The Wedding

by Danielle Steel

  “I don't think my nerves are going to hold out,” Allegra said as she sat down and looked at Sam.

  “Relax, you're going to be fine,” her suddenly mature sister said calmly as she held her baby.

  “You sound just like Mom.” Allegra smiled, thinking she even looked like Blaire, and she leaned over and kissed her. “You're a good kid. Did I ever tell you that?” She'd felt closer to her ever since the birth of the baby.

  “Not lately, but I figured it out. You're a pretty terrific older sister.” And then she lowered her voice. “But your friends are getting a little fat.” The two sisters laughed, and then Jessica arrived, but no one had warned Allegra of how much her life had changed in the past five or six years. She arrived wearing short hair, no makeup, and a beautiful Armani suit she had bought in Milan. She worked in publishing, but she had a lot of friends in fashion, and she had a spare, austere look that was very fashionable in Europe and on the East Coast, but there was more to it than that. There was a quality about Jessica that had never been there before, and Allegra couldn't help noticing that Jessica had glanced with particular interest at Carmen. And then, as she looked at her more carefully, Allegra realized what had changed since they last met. She was openly gay now, when for years she had been in the closet.

  Jessica, now “Jess,” talked about her lover over lunch. She talked about her life, and the fact that she felt that the lesbian movement had gained momentum in the West, but not enough in the East. Carmen just stared at her and told her there were no lesbians in Portland.

  “Well, there sure are in London,” Nancy said, laughing. She laughed at everything and everyone. She had a great time wherever she was, even if she did drink a little too much. But she was the life of the party.

  “Have you ever had a homosexual experience?” Jess asked Nancy casually, and Nancy paused, thinking about it, while Carmen blushed, and Sam looked pointedly at her older sister, who was trying to remain calm. She was convinced now that she was never going to survive her wedding.

  “Actually,” Nancy finally answered Jess. “I don't recall that I have,” she said nonchalantly.

  “Oh, you'd remember it.” And then Jessica agreed to try the dress. She took off her shirt and the Armani suit, and she was wearing silk Jockey shorts, and nothing else, and Allegra had to admit that she had a fabulous body. But it was not one that appealed to her, and just knowing what her interests were made Allegra faintly uncomfortable. And later as the waiter poured champagne, Jessica teased her about making a big mistake marrying a man, she should have been marrying a woman. She noticed then that Jess was wearing a narrow gold wedding band, and she explained that she'd lived with the same woman for two years now. She was a fashion designer from Japan, and they traveled all over Europe and the Far East whenever they got the chance, for pleasure and business. She led an interesting life, but had made some very different choices from Allegra.

  But at least the dress fit, and when Delilah arrived, everything appeared to be in fairly good order. The shoes fit almost comfortably, the hats were fine, the photographer took some informal pictures, and by then Nancy had had a little too much to drink, and Jess had decided to play games and, more for the fun of it, appeared to be in hot pursuit of Carmen.

  “I'm pregnant, for God's sake,” she snapped, when Jess put a tantalizing finger down her neck as a joke, but Carmen was not amused by it.

  “It's all right, I don't mind,” Jess said, and a little while later she was chatting seriously to Sam and holding the baby. She was a nice woman, and over the past several years she had come out of the closet, and she was completely unashamed of who she was, and at times she was unabashedly outrageous. In some ways, Allegra still loved that about her, but she needed to readjust her thinking about her a little.

  “Why didn't you tell me?” Allegra asked, later that afternoon.

  “I don't know. I didn't know you that well anymore. It's a hard thing to explain sometimes. I didn't think you'd understand.”

  “I probably wouldn't have,” Allegra said honestly. And after that, they talked about the impact of AIDS on our culture, and all the friends they'd lost, particularly in Hollywood, or creative fields in London and Paris. They all had. And finally, at five o'clock, they gave up the room and left. The two women from out of town had plans to see friends. And they were all getting together with Allegra again the next night for her bachelor dinner. The rehearsal dinner was the night after that. And then, finally, the wedding.

