The Romantics
Page 7
The confusion had started early. From the age of five, Laura attended an Episcopal school. At daily assembly, she whispered the Lord’s Prayer alongside her blond classmates, hands clasped, eyes closed piously. When they braided each other’s hair, she prayed no one would notice her darker, coarser strands.
“You’re Jewish, right,” a classmate demanded sometime around sixth grade.
“Yeah.” Laura shrugged. For some reason, assent felt like a confession.
“I thought so,” the classmate said, “because of your last name.” And then by way of consolation, she added, “But don’t worry, you’d never know.”
Laura smiled her thanks, torn between relief and humiliation. She was utterly confused: Had this been a compliment or a slight?
By the time she got to college, she was anxious to end the debate. But a strange cultural trend coincided with her predicament. Suddenly, it became fashionable to be Jewish. College kids who had spent their childhoods downplaying their cultural heritage embraced their Judaism with the sudden fervor of sinners accepting God on their deathbeds. It was a happy occurrence for Laura, bridging the gap between her heritage and her persona, a comforting option even despite the kitschiness of the new schtick. She was half-and-half, part Jew, part Wasp, a beautiful anomaly. And the success of the new persona only reinforced her reductive view of the world. There were two types of people: Wasps and Jews. It was a crude and polarized way of looking at the world, but it was her polarity, her north and south, her guiding principle, and she relied on it to describe and decode the world just as sailors relied on the stars.
Only later did she consider the implications of her dual citizenship. Junior year, she needed to fulfill a core requirement in world history and searched for the easiest class that fit into her schedule. “Jews, from Jesus to Hitler,” was only a cursory survey, but it jogged Laura’s memory, detailing the persecution permitted by neglect, the atrocities condoned by silence. Now, the shame of her first offense was matched by the disgrace of her second: being Jewish and failing to observe her religion and being Jewish and failing to admit it. Faced with the dates, the names, the pictures of the Jews’ most recent persecution, Laura finally fathomed the damage caused by her omissions, every compliment she had accepted, every utterance of the Lord’s Prayer. It was this very complacence that allowed a generation to be murdered in sight of civilization.
Rattled, she scanned the lawn for her friends, eager for distraction. She crossed the lawn, taking special care to avoid Augusta.
Tripler, Pete, Weesie, and Jake had formed a human barricade by the buffet, thwarting other guests from enjoying the crudités. Tripler, as usual, had monopolized the conversation and betrayed her early buzz with sharp, sporadic peals of laughter. Annie and Oscar were preoccupied, mocking the attire of a nearby guest. Laura was comforted by the sight of her friends, but not enough to join them. She wandered toward the edge of the lawn for a better view of the bay. The view offered the distraction she craved, its constellation of sailboats providing a welcome shock of color.
“Laura? Are you okay?”
The compassionate query was quickly followed by a more caustic one.
“Laura!” Tripler barked.
Laura turned to find Tripler and Weesie at her back. She felt immediately defensive, as you do when you are awakened by the ringing phone and attempt to convince the caller you’ve been up for hours.
“What are you doing here?” Tripler demanded. “Why so reclusive?
“No,” Laura mustered. “I’m just …” She couldn’t believe it when it came out of her mouth. “Admiring the view.”
“Um okay …” said Tripler. “Admiring the view?” She scolded Laura for the cliché with an indignant snort, punishment for denying their intimacy.
“Laura’s just getting her bearings,” Weesie explained. If Tripler’s typical mode was speaker, Weesie’s was interpreter.
Laura smiled. It was a flaw of hers that she was so guarded with her best friends. A failure to trust these people was a sign of deep paranoia.
“You don’t have to be ‘on’ with us,” said Tripler. “We know this is hard for you.”
“Hard for me?” Laura said. The defensive feeling returned, this time coupled with anger. “Why would this be hard for me?”
Tripler said nothing. She locked eyes with Laura, challenging her to defy the assertion.
“I think Tripler just means being here without Ben.”
“Oh,” said Laura. But she kept staring at Tripler. This was not what Tripler had meant. “No, it’s fine,” she said, deciding to play along. “It’s actually nice to be on my own. Our apartment is so small.”
“Yeah,” said Weesie. “Tell me about it. Remind me again why we live in New York.”
“So you can pay a million dollars to live in a two-hundred-square-foot box,” Tripler quipped.
“Why don’t we all chip in and buy the house we’re staying in. Then we can gut it and start a commune up here in Dark Harbor.” Weesie smiled, tickled by the thought.
“Now that would be a horror movie,” said Tripler. “We’d cannibalize each other.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” said Weesie. “We all lived in the same house in college.”
“Exactly,” said Tripler. “And we nearly killed each other. Which reminds me. Did you guys make the offer on that apartment?”
“No,” said Weesie. “Now we’re thinking it may not make sense to buy in this market. It’s going to be more expensive than we thought to break through that wall.”
“That sucks,” said Tripler. “That room would make the most amazing nursery. What are you guys waiting for anyway?”
Weesie prepared a heated response—Tripler pushed the baby thing like some Bible-toting fundamentalist. But noting Laura’s tuned-out stare, Weesie checked the impulse to engage Tripler. They had plenty of time to bicker over the weekend. She changed the subject with a conspiratorial smirk. “I kind of wish the boys weren’t here. We could go skinny-dipping in the bay like we used to.”
“We can still do that,” Tripler said. “Hasn’t your husband ever seen you naked?”
“Shut up, Trip. You know what I mean.”
“So that’s why you’re not pregnant yet,” Tripler teased.
Weesie rolled her eyes, refusing to dignify the joke with more strenuous muscle movement.
Tripler took the cue and disengaged. “Anyone need another drink? I’m fueling up for my toast.”
“Good idea,” said Weesie, relenting.
Tension evaporated between the two as they focused on the new task.
Laura stood still for another moment, staring at the sparkling bay as though she was trying to memorize the face of a loved one before saying good-bye.
The dinner announcement was followed by a mad rush to the tent. Guests hustled to find empty tables, then to secure the seat that would yield the most enjoyable conversation. The wedding party simply rushed to find the best table. They were so accustomed to being seated together that their criterion was different from other guests’, they wanted the table with the best view of the festivities, the best vantage point from which to watch and mock the parade of speakers. It was customary for them to transform themselves into a panel of judges. Speakers were measured on the bases of originality, delivery, and humor, and quietly booed for use of cliché, sentimentality, and bad grammar.
Upon entering the tent, it was immediately apparent that the party was being thrown by the McDevons. It lacked the organization, color scheme, and sophistication of a Hayes affair. Tables had been assembled in a slightly haphazard manner just beyond the lawn where cocktails were served. Green tablecloths picked up the color of the grass, but in a neon hue. A stream of peach ribbons hung from the rim of the tent at the entrance, connoting a disco parlor. Guests were encouraged to root through these hanging ribbons to find a small card with their name and table number attached. It was a sweet idea, poorly executed—it caused a bottleneck of guests to accumulate at the entrance.
The cocktail hour had been presented tastefully enough. Perhaps the number and selection of hors d’oeuvres had been on the sparse side and veered slightly from the standard premium choices expected of such a momentous affair. Water crackers smeared with fondue shared space with a pallid array of crudités while uniformed staff passed congealed smoked salmon on pumpernickel squares. Certainly, there was no horrible offender on the menu—no pigs-in-blankets, no sour-cream-and-onion dip—but the whole spread bore a strong resemblance to the buffet one of Chip’s prep schools had trotted out on Parents’ Day, a smorