The wine wasn’t helping. Natasha went into the kitchen and out the back door for some cooler air, standing on the stoop, taking deep slow breaths. It was a star-bright night, and the lawn was rich with the smell of honeysuckle and crepe myrtle. She heard the whoosh of far-off cars and trucks on the highway. The two Mexican caterers were out by the back fence, smoking and talking and laughing. Natasha stood gazing at them. Aunt Clara came out and took her hand, smiling, then patted her shoulder and let go.
“Hi,” Natasha managed.
“It’s a beautiful night.” Aunt Clara sighed. “I always like to think that if I can only savor something enough, it won’t go so fast. I’m savoring this night.”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right, sweetie?”
“Oh, just—tired. I had too much wine.”
“Wine gives me a headache. It’s Jack’s passion, though. He drinks enough of it for both of us.” She laughed softly. It occurred to Natasha that Aunt Clara had such a charming laugh. And oh, why couldn’t life give Natasha back herself as she had been? She wanted to tell Clara how much she loved her, but the breath wasn’t there for speech, and she turned, crying silently, pretending to be interested in the starry light.
In the kitchen, Faulk was leaning against the counter, listening to Clenon tell his own story about discovering something was wrong the morning of the attacks—he’d gone for a run and noticed that the streets were empty. “Suddenly, it seemed to me that Midtown just emptied out. Midtown—no cars moving, nothing.”
Nearby, Marsha Trunan and Constance Waverly were in a conversation that Faulk caught the tail of. He heard the phrase “that photographer” come from Constance’s mouth, and the tone was defensive. He realized they were arguing and tried to listen through the confusion of other voices. The photographer Constance mentioned certainly must be Mackenzie. He went over to the two women, and immediately they changed the subject.
“Anyway,” Marsha said. “A lot of people don’t know it, but vanilla extract is thirty-five percent alcohol. And like I said, I took to stealing it out of the grocery stores—those little bottles. There I was in the afternoons, smelling like vanilla ice cream and drunk as a skunk.”
He could not think of a way simply to ask them about the photographer, so he smiled at Constance and moved off, feeling thwarted and wronged at the same time. He wanted no more wine, though Clenon walked up with a bottle and poured some into his glass. Clenon was drinking Diet Coke. “This is so you can relax a little. I swear you look like you’re waiting for a firing squad.”
Natasha came in from the outside and went up to him, looking teary eyed, and took his arm. Leander had announced that he wanted to offer a toast to the new couple. Everyone gathered around in the room, and all eyes were on them. Natasha gripped Faulk’s arm as Leander spoke.
“Here’s to the happiness that surprises us when we least expect it,” Leander said, wavering a little as he stood. He’d had too much of the whiskey. “And I would like to congratulate my son on his choice of a second wife.” He nodded at Natasha. “Who’s jus’ as lovely as the night.” Then he smiled at her with an amiably lubricious expression, obviously meaning it as a compliment; but the following silence, as the others waited for him to say more, was awkward.
Natasha nodded back at him and held her glass up.
“Oh,” Leander said. “Right.” He drank.
The laugh that came was exaggerated by the relief it expressed. Everyone followed suit.
Faulk removed himself from Natasha and went into the kitchen, where Constance had gone. He stood near her as she poured more wine for herself.
“Something happened in Jamaica,” he said, looking directly into her eyes. “Didn’t it?”
She seemed momentarily stricken and actually took a step back from him.
“Tell me. Please. I think I have a right to know.”
Her cheeks looked bruised. “I—I told you what happened. What is this? We were stranded there. People have been talking about it all night. It was terrible. I—I don’t understand you.” But he could see that indeed she had understood, and that there was something she was taking pains to conceal. “Nothing else happened,” she insisted, looking away from him.
Natasha, who had come over to them, heard this, and she took him by the elbow. “Baby,” she said. “What’s wrong?” Her voice shook.
“Nothing,” he said. “Forget it.” Suddenly he felt heavy and sodden with what he’d had to drink, and with his own suspicions. He put his wineglass down and reached into the cabinet for a glass to pour himself some water.
“Honey?” Natasha said.
“Really. Forget it.” He managed the smile, then turned and went to the back door and out onto the little porch, where the two caterers were sitting with arms folded across their knees. He asked for a cigarette.
Natasha saw him light it, saw the features of his face illuminated by the match, and in that moment she wanted everyone to be gone. She watched him talking to the two Mexicans, trying to make himself understood, gesturing at the night. She saw the look of hopelessness on his face when they did not understand him.
He took a deep draw of the cigarette and walked out of the light toward the end of the yard. When he looked back he saw the two caterers watching him, two shadowy figures under the porch light. Beyond them was the lit kitchen, and Natasha staring out, Constance at her side with a look of concern and vigilance on her face. Something was between the two women and, whatever it was, it had to do with the stranded days in Jamaica. He smoked the cigarette and walked to the side yard, the only light now the coal of the cigarette as he drew on it. You could hear the chatter going on inside the house, but he did not look at the curtained windows. He was alone, and beginning to think that this was as it should be. The wedding tomorrow seemed absurd, and he was being made a fool of by these women. They knew something that he did not know, that it was his right to know. He could simply call everything off, refuse to tie himself to this young woman and her complicated life. He took a few shaky steps toward the front lawn, the streetlight there in its cloud of insects. Why? Why!
