Rich and Pretty

by Rumaan Alam

  Huck is so present that he doesn’t even seem to walk away; rather, the rest of the space around him seems to move past him, like the background in a cartoon. He is gone, into the kitchen, where they can hear him barking at one of the polo-wearing waitstaff to find some champagne, cold.

  “So, you ready?” Lauren feels a strange urge to punch Dan on the shoulder. She’s never sure how to relate to him, so finds herself acting like one of the guys in his presence.

  “I’m more than ready, to tell you the truth,” Dan says, glancing at his wristwatch. “I’d like to get this show on the road.”

  “All in due time,” Dan’s father says, one of those perfectly meaningless things fathers specialize in saying.

  “Someone’s ready for the honeymoon,” she says, and immediately regrets it. The words sound unmistakably sexual coming out of her mouth, the implication disgusting. A misstep: She’s usually good with parents, adept at keeping the conversation moving and G-rated.

  “You and Sarah have been friends forever, I hear,” Dan’s mother says.

  An out. She’s so grateful. “We’ve known each other for . . .” She does some math. “Gosh, since we were eleven. Two-thirds of our lives. Crazy, right?”

  “So wonderful, really.” She squeezes Lauren’s arm again. “It’s wonderful to have an old friend.”

  “I’m actually her something old,” Lauren says. “I’m working on new, borrowed, and blue.”

  “Guys, excuse us for a second, would you?” Dan places his hand gingerly on Lauren’s back, but only barely touching her. She must look immaculate. She lets him push her back into the house, floats away at his touch, happy, for the moment, to cede control to him. She doesn’t know what to do with herself anyway.

  “You want a drink?” His tone is less formal, but still not quite intimate. Dan’s always respected the distance between them.

  “Maybe I do want a drink,” she says.

  Dan nods at a girl who’s standing at the kitchen island, measuring out piles of paper cocktail napkins.

  “Where do you think we could get a whiskey?”

  The girl smiles a smile that says she’s helped many a nervous groom. “I’ve got some ice right here,” she says. She stops what she’s doing, fills tumblers with ice in one fluid motion. “There’s whiskey upstairs or”—voice dropping to conspiratorial whisper—“there’s the good stuff, from their regular bar. You want the good stuff, right?”

  “We want the good stuff,” Lauren says.

  She points down the hallway. “It’s in the apartment. Do you want me to go grab it?”

  “We’ll get it,” Lauren says. “You’re busy.” She takes the tumblers from the girl. “Thanks.”

  Lauren’s never actually seen the apartment, and in her imagination, the place was amazing, impressive. A teenage daydream: that Sarah, at sixteen, could have relocated down there, come and gone as she pleased, though in fact, she enjoyed plenty of liberty, not to mention more square footage. The place is disappointing—sealed up, a relic of another time, like those underground bunkers where families once imagined they’d while away the hours, post-apocalypse. The bottles that usually crowd on the kitchen counter have been transplanted to a table here. Lauren chooses the Oban, a splash in each glass then, upon reflection, another splash. She’s not the one who’s pregnant.

  “Cheers,” she says. She lifts the glass in salute.

  “Thanks.” Dan touches his glass to hers, sniffs the whiskey, takes a tentative sip. “I needed that.”

  She sits on the one corner of the bed not covered by plant stands, coffee-table books, magazines, vases, and other accessories temporarily moved from the upstairs rooms. The mattress groans, but nothing falls over. She’s not sure she’s ever been alone with Dan before.

  “How’s she doing up there, really?”

  “Great,” Lauren says. “She looks amazing, we’re all good to go.”

  “She always does. Is everyone driving her crazy?” Dan smiles. “Sarah doesn’t like to be fussed over, you know.”

  “I think she’s taking it in stride,” Lauren says. It’s sweet, how the first thing he says, in response to being told of Sarah’s beauty, is a reflexive “of course.” “But, you know, I think she wants it to be over.”

  “We’re pregnant, I know she told you.”

  “Another thing to say congratulations for,” she says.

  “Thanks. I’m excited.”

  “You should be.”

  “The next chapter, or something.” Dan pauses. “I’m glad Sarah has you, had you to talk to, about the baby. You were the first person to know.”

  “As well I should have been,” Lauren says.