  “If I survive it,” Allegra said as she dropped off Sam and the baby in Bel Air. It had been an exhausting but amusing afternoon. She wasn't even sure if she liked her old friends anymore, but they were part of her life, and her history, and they were there to be part of her wedding. She was still a little taken aback by Jess. She was thinking about her as she stopped off at her office, to pick up her messages and some work on her way to pick up Jeff on the set. It was a big day for him. This was it. The final hour. The end of his first movie.

  She walked quietly onto the set and watched the last take of the final scene, and heard the victory yell as the director said the magic words, “It's a wrap, folks.” And Jeff and Tony shook hands and then hugged. It was an emotional moment for them and the entire cast. And when Jeff turned and saw Allegra, he was beaming. Tony came over and hugged her too. He was short and wiry and blond, and as different from Jeff as two men could be. But they both knew they'd done a fine job and were proud of what they'd accomplished. Producing the movie had been hard work, but full of rewards and private visions. They had a party that night, and Allegra stayed. By the time they got back to Malibu, Allegra was absolutely exhausted.

  “How was your day?” Jeff finally asked, focusing on her again as they got home. It had been such a big day for him. The movie was finally over. Now they had to deal with postproduction, but the problems were more likely to be smaller. The stars would have gone home, and the cast and crew. The rest was up to editors, the director, and him and Tony.

  “My day was strange,” Allegra answered with a grin, and told him about Nancy and Jess. The odd thing was, she had nothing in common with either one of them anymore. They were old friends, but they had become strangers.

  “That's why I didn't want a lot of my old school buddies coming out from New York. After a while, you have nothing in common. The only one I still care about is Tony.”

  “You were smarter than I was.”

  They sat and talked about it for a while, and then finally went to bed. He still had some loose ends to tie up the next day, and at noon, he had to pick up his mother.

  Allegra would have gone too, but she had to go over some final details for the wedding with her mother, and Blaire wanted Allegra to help with the seating for the rehearsal dinner. It all seemed so out of control. It always reminded her of how much smarter Carmen had been to go to Las Vegas. Not to mention Sam, who had gone nowhere at all, but that was different.

  She agreed to meet Jeff and his mother for tea at the Bel Air that afternoon. And this time, she was bringing reinforcements. She had asked her mother to join them. Blaire had promised to come, no matter how busy she was. But even Allegra's warnings hadn't prepared her.

  Mrs. Hamilton was wearing a dark suit and a white silk blouse as she walked stiffly around the gardens of the Bel Air when Allegra first saw her.

  “Hello, Mrs. Hamilton. How was the trip?”

  “Fine, thank you, Allegra,” she said formally, with no invitation to call her anything else. Certainly not Mary, or Mom, or Mother.

  They went into the dining room to sit down, and Blaire went quietly to work on her, and by the end of an hour, they were not fast friends, but there was a certain mutual respect there, and the two mothers were quite cordial. Jeff was particularly grateful to his future mother-in-law for her efforts. She knew just how to handle Mrs. Hamilton, and although she certainly wasn't easy, Blaire told Allegra later, she could be managed.

  Mrs. Hamilton told Jeff, as he escorted her back to her room to lie d
own, that for a woman in show business, Mrs. Steinberg was extremely intelligent, and surprisingly distinguished. All of which he reported to Allegra the minute he got back to her in the lobby.

  “She likes your mom,” he translated into simple English.

  “Mom likes her too.”

  “What about you? You holding up okay?” He remembered their hideous argument two weeks before, and their appalling insults about each other's families, particularly his mother. He felt an obligation to defend her, but he also knew that some of what Allegra had said was true. Mary Hamilton was far from easy. But she wasn't young, she wasn't of the modern world, she was prejudiced and biased, and limited in her own way. And Jeff was her only child. You had to give her a break for some of it. But Jeff also sympathized with Allegra.

  “I'm fine. I'm just nervous.”