Remember who you are, he muttered aloud to himself. God forgive me.
Why would she go through with things if her feelings had changed? What had he done to deserve such treatment if it was true? But then, he told himself, trying to be philosophical, what did anyone deserve, after all, when love rode through the soul? He was in love. He knew the force of that. He was in love—completely in love with this young woman, Natasha, who no longer felt that way about him and was trying to hide it, with the help of the two friends who knew how she really felt.
Suddenly he broke out crying and moved deeper into the dark, to the hedge along that side, wiping his face with his forearm and seeking to gain control of himself.
God, please help me to be the man I want to be.
For some reason he saw himself lapsing into that pretentious talk about the Donatello statue, and he repeated his own line about it, like a sort of ridicule: That statue shuts up everyone who walks into that room. Seeing himself, so earnest and stupid, talking like that into what the women knew, he drew deeply on the cigarette and threw it down, and sobbed quietly. At last he straightened, took a breath, and murmured aloud: “Stop it. Stop it. For Christ’s sake.” Even with what he’d had to drink, he found that he could look coldly at his own panic. He was afraid of losing her, afraid the process had already begun. But everyone had suffered through the calamity, and he understood that he must stop imagining things. “You’re pushing fifty,” he said aloud, off into the dark. “Quit acting like a kid.”
Help me, I’m drowning.
He took a deep, slow breath, trying to get calm. He was quiet, standing there in the dark.
In the house, Natasha stared at the place where he had stood lighting the cigarette and saying whatever he had said to the caterers. She thought of going out there to find him.
Constance touched her elbow and murmured, “Does he know?”
&
nbsp; “About what?”
“Come on.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“Have you said something to him?”
“There isn’t anything to say, Constance. For God’s sake.”
“Well, he challenged me. He knows something.”
“There’s nothing for him to know. Oh, God. Can you please—why did you come here? Was it to ruin everything? Do you know how guilty you looked just now?”
“I’m sorry,” Constance said. “I was trying to protect you. I was stupid before and I was—I’ve been trying to make it up to you.”
“We have to leave, sweetie,” said Aunt Clara, reaching to embrace Natasha. Jack stood behind her. “Where’d Michael get off to?”
Natasha looked out the back-door screen again and saw only the two caterers. “He was out there.”
“Well, tell him we’ll see him tomorrow.”
“I will.” Tears blurred her vision. Aunt Clara evidently thought they were tears of happiness.
8
The morning was long but filled with preparations. Faulk set things in order and washed all the dirty dishes from the night before and then made breakfast for them, and for Leander and Trixie, who drove over just before noon. It felt good to be busy. All his darkness of the night before stood in the back of his mind like a fever dream. He would not let it ruin things. He told himself he did not know anything for certain except that the horrors of their mutual experience had left everyone unsettled and changed. But change did not have to mean unhappiness.
Standing at the sink washing dishes, he concentrated on the life they had planned. They would go to the south of France next spring. They would find the means to rediscover each other out of the disaster that had befallen the whole country. He would win her back to him, and she would be as she had been before.
Natasha wanted nothing to eat. She took a bath, washed and dried her hair, and put on makeup. People were arriving downstairs. They were going to make a caravan of cars to Millington. Faulk seemed calm, almost resigned, and he had been very drunk and sorrowful when he came to bed. Fretful and distressed with himself for getting so bad. He remembered putting his arms around her and asking her to forgive him when she came to lie down at his side, and then, waking in the middle of the night, he wasn’t sure of it. She was not there next to him. After some time of drifting in and out of sleep, he got up, went downstairs and stood in bright light that made it impossible to see, and then realized that he had dreamed this; that he was still in the bed. And she was there. She had either come back or had never left. He turned from her and went back to sleep, and slept so deeply and snored so loudly that for a couple of hours, and for the second time, she had to try sleeping on the couch downstairs. She was sober in spite of all the wine. One cup of coffee, sitting and talking with Iris before going up to bed, and she was wakeful all night.
But everyone said she was beautiful when she walked downstairs in the new dress. Faulk had put a dark suit on, and an electric-blue tie. He looked wonderful. He took her hands in his own and kissed her.
They all went out into the bright sun, got into four cars, and headed to Millington, with Faulk and Natasha leading the way.
“I feel like we’re at the head of a parade,” Natasha said.
“So we are.”
The Lucy Wedding Chapel was a small A-frame cottage with white tulips in a flower box along its front and rosebushes bordering the lawn. The little pockets of shade from the bushes looked painted on the lustrous fresh-cut grass. The priest who was commissioned to perform the ceremony was the one who had taken Faulk’s place at Grace Episcopal. This was suggested by Andrew Clenon. The new priest was a slight, round-faced, nervous man named Lee Wuhan, who was, he said, of Asian descent, and who, in his celebratory remarks, made a metaphor of the World Trade Center, talking about how it represented power and worldly pursuits and how love flourishes best when coming from the individual spirit: the recent catastrophe was a message from on high about what is most essential in life. As he spoke, Natasha lowered her gaze, feeling the inappropriateness of bringing this sort of topical homilic remarking into her marriage ceremony. It angered her. When she stole a glance at Faulk, she saw nothing of what she felt. Faulk stared at the man almost blandly. Natasha gave his hand a little squeeze and kept her eyes down, listening to the notes of providential import.
