by Jody Gehrman
As the sun was just starting to slide behind the trees and Joni’s dad was lighting the tiki torches, I heard glasses being tapped for a toast. The cake had already been cut, and people were starting to transition from champagne to coffee. Joni’s mom stood first. She appropriated one of the mikes from the band, who had stopped playing long enough to eat. She looked nervous, like she wanted to get it over with. She told a funny story about Joni as a baby and wrapped it up with some tender praise for Phil. It was short but sweet. Then one person after another took the mike, most of them spouting clichés about lasting happiness, how Joni and Phil were so perfect for each other and would never be apart. A thick-necked guy in a flannel shirt made a reference to the “Army of table dancers,” that descended on the Tip Top last night. Joni and I both covered our faces and everyone roared with laughter. Evidently, our performance had been witnessed by at least a few of the guests assembled and talked about by the rest.
I stood up, thinking I’d get myself one last glass of champagne. As I crossed the meadow, I saw Coop standing at the bar. Ohm was pouring him a drink and he was laughing at something. I paused, trying to get my bearings, wondering if I should go over there, when all of a sudden someone was shoving a mike into my hand. I guess I must have lingered near the woman who was speaking for too long and she thought I was waiting my turn. As soon as I had the mike, several drunk guys who were splayed out in the tall grass near the trees let loose with catcalls and, “Take it off, baby!” Now I had everyone’s attention. I swallowed hard and stared down at the mike.
You know I hate public speaking—I mean loathe it with a vengeance. In high school, I used to hide in the bathroom when it was time to give oral reports. And here I was, in front of two hundred people, at least a handful of whom had seen me strip down to my underwear in a seedy bar the night before. I could feel my face blooming pink and hot; my fingers tingled; my mouth went dry. I was about to thrust the mike at someone—anyone—when I happened to look up and catch Coop’s eye. That’s when I realized that this was my chance. I could tell him, in front of witnesses, through an amplifier, how I felt. Maybe, if I said it just right, he’d forgive me.
“So…” My own voice rang in my ears, sounding impossibly loud and detached. I felt dizzy, light-headed, my palms so sweaty I feared the large, clumsy microphone would slip right through my grip and land in the grass. I was entirely capable of fainting, right then, and it occurred to me in some distant control center of my brain that falling to the ground unconscious would almost certainly excuse me from the task at hand. Then I heard my old refrain amplified inside my skull: What Would Jackie Do? The answer was plain, so I grabbed hold of the mike with both hands and stood up a little taller. One of the derelicts at the edge of the forest called out, “Show us your panties, baby!” I saw Joni’s grandparents frowning at each other quizzically.
“Actually, sir?” I looked pointedly at the guy in the baseball cap who’d just called out. “I think you’re confused. The tradition is a garter toss, not a pantie toss, but since you’re so eager to participate, I’m sure the bride will oblige you shortly.” Everyone laughed and some clapped. The guy tipped his baseball cap slightly as if to say, “Touché.” I took courage from this and plowed ahead. “I’m not sure what can be added to the toasts already made. Obviously, we’re all very happy for Joni and Phil—happy enough to get good and drunk on their future.” More laughs. I glanced at Coop, but his eyes unnerved me, so I fixed my stare on the huge blond beehive of Phil’s aunt.
“Unfortunately, the future isn’t all that easy to navigate. We’d like to send them off into the sunset, certain their love will last, except we all know life gets complicated. There’ll be dentist bills and taxes, midlife crises and temptation. The divorce rate is catastrophically high, single parenthood even higher and all of this is compounded by the rising cost of living, inflated real estate, endemic dissatisfaction with the workplace, a lack of socialized medicine….” People were starting to frown and raise their eyebrows. Only my father was beaming proudly. I had to get back on track. “Not to mention a general lack of commitment to purchasing quality lingerie.” That got a lot of laughs—relieved guffaws, mostly. As long as I stuck with panties, they seemed to like me. “Joni, I want you to remember, no matter how hard times get, your underwear drawer should be stocked with only the best.” She gave me the thumbs-up sign and everyone cheered.