  “Who isn't?” He grinned. They had their bachelor dinners to get through that night. To Allegra, much of what she was doing seemed to be about survival. It wasn't relaxing, it wasn't fun. You just had to get through it. Even their wedding gifts weren't as much fun as she would have liked them to be. After the first one, a pair of crystal candlesticks from Carrier, there had been ten more pairs like them. And everything they got had to be listed, cataloged, inventoried, computerized, and thanked for. It was all work, and no fun. All the little details just became a headache. She wanted to tell people to wait and send them things later, but of course she didn't.

  “What's on your agenda for your bachelor party tonight?” Jeff asked as he drove her home to change. She was hardly getting anything done at the office, but she hadn't really expected to anyway. And Alice was trying to cover all her bases.

  “We're having dinner at Spago,” she said, lying back against the seat with a yawn.

  “We're going to The Troy.”

  “That sounds pretty civilized. Hopefully nobody will show up with half a dozen hookers.” Those stories of bachelor parties had never amused her. It did not seem to be any way to start a marriage, and she would have been furious with whoever brought them, and even more so with Jeff if he used them.

  But as it turned out, his bachelor party was far more chaste than hers, thanks to some of her colleagues, whom Carmen had invited. At Jeff's, there was the required stripper—but she came and left without incident—a series of bawdy songs and limericks and stories, and the only unexpected visitor was brought by Alan Carr. He had brought an alligator, heavily drugged, on a leash, with its trainer, and it was wearing a little sign around its neck that said ALLEGRA. The guys thought it was hysterical, but Allegra was happy no one had brought it for her. She would have been terrified. The guys, on the other hand, loved it.

  A male stripper showed up at Spago for her, which Jess said was very boring. She had a good sense of humor about things, and she teased the other girls a lot, and somehow made the whole gay issue very unthreatening, and at times very funny. The girls all gave Allegra outrageous gifts, dirty movies and vibrators, and there were X-rated party favors, crotchless underwear for all, with pasties and G-strings, and gifts of “marital aids” for Allegra. It was funny for a while, but it got tiresome by the end, and all she wanted to do when she got home was climb into bed and go to sleep and forget the wedding.

  “It's like being in the Olympics,” she muttered as she fell asleep next to him, wondering if they were doing the right thing. Why was everyone else so sure? Carmen … Sam … why was it so easy for them, and hard for her? Was she afraid of the wedding, or him? She couldn't remember any of the answers, but she fell into a deep sleep immediately, and spent the rest of the night having nightmares.

  CHAPTER 22

  Friday was the hardest day of all for her. It was her last day at work, and she wrapped up everything. Her house had already been sold, and escrow was closed. She seemed to be doing nothing anymore except tying up loose ends. And there was one last big one for her to deal with. Her father was flying in that afternoon, and she had agreed to meet him at the Belage for coffee.

  She had been dreading it for weeks, and had nightmares about it all night. This had nothing to do with Jeff, or the wedding. It had to do with her, and her life, and her memories, and freedom, and she knew it. She had been waiting twenty-five years for this moment.

  What she hated most about what was happening these days was that she seemed to be losing Jeff in the midst of all the preparations. Everything was about hats and shoes and veils and videos and photographs and wedding cakes and bridesmaids. It had nothing to do with him and what had brought them together in the first place. It was almost as though they had to get through it now, like a maze, in order to find each other again, and she could hardly wait to see him.

  She had left the house that morning before he got up, and called him after he'd left for God knows where—he had his own arrangements to make for the ushers. They'd wanted to have lunch, but never hooked up, and now she had to meet with her father, Charles Stanton.

  The rehearsal would be late that afternoon, and she'd see Jeff then, and then they would lose each other again at the rehearsal dinner. And that night she was staying at her parents', just for tradition's sake, so she wouldn't see him before the wedding, and she no longer had her own house to go to. But she was looking forward to staying with them, and maybe chatting with Sam until late at night, if she came to visit from the cottage.

  But in the meantime, Allegra had work to do. She had to see her father. She had talked about it with Sam, and about how reluctant she was to go down the aisle with him, and Simon had scolded her. “You make it sound like a kidnapping.”