Aunt Clara, Uncle Jack, Leander, and Trixie sat on one side of the aisle. On the other side were Iris and Constance. Father Clenon stood with Faulk and Marsha Trunan stood with Natasha.
Father Wuhan seemed ill at ease, and the more he spoke the worse things got. He let go of the attacks and went on strangely about a calamity of his own, gathering assurance as he spoke, speaking in an almost prideful voice of something that happened nineteen years ago: he had killed a boy in an accident, in traffic, in the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa. He described himself, a young man in a hurry, not paying as much attention as he should have to the road he was on. That accident was why he had entered the priesthood, he said, and then as if compelled by some moral imperative to refer to his predecessor’s decision, he avowed that he would never leave it, no matter how complicated the life became for him. He paused significantly before saying he was so very happy about being asked to perform today’s holy ceremony. Then he attempted to connect all the cataclysmic history by citing the blessings of love and forgiveness as a hedge against it, and he asked everyone to learn first to forgive oneself, to see the enormous effect we have upon one another, and to acknowledge the undeniable significance of changing one’s moral compass.
Iris and Aunt Clara began clearing their throats and looking at each other. Leander coughed loudly twice and then blew his nose with a high flatulent sound and took a long time putting his handkerchief away. Then he yawned. Natasha saw Trixie touch his forearm. He leaned back, stretching his legs under the pew in front of him. Soon they were all shifting on the benches, coughing, crossing and uncrossing their legs. At last, Father Wuhan finished with his homily and commenced with the actual ceremony. Natasha looked into his dark eyes and thought of the judgments he had already made. There was something too starchy about him for all his studied humility about an accident he reported like a kind of accomplishment.
When the ceremony was over and Faulk spoke about asking him to come to dinner with everyone, she looked into her new husband’s eyes and murmured, “You’re such a good man. No.”
He nodded. He understood. He had in fact decided that he would speak to Father Clenon about him. He gave Wuhan an envelope with fifty dollars in it and thanked him. Father Clenon, giving Faulk a look of commiseration, begged off going to the dinner and walked out of the chapel with Father Wuhan. Faulk saw him talking, gesturing at the other as they went on down the sidewalk.
“Jesus Christ,” Leander said.
Uncle Jack, walking over to congratulate Faulk, said, “That was certainly bizarre, wasn’t it?”
“I’ve heard some weird things,” Leander began.
Faulk said, “Well, we’re married. We got it done. And we don’t ever have to see him anymore.”
“Sounds like an inconvenience you had to go through,” said Jack, smiling. “It’s always a little like that with the men, isn’t it.”
“You see the look on the other one’s face?” Leander asked him.
Faulk said, “That’s my friend, Dad. His name is Andrew. I think I introduced you to him last night.”
“No offense, there, Son. But did you guys see the look.”
“I saw it,” Jack said. “I think he was embarrassed.”
“I think he was enraged,” Leander said. “And I was bored.”
“No trouble for any of us recognizing that,” Faulk said. And then, seeing the look of embarrassment on his father’s face, patted the old man’s back and said, “Me, too.”
They all went to the River Café on West Poplar for dinner. Natasha admired the way her new husband handled everything, getting Iris situated with her cane and making sure everyon
e was comfortable. Leander offered another toast and then told a story about his son making a dive off a forty-five-foot cliff into the bottomless water of a reservoir in Maryland. According to Leander, Michael Faulk had been a marvelous athlete as a boy, good at everything. He had played football and baseball and basketball. “A wonder in all three,” Leander said. “But you know, he was also a complete mystery to us all.”
“Dad,” Faulk said.
“I always had the feeling he was hiding inside his own skin.”
“I was,” Faulk said.
Jack and Constance began talking about the invasion of Afghanistan, which was imminent. The president had turned down an offer from the Taliban to put the master terrorist on trial there. They had all heard the news about the poor man, Stevens, in Florida, and the anthrax. There was news that the spores had been discovered as powder on computer keyboards in the tabloid newspaper office where he worked. The suspicion was that the powder had been in something mailed to the paper.
“It’s not contagious,” Iris said. “I read that. I mean you can’t get it from someone coughing on you.”
“Spittle, though,” said Jack. “I think you can get it from the spittle—the—the mucus of the victim?”
“They’re saying inhalation anthrax,” said Clara. “That means it’s inhaled, doesn’t it?”
“But what in the world do you suppose the delivery system was?” Leander asked.
They all talked about the possibilities they had been reading about, the horror of a microbe being rendered into a form that made it potent even through the mail, the technology and skill required to refine it for such a thing.
“Hey,” Faulk said suddenly. “Let’s quit this talk right now.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Clara. “This is our happy occasion.”
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