The Wedding Machine

by Beth Webb Hart

  Then Cricket comes in and says. “Mama, it’s ten minutes until the ceremony, and Katie Rae is still upset and refusing to put her veil on.

  Well, I’ve had about enough of Katie Rae’s nonsense. Ray walks fast and furious out of the bathroom and grabs the bride firmly by the shoulders. “Hush up, Katie Rae, and get your fanny ready to go down that aisle. That is a good and devoted man out there who wants to pledge his love to you, and you will be lucky to have him, do you hear me? It’s time to buck up now.”

  That seems to be just what Katie Rae needs to hear. She wipes her nose and hands Cricket the veil and as soon as it is fixed, she stands up and grabs LeMar’s arm and heads straight down the aisle.

  Ray never makes it into the sanctuary. She sits for a moment in the reception area and grits her teeth as she watches Katie Rae descend the aisle from the television monitor above the receptionist’s desk. She thinks of all of the time she’s put in at the church, and she doesn’t know why God allowed this to happen.

  How could You? Ray says to her Maker as she stares at the acrylic cross at the center of the altar on the colored screen. How in the world could You, after all I’ve worked for? It’s unfair. It’s painfully unfair.

  And though Ray wants to spit and cry and catch the next flight to Las Vegas to wring Priscilla’s rebellious little neck, she doesn’t. Tonight is not the night. And she couldn’t shirk her Wedding Guild duties any more than she could let a piece of floral tape show in an arrangement.

  She simply walks to her car, slips off her heels, and puts on her tennis shoes. Then she drives back down Highway 17 in the cool, clear December night so that she can make her way over to Cottage Hill Island. It’s time to put the final touches on Katie Rae’s reception. And as usual, she’s the one to do it.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Kitty B.

  “The music was ethereal,” LeMar says as Kitty B. drives him toward home for the reception. He puts his hand on her round knee and squeezes it tight.

  “Yes, it was,” she says, marveling at how that Italian trumpeter worked so well with Sis to fill the room with a kind of exuberance and beauty and joy. “There wasn’t a dry eye during your solo.” She pats the top of LeMar’s hand. And it’s the truth. LeMar’s voice brought tears to everyone’s eyes. He has such a gift, and it pleases him so to sing, especially for his baby girl.

  Kitty B. smiles at how beautiful the ceremony was. Katie Rae got herself together and said her vows in a manner that was both bold and tender, and Kitty B.’s so proud of her she could just pop.

  “Not a bad homily either,” LeMar says.

  “Mmm hmm.” Kitty B. smiles. Roscoe’s words really did bring down the house. He talked about adopting Marshall and how he had prayed each night of his life for Marshall’s mate and that he realized a few months ago that it was Katie Rae he had been praying for all along.

  “I couldn’t imagine a better one.” LeMar rubs the back of her neck. “And now it’s time to celebrate, sweet!”

  LeMar’s been better to Kitty B. since she had that talk with him. In fact, his spirits have actually lifted. Maybe it’s her standing up to him or all the goings-on at the house with the painting and the fixing or the fact that his youngest is finally married off, but he just seems like a man she hasn’t known for quite some time now. He’s got a spring in his step, and he hasn’t complained about how he feels for at least a week. That is a miracle in and of itself, and she hopes it will last.

  Kitty B.’s mama was right. Folks really do rise to the occasion when it comes to weddings. They’re hardwired that way. At least they are around Jasper, and she smiles when she thinks of her mama as she waves to Miss C., who is decked out with white feathered angel wings and a shimmery gold halo. The statue stands beside the archway of poinsettias and mistletoe that leads to the tent where Kitty B.’s friends and family have gathered to celebrate.

  Shawna Bennington comes running over to Kitty B. in her sparkly red sweater dress with the feathered neckline, and Kitty B. would almost be embarrassed by her if she weren’t such a sincerely dear person.

  “Everything is so pretty!” she says as she takes a big bite of a California tart. “I can’t imagine anything more glorious. You and your friends are amazing!”

  “Thank you.” Kitty B. returns her embrace. “It was a lovely ceremony, Shawna. Roscoe did such a wonderful job.”

  “Didn’t he?” she says. “I was so proud of him.”

