The Marriage Pact (1) (21 page)

For
her part, Marci could not taste a bit of difference from the first batch of
samosas last week, but apparently Nicole was very happy with the changes. She
clapped her hands in delight, and gushed about how they were exactly as she’d
imagined, helping herself to another bite. Chris let out a sigh of obvious
relief and took them through the rest of the wedding meal.

The
rest of their last-minute errands followed a similar pattern. Nicole was
entirely pleased with everything, occasionally checking with Ravi or Marci for
their opinions as well, but doing so in a way that really only invited
compliments and excitement. Things seemed to go by much more quickly than they
had over the past couple of weeks. When they stopped at an outdoor mall for ice
cream in the late afternoon, Ravi and Nicole held hands and pointed at things
in shop windows. For the first time since high school with Beth and Ray, Marci
felt like a third wheel.

#

The
wedding was a two-day affair, short by Indian standards and about fifty times
as long as the standard Presbyterian ceremony. Nicole and Ravi had chosen
carefully from the traditional ceremonies to combine their heritages as closely
as possible, and leaving out bits that would most painfully highlight his
mother’s absence. At the combination engagement/rehearsal ceremony on Friday
night, however, Marci caught Nicole surveying the crowd, hoping for a glimpse
of her future mother-in-law. To a mixture of community sadness and relief, Mrs.
Argawal did not appear.

Because
much of Ravi’s family were practicing Christians, the wedding service itself
was to be held in the Thompsons’ home church at 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon,
with a more Indian-influenced reception at an inn down the street that evening.
Reverend McClosky, who had baptized both girls and been a friend of the family
for decades, would be sharing officiating duties with an Indian minister who
knew both Hindu traditions and Biblical scripture.

There
was a ladies’ brunch Saturday morning, and by the time everyone gathered in the
Sunday School rooms in the basement of First Presbyterian at 2:30, Ravi’s
sisters and cousins, and Nicky’s sorority sisters were chatting easily across
the cultural divide. As maid of honor, Marci was charged with escorting Nicole
upstairs to the pastor’s office: a small, private space with an adjoining
bathroom so the bride could get ready undisturbed. In theory. The reality was
that every two or three minutes, someone popped into the room looking for
something, delivering food, taking pictures, or asking questions.

Even
when the door stayed closed for more than five minutes, the hubbub was
ever-present. Up and down the stairs and in the hallway below, there was a
steady stream of footsteps, giggles, and calling out for this kind of makeup,
these color panty hose, or a certain shade of nail polish. For the ceremony
itself, Nicole had opted for a traditional American white wedding dress. The
bridesmaids—all ten of them—would wear a rainbow of elegant saris and bejeweled
sandals. Between the ceremony and reception, Nicole would change into her own
ruby-red sari, hand embroidered with silver thread.

Marci
put a “do not disturb” note on the door and locked it so Nicole could get out
of her brunch outfit and into her wedding dress. Assessing her sister for the
first time that day, Marci thought she looked sort of pale. No, wait, she
looked
green
. “Nicky, you okay?”

Nicole
nodded, held up a finger, and ran to Reverend McClosky’s bathroom to vomit.

“Oh,
no,” Marci said, coming up behind her. “Are you really that nervous? Was it the
eggs? I thought mine tasted a little undercooked...”

Nicole
shook her head and held out a hand to be helped up. Marci wiped her face with a
wet cloth, doing her best not to disturb the perfect wedding makeup Ellie had
already painstakingly applied. “We’ll have to get El to re-do your lips, I’m
afraid.”

“That’s
okay,” Nicole said, color returning to her face. “I’m just glad I got that over
with. Don’t tell anyone, okay? Promise?”

“Got
it over with?”

“Yeah,
it only happens once a day, usually,” she explained. Marci must have looked as
worried as she felt, because her sister immediately followed with, “Oh, God,
no—it’s nothing bad. It’s just that I’m—well, we’re—”

“You’re
pregnant.” The light had come on.

