Father of the Bride

by Edward Streeter

  “Stanley Banks, do you mean to tell me that you laid out four hundred and fifty dollars on champagne when you’ve been complaining about every cent I spend on poor little Kay for things the child absolutely has to have? I think it’s just wicked. Don’t ever speak to me again about expenses. That’s all I say.”

  8

  BIG BUSINESS

  The telephone, which had never been an inarticulate instrument in the Banks home, now started ringing the moment the receiver was replaced in its cradle.

  “Who was it, Ellie?”

  “Oh, just a woman who wants to take Kay’s bridal pictures.”

  “Some orchestra that wants to play at the reception.”

  “A candid camera man, dear.”

  “It was the little man that puts up the awning.”

  “Just another caterer.”

  “A man who wants to do the flowers.”

  “Only the dressmaker, darling.”

  What an innocent he had been! His original wedding budget had included a case or two of champagne, a couple of hundred watercress sandwiches, a wedding dress (if he was unfortunate enough to have reared a daughter who couldn’t slip into her mother’s), a handsome present to the bride, some miscellaneous tips and that was about all (although bad enough). The church was free. What else was there?

  Now he suddenly appeared to be the sole customer of an immense and highly organized industry. He reminded himself of the Government during the war. “Keep those production lines moving for Banks. Get the finished goods to him. He’s committed now. He’s in this mess up to his ears. There’s no drawing back. We’re all behind you, Banks; behind you with caterers, photographers, policemen, dressmakers, tent pitchers—behind you with champagne and salads and clothes and candid cameras and potted palms and orchestras and everything it takes to win a wedding.”

  He sat in the big wing chair, shoulders slumped, staring unseeingly at the rows of books on either side of the fireplace.

  “I do wish,” said Mrs. Banks, “that you could arrange to meet me in town someday soon, Stanley. We’ve just got to get together with Kay and pick out the flat silver if we want to get it marked in time.”

  Mr. Banks regarded her with dull eyes. “The what?”

  “Kay’s flat silver. Her table silver. You know perfectly well that we give Kay her flat silver and her linen.”

  “Her linen?” repeated Mr. Banks. His voice sounded as if he had been drugged.

  “Yes, dear. Of course. Her sheets and towels and napkins and all that sort of thing.”

  “My God!” It wasn’t an oath. It was a prayer. “Doesn’t Buckley’s family give anything but Buckley?”

  “For an intelligent man, Stanley, you are very stupid,” said Mrs. Banks.

  Tommy and Ben came in. Perhaps it was just as well to let the matter drop. He looked at them closely for the first time in weeks—Ben, six feet of good looks—Tommy, a bean pole which seemed to add an inch a week. They were no longer boys but men—men ready to rear families of their own.

  A warm comforting thought burst upon him and filled him with sudden peace. Soon they, also, would be getting married. Then it would be his turn to hand them over to some bride’s father as his contribution—his sole contribution.

  • • •

  The only ones who seemed thoroughly immune to the situation were Kay and Buckley. As it grew more complex they grew more serene, until they seemed to Mr. Banks to be floating away like disembodied spirits, leaving the entire mess in his lap. It was a kind of spiritual sit-down strike.

  “Look here,” he announced sternly, “there are a lot of details we’ve got to talk over and I never can get you two kids together. Now I want a few minutes of your undivided attention.”

  But before the words were out of his mouth Kay and Buckley had drifted back into an interminable half-whispered conversation. Judging by the almost continuous giggling which rippled through it, each appeared to regard the other as a combination of Joe E. Brown and Jack Benny. Mr. Banks hated whispered conversations and detested giggling. There were moments when it seemed to him that Buckley had the most vapid expression he had ever seen on a young man’s face.

  “Silly ass,” he muttered under his breath—and then aloud to nobody in particular, “I’m damned if I can run this circus single-handed and try to run my business too.”

  “You run it single-handed!” said Mrs. Banks indignantly. “All you have to do is to hand everything over to Miss Bellamy. I wish you’d stay around here all day. You might find out what’s going on.”