  “In his case, it is,” Allegra had said, and all she could think of as she went to the hotel was that she had to tell him he was a guest at the wedding, and not her father. “The part of the father will be played tonight by Simon Steinberg, not Charles Stanton.” She was still thinking of it as she walked into the lobby, and walked right into him, and didn't know it.

  She excused herself and went to the desk, and then when she got there, she turned and looked. He looked familiar, but so much older. He was watching her too, and he walked over slowly.

  “Allegra?” he asked cautiously, and she nodded, holding her breath. It was him. Her father.

  “Hi,” she said, bereft of words, as he suggested they go to the bar, but when they sat down, he ordered a Coca-Cola, and she was glad to see it. At least he wasn't drinking. Those were her worst memories of him, when he was drunk and had beaten her mother.

  They chatted about nonentities for a while, California, Boston, her work, the weather. He didn't ask about Blaire, and Allegra sensed that he probably still had a lot of animosity against her. He had never forgiven her for leaving. She told him that Jeff was from New York, and that two of his grandfathers had been physicians.

  “How did he escape?” Charles Stanton said, trying to warm up to her, and not finding it easy. There was a wall between them. And she was surprised by how old and frail he looked. Her mother said he would be seventy-five; she had never realized that he was that much older than her mother.

  “He's a writer,” Allegra said about Jeff, and told him about both books, and his movie. “He's very talented,” she explained, but she couldn't concentrate on what she was saying. All she really wanted to know was why he had hated her so much, why he had never seen her, never called her, never loved her. She wanted to ask him what had happened when her brother died, but just sitting there with him like that, she couldn't. All her anger just sat in a little pool, like oil, with nowhere to go unless someone lit a match and let it burst into flame. But at last he did it. He asked about her mother, and his tone of voice said it all as Allegra bristled.

  “Why do you sound that way when you ask about her?” Allegra asked, suddenly astonished by her own question. It had come out of some dark recess of her heart, with no warning whatsoever.

  “What do you mean?” He looked uncomfortable, and sipped his Coca-Cola. He was the master of passive aggression. “I have no animosity toward your mother.” He lied, and hi
s eyes said so. He hated her even more than he had hated Allegra. In Allegra's case he just seemed not to care. In Blaire's, he had old scores to settle.

  “Yes, you do have animosity toward Mom.” Allegra stared him down. “But that's understandable, she left you.”

  “What do you know of all that?” he said, sounding irritated and cranky. “That was a long time ago. You were a child then.”

  “I still remember it. … I still remember the fights … the screaming … the things you both said….”

  “How could you?” He looked down into his drink, remembering it as well. “You were barely more than a baby.”

  “I was five years old, six when we left. It was awful.” He nodded, unable to deny it, afraid she did remember the times he had hit Blaire, and all the rest. He knew himself that he'd been crazy then. And then Allegra decided to brave the deepest waters. She knew it was the only way to reach the opposite shore again, and this time she knew she had to. She might never see him again. It might be her only chance to free herself, and him. “The worst part,” she said, “was when Paddy died.” But as she said it, he winced, as though she had hit him.

  “There was no help for that,” he said brusquely. “He had a form of leukemia that could not be cured, by anyone. Not in those days. Perhaps not even now,” he said sadly.

  “I believe you,” she said softly, and she did. Her mother had told her that years later. But she also knew that her father thought he should have saved him, and had never forgiven himself for failing. It was why he drank, and why he lost them. “But I do remember him … he was always so sweet to me….” In some ways, he was like Jeff. He was so gentle, and giving, and took such good care of her. “I loved him so much.”

  Her father closed his eyes and looked away from her. “There's no point talking about that now.” As he said it, she remembered that he had no other children, and for just an instant, she felt sorry for him. He was tired and alone, and sick probably, and he had nothing. She had Jeff and her parents, Sam, and Scott, and even Jimmy and Matthew. All Charles Stanton had were regrets, and ghosts, one child he had loved and lost, and another he had abandoned.