  Kitty B. takes a moment to look around the tent, and everything seems to twinkle like she’s in a Christmas dream. Ray and R.L. have set elaborate candelabras along the buffet tables, and there are little silver ones in the center of each sitting table. Fresh, delicate cedar garlands with thick velvet bows outline everything from the buffet to the sitting tables to the very lining of the tent, and there are silver urns overflowing with scarlet roses and calla lilies and magnolias with their large and shiny green leaves. Even the tall space heaters they rented are decked with mistletoe and bows. There is candlelight everywhere, and it glistens in the crystal and the jewelry and the eyes of the guests. The gals have really outdone themselves with this one. She can’t imagine a more magical reception.

  Then she looks back at her home by the river. Vangie’s wedding gift was the painters, and Willy and Angus spent every afternoon over there for two weeks patching up cracks in the walls and shaving down old windows and doors that had swelled so much they were hard to open or close. Even the yard looks beautiful. Ray bought gorgeous thorny grapevine spun balls that she wrapped in small white Christmas lights, and she’s hung one of those from all of the most prominent branches of the live oak trees that line the river front.

  The band is already in full force, and Marshall leads Katie Rae onto the floor for their first dance to “How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You.” LeMar cuts in shortly after and dances with Katie Rae. He guides her from side to side with a gentle sway and kisses her soft cheek and pulls her toward him.

  The next thing Kitty B. knows, Sis nudges her toward the dance floor where she joins LeMar while Katie Rae dances again with Marshall, and Roscoe and Shawna dance beside them. LeMar pauses for a moment as he tilts one way or the other the way he used to do when they were courting, back when Kitty B. was in college. He spins her round and round and then they stop at the end of the song when the singer announces “Dr. and Mrs. Marshall Bennington” to the guests. As the applause erupts around Kitty B., and folks come around LeMar to shake his hand, Sis leans over and whispers, “Well, gal, not bad, huh?”

  “I tell you,” Kitty B. says as she puts her arm around her petite friend and they step back toward the edge of the tent. “It’s more splendid than I ever imagined, Sis.” She scans the candlelit tent as the band kicks into one of their all-time favorites from the watermelon stealing days, “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch.”

  Now other couples begin to gather on the dance floor as Kitty B. surveys the room. Wouldn’t you know that Angus and Trudi are right up front locked in an embrace.

  “Well, I guess it’s best that Hilda isn’t here. Much as I wish she were,” Kitty B. says.

  “Yes.” Sis nods. “But I sure miss her, and I have the feeling she won’t be back anytime soon.”

  “Wonder how Ray’s doing?” Kitty B. says. They spot her over beneath the oak tree wringing her hands and talking to Cousin Willy. He tries to hug her, but she pushes him away, and Kitty B. guesses she’s telling him the whole awful news about Priscilla.

  Suddenly, Ray furrows her brow over Willy’s shoulder as the beef tenderloin carver serves up a fatty portion to a guest. She storms over to the carving station and gives the poor fellow an earful.

  “You better tell Ray she can go on home,” Sis says. “Vangie and I can handle the rest of the evening.”

  “You’re right.” Kitty B. says. “She needs to go punch something for a while, and it can’t be the meat carver.”

  Just as Kitty B. makes her way over, Capers comes up to Ray and says, “I need to talk to you about something.”<
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  “What?” Ray gives the tenderloin carver one stern look before she steps away.

  Kitty B. notices that Vangie Dreggs is eavesdropping behind the bar. She’s so close to one of the bartenders that someone might order a bourbon and water from her.

  “Excuse me,” Kitty B. says to Capers, but he does not hear her over the music.

  He places his hand on Ray’s shoulder. “Since you’re our senior warden, Ray, and a very influential member in this community, I want to call on you to play a stronger role in the upcoming Healing Prayer Revival Day. Not many folks have signed up, and we’ve worked so hard to make it a life-changing day for our parishioners.”

  Ray bristles and her cheeks fill with air. She can’t take much more of this day. She looks down at her feet as if to fashion a response. Then Vangie pops out from behind the bartender and begins her plea.