  “She’s lucky, to have you, to know you.” Dan looks embarrassed. He takes a long sip of his drink. “I’m nervous. Is that stupid?”

  “Drink up,” she says. “You’re going to need it. The madness hasn’t even begun.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he says. “This wedding thing got a little out of hand. Almost two hundred guests? This ridiculous menu?”

  “It’s fun! Your parents look thrilled. Everyone will be so excited to see you both. Just let it go.” Lauren finishes her drink, but sits, looking up at him.

  “You understand, though,” Dan says, talking to her, but also not to her, almost like he’s delivering a monologue. “You’re not like this, we’re not like this, the big wedding type. The first dance, the bad hors d’oeuvres.”

  “First of all, those hors d’oeuvres look amazing.” Lauren pauses. “Anyway, who cares? It’s a wedding.”

  “That it is,” he says. “Pomp and circumstance. Pageantry. How many people here do you think will count backwards when we send the birth announcements and be scandalized?”

  “No one,” she says. “It’s not 1951, as you yourself just said ten minutes ago.”

  “I feel like you’re the only sane person at this wedding. Where’s Rob?”

  “Oh, he’ll be here, eventually,” she says. “He was sleeping it off. Last night got a little crazy.”

  “I amend my previous statement. You and Rob are the only sane people at this wedding, except for Sarah and me. I have to tell you—I wish we could ditch everyone and go have ice cream or something.”

  “Like something out of an independent film.”

  “Something like that,” Dan agrees.

  Lauren needs to eat something herself. One drink and it’s in her head: that warmth, that swim. “Our moment is over, groom-to-be.” She stands. “Willa is going to be looking for you. They’re going to want to do your picture with your parents, to move things along later.”

  “Willa.” Dan snorts.

  “She who must be obeyed.” Lauren takes his empty glass. “I’ll ditch these. You go find the folks, put on your big smile, and then go greet the guests. We’ll talk later.”

  “We’ll talk later,” he says, taking her by the wrist, because her hands are full. “When I’m a married man, I guess.”

  “I guess,” she says.

  “It’s time to get dressed.” Willa speaks in a firm, quiet voice; every sentence ends with some emphasis, like she’s clapped her hands, though she wouldn’t do that. Willa’s talents are wasted coordinating weddings; she should work for the president.

  For the occasion, Willa has had a large standing mirror moved upstairs from Lulu’s dressing room. Sarah looks at herself. She’s wearing a tank top, gray, something she’d wear to the gym, and sweatpants, green, the sort of thing she’d never wear out of the house, or in front of anyone but Dan. The mirror is so big, the ceilings so high, that somehow she looks small, in the mirror, like a child. Fitting: Getting dressed had once been play. She’s read that play is actually work, that children need to do it to understand the world. So they pantomime fetching cakes from ovens, when really they’re conjuring plates of sand from thin air. Or they pack imaginary bags, head off to the office, cannily echoing daddy’s unconscious, put-upon sigh. This is genius: rehearsal for our unremarkable lives. She hers
elf did this many times, wrapping Lulu’s scarf around her waist like a skirt, announcing she was leaving for “lunch with Kissinger,” as one favorite and probably apocryphal family story has it.

  She can hear, downstairs, the bustle—chairs being set up, trays being arranged, flowers propped up and back to life. But she’s been forgotten. She feels, for a moment, like stamping her feet, like demanding attention. This is her game they’re supposed to be playing. The feeling passes. The dress, strapless but somehow modest, is on a hanger, the hanger hooked over the top of the closet door.

  “You look beautiful.” Lulu charges into the room, hair pulled back tight against her face, showing, to best advantage, the shape of that face, its flat planes, its soft beauty. She looks at once older and younger. “They did a wonderful job.”

  Sarah’s about to respond when Danielle steps in, and then Ines, and Lulu redirects the compliments directly toward them, and again, Sarah’s forgotten. The three of them talk, their voices excited; even Ines, who was so subdued before, seems to come alive near Lulu, a not uncommon phenomenon.

  Lauren comes in, carrying a can of soda. “I stole this from the bar,” she says.

  The can is very cold, and wet. Sarah takes it. Relief. She needed something, she didn’t know this is what it is.

  “Let me get you a straw,” Ines says, digging in her things.