  Basically it should have been so simple. Boy and girl meet, fall in love, marry, have babies—who eventually grow up, meet other babies, fall in love, marry. Looked at from this angle, it was not only simple, it was positively monotonous. Why then must Kay’s wedding assume the organizational complexity of a major political campaign?

  Then Kay would embrace him dramatically.

  Take the question of bridesmaids, for example. Kay, who had almost become a professional bridesmaid during the last five years, was now repaying her obligations with a reckless disregard for numbers.

  “It’s going to look more like a daisy-chain parade than a wedding,” grumbled Mr. Banks as the list grew.

  Fortunately, a large number were obliged to decline on the grounds of pregnancy. This reduced the length of the procession, but it did not simplify the dress problem. These must be the most beautiful bridesmaids’ dresses ever worn outside of a technical color film. They must look as if they had been snatched from Bergdorf Goodman’s window, but under no circumstances must they cost a penny more than $24.50.

  “They should suggest the spirit of spring,” said Mrs. Banks dreamily. “Like wood nymphs in glades.”

  “Sort of on the idea of the White Rock girl,” suggested Mr. Banks.

  “Light green pastel with three-quarter sleeves—and a tight bodice and a bouffant skirt,” said Kay.

  “That’s it,” said Mrs. Banks. “And wreaths of natural flowers.”

  “You girls ought to work for Billy Rose,” offered Mr. Banks.

  Kay’s face fell. “Mom, can you picture Jane Bloomer in that dress! Why, she’ll look like an elephant in a ballet skirt. Oh, dear. This is a mess. Wouldn’t you know she’d accept.”

  It seemed to him that he was always struggling through violent rain and sleet storms.

  And so it went while Mr. Banks browsed absentmindedly through the evening paper and wondered what would happen if he suddenly began to make queer noises and froth at the mouth. The incident of the champagne was still too recent, however, to make free speech advisable.

  “Oh, Kay,” exclaimed Mrs. Banks, “there’s one thing we’ve forgotten. Mrs. Pulitzski. Remind me to phone her. She’s simply got to be at the church to straighten you out before you go down the aisle.”

  Mr. Banks lowered his paper. “What’s the child going to do—have the bends?”

  “Oh, men never understand. Don’t you see, dear, somebody’s got to be there to arrange Kay’s train and veil before she starts down the aisle with you.”

  “I think I’ll go to bed,” said Mr. Banks.

  • • •

  It has been said that a man’s home is his castle. Mr. Banks began to realize that his should have been nothing less in order to take care of the traffic that now began to flow daily through 24 Maple Drive. Joe Marvin, the architect, had certainly not designed it for a public institution.

  In the pre-engagement days it had been Mr. Banks’ pleasant custom to give out a cheerful “Hi” each evening as he entered his front door. And from somewhere in the house there was sure to come an answering “Hi.” It was comforting and warming after an embattled day in the city.

  Now, as he entered the house, he was more apt to be greeted by a din of youthful voices from the living room. There was no use calling “Hi.” No one would have heard him.

  It was not intentional. In fact, they were all so polite they embarrassed him. As he entered the room the young males rose in a
body and mumbled something ending in “sir.” Then Kay would embrace him dramatically, one foot raised slightly behind her, and say “Pops! We were waiting for you to make us a cocktail.”

  It was no time to protest. Mr. Banks would take a hasty inventory and retire to the pantry. It seemed to him that each night another empty went into the garbage pail, where Delilah observed it glumly, brooding obviously on her rather meager salary.

  Sam, of the Fairview Manor Wines and Liquor Company, became steadily more enthusiastic. “Nice wedding you have,” he would remark cheerily, his deft fingers wrapping up another three bottles. “Sure I charge. Against law. You bet. Come again.”

  In the front hall someone was always sitting at the telephone table making a long-distance call. As far as Mr. Banks could observe none of Kay’s friends had any local acquaintances. They would nod pleasantly to him as he passed.