“Yes.
Six weeks. Please, please,
please
don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t want
Mom and Dad to know until after the wedding.”

“Oh
my God, Nicky,” Marci said. It explained so much about Nicole’s recent
behavior. A thousand questions ran through Marci’s mind, everything from how
she was going to get out of drinking champagne tonight, to where they were
going to fit a baby in their tiny walk-up in DC.

“I
know,” Nicole said, reading her mind. “But isn’t it wonderful?”

This
wasn’t the word Marci would have chosen, exactly, but the look on her sister’s
face said it all. With the color back in her cheeks and her hair swept up
gracefully, Nicky looked beautifully adult. Like a mother. The smile took up
her whole face; she was radiant.

“Of
course it is,” Marci said softly, taking Nicole’s hand and squeezing it. “Thank
you for trusting me with it.”

“Ravi
is over the moon. He’s the only one who knows. It happened when we were home
for the bachelor party, actually.”

“Ew!
In your childhood bed? Was I at home when this happened?”

“Worse,”
Nicole laughed. “At the hotel! With all those people in the room!”

“Oh
my God—I don’t think I want to hear this. What are you, an exhibitionist?
Gross!”

“Don’t
be silly. We went to the
bathroom
.” She said this with a “well, duh”
tone that Marci remembered hearing frequently during Nicole’s teen years.

This
brought up more icky mental images than Marci could handle, as she fought off
her curiosity about whether the bathroom meant the shower, the toilet, or just
the vanity counter. “Shhh...” she said to Nicole and to her own brain. “Don’t
tell me anything else. Let’s get you ready so you can give this baby a daddy.”

They
hugged awkwardly and stepped out into the office to begin the excruciating
process of wrestling Nicole into all the undergarments that would be holding
her together under the enormous dress. It was not until Marci had zipped up,
fluffed and powdered the rosy bride; stood for seemingly hundreds of pictures;
and walked as gracefully as she could down the aisle in the sandals that did not
want to stay on her feet, that it occurred to her that her niece or nephew
would be just over a month younger than Doug’s child.

Between
the ceremony and reception, all the bridesmaids and Nicole were painted with henna
by four of Ravi’s very talented aunts and cousins. Because the henna lasted for
about two weeks, Nicole offered that anyone uncomfortable with painting could
abstain, but no one did. Most of the girls stuck to having their hands and arms
decorated, first with henna and then with a seemingly endless supply of noisy
metallic bangles. But a few brave souls, plus Nicole and Marci, had henna
applied to their faces as well. The effect was exotic, and gorgeous.

When
they arrived in the limos at the Waterford Inn, just a few miles from her
parents’ home, Marci could scarcely believe the transformation. In the front,
it looked like the same antebellum mansion she had always admired as a child.
The long driveway, lined with oaks and Spanish moss, took them up a hill nearly
a quarter mile from the road, where it circled an old fountain that still
functioned and had been fitted with lighting. The house itself was two stories,
a faded mossy green, with six enormous columns out front holding up the second
story wrap-around porch, and still seeming to defy Sherman and his cohorts to
set foot on the property. When she was very young, she’d always imagined the
mansion was haunted by the ghosts of Southern belles and Rebel cavalrymen.

Once
they entered the inn, however, everything looked different. Red, gold, and
purple drapes had been hung in nearly every room, creating an almost tent-like
feeling and making the pre-war American furniture look out of place. Wonderful,
pungent smells from the kitchen filled the entire downstairs as Chris the
caterer worked his magic. They could hear the sounds of laughter and clinking
of glasses from the back of the house. With the long wait between the ceremony
and reception, Nicole had ordered that everyone start eating and drinking before
her arrival.

Ravi
was waiting for them when they got halfway to the kitchen. He took Nicole’s
hand and steered her upstairs, where they would have a few moments of alone
time before making their grand entrance into the party. Traditionally, this was
probably the time for the consummation of the marriage. Funny, Marci thought,
because the bride was already knocked up, but tonight it was just a moment of
rest to fuel the anticipation of Nicky’s appearance and give the bridesmaids
time to hit the bar before the first dance.

