The Wedding

by Danielle Steel

  “Please have my secretary ask them.”

  “Certainly,” Delilah said, satisfied now with the communication. “I can't believe you haven't found a dress yet, by the way. You'll really have to try harder.”

  “I'm going back to work,” Allegra barked at her, frustrated by how much the woman got on her nerves. She didn't want to be rude to her, but there seemed to be times when there was no option.

  As soon as they hung up, she called her mother at the show, and she realized she was trembling when she heard her mother. “If you don't call that woman off, Mom, I'm going to kill her.”

  “What woman?” The only one she could think of who deserved that, in her mind, was Elizabeth Coleson. But she didn't think Allegra knew about her.

  “What do you mean ‘what woman?’ I mean that buzzard you unleashed on me to plan the wedding. I'd rather hold it in the park and hand out hot dogs and Twinkies than have this woman call me on a closed set to discuss the music and the cake, and the ‘color for the bridesmaids.’ Mom, you can't do this to me.”

  “Just trust me, dear. She'll do a beautiful job, and you'll be so happy.” It was nearly impossible to imagine, and Allegra rolled her eyes, said good-bye to Blaire, and went back to Carmen.

  “Everything okay?” For once, she looked concerned about something other than her own problems.

  “You wouldn't believe it,” Allegra said, overwhelmed with exasperation.

  “Try me.”

  “The wedding coordinator my mother hired was calling to bug me.”

  “What?” Carmen looked amused as she changed her makeup. “Wedding coordinator? What's that?”

  “What I did when I bought the wigs, and the polyester clothes, and the plastic bouquet for Vegas.”

  “Is that what she's doing for you?” Carmen looked amused for once and Allegra laughed.

  “I hope not. You never know though. You two were so smart to go to Vegas.”

  “You can too, you know,” she said. They had all loved it, and it seemed to make more and more sense for her and Jeff to do it too and avoid the whole wedding.

  “It would probably break my mother's heart, if I cheated her out of a wedding.” But it would have been worth it, not to see Mary Hamilton again. In some ways, it was a powerful temptation.

  In the end, she stayed with Carmen until lunch, and then went back to her office to get organized and sign some documents. She had to be at Suzanne Pearlman's office at two-thirty. They were meeting another set of parents, who had flown in from Chicago. It amazed Allegra now to realize how people flew around the country, looking for babies, interviewing girls who wanted to give their babies up, and being interviewed by them. It seemed to be a major preoccupation. But having seen how obsessed Carmen had been, over a fetus she'd only carried for two months and then lost, Allegra was beginning to understand it. It was an obsession with having, keeping, and acquiring babies.

  She had told Sam she'd pick her up at home, and she drove through Bel Air on the way to Suzanne Pearlman's. Allegra was stunned by how much Sam had grown in a few days. She was seven months' pregnant and she really looked enormous. And somehow the odd contrast of it made her seem even younger.

  “How've you been?” Allegra asked as Sam got in. She was wearing a short pink dress that accommodated the bulge, and sandals that wound up her legs, her long blond hair in pigtails, and huge sunglasses. She looked like Nabokov's Lolita.

  “Okay,” Sam answered, with a nod and a kiss for her sister. She was grateful that she was going with her. She had already met several of the couples, and she hated doing it. It was always so awkward and she hadn't liked any of them. Maybe the Whitmans? But they weren't perfect either. “How was New York?”

  “Interesting,” Allegra answered noncommittally, and Sam laughed. She knew her sister.

  “Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good.”

  “It wasn't.”

  “Was she a bitch?” “Yup. Totally. The human iceberg. She was really afraid that I might be Jewish. Can you believe that?”

  “Wait till Daddy meets her. He'll love it.”

  “I can't imagine ever seeing her again, except I know I have to. I don't know how Jeff turned out as normal as he did.” It was a total mystery to her after meeting his mother.

