The Virginity of Famous Men

by Christine Sneed

  “It is not a scam,” she insisted. “It’d be a scam if we said it was a real wedding but when they got here, we said, ‘Ha, fooled you!’”

  “I still think some of our friends will feel like it’s a scheme to get gifts out of them.”

  “I’m never getting back a penny of all the money I’ve spent on other people’s weddings. It’s an investment with no returns, especially because most of them will probably get divorced. I’d have been better off giving that money to charity and sending my friends cards saying that I made donations in their names instead of buying plane tickets and presents.”

  “You make donations when someone dies,” said Glen. “Not when they get married.”

  “I know, but we should do it for weddings too.”

  He looked skeptical. “Okay, do whatever you want, Karen. Send out the invites and we’ll see what happens. But if anyone asks whose idea this was, I’m going to tell them it was all you.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll be the trendsetter. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people start throwing couplehood jubilees. I should call the Tribune and get someone to write a story about us.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I’ll stay home to clean up the broken glass when bricks start flying through our windows.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “You think I’m kidding, but people feel as strongly about their right to weddings as the right-to-lifers do about abortion.”

  “And I feel as strongly about my right to make my friends and relatives spend some of the money on me that I’ve spent on them.”

  “Do me one favor,” he said. “At least change Tiffany’s to Target.”

  She looked at him, knowing that he wouldn’t insist if she refused. “All right,” she finally said. “But that’s it.”

  The first bemused inquiries about the jubilee arrived within an hour after she sent out the email invitation.

  One of her college roommates asked, “Are you and Glen really getting married? I thought you were opposed to marriage!!”

  The twice-divorced Bill wrote, “Is Couplehood Jubilee some new term for a wedding? I kind of like it, but it makes marriage sound like it’s a nonstop party, which I can tell you it’s not (not like I want to discourage you and Glen from getting hitched though. You guys are so great together. Heroic, even). This is embarrassing to admit, but I’m not sure I can afford any of those hotels. Would you see if you could get a block of discounted rooms at a Best Western or a Motel 6 too? I was also wondering if you invited either of my ex-wives. If you did, could you let me know if they’re coming?”

  Her friend Julia, another teacher at the high school, who taught biology, wrote, “Isn’t a jubilee a religious celebration? I thought I remembered hearing it used in church when I was dragged there a few times a year by one of my aunts. Are you Catholic? I thought you were agnostic …”

  Her mother called instead of emailing. “Sweetie,” she said, her voice grave. “What on earth is a Couplehood Jubilee? It sounds like some sort of April Fool’s prank.”

  Karen told her about the twenty-five thousand dollars, trying to keep her voice from taking on the whine of pouty affront.

  Hearing this story, her mother sighed. “That’s the price of having friends, honey. It’s one we all pay willingly. Or should pay willingly. If we didn’t have friends, I shudder to think what our lives would be like.”

  “I don’t think friendship should have a price tag.”

  Her mother laughed. “I agree, but sometimes it does. You’re old enough to know that. Are you really expecting your brother and Rae and the kids to fly in from Denver for this?”

  “I thought it’d be nice. They can stay with you, can’t they?”

  “Of course, but the plane fare and your gift and dress clothes for Peter and Sam won’t be a small expense for them.”

  “I spent a small fortune on his and Rae’s wedding.”

  “He’s your brother, Karen. Your only brother. Your father and I bought your plane ticket, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, you did. Thank you again,” she said. She felt guilty now, but tried to shore up her weakening convictions. “I probably won’t ever get married, so if Glen and I want to have this party, I don’t think that’s so bad.”

  “You can do whatever you want, but if people refuse to come, don’t get too upset with them. Your idea is, well, I suppose it’s very original. But I worry that your grandmother won’t be very pleased when she gets her invitation.”