The
beautiful day turned to a beautiful evening, and even though the sun had not
yet set, the volume of pine trees around the yard made it seem darker than it
was. The reception was staged outside on the mansion’s back lawn, where several
tents had been erected with more red and gold drapes and zillions of little
white lights. The ancient swimming pool was also lighted and filled with
floating lotus blossoms. The large back deck now boasted the bar and the DJ
booth, and a temporary wooden dance floor had been set up on the lightly
sloping back lawn surrounded and crisscrossed by paper lanterns. The fantasy
atmosphere captured the magic of the day.
No wonder Nicole spent so much
time on the phone,
Marci thought appreciatively.

She
located Suzanne and Jake, stationed beneath one of the regal oaks behind the
dance floor. As Marci made her way over, Beth and Ray joined them, as did
Rebecca and a tall blonde man in an expensive-looking suit. Of their group,
Rebecca was the only one who’d taken advantage of the “and guest” option on the
invitation.

When
invitations went out, Nicole had e-mailed Marci in Austin with her list of
Marci’s friends who were invited to the wedding, and Marci had gently hinted
that if Nicole needed to trim the list, Rebecca wasn’t
strictly
necessary. Nicole, however, had fond memories of visiting Rebecca in the
sorority house when she came to Athens as a high school junior and it had
either escaped her notice that Marci and Rebecca had drifted apart over the
years, or she simply didn’t care.

When
Marci arrived at the group, Suzanne pressed a cocktail into her hand and Jake
kissed her on the cheek. “You look amazing,” he said, admiring her pale blue
sari and the henna design on her face and hands.

“Cool,
huh?” she said, showing off her arms while the bracelets jingled.

“Very,
um...exotic,” Ray said as diplomatically as he could. “It’s not permanent,
though, right?”

“Don’t
mind him,” Beth said, elbowing him in the ribs. “We don’t get to many Indian
parties out in the boonies. Ray’s not exactly accustomed to appreciating other
cultures.”

“Sure
I do,” Ray said with a grin. “Fixed a carburetor for a guy from New York just
last week. We even got past the language barrier.”

“Well,
I think it’s sexy,” Jake said. Marci wished she didn’t blush so easily.

“Marci,
have you met my date, John?” Rebecca interrupted. “He’s a dentist, just like
your dad!”

“Hi
there,” John said. “Congratulations.”

“Isn’t
he adorable?” Rebecca said, smacking him lightly on the torso. “Don’t you think
so, Jake?” She batted her eyelashes inexplicably and rocked a little on her
heels. Obviously Rebecca had been making the most of the open bar. A brief
awkward pause was fortunately relieved as the crowd turned toward the house as
the DJ announced Ravi and Nicole’s exit from the house.

Except
for the notable absence of Ravi’s mother, the evening was perfect. The DJ
combined beautifully the standard American wedding reception fare (“YMCA,”
“Chicken Dance,” “Twist and Shout”) with fast-paced Indian music. The latter
brought all of Ravi’s side of the family to the floor in synchronized displays
with lots of arm motions. As the evening wore on, they were joined by
increasing numbers of white guests spurred on by the welcoming smiles of the
family and copious amounts of alcohol.

Even
Marci’s father, who seldom drank more than a single beer or glass of wine,
indulged in several cocktails over the course of the evening and was persuaded
to join the dancing by two of Ravi’s more attractive and giggly teenage
cousins. In fact, the only person who did not dance at some point in the
evening was Aunt Mildred, who kept her usual post on the bench seat nearest the
door, ready to complain about the skimpy outfits of the young girls and the
demise of true Southern gentility to anyone foolish enough to sit next to her.

The
seven companions were huddled around a poolside table where they had been
camped out for much of the evening, drinking and talking between dances. As the
event wound down and the older relatives of both sides yawned, stretched, and
made their way to the newlyweds for final hugs and pieces of advice, the
remaining guests crowded the dance floor for drunken swaying to low-key ballads
in both English and Hindi.