  Occasionally he would find a dime and several odd pennies beside the phone. At other times there would be a note scribbled on the memorandum pad—

  Each day there were several frantic messages from Buckley’s family about V.I.P.s who had been overlooked and must be invited immediately. It was Mr. Banks’ job to get these belated invitations into the mailbox on the corner before going to bed. As he remembered it in after years, it seemed to him that, like a figure from a Brontë novel, he was always struggling through violent rain and sleet storms on these profitless errands.

  He scuffed doggedly through unseen rain puddles. Wet branches sprang out of the darkness to slap at his eyeglasses. It would have been so easy to drop the pocketful of envelopes behind a bush and go home.

  When he returned to the house he could usually hear the sound of strange bodies being disposed of for the night in various parts of the house. He used to wonder what it was about weddings that made youth so peripatetic—and where these characters would have slept on that particular night if Kay had not happened to meet Buckley.

  9

  PANIC

  For many years a light truck, modeled along the lines of a dog-catcher’s wagon and labeled “U. S. Mail,” had skidded into the Banks drive each morning and delivered a stack of assorted envelopes.

  During the course of breakfast Mrs. Banks had ripped hers open with an impatient forefinger, glanced at the contents and tossed them into the wastebasket. Mr. Banks, who resented anything that interfered with his morning paper, tossed most of his in without opening.

  Since the invitations had gone out, however, his attitude had changed. The arrival of the morning mail was now a matter of top priority, although there didn’t seem to be much family agreement on the information it contained.

  “They’re giving it up because they didn’t want to miss ours.”

  “Oh, what a shame! The Lindley Davises can’t come,” exclaimed Mrs. Banks.

  Mr. Banks’ face beamed with pleasure.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Throckum Nesbitt accept with pleasure. Who in the world are Mr. and Mrs. Throckum Nesbitt? And they say if we don’t mind they’re bringing their daughter.”

  “Never heard of them. They’ve got the wrong wedding.” Mr. Banks was fumbling with the card file. “My God, they’re some people from Pittsburgh! We had them down as “P.N.C.” Haven’t they ever been asked to a wedding before? We don’t even know who they are. That’s some crust, I’ll say. Coming all the way from Pittsburgh! And bringing their daughter. I’d—”

  “The Cramptons are coming—oh, and the Lewises—and the Quincy Browns—and the Gaylords and—oh, how nice—”

  “What’s the matter? Somebody refuse?”

  “No. The Whiteheads were asked to another wedding and they’re giving it up because they didn’t want to miss ours. How sweet of them.”

  Mr. Banks buried himself in the morning paper. The news from Europe was more cheering.

  Each day an increasing number of people, known and unknown, accepted with pleasure. Apparently Kay had selected a day for her wedding when no one within a range of four hundred miles had anything to do. The Banks-Dunstan marriage was evidently an oasis in a desert of boredom.

  Mr. Banks became increasingly impressed with the stupendousness of the spectacle which he was about to produce, and with the importance of the role which he was slated to play. It wasn’t a wedding. It was a pageant. There should be an electric sign on the awning into the church:

  MARRIAGE BELLS. A SUPERCOLOSSAL SCENIC DISPLAY. PRODUCED, DIRECTED AND ACTED BY STANLEY BANKS.

  As a form of self-torture the idea pleased him. He developed it leisurely as he composed himself to sleep that night. No one had thought of loud-speakers outside the church to take care of the overflow, or of putting the show on the air, or of billboards.

  Sometime during the night he woke up filled with vague apprehension. For a few minutes he couldn’t figure out what was bothering him. Then, gradually, the interior of a great cathedral took shape in his half-conscious brain. Its monolithic columns towered up and up, disappearing finally into the darkness above. The place was jammed to the doors with flashily dressed people. Somewhere an organ was thundering like a summer storm.

  Suddenly the organ stopped and there was a dead silence broken only by the creaking of stiff collars and the rattle of pearls as a thousand heads turned as if on swivels to the point where he, Stanley Banks, found himself standing, quite alone, at the head of the aisle.

  He tried to slip into one of the rear pews, but his feet were rooted to the floor. Then there was a series of terrific boomps from the organ and the peals of the wedding march resounded through the vaulted shadows. A shaft of white light sprang from the gloom above him and placed him in the center of a glaring pool of brilliance.