  “I’m not inviting her,” said Karen. “I’m only inviting my friends, you, Dad, and Kevin.” She had gone to three family weddings over the past eight and a half years, but the expenses had been modest compared with those for her friends’ weddings. She had stayed with other family members and had only had to buy gifts and fill her car with gas. No plane tickets, no hotels, no bachelorette parties in Las Vegas, no gaudy bridesmaid dresses, jewelry, or shoes that she would never wear again. She had even managed to sidestep the bridal showers by sending a gift with her mother, who always liked to go to these kinds of family parties.

  “If she finds out about it, she’ll feel left out,” her mother said.

  “Who’s going to tell her?”

  “Kevin might let it slip. He talks to her from time to time.”

  “I’ll tell him not to.”

  “All right,” said her mother. “Go ahead and try.”

  “Are you and Dad coming?”

  Her mother gave a small laugh. “We wouldn’t miss it for anything.” She paused. “Do you want your father and me to pay for any part of this? I suppose I should offer if it’s the closest you’ll get to having a real wedding.”

  “No, that’s okay. But thanks for asking.”

  Later, Glen looked at her like she was a lunatic when she told him about her mother’s offer. “She was willing to give you money for this thing and you turned her down?” he said. “How are you planning to pay for all of the food and the booze people are going to expect if they’re crazy enough to come?”

  “I’ll take it out of my savings,” she said. “You don’t have to pay for any part of it.” But even as she said this, she knew that she’d resent him if he did let her pay for everything.

  “Call her back and ask her to pay for the food. Or at least buy a case of wine.”

  “I already told her no,” said Karen, querulous.

  “So? She knows you’re fickle. Tell her you changed your mind.”

  “I am not fickle,” she said, suddenly furious. No wonder marriages didn’t last. The wedding planning was probably the beginning of the end! What an unfair grouch Glen was being. And why were so many of their friends acting so old-fashioned? More emails arrived that night and the next morning, many of them with negative replies. Poor Ella with her five-week marriage, whom Karen had always defended to all detractors, had written an odd, almost-hostile refusal: “I’ve never heard of a Couplehood Jubilee. Is it some sort of cult thing? I’m sorry, but I can’t attend—already have plans that day. But you know, good luck to you guys. Except if you’re not actually getting married, why are you bothering with this jubilee thing? Isn’t it a lot of work?”

  “Just hit delete, Karen,” Glen advised. “Fogettaboutit. Adios. Sayonara. Did you call your mom back yet?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head but said nothing.

  “I will,” she said. “Maybe. You need a haircut.”

  “I know.” He was in his running clothes, on his way to the gym, and he left her sitting in her office, glowering at the computer screen. Glen had better things to do with his free time than try to collect imaginary dues from his friends or make an ethically questionable point. School was finally out for the year, and instead of relaxing in the backyard with a novel about perky shopaholics or exuberant divorcées in Paris, instead of bingeing on dopey movies for three days straight, she was making plans for a party that she now suspected might turn out to be a big mistake.

  But the invitations had already been sent. It
seemed, alarmingly, too late to change her mind. She had a feeling that this was how people felt when they went through with marriages that they absolutely knew were doomed. The irony was, she wanted to be with Glen—it was the party that brought on the jitters, not her choice of a partner. She must be going around the bend, as her friends’ emails tactlessly implied. Nonetheless, several of them, a dozen or so over the first weekend after the invitations were emailed, had said Yes!! they would attend. How exciting! How intriguing! How unique! How very Karen and Glen it all was!

  Why did the prospect of a wedding (or in this case, its substitute) bring out the same feverish enthusiasm that often accompanied the viewing of a very cute baby or a new puppy?

  She knew, however, that people persisted in being optimists despite so much evidence of marital failure. Or else they just didn’t have any critical thinking skills. Like many of her students, she thought, like the people who voted for politicians based on how handsome they were.

  For the next four weeks, she kept track of RSVPs to her and Glen’s email accounts; most came to hers, because Glen’s guest list had been about a quarter the size of her own. “Guys don’t keep in touch like girls do,” he said, defending his humble offering of his mother’s and twenty-seven friends’ email addresses, most of which Karen already had on her own contact list. She also compared caterers’ fees (Thirty-eight dollars a plate for a piece of salmon, a scoop of rice, and green beans almondine? Who were they kidding?) and decided to do most of the cooking herself, with her mother’s help. She pored over grocery-store sale papers and started a hoard of paper cups, cans of mixed nuts, bags of pretzels, and bottles of inexpensive but drinkable red and white wine in their garage. She bought bags of M&Ms too, the peanut, crispy, and plain varieties, to go with the mixed nuts and pretzels, cramming the candy into her and Glen’s freezer, not wanting it to melt or go stale in the weeks before the jubilee. Glen thought that she had become a little obsessive-compulsive and teased her regularly, but eventually ninety-two people committed to attending their wedding hoax, as he sometimes called it, and Karen could tell that he was more excited than he had expected to be. “I can’t believe Frank is flying in from San Francisco and paying for a room at the Drake,” he said. “When I knew him in college, he was so cheap that he’d ride his bike over to the power company to pay his bill because he didn’t want to put a stamp on the envelope. Five miles each way. But I miss the guy. He’s smarter and more honest than just about anyone I’ve ever known.”

  “Except for me,” she said, mostly serious.

  “Of course. That goes without saying.” He winked. His winks reminded her of her grandfather, something she had told him once, and to her surprise, he had smiled.

  “Do you think we should write vows?”

  He hesitated. “Vows? Like as if we were actually getting married?”

  She nodded. “Yes, but something more quirky. Something to make people laugh.”

  “I don’t know if I’m that clever.”

  “We could do it like Mad Libs. I’ll give you a template and you fill in the blanks. That’d be a lot of fun.”

  “It could be,” he said, unconvinced. “But I don’t know if either of us is that much of a comedian.”

  “I can be funny,” she said. “I make you laugh.”

  “I’d scratch the vows. Don’t you think your hands are full enough already?”

  “When did that ever stop Bridezilla?”

  In spite of himself, he laughed. “You might be having a little too much fun planning this. Don’t get any ideas about having a real wedding if the jubilee’s a success.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “You’d better not either, especially when you see me in my dress.”

  He blinked. “You’re buying one?”

  “Already did.”

  “Oh God. I hope you didn’t dip into your retirement fund to buy it.”

  “I didn’t. I got it for thirty bucks at Macy’s. Marked down from ninety-five.”

  “Do I need to buy a new suit?”

  “Only if you want to. But it might be best if we rented you a tux.”

  “No,” he said. “Really?”

  “You need to look like a groom. I put ‘black tie optional’ on the invitations too.”

  She hadn’t told him how much she had already spent on the jubilee. The total was over five hundred dollars, and at least another eight or nine hundred would probably be necessary, especially if she bought flowers for the tables and for her and Glen to wear as a corsage and a boutonniere. Her parents were paying for a deejay and the tent rental, and her mother had also offered to buy the chicken breasts, pesto pasta, and four cases of inexpensive champagne. It was perhaps an unwise financial decision to try to recoup some portion of the original twenty-five thousand wedding dollars by spending another two thousand or so with no guarantee that she and Glen would receive something other than the inevitable decorative candles and picture frames, but the jubilee seemed to have developed an acquisitive force all its own—every time Karen paid for one thing, ten more rushed to mind, clamoring for her to buy them too.

  Just what was the point of all of this? Glen asked after the RSVPs had crept past the seventy-five-guest mark. What exactly was she thinking?

  In truth, she no longer knew. As she accumulated more party goods and crafted more plans, she acquired a vision of the perfect counterfeit wedding, a whole unruly pack of hopes. To her surprise, she also began to understand the friends who had gone through a similar transformation—how much hope could be invested in the cake design, the seating arrangements, the playlist for the deejay! And how important location was: those exorbitant Hawaiian weddings were, Karen could see now, a means to what might actually turn out to be a remarkably beautiful end. The Hawaiian brides had doubtless hoped that their guests would remember their weddings as the pinnacle of their Chicken-Dancing, chicken-eating, champagne-toasting experiences. It was not exactly a modest hope, but how could they have resisted it? So much of the wedding propaganda they had ingested from childhood on exhorted them to make their weddings the most memorable day of their lives.

  “I guess I just want us to have fun,” she told Glen.

  “That’s a bit different from what you said when we first talked about having this party.”

  “If we get some nice gifts, that’d be good too. I haven’t forgotten about the twenty-five grand.”

  He regarded her. “It might be best if you did.”

  She was with him in part because he said things like this, because he tried to help her overcome her jealousies, both the petty and more substantial ones, and her frequent anger over nothing that she could hope to change. He was the opposite of a hardened cynic: he tried to save whales and wolves and the starving elderly. He drove an electric car (one of the few things he had splurged on in the time they had been together) but also rode a bicycle when the weather allowed it, which, in Chicago, was about seven months out of the year, though he did ride in the snow and rain and sleet when he ignored her demands that he not. He was tolerant and kindhearted and loved her. He held her hand in public and did the dishes without complaint when it was his night off and she was too tired to do them herself. He told her often that she was pretty and let her listen to Madonna and the Smiths without complaint. She could not imagine meeting a better man. Except, maybe, for Robert Redford when he was thirty-five and perfect, but there was no chance of that.

  The day of the jubilee arrived with rain clouds and tornado warnings in Chicago and three adjacent counties, but when Karen checked at nine A.M., flights were leaving and arriving at both O’Hare and Midway with few delays, and her brother and his family had flown in two days earlier and were staying at his and Karen’s parents’ house, all of the adults grumbling about the usual things after the first two hours together, Karen suspected, her mother confirming this when she arrived with four plastic coolers filled with the chicken breasts and pasta she had promised to buy. “Your brother and father shouldn’t be allowed to talk about an
ything other than basketball and barbecuing techniques. They started yelling about some Tea Party character in Arizona this morning and upset Rosie so much that the poor dog threw up her food all over the kitchen floor.”

  “Does Kevin like the Tea Party?”

  Her mother pursed her lips, trying not to smile. “Yes, I think he does.”

  “It’s not funny, Mom. He’s not supposed to be an idiot.”

  “I don’t think you can call everyone who supports the Tea Party an idiot.”

  “No, I think you probably can.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” her mother insisted.

  Karen shook her head. “No, it’s really not. You either care about other people’s well-being or you don’t.”

  “Let’s not argue, sweetie. I want this to be a fun day.”

  “I do too, but we have so much work to do. I should have hired a caterer.”

  “We’ll be fine,” said her mother. “I already cooked the pasta and the chicken can be baked a dozen breasts per tray.”

  “I’m supposed to get my hair done at ten thirty. I can’t believe I thought I’d have time for this.”

  “You should go. Don’t worry. I’m sure you won’t be too long. Would Glen be able to help me for a little while?”

  “I’ll go ask him.”

  He was outside in the wind, trying to string up tiny white lights around the perimeter of the giant tent that had been set up the previous afternoon by three college-age men, ones who’d expected a tip and were not happy with the five dollars Karen gave them. But it was all that she had in her wallet; she had not known that she would need to tip them. “We take checks,” one of the guys had said, not bothering to pretend he was kidding, but she awkwardly laughed off his comment. Glen assured her later that as far as he knew, you tipped movers, not tent rental people.

  The tent was unearthly in its dirty-white vastness; it took up four fifths of the backyard, and the dance floor had to be squeezed into one corner, next to where her father would be pouring drinks as the volunteer bartender, because there was no room on the lawn for any dancing. When Glen saw her enter the tent, he shook his head, a string of lights tangled around his right hand. “Remind me again why we’re doing this? The wind keeps blowing these goddamn things loose. Maybe we should just elope.”