  “Oh, don’t drink that now, honey, it’s time to get dressed!” Lulu clucks her tongue.

  “You get dressed first. I’ll drink this.”

  Lulu makes a disapproving face—she’s always thought soda trashy—but steps into the bathroom, where her own dress awaits.

  The soda tastes odd, because her mouth is so clean, but the cold and the sugar penetrate some part of her brain, rouse her just enough. “Thank you,” she says.

  Lauren shrugs. “I just knew.” She gives her a knowing look, follows Lulu into the bathroom. After a few minutes, the two emerge, transformed. It’s amazing, the extent to which a garment can change every aspect of your being. When she disappeared into the bathroom, she was Lauren; emerging, she’s—something else. Yes, she’s made up, that’s part of it, but it’s the dress. The way it reveals parts of her body, highlighting the parts of the body that remain hidden; the way Lauren seems to understand, somehow, that she has to move her body differently, and then does, expertly, almost automatically. She looks like she wears dresses like this all the time. She looks—it’s not pretty, it’s more than that. It’s that old Lauren: the person Sarah loves so much that sometimes she wants to be her.

  Lulu steps out of the bathroom. Her dress is navy, cut close, showing her body, its softness, its curves. She’s fiddling with an earring, looks like herself: a star. She smiles at Sarah, smiles at all of them, the practiced smile of a woman greeting her public.

  “Your turn, my love,” she says.

  Sarah looks at the dress, the white billow of it, like a cloud, almost sacred.

  “My turn,” she says, to no one in particular.

  She listens to the sounds of celebration: clicks and clacks on the parquet, the tinkle of glasses, hellos and kisses, the occasional shout of excitement. Danielle smooths her hair. Ines examines her makeup. Sarah can’t sit, because of the dress.

  Her father comes upstairs, full of chuckles, but is distracted by the arrivals. Her mother comes back upstairs, still glowing from all the compliments. Lauren comes back upstairs, brings a glass of iced water. Willa comes upstairs, tells her it’s almost time. The photographer comes upstairs, snaps pictures of her with Lulu, her with Lauren, her alone, the three of them lined up at the top of the staircase, waiting for the signal from the string quintet that will be playing them in.

  It feels like a surprise party that they are in on. This silly enactment of a ritual makes Sarah want to laugh, and she does, and Lauren laughs, too, and Lulu hushes them, and they stop laughing, and the music begins. Willa has to signal them; they can barely hear it.

  Dan looks handsome. Dan is smiling. Sarah feels ridiculous. Everyone stands. She walks slowly, just like Willa urged her to. Slow, slow, counting down in her head. Huck relinquishes her arm, takes his seat. She looks out at the crowd. Sees aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, her parents’ friends, her friends’ parents. Everyone looks back at her.

  She looks at Dan, looks up at him, because he’s taller than her. His face is broad, a little chubby at the chin. His skin gleams. He shaved that morning. His cheek looks soft. He smells like soap. His hair looks different, a layer of product holding it in place. She remembers not the first time she saw him—that memory is lost to her, a remarkable moment only in retrospect—but another time, years later, years ago now, at the wedding of Ben, Meredith’s brother, Dan, in a black suit, leaning against the window of the Princeton Club, candlelit, so himself, so handsome, that she’d known right then that she’d marry him, and in fact, here they are.

  Rob kisses Lauren hello. It begins as a kiss on the cheek, turns into a kiss on the lips, becomes another kiss, when no one is watching, his tongue grazing hers.

  “You’ve been drinking,” he says, not accusatorily.

  Then she goes back upstairs, takes her place in line, parades in and stands by the couple as they wed, an ally. She scans the crowd as they’re saying their vows, finds Rob, tall, standing with hands folded behind his back like someone examining a painting in a museum. She wants to signal to him, somehow, a raised eyebrow, a grin, a mouthed word, but she can’t, because everyone is looking, everyone will see. That he is hers feels like a wonderful secret.

  They say a few words, then more words, then there’s a cry of delight, and applause, and the guests who are seated stand, and Dan kisses Sarah.

  Everyone practically chases the couple as they attempt to retreat down the aisle. They stop, abandon the plan, giving hugs and kisses, accepting compliments, wiping tears. Every cell phone comes out, photographs are taken.