  Alone . . . he started down the aisle.

  Alone, pacing slowly to the measured rhythm of the organ, he started down the aisle. It was several hundred yards long and at the end of it he could distinguish the figure of the minister which kept growing larger and larger until it towered over the whole scene and reached into the shadows—huge, sinister, forbidding, daring him to run the gauntlet.

  Now he could hear titters from either side. “It’s Banks. How grotesque! Why, his clothes don’t fit him. Look at his figure! Why, he can’t even get his coat buttoned! What a clown of a man!”

  The tittering was giving way to shrieks of laughter. People were standing on the seats of the pews and pointing at him. “Look at his knees shake! He’ll never make it. He’ll go down in a minute. How could a man like that have such a beautiful daughter? They say she isn’t his. It’s a joke. He’s a joke. Banks is nothing but a big fat joke—a big fat joke—a big fat joke. My God, his pants are undone!”

  He was sitting up in bed. His forehead was clammy.

  “Why don’t you take a sleeping pill, dear?” said Mrs. Banks. “It’ll quiet you down.”

  • • •

  Of course Mr. Banks realized that this sort of nocturnal shenanigans was immature and silly. For a successful lawyer it indicated an alarming lack of self-control. However, in spite of his efforts to reason the matter through logically, he felt queasy all day. When he arrived in Fairview Manor late in the afternoon it occurred to him that it might be a good idea to go up and look at the church. Not that he wasn’t thoroughly familiar with it. He merely wished to look it over in its new role as a Wedding Church.

  The side door was open. The leveling rays of the late afternoon sun sifted through the stained-glass windows and filled the interior with a rich tapestry of subdued color. The place was deserted. He felt like an intruder bursting in on its introspective silence.

  Standing at the head of the aisle, he studied the terrain like a hunter. Why had he thought of this intimate place as a cathedral? The pillars on either side, as he studied them critically for the first time, looked rather short and dumpy. As for the aisle, from where he stood a hop, skip and a jump would land him in the minister’s arms.

  “Anything I can do for you, sir?” It was Mr. Tringle, the sexton of St. George’s. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Banks. I didn’t r
ecognize you. Come to look things over for the wedding? Well, don’t get nervous, Mr. Banks. We’ll handle everything the way you want it.”

  “I’m not nervous,” said Mr. Banks irritably.

  “Of course not. No sir. Some fathers get nervous, though. Good Lord, you wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it with your own eyes. Fine upstanding men falling to pieces like that. Why, I’ve had ’em out in the vestry shakin’ so’s their hair was in their eyes. Shockin’, some of ’em. Didn’t think I’d ever get ’em down the aisle. Somethin’ about the sight of a church seems to set ’em off. Seems like men’s more highstrung than women that way. Everything’ll be all right. Don’t give it a thought, sir. Worryin’ won’t make it any better anyways. I can remember—Oh, have you got to go? Will you go out this door please. Good night, Mr. Banks.”

  • • •

  A short time later he found himself sitting on the livingroom sofa with Kay, sipping his evening old-fashioned. Delilah was out. Mrs. Banks was in the kitchen. Kay suddenly slipped her arm through his. He patted her hand absently, his mind on Mr. Tringle.

  “I know I’m a fool, Pops, but I want to talk to you about something. You won’t think I’m silly, will you?”

  “Of course not, Kitten. What’s bothering?”

  “I’m scared, Pops. Scared to death.”

  Mr. Banks started and took a substantial swallow. “Scared? What are you scared of? Getting married isn’t anything to be scared of. Marriage is the most normal—”

  “Oh, Pops, I’m not scared of marriage. It’s much sillier than that. You see—” He always had a particular yen for Kay when she said “You see” and snuggled.

  “It’s this way, Pops. You know how I wanted a simple wedding—out in the country somewhere. Well, that’s out. We don’t live in the country. Period. But this thing is getting bigger an’ bigger an’ bigger. Oh, I know it’s ungrateful, Pops. You’re wonderful. But sometimes it scares the living daylights out of me.”