  “Maybe he's adopted,” she said sadly. Despite the banter, she couldn't forget where they were going or why. She was going to meet another set of prospective parents for her baby. And just thinking about it depressed her. She had tried telling Jimmy what it was like the last time she went, and this time he had offered to go with her, but she didn't think he should, and it might confuse them. They might think Jimmy was the baby's father. She was always willing to tell the prospective parents the little she knew of Jean-Luc, though it made her sound pretty flaky. He was tall and good-looking and blond, a photographer, and he was French, and about thirty. Which meant he was foreign, possibly talented, and attractive. Beyond that, she could tell them nothing. Whereabouts: unknown. She had no history to offer. They arrived at Suzanne's office ten minutes after Allegra picked Sam up, and they rode up in the elevator in silence.

  She had a pleasant waiting room with artistic prints all done in cheerful colors, and there were stacks of magazines. There were two kinds: World of Interiors, Parenting Magazine, Vogue, Connaissance des Arts, Town & Country, Architectural Digest for the prospective parents, and Seventeen, Rolling Stone, Elle, Young and Modern, and even Mad for the mothers. But neither Allegra nor Sam chose a magazine, they just sat there and waited. And five minutes later, the receptionist asked them to come in. The couple from Chicago were already with Miss Pearlman.

  But as soon as Sam saw them, she knew she didn't like them. They were nervous around her, and they talked a lot about the trips they liked to go on, their skiing, and their last trip to Europe. She was a flight attendant, and he was in insurance, and covered a large block of the Midwest. They didn't have kids, and they had tried in vitro fertilization, but it was too expensive in the long run, and they were tired of trying. They were stories Sam had heard a lot now.

  “What are you going to do with the baby when you travel?” Sam asked them with a look of curiosity.

  “Leave it with a baby-sitter,” the husband said.

  “Hire a nanny,” the wife offered.

  “Why adopt a baby?” Sam went right to the point, not unlike her older sister, and Allegra smiled as she watched her.

  “I'm thirty-eight, Janet's thirty-five, we both think it's time,” he said, as though they were talking about buying a car. “All our friends have kids, we live in the suburbs.” They lived in Naperville, but none of that appeared to be reason enough to Sam to give them her baby. They were anything but appealing.

  “But do you really want one?” She pressed on, and she could see that they were getting really uncomfortable with her questions.

  “If we didn't, we wouldn't be here,” Janet said, trying to warm up to the girl, but not getting very far. They didn't like Sam either. She looked like a valley girl to them, and she seemed really pushy with her questions.

  “We get free tickets from the airline. We came out here for nothing,” Paul said, as Sam looked at Allegra.

  “Are there any other questions you'd like to ask?” Suzanne asked Sam. She could see that the interview wasn't going well and that Sam didn't like them.

  “No, I think that's fine,” Sam said politely, and they went to wait in her other office. A few minutes later Suzanne came in to talk candidly to Sam and Allegra.

  “I hate them,” Sam said bluntly the minute Suzanne walked into the room.

  “No kidding,” Suzanne said, and laughed, lightening the moment. “I figured that out myself. Why?” Although she knew that too, but she was just checking.

  “They don't want a baby. They should buy a dog. They want to travel all the time, they get free airline tickets, they're going to dump it at the babysitter's, and they just want a kid because everyone else in the suburbs has one. Why don't they just move into the city an
d forget it?” She was sharp. There were a lot of people out there who thought they wanted babies and really didn't. They wanted a sense of completion, or fulfillment; they wanted to put their marriage back together, or feel young again. They wanted a lot of things, but not a baby. And for them, having a baby or adopting one should not be the answer.

  “I won't give my baby to them,” Sam said definitely, and Allegra flinched as she listened. Sam's pregnancy had suddenly become “her baby.” It was far more real now, and she was deeply attached to it, even if she pretended she wasn't.

  “I understand that,” Suzanne said calmly. “What about the Whitmans in Santa Barbara? They're very interested in you, Sam. They'd really like to pursue it.”