  “Oh, Ray,” she says. “It would mean so much to me if you made an announcement in church tomorrow and made a few personal calls to invite folks. I have been asking for your help for months now, and the revival day is next week!”

  Vangie moves closer and closer toward Ray and shakes her large head with its smooth, round face and helmet of hair. Ray looks ill like she’s eaten a bad oyster, and she puts her arm out as if to stave Vangie off. But Vangie keeps coming closer and Capers is right beside her.

  “No!” Ray finally says, turning away from them.

  “Why not?” Capers tilts his head to the side.

  With this Ray swings back around and shouts, “I’m not taking part in any Texas, nouveau riche prayer revival where I have to raise my hands or speak in tongues like the kooks on cable TV! Forget it!”

  She turns directly to Capers. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Capers. Letting our little chapel of ease get mixed up with such come-yuh nonsense.”

  “Now, Ray,” Capers says. He pats her elbow. “That’s rather critical, don’t you think?”

  Vangie gets right back in Ray’s space and says, “What do you mean, come-yuh? That sounds like an insult to me. Ray, I don’t know what I ever did to you, but I have the feeling you’ve had something against me all along.”

  Cousin Willy makes a beeline for the scene. Ray reaches out and covers Vangie’s big, round mouth with her hand.

  “Just shut up, Vangie,” she says. “Don’t say another bloomin’ word. Ever since you came to town there’s been nothing but trouble. You’ve infected our church with this nonsense and sold our houses to strangers from way off who just want to use them for second homes. Who knows what else you’ll destroy”—Ray turns to look at Capers—“and you sat right here and didn’t do a thing about it.”

  Her voice cracks as she adds, “Jasper’s gone, don’t you see?” She points to Vangie and says, “Our children will never come back here, and now we have to surrender our town to the likes of folks like this.” Ray’s eyes fill with tears, and she turns toward Kitty B.

  “I’m so sorry.” Ray runs out of the tent and through the archway of poinsettias and into her Volvo station wagon, which is blocked in by several other cars along the dirt road. She has to inch this way and that to get out. All the while Justin and Willy chase after her saying, “Whoa there, Ray!” “Settle down now, gal!’” like she’s a feral hog on the loose.

  Kitty B. runs over to Sis, but she’s in a conversation with that trumpeter at one of the tall tables along the side of the tent. Kitty B. hears, “Would you dance with me, Elizabeth?” And then, “Ever since Giuseppe’s wedding I have been thinking of you in that blue dress swaying along the seawall.”

  “Really?” Sis blushes.

  “Yes,” he says as he takes her hand.

  Well, of course, Kitty B.’s not going to ruin a moment like that, even with Ray’s meltdown, so she watches as Salvatore leads Sis toward the dance floor and pulls her close while the band plays “Love Me Tender” by Elvis.

  Just then R.L. grabs Kitty B. by the elbow. “Time to cut the cake!” And sure enough, Katie Rae and Marshall and the videographer are already there, and LeMar is licking his chops and motioning for Kitty B. to lean in for the photograph. The band leader announces the cutting of the cake, and he adds that the cake was created by the mother of the bride. That’s awfully sweet, Kitty B. thinks. She wonders who told him that.

  Then the next thing Kitty B. knows, Katie Rae is feeding Marshall a bite and vice versa, and they’re wiping each other’s lips with the linen napkins Ray set out beside the cake. Then the guests clap and pictures flash as the couple kisses again before sharing a glass of champagne and the rest of the first slice of Kitty B.’s beautiful raspberry cream cake.

  Ray doesn’t reappear for the throwing of the bouquet or the beautiful exit in Kitty B.’s brother’s old convertible Mustang that he had refurbished just for the occasion. Truth is, Kitty B. doesn’t know what has happened to Ray.

  Sis and Salvatore dance cheek to cheek until the band stops. Kitty B. wonders if he smells good. He must, she thinks, or Sis wouldn’t be dancing so close. She smiles at the thought of this as Salvatore’s lips, those lips that blow the heck out of the trumpet, press right down on Sis’s again and again while Vangie and R.L. divide up the leftovers and invite Kitty B. over to drink one more glass of champagne on the dock before shutting down the porch lights.

