Zack didn’t really care where he lived. They had talked about going away for a romantic weekend, but hadn’t had time to. Her grandmother had said he could stay in the cottage with Ruby in Tahoe. They were surprisingly modern about things like that. After all, they were engaged and the subject had never come up before. She’d never brought a boyfriend home, had never been in love before, and had only had sex twice in her life, with a boy she wasn’t in love with, when she had too much to drink at a party in college. But she and Zack were excited and feeling shy about making love for the first time.
She had promised to help him try to sort out his apartment that night. He said he wanted to throw most of his stuff away, and Ruby had said she’d do it with him. He said he’d provide the pizza and garbage bags if she’d do the packing with him. The only thing worth keeping was his computer, in his opinion.
She drove to Palo Alto after trying on the wedding dress and felt like she was in a dream all the way there, and kissed him tenderly when she arrived with a mysterious smile, thinking of the dress.
“That was nice,” he said, grinning at her and kissed her again. They had spent so little time alone since they’d been engaged that it was nice to have the time, even in his dump of an apartment, which had been adequate as a student, but no longer appropriate given his massive success, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t moved after he graduated.
She looked around and cringed. She’d been there before when they were in college, but it seemed to have gotten worse.
“When did you last clean this place?” she asked, trying to make room to sit down among the books and newspapers on the battered couch.
“I don’t know…Christmas? Last summer? Why?”
“I think most of it needs to go in a dumpster, not a garbage bag,” she said honestly.
“That bad, huh?”
She nodded. “Why don’t we just pack the books, and I’ll get rid of everything else,” she suggested.
“That’ll work.” He had gotten some cartons and she put the books in them while he sliced the pizza and poured them some wine in the only two glasses he had. He was staring at her as she bent over to pack the books, and she glanced at him to see what he was doing. He was mesmerized by her, as though seeing her for the first time.
“What? Do I look weird or something?”
“No, you’re so beautiful, Ruby. I can’t keep my eyes off you.”
She blushed as he said it, and he walked over and kissed her and slid his hands under her T-shirt. He was breathless and gently pulled her T-shirt off and tossed it behind him, and kissed her again as he unhooked her bra, and then bent to kiss her breasts.
“I thought we were supposed to be packing,” she said in a hoarse voice as she unzipped his shorts, and they fell to the floor, and he stood there in his underwear and she topless, and the rest happened effortlessly. He carried her to his bed, and took the rest of her clothes off and his. They lay naked together, exploring each other’s bodies for the first time, and discovered the passion they had for each other and never knew. He was a passionate, energetic lover and tender at the same time and she blossomed at his touch and suddenly felt like a woman with him, not just a girl.
They lay breathless afterward and he was smiling and she laughed. She was happy and she loved him.
“I should have brought you here to pack before,” he said, admiring her body as she lay next to him.
“You should burn this place down.” She grinned at him.
“I think we just did,” he said, kissing her, and got up to get the wine and handed her a glass. “I love you, Ruby Moon.”
“I love you too, Zack.”
“I’m going to love being married to you,” he said happily. They took a sip of the wine, and then they set their glasses down and did it again.
* * *
—
Eleanor used the time in Tahoe that summer to rest before she came back to the city to plan the wedding in earnest, and attend to all the details. She spent hours in her garden, and got Alex to help her with it. It was always a peaceful time there. They went out on the boat, Alex went fishing. And Zack came up with Ruby and spent a week with them. They stayed in the cottage, and loved making love all night and waking up together. They were both thrilled with their engagement, and were busy making plans of their own. Zack had rented a yacht for them in the Caribbean for their honeymoon, and it sounded incredibly luxurious to Ruby.
The only disagreement they had was about what to put on the invitation, about the attire for the guests. Zack wanted it to say “casual,” which Ruby objected to, before her grandmother ordered the invitations.
“If you say that, all your techie friends will show up in Converse and shorts,” Ruby complained.
“What’s wrong with that?” Zack asked, surprised, and Alex and Eleanor exchanged a look of amusement, and knew that Ruby was right. Zack always looked like he’d dressed in clothes he’d picked up from the floor.
“I want everyone to look nice at the wedding,” Ruby insisted. Especially if she wore her grandmother’s exquisite dress, she wanted Zack in a real suit. “It won’t kill them to look like grown-ups for a change.” Zack grumbled about it but finally conceded. Ruby told her grandmother that she didn’t want to wear her fabulous wedding dress surrounded by a sea of guys looking like they were on their way to the beach or to play basketball. And Eleanor agreed. They put “coat and tie and cocktail attire” on the invitation, to dress them up a little.
Ruby took Zack to buy a suit in San Francisco, since he said he didn’t own one. He was one of the richest men in America and he didn’t own proper clothes.
When they got back from Lake Tahoe at the end of August, Eleanor got busy with all the details for the wedding. The flowers, the food, the cake, she checked the tablecloths at the Hamilton School and asked them to order new ones. She met with the florist several times at the school, and tried to re-create the same atmosphere and look of her own wedding, without going to the extremes her parents had fifty years before. There had been garlands over every doorway, then. Eleanor managed with just two. The dinner tables were set up in the ballroom, and there was still enough room for the band, and the guests to dance.