  “I like them the best so far,” she admitted, “but I'm still thinking.” It was like trying to put together a major movie deal with a seventeen-year-old producer, sometimes fifteen or even fourteen. Allegra was suddenly glad this wasn't her line of business.

  “What are you thinking about?” Suzanne asked her.

  “I'm trying to decide if I really like them.”

  “Why are you hesitating?” This was what Suzanne was so good at. The mix and match of relinquishing mothers and adoptive parents.

  “I don't know, they're kind of old,” Sam said honestly. They were both in their late thirties and they had never been able to have children.

  “They've had a lot of bad luck,” Suzanne explained, more for Allegra's sake than Sam's. Sam knew this. She had come alone with her mother last time. Although Allegra usually tried to come with her, Blaire had come twice, and Simon hadn't come at all. He just couldn't do it. The prospect of his baby having one, and then giving it up on top of it, just broke his heart. He didn't want to hear it. Just seeing her right now was hard enough. She looked so swollen, like a little grape, and yet at the same time she was still so pretty, in some ways more so. Her face had filled out a little bit, and there was a softness to it that really made her look lovely.

  “The Whitmans are an unusual couple,” Suzanne went on to explain in detail. “They've had more bad luck than any adopting couple I've ever heard of. They tried to adopt two babies who were reclaimed by their natural parents before the adoptions were official. That was over ten years ago, and they decided not to try again. And then with the new technologies, they tried to get pregnant again. She's had fourteen miscarriages, and a stillbirth. Now they want to adopt again, and I really have to give them credit. But after all that, they're not quite as young as some of our adopting parents are, Sam. Maybe that's not such a terrible thing. Personally, I really like them. I think they've got an awful lot of spirit.” But they were the kind of people Suzanne particularly did not want to play with. She didn't want to offer people like that babies whom mothers might eventually take back. That's why she had asked Allegra, right at the beginning, if Sam was sure about giving up her baby. But Sam was definite about it now. She had talked to Jimmy about it too. And she felt she had no other options.

  Jimmy was still around a lot these days. But in her current state, her parents saw no objection to it. Sam needed friends, and Jimmy was a nice, solid boy who offered her nothing more than his friendship. He thought it was really sad that she had to give up the baby, and he said so.

  “What about the Whitmans then? Would you like to see them again?”

  “Maybe.” Sam was noncommittal. She had her dark glasses high on her head, and she looked like a chubby little princess. Her stomach was large and round, her legs and arms were still rail thin, and despite the bulge, she was still very graceful.

  “Katherine Whitman would like to be at the delivery with you, if you choose them.”

  “Why?” Sam thought that sounded disgusting.

  “Because she wants to see the baby born, and bond with it immediately. A lot of couples like to do that. Would you object to having John there too? He said he'd like it, but for him, it's an option.” It made Allegra uncomfortable to listen to all these deals and conditions. It really was a business.

  “I don't want him there. I'll think about her.”

  “John could be up near your head, where he won't see anything.” She pressed just a little too hard and Sam snapped at her.

  “No! I don't want him there. I told you.”

  “Okay. No problem. So who have we narrowed it down to then?” It exhausted Allegra emotionally just to listen.

  “I think just the Whitmans,” Sam said sadly. She hated coming here. It was so depressing. There was just no way out. She had to give them the baby. The only thing to decide now were the details.

  “Are you going to the doctor regularly?” Suzanne went down her checklist. Sam hated that part too, but she understood it. “Taking your vitamins? Not taking drugs? Have you had sex recently?” Sam glared at her, but answered all the appropriate questions. She went to the doctor, took her vitamins, had never taken drugs, did not drink currently, not even beer or wine, and had not had sex since she'd gotten pregnant. She was every adoptive parent's dream. And Suzanne didn't tell her, because she didn't want to pressure her, but the Whitmans were desperate for her baby. She thought there was a better chance of things going well for them, if they played it low-key with Sam. She wasn't the kind of girl who responded well to pressure. Suzanne never pushed her. She let her come to it by herself, and make all her own decisions. And she had told the Whitmans that they had to be patient and wait for Sam's decision. She even encouraged them to pursue some other avenues, and talk to some other girls, so they wouldn't be disappointed if Sam chose other parents. Sam was clearly not enthused at their being older.

  “Would you like to see them again?” Suzanne asked one last time, but Sam shook her head.

  “Not yet.” For the moment, she wanted a breather. And Allegra took her for a milkshake at Johnny Rocket's when they left. She really looked awful. Even thinking about it was a total drain for Sam. It was a hideous decision. And now her doctor wanted her to do Lamaze classes, so the delivery would be easier for her. She had gone for the first time the week before, with Blaire, and they had shown the class a film on childbirth, and she'd almost fainted. She had to go through all that, for someone else. And then give them the baby. It was a lot to ask for. And she certainly couldn't imagine them being there, as Suzanne had suggested. Sam looked as miserable as she felt as she finished her milkshake.

  “I wish I were dead,” she said unhappily, and Allegra was reminded of Carmen again, who wanted to be dead because she didn't have a baby. There were times when life had a strange sense of humor.

  “I think that's a little extreme, don't you?” Allegra said calmly, and they looked surprisingly alike as Allegra drank a soda with her. “How about wishing it were all behind you?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  And then Allegra remembered that Sam's graduation ceremony was that week, and she couldn't even go to see it. That was an added blow. She asked Sam how she felt about it.

  “Okay, I guess. Jimmy brought me all the stuff. My name is still on the program.” And she had gotten her diploma. In spite of her absence these last two months, she had still graduated with honors. “Jimmy said it was kind of boring.”

  “What's with you and him anyway?” Allegra asked by way of conversation. He was a cute kid, and he hung around the house all the time, especially lately. She had seen him whenever she came by, even in the evening. He seemed to be the only one of her old friends who had stuck by her. It was as though the others were all embarrassed and didn't know what to say, so they just stopped coming, even her girlfriends.

  “We're just friends,” Sam explained. For the moment, he was her best friend. She told him all her hopes and fears and troubles.

  “Alan and I were like that at your age. We started out as boyfriend and girlfriend as sophomores, and then we just got to be like brother and sister. We still are, I guess.”

  “I haven't seen Alan in ages.” Sam smiled. She had always liked him. He loved to tease her. Though for the moment, he didn't even know she was pregnant.
He left before Allegra had found out, and she still hadn't told him. He had his own problems in that department, with Carmen.

  “He's in Switzerland,” Allegra explained, “making a movie.”

  “How's Carmen?”

  “Not so hot. She had a miscarriage in Switzerland. He's still there, working. And she had to come back to do a movie. She's pretty miserable, and she misses him a lot. He won't be back till August.”

  “Can't she get over to see him?”

  “Not unless she wants me to strangle her. She's shooting.”

  “Oh. That must be hard not being together.” Allegra nodded. The miscarriage had actually been harder for her.

  Allegra took her back to the house in Bel Air then, and it was too late for her to go back to the office. She had promised to meet Jeff on his set. And Allegra noticed as she drove away that Jimmy was arriving. She wondered if anything serious was happening there. But she doubted it. How serious could it be with Sam seven months' pregnant?

  She thought about her all the way to meet Jeff, and it really made her heart ache to think of what she had to go through. And it made her even more uncomfortable when she thought of her giving birth with people standing by, just waiting to snatch the baby from her. It seemed so creepy. She was still thinking of it when she met Jeff, and they talked about it on the way back to Malibu later that evening.

  “I hate to see her go through it,” Jeff said, shaking his head.

  “So do I,” Allegra confessed. “Suzanne is doing a good job for her though. I couldn't do it.”

  “Yes, you could.” He leaned over and kissed her, and their conversation finally drifted away from Sam, and on to Carmen. He asked if she had settled down, and Allegra said that things appeared to be quieter for the moment.

  And then they forgot the others, and just talked about his movie, and their wedding.