  Rob worms through the crowd toward her. Lulu has vanished. The recessional will not continue. Lauren puts her bouquet of green roses on a seat, takes Rob by the hand. “Let’s get a drink,” she says, loudly, to be heard over the chatter.

  The day is cool, but the garden is so crowded that even the outside air feels warm. Food appears, and drinks. Dan and Sarah disappear to have their photograph taken on the front steps. Huck and Lulu disappear, too, then reappear. Huck tells stories in his booming voice, drowning out even the string quintet.

  The musicians pack it in and leave. The DJ arrives. There are more appetizers, then more drinks, and finally the servers come through, collecting empty glasses and encouraging everyone to go inside, upstairs, to dinner, a buffet laid in the living room.

  Lauren takes a plate—salmon, red potatoes, asparagus—and she and Rob sit on the steps, eating, watching the sky grow darker. It is night. They take their plates inside, deposit them back near the buffet. A girl in a black polo shirt whisks them away.

  There are speeches and toasts, back in the garden. The chairs are gone, the lanterns are lit. The photographer moves through the crowd. He pauses before them, and Rob drapes an arm around her shoulder, pulls her nearer, and they smile. Huck makes a speech about the first time he held Sarah, and how a parent never stops holding his child. It’s a good speech, but that’s what he does for a living.

  There are cupcakes filled with strawberry jam. They drink more whiskey. Lulu sings a song, then another, and there is applause, raucous, excited. She beams. The DJ begins to play music. The kids dance. Some of the older guests dance. Most of them go inside, to drink, tell stories, listen to Huck. She and Rob dance, then sit, and watch the dancing, watch the faces, and then, a couple of hours later, it is over.

  Chapter 17

  Sarah’s hunch is wrong. It’s a boy. Called Henry, for her dad, and then Andrew, for Dan’s. He’s small, a surprise given how big she got. The labor, which she’s been privately terrified of for weeks, is simple. There is pain, yes, and it’s a pain that is beyond any definition of pain she’s previously accepted or unde
rstood, but it’s brief, and in the end, there’s the baby, and the pain diffuses, floats away like a cloud, and there’s a dull, general atmosphere of fatigue, a warmth at the hips, an ache in the back, but there’s also him, furious mouth pulling at her nipple, leaving her a little bit ecstatic, and even more spent. It’s so animal it’s almost like incest. She sleeps, and the baby is taken away, and then he is returned to her, and Dan is there, and she pulls on a gown, ties it up, her nipples sore and leaky against the thin cotton. When she is decent, Lulu comes, fragrant with perfume, then Huck, then Andrew and Ruth. Everyone wants to hold and kiss Henry, so they do, in turn, then they leave, and she sleeps and nurses and drinks cup after cup of iced water. A day later, Dan pushes her and Henry in the state-mandated wheelchair to the curb, and they wrangle with the six-point harness on the as-yet-unfamiliar car seat, then drive home, very slowly.

  She had steadfastly declined, those months, the opportunity to be showered with gifts, as is the custom. Lulu was horrified.

  “This is just what people do,” she’d said.

  “I just made everyone come and watch me get married. I’m not going to make them celebrate me again so soon.”

  And here’s the thing: Pregnancy gives you authority. No one wants to anger you, and if they do, you can display that anger without fear of seeming irrational. Pregnancy makes every emotion into a force of nature, something to be respected, honored, even. There was no shower: no white cotton onesies, strung on a line, no party games, no baby bottles filled with prosecco.

  So, détente: an afternoon meet and greet, at her own apartment, not her parents’ house, so Hank can nap in his own bed, or anyway, the little upholstered box in which he sleeps. Just a few snacks, most ordered in from the same service that brings the groceries: a plate of baby carrots and celery sticks with a bowl of garlicky hummus at its center, an arrangement of suspiciously perfect-looking strawberries and orange arcs of cantaloupe. She’s put on a pot of coffee.

  Meredith is first to arrive. A baby blue gift bag in hand, visage of a stuffed, soft monkey just visible between the twine handles. Meredith kisses her on one cheek, then the other, barely brushing up against her body like she’s afraid of hurting her. I just pushed seven pounds of arms and legs out of my vagina, Sarah feels like telling her. I can take anything.