Eleanor found the time to pick out a dress for herself. It was navy blue lace with a matching coat. The wedding dress was hanging and ready in the guest room, with the shoes Ruby had chosen to go with it. She and her grandmother were the same height, but the shoes Eleanor had worn were tiny. She still had small, narrow, elegant feet. Modern women had bigger feet.
Since Zack’s parents weren’t on good terms after the divorce, they decided not to give a rehearsal dinner, which upset Zack at first and Ruby convinced him was okay, but he hated the fact that they couldn’t make the effort for him to be civil for one evening. His mother was bringing her jerk of a husband to the wedding, according to Zack, and his father was bringing his current girlfriend who was a year older than Ruby. They had met through a dating service and Zack was annoyed. Zack and Ruby were going to go out for dinner with her grandparents the night before the wedding.
Zack was already working on new concepts for networking that were more intricate than the concept he’d sold for a billion dollars. He had only just begun his meteoric climb in the high-tech world. He loved what he was doing, and he couldn’t wait to be married to Ruby. When he left her the night before the wedding, he kissed her and they lingered at the front door for a few minutes.
“I can’t wait till tomorrow,” he whispered.
“Me too.” She smiled. They were perfectly suited to each other.
She lay awake in her bed for hours that night, thinking about him, and the dress she was going to wear the next day. She couldn’t wait for Zack to see it.
Chapter 16
It was a golden October morning when Ruby woke up on the day of her wedding. Her grandmother came to give her a hug, and wa
s busy all morning after that, checking on the last details.
The ceremony was going to be at six o’clock at Grace Cathedral, on Nob Hill, which was newly built with its spectacular bronze doors since Eleanor and Alex’s wedding. The guests would then wander across the street to the Hamilton School, the old Deveraux mansion, where the reception was being held.
Alex kept busy and stayed out of the women’s path all day. The hairdresser came at two and did Ruby’s hair in a simple chignon, similar to the style Eleanor had worn but without the finger waves to frame her face. She attached the tiara to Ruby’s head securely, and at five o’clock Eleanor helped her put on the dress that Ruby had been dreaming about since she’d seen it in July. Then they settled the veil over her tiara. It was the thinnest layer of white tulle, the merest illusion, and as soon as it was in place, Eleanor stood back with tears in her eyes as she admired her granddaughter in the mirror. Ruby looked serious and innocent, and spectacular in the dress that had survived more than half a century since her grandmother wore it.
“Darling, you look incredible,” her grandmother whispered and Ruby faced her in the mirror, and for the first time in a long time, thought about her mother.
“She really missed the boat on everything, Grandma, didn’t she?” Eleanor knew who she meant and nodded with a sigh. She meant Camille. She had left Ruby motherless three weeks after she was born, and broken her parents’ hearts. It was a long time ago now, but still a dull ache for Eleanor and Alex whenever they thought about her.
“I’m sure she would have wanted to be here,” Eleanor said sadly. She didn’t speak of Camille often. It was still painful, twenty-two years after her death. “She followed the wrong path, and got lost along the way.” But she and Alex had been there for Ruby, and she had never lacked for love or attention and was grateful to them for it. Now she and Zack would have a family of their own. But she still wished at times that she had known her mother. It made her want to be the best mother in the world to her children one day. The way her grandmother had been to her.
Camille had also had a wild streak, which Ruby never did. Eleanor couldn’t imagine Camille wearing the wedding dress that Ruby had on, under any conditions. She had done everything to reject her parents’ values and fight tradition, whereas Ruby embraced it. Ruby had wanted everything to be as close as possible to her grandmother’s wedding, and had carefully studied the wedding albums. She was even carrying an identical bouquet of tiny phalaenopsis orchids and lily of the valley.
Eleanor carried Ruby’s train down the stairs for her, as Wilson had done for her, and Alex stared at his granddaughter when he saw her. He felt as though he had been cast backward fifty-two years. Except for the red hair, Ruby looked just like her grandmother. And now that he saw it again, he remembered the dress perfectly. It was just as beautiful on Ruby as it had been on Eleanor.
The three of them rode to the church together, in the car they had hired with a driver. It was a vintage Rolls-Royce. Alex waited for the chauffeur to set up his wheelchair for him when they reached the church, and he got into it smoothly, and then Eleanor helped Ruby out. Alex was going to roll down the aisle next to her. They entered the cathedral through the rectory, and waited for the music to start as their cue, and then Ruby walked slowly down the aisle, next to her grandfather, with her eyes on Zack waiting for her at the altar, as their friends stared at her in her grandmother’s exquisite wedding dress. She looked like a vision from the past, but there was something timeless about it. Zack looked totally bowled over by her when she stood next to him, and Alex rolled himself next to the first pew to take his place next to Eleanor.
“I feel like I’m watching you at our wedding,” he whispered to her and took her hand. Except that the church had been a temporary one, and the park outside had been tented.