I knew it was time to wind down—nobody likes a mike hog—but I still hadn’t said what I needed to say. “My point is…” I looked at my father. He was smiling uneasily now. I think he was afraid I’d back off from my political stance and get mushy. “My point is that many of us grew up with less than perfect childhoods, and—frankly—we’re terrified of marriage. But, as a very wise woman recently reminded me,” I looked at Joni, “We’re not our parents. They tried and, okay, maybe their lives weren’t always perfect, but the great thing is, they had the courage to make their own mistakes. Now it’s our turn to go out and make ours.” I looked at Coop. His eyes were fastened on my face, and for a moment it was just us there in that meadow; everyone else blurred and faded out. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes already. But the worst one I can imagine is being too scared to give love a chance, especially when you’ve found the man who makes the risk worth it.”
I raised my glass, which was empty, but oh well. “To Joni and Phil,” I said. “May they love each other forever and damn the statistics to hell.” Everyone drank and cheered and clapped. I nodded in thanks and handed the mike to a fat man in suspenders sporting the ubiquitous long gray ponytail.
I was emboldened by the apparent success of my toast as I crossed the meadow and headed toward Coop. The fat guy started rambling on about Phil’s heroic actions at an Earth First! protest. By the time I ambled up to the bar, a debilitating shyness seized me.
“Hi,” Coop said when I reached him. “That was really…”
“What?” I said. “Really what?”
“Great!” He smiled. “Seriously. I was…” He shrugged hopelessly, as if words failed him.
“Oh my God, what?” I covered my face with my hands.
He peeled them away gently. “I was very moved,” he said. “And no, I’m not being sarcastic.”
“I didn’t see you earlier…?”
He nodded. “I was trying to get my head on straight.”
“Oh, you mean after I bit it off?” I looked at my shoes. “I was totally out of line, Coop. I’m mortified.”
“You’re human,” he said. “I probably didn’t handle things all that great, myself.”
I peeked up at him. “You’re not mad?”
He chuckled and smoothed my hair with the palm of his hand. “Kitten. Come on. How could I stay mad at you?”
I couldn’t resist another moment. I threw myself into his arms. He pinned me against his chest in a strong, solid hug. My head filled with his smell and everything disappeared: the meadow, the fat man rambling into the mike about Redwood Summer, the screaming children, the whining mosquitoes. All I knew was the safe, sublime warmth of his body against mine.
When he released me at last, we both started to speak simultaneously. I said, “Coop, I’m sorry,” and he said, “I shouldn’t have—”
“You go,” I said.
“No, you,” he insisted.
I decided it was now or never. He’d already seen evidence of my pettiest, least attractive side, so there was no reason to hold anything back. “I’m psychotically jealous, okay? I’ve broken up with every guy I ever dated—none of my relationships last more than three months—because I freak out. I can’t trust people. My father screwed around and I got caught in the middle and I guess it scarred me. I’m emotionally warped. Damaged goods. And that’s why I’ve been such a complete idiot this weekend.”
Coop nodded solemnly. “I see.”
I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, I said, “I see? Is that all you’re going to say?”
He said, “You didn’t act like an idiot thi
s weekend.”
“I didn’t?”
He grinned. “Well, you were under duress.”
“You can say that again.”
He brushed his fingers across my cheek lightly. “Dannika’s not my type. You are. You’re an original. Who else would table dance at the Tip Top one night, and give a heartwarming speech about marriage less than twenty-four hours later?”
I punched his arm. “I was the undercover rescue effort, I’ll have you know.”
“Yeah, well, you had agent provocateur underwear, anyway.”
I shrugged. “How was I supposed to know I’d be so good at it?”
He bent down and put his mouth to mine, tentative at first, asking questions. As I leaned against him, parting my lips, he kissed me more deeply, until we were both a little drunk.
“How touching.”
The kiss ended abruptly at the sound of Dannika’s voice. We both turned and there she was, her hair amber in the flickering light of the tiki torches. The outside world came zooming back into focus; all I wanted was to crawl back inside Coop’s kiss, let it eclipse the wedding guests and the picnic blankets and the sneering goddess before me.
“Hey, Dannika.” I decided to make a stab at peacemaking. I had the guy; I could afford to be generous. “I’m sorry I got so heavy with you earlier.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Looks like your little tantrum got results.”
Coop stepped forward. “You think that’s funny? I don’t think that’s funny.”
“Apparently, you’re not thinking at all,” she said.
Around us, I noticed that the guests were starting to turn in our direction. The rambling guy in suspenders had finally surrendered the mike, but nobody else was toasting. In fact, they were shushing each other, honing in on our little spectacle-in-progress.
“Danni, why does everything have to be a test with you?” Coop paid no attention to their stares. “The minute I get close to someone, you have to butt in, see if I’m still your friend.”
“That is so not true,” she cried. “She’s just manipulating you.”
“Oh, yeah?” His eyes were dark again, that pure mallard green. “And what do you call what you’re doing?”
Her hand flew to her chest and she scoffed, indignant. “I’m your friend!”
“Then act like one.” He slung an arm around my shoulder, pulled me close. “I love Gwen, okay? If you really care about me, you’ll treat her with respect.”
Her jaw dropped. “What are you saying?”
“I’m not letting this one go—and I won’t let you interfere. I’ve let you have your way for years, Danni, but this time I’m putting my foot down.”
The verb to swoon comes to mind. He looked so incredibly attractive, standing there defending me, defending us. I wanted to gloat, to cry out nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, to do a giddy spin, my hands in the air.
But then I turned to Dannika, and my cockiness faded. Our eyes locked; chills of recognition bloomed along my spine. We were exactly alike. We both loved him and feared each other.
“It’s okay.” My words were filled with a tenderness that surprised me. “I know how you feel.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. Trust me.” I took a step toward her. “You don’t have to lose him.”
Her bottom lip started to quiver and she looked around furtively, like a cornered animal. “I just wanted…” Her voice trailed off.
“I know. But he needs both of us. So let’s not fight.”
“I can’t—” Her voice broke. “I don’t—”
“You don’t have to say anything.” I seized her hand, squeezed her fingers in mine. “We’ll work it out, okay? We will.”
She emitted a small, strangled sound—part sob, part giggle—and nodded.
I heard clapping nearby and turned to see Ohm, still manning the bar. He was watching me, his eyebrows arched in a look that was half touched, half amused. Then a few others joined in and it kept growing, until there were four hundred hands applauding and cheering our maudlin little moment. What the hell? In the last twenty-four hours I’d stripped down to my go-go boots, starred in two impromptu scenes as the spoiled, possessive brat. For once, I was playing a role I could embrace: a girl confident enough to wear her kitten heels with class.
I turned to the crowd assembled in the dusky twilight and took a bow.
I’d like to think it’s exactly what Jackie would have done.
Later that night, after a fight broke out between a redheaded Rasta and the three-hundred pound woman in the flowered muumuu, things got a little crazy. Phil tossed the garter (mine, actually, I’d lent it to Joni—but I didn’t mind); Joni pitched the bouquet (the girl’s got a mean arm—it nearly knocked the wind out of me when I caught it). The fog rolled in, thick and opaque as cotton batting, and still we danced under the stars we couldn’t see. We faked our way through some loose, sloppy steps that were part elementary school square dancing, part salsa until the bluegrass band grew palsied with exhaustion. Then Ohm abandoned the bar to DJ, and we danced to all the terrible top-forty shit from our miserable teenage years; we even did the Macarena, though I pray to God there’s no footage to prove it.
“I can’t believe Phil’s actually dancing to ‘Fields of Gold.’ He must be wasted.” Coop was holding me close, the entire length of his body pressed against mine, and I was having a little trouble following the thread of conversation. I’d only had two glasses of champagne all afternoon, but I was drunk on his proximity.
“Why?” It was a sleepy mumble directed at his shoulder.
“According to him, Sting is the Antichrist. Anything that’s not linked historically to The Kinks or the Ramones, he’d rather die than listen to. Let alone dance to.”
I turned my head a little and shuffled us around so I could still press my cheek against his chest while checking out the bride and groom. Phil was dipping Joni as she giggled like a child. “Guess it must be love.”
“Yeah,” Coop said. “Either that or he’s pussy-whipped.”
I smiled up at him. “Is there a difference?”
He considered this. “For a man? Probably not.”
Before Dad took off, he came over and pulled me into a warm, lingering embrace—our second now in four years. “Don’t be a stranger,” he said into my ear.
I smiled. “Me? Would I do that?”
He just chuckled and shook Coop’s hand. “Great meeting you, Coop. Take care of this little scamp, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” He mock-saluted. “Good meeting you, too.”
Then Kelly hugged us both, saying to me, “I can’t believe we finally got to meet.”
“Sorry it took so long,” I said, stealing a sideways glance at Dad.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, we’ve been out of touch.” He pinned me with his eyes, and I remembered why he was such a good coach, back in the day. It was that face. It could terrify, entertain or inspire. It was probably what made him such a good womanizer, too. “But we’re going to change that, aren’t we, Gwen?”
“Yeah.” My voice was tight and small with emotion. When I felt my throat relax enough to let words through again, I added, “We’re going to try.”
“When are you getting married?” Coop asked Kelly.
“We haven’t nailed a date yet,” she said, “but we’ll let you know when we do.”
The third and final look between Dad and I went like this:
Me: I like her; don’t mess it up.
Him: I’ll give it my best shot.
After they’d gone, Coop just stared at me. We were still dancing; I could feel his eyes boring into the top of my skull.
“What?” I asked when he didn’t look away.
“You are a woman of many surprises, Gwen Matson.”
I grinned in what I hoped was a delicious, come-hither way. “Speaking of surprises, let’s go upstairs.”
“Why?” He turned his head and squinted at me suspiciously. “What is it now?”
I traced a
finger down his tie. “You think my underwear was good last night? You should see it tonight.”
His eyes glazed slightly. “Not another word,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Okay, you lascivious little bodice-ripper junkie; one last sex scene for you and then it’s off to beddie-bye for both of us. It’s after one, Coop’s snoring beside me, and I’ve been writing so long my hand’s turning into a hideously gnarled claw, but I know you won’t forgive me unless I finish it off with a little smut.
There was a good deal of kissing on the spiral staircase. I was giddy with the smell and feel of him. We hadn’t had sex since Thursday, which was only the night before last, but it seemed impossibly long ago. The weekend had become epic in its scope. I guess when you battle a blond nemesis, marry off a bald stripper and reunite with not one but both of your emotionally damaged parental units, time warps a bit. I led him up the curving spire with my lips and tongue, teasing him every step of the way. When we were almost to the landing, he got impatient and slipped past me to the top step, his hands fondling my breasts with hot, drunk fingers. We stumbled, bumping teeth. My foot missed the next step and I staggered again. As my waist pressed against the iron banister I felt how easy it would be to tumble backward over the railing and plunge through the center of that corkscrew stairway. Falling. I understood for the first time why they call it that, falling in love. It was this vertigo they were talking about, this crazy elevator drop in your stomach. Losing control. It was the very thing I’d fought against since that night on the porch in Sebastopol, watching my mother disintegrate as she screamed at a stranger’s door. But losing control was good now. It was better than good; it was frightening and delicious.
Coop dragged me into the guest room and locked the door. He started pawing at the buttons on my little jacket, but I slapped his hands, pulled him over to the bed and pushed him backward. He sat up, looking surprised. He tried to catch hold of my waist but I evaded him.