  Now Kitty B. waves good-bye to Vangie and the last guests as LeMar unplugs the tent lights from the front porch. When she walks up to join him, LeMar takes the champagne glass out of her hand, sets it down on the freshly painted railing, and pulls her close.

  “Time to bed down,” he says.

  She nods as he follows her into the house and then from room to room as she switches off the lamps and heads for the stairs. Then LeMar does something he hasn’t done in ages as they round the second-floor railing. He follows Kitty B. into her bedroom and crawls into her bed as she slips on her nightgown. Then they fall asleep beside each other for the first time in a decade, his chest rising and falling in time with hers beneath her mama’s old afghan.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Ray

  Ray stands on the windy corner of Irving Place and 18th Street in Manhattan. It’s five in the afternoon, and she’s just ducked into the corner store to get a cup of coffee and a copy of the New York Times.

  “Can I have some cream and sugar?” she says to the man in the white turban and T-shirt who rang her up.

  He shouts something in Arabic to an elderly man sitting in the far corner of the room. The man nods and points to a corner by the fashion magazines, where a rusted decanter of some sort of milk is resting on a newspaper.

  “That’s all right, I’ll try it black this time.” She hurries out the door, takes one sip of the stale coffee and discreetly pours it out on the sidewalk.

  Now she walks back toward Priscilla’s apartment, where she’ll sit and pretend to read the paper until her daughter comes home from work.

  “Ugh,” she thinks as she examines the dirt and grime on the edge of the concrete steps that lead to the apartment. She’s in her best tan pants. The ones she bought at Talbots last fall, and she’s not about to ruin them, so she pulls out the business section of the paper and sits on it.

  It’s the Friday after Katie Rae’s wedding, and she knows that Priscilla has to be back from Las Vegas by now. Ray refused her calls over the last several days, but last night she saw Priscilla’s home number light up on the telephone screen, and she turned to Willy and said, “She’s back, and I’m going up there tomorrow to talk some sense into her.”

  She put Willy to work researching the grounds for an annulment, and she clapped her hands when he pointed to the third ground in one of his legal journals. “Either spouse was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the marriage.”

  “That’s it!” she said as she slapped her hand down on the kitchen counter. “Willy, you know they were under the influence, and I bet Priscilla is already regretting her decision.”

  So Ray took the late morning flight out of Charleston, and sh
e’s been waiting outside of Priscilla’s apartment building for a couple of hours. She suspects J.K. still has his own apartment in the East Village, and she hopes Priscilla will be taking a cab home alone.

  She watches a tall and well-dressed elderly woman walking two poodles toward Gramercy Park, and she thinks of her mother. Ray’s mama always wanted to visit Manhattan, but it wasn’t until her honeymoon with Willy Sr. that she made it to the grand city. She remembers her mama whispering to her as she helped her pack her bags the night before they left, “This is my first time above the Mason-Dixon Line.”

  “Is it your first trip outside of South Carolina?” Ray had probed.

  “Oh no,” her mama said. “I grew up all across the south.”

  “Where?” Ray said. “Where did you grow up, Mama?”

  “Can’t remember all of the names, Ray,” she said. “My daddy was a traveling preacher, you know? Now hand me that pink sweater.”

  As the elderly woman rounds the corner, Ray wonders why her mama kept so many secrets, and why she didn’t try harder to force the truth out of her. Surely, with enough persistence, Carla Jones would have given Ray some clues about her roots. Persistence is the only way to get what you want, Ray thinks. It had taken her a while to figure this out, but now it’s the creed she lives by. She can’t imagine it any other way.

  Now Ray paces back and forth. She lifts her head every time an occupied cab barrels down the street. Surely, the next one will be Priscilla. She knows if she can just get her alone for ten minutes, she could talk some sense into her.

  At quarter to six, Priscilla rounds the corner. She’s got her brief satchel slung over her shoulder, and she’s talking on her cell phone. When Ray waves her direction, she snaps the phone shut and comes running towards her.

  “Mama!” she says. “What are you doing here?”

  She gives her mother such a forceful embrace that her dreadlocks slap the back of Ray’s head. Ray does not soften into her daughter’s hug. She keeps her back upright and she pulls away as soon as Priscilla gives her the chance.