Zack and Ruby had decided on traditional vows, and exchanged simple gold wedding rings, while Eleanor and Alex cried unabashedly, and when the minister declared them man and wife, Zack kissed her so hard she was breathless and everyone laughed and applauded, and then they went back down the aisle, beaming at their friends.
When the wedding guests arrived at the house, Alex looked at them in amusement. Some of the richest men in America were there, and they looked more like boys going to summer camp than business moguls. About half of them had worn suits that looked brand new and in which they appeared supremely uncomfortable, and as though they’d never worn a suit or tie before in their lives. The other half of the men had come in jeans and had worn jackets with them, a few had worn shorts in spite of what the invitation had said. Some of the boys in suits were wearing T-shirts and sneakers with them. There were more high-top sneakers in the room than proper shoes. And all of the men there were considerably under thirty. They looked like children to Alex, and yet most of them had already made astounding fortunes in high-tech.
“All that brain power and not one of them knows how to wear a tie,” Alex said, smiling at his wife. “You look beautiful,” he complimented her. He felt as though there were two of her there that night, the woman he was married to now, and the vision of her as a young girl in the wedding dress. It had been the happiest night of his life, and he remembered every minute of it distinctly. Zack looked just as happy now, and when Ruby and Zack danced their first dance, Eleanor and Alex felt as though they were having an out-of-body experience watching them. The house looked wonderful, with all the touches that Eleanor had remembered to add to replicate their wedding, just as Ruby wanted. The floral centerpieces on the tables were the same, and copied from old photographs.
When the guests sat down to dinner in the ballroom, everyone started dancing, and Alex looked at his wife wistfully, wishing that he could dance with her again. She guessed what he was thinking, kissed him, and whispered to him.
“You danced with me so much that night that it has lasted me a lifetime.” He kissed her then, and she disappeared for a while to check on the guests. They had seated Zack’s parents at opposite ends of the room. And Zack was pleased that they both came, a first since the divorce. Neither of them wanted to miss his wedding, which Eleanor was pleased to see, for his sake. From what he had said, he had had so little family support as he grew up, while his parents waged war on each other.
The cake was an exact replica of the one she and Alex had had. Eleanor noticed that the female guests looked more respectable than the men, with most of them in very pretty cocktail dresses. But Ruby was the most beautiful of all. Zack had been gazing at her all night, and danced with her again and again. He very politely asked Eleanor to dance too, and danced once with his mother, who was being infinitely nicer to him since his recent deal, and invited him to Texas with Ruby while they danced. His father’s girlfriend looked predictably unsuitable, but no one cared, not even Zack.
They had paid the school an extra fee to allow the party to go on until one A.M. It was a far cry from her grandparents’ all-night wedding, but no one gave parties like that anymore. Ruby’s wedding was particularly glamorous, with the unforgettable wedding dress, the garlands and the flowers, and the tablecloths the school had ordered and Eleanor had placed white lace over them. The tiara gave Ruby a regal look. It was incredible to Alex that the awkward-looking young boys around the room had made unimaginable fortunes. You would never have guessed it from their age or the look of them. But a new era had dawned, the country was thriving as never before with the high-tech era, and the crash that Alex’s generation had lived through was only distant history now. The young people of Ruby and Zack’s generation had no idea of what that had been like or the lives it had destroyed. Now no one remembered, except those who had lived through it.
At the end of the evening, Ruby tossed her bouquet and a friend from Stanford caught it. It was a special “throwing bouquet” so she could keep and preserve her real one. They were going to spend the night across the street at the Fairmont hotel, and then leave for the Caribbean by private plane
the next morning. Zack was becoming familiar with the conveniences of his new status quickly and sharing them gladly with Ruby.
They were just about to leave the house after thanking her grandparents, when Zack turned to smile at his bride.
“You’re the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen, and it was a fantastic wedding. We’ll have to give another big party for the housewarming.”
“What housewarming?” Ruby looked at him blankly.
“I know how much this house means to you and your grandmother,” he said in a low husky voice that no one else could hear. “The school was looking for bigger quarters. They said that they’ve outgrown this house and have been looking for a while. I bought it for you,” he said quietly and Ruby stared at her husband.
“You did what?”
“I bought the house from the school. It’s my wedding present to you. It’s yours, Ruby. I put it in your name. You and your grandmother can have fun now restoring it to how it used to be.” He looked innocent and ingenuous when he said it, as though it was a perfectly normal thing to do, which to him it was. He thought it had cost him very little money.
“Oh my God, Zack, you’re crazy, but what an incredibly wonderful thing for you to do. I have to tell my grandmother.” She found her in the ballroom, sitting quietly with Alex, enjoying a last glass of champagne. She sat down next to her and told her. And Eleanor looked as though she thought it was a joke, and then she realized that Ruby meant it, and so did Alex.
“He bought the house?” Eleanor stared at her. “You own it now?” The house had been out of their hands for fifty-one years, and now it was back. Alex looked thunderstruck, and then she hurried off to thank Zack. There were no words to tell him what it meant to her, but he could see it in her eyes, and his wife’s, and he was glad he had done it. It seemed like a small thing to him now, but it was huge to Ruby and her grandmother.
The Wedding Dress Page 19
