the seat. “Bess?” he said.
Dark had fallen, and Bess had to search out his face, on the other side of the car. “What, Michael?”
He drew a breath and hesitated, as if what he was about to say had taken great mulling.
“Nothing,” he said at last, and she released her disappointment in a careful breath.
The
Riverwood
Club sprawled high above the banks of the
St. Croix River
. Above its sweeping front stairs, six tall fluted columns set off the grand front veranda. Michael helped Bess alight from the limo. They mounted the stairs and opened the heavy front door.
The entry held a chandelier the size of
“So this is what we’re paying for,” Michael remarked as they mounted-the stairs. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I intend to get my money’s worth.”
He started with the champagne. A fountain of it flowed just inside the ballroom.
tilde
He asked Bess, “How about you?
“Why not?”
With their glasses in hand they parted and headed into the crowd to mingle. Round tables with apricot-colored cloths circled a parquet dance floor. Every table held a candle, their dozens of flames reflected in a wall of glass that looked out over the river. It was a huge room, yet Bess could pick Michael out in the crowd within seconds of trying, his pale tuxedo and dark hair beckoning from wherever he stood.
She was studying him from clear across the room when Stella came up behind her shoulder and said, “He’s easily the best-looking man in the place. Gil thinks so, too.”
“Mother, you’re incorrigible.”
Randy and Maryann showed up with
Hildy
and Jake. Lisa and Mark appeared, holding hands, being hugged and kissed by everyone. Bess hadn’t realized that Michael had drifted up behind her, until Lisa said, “I think they’re ready to start serving dinner now. Mom and Dad, you’re at the head table with us.”
Once again, Bess and Michael found themselves seated together.
At the same time Randy took his place beside Maryann. “So tell me about these sports you’re in,” he said. “I suppose you’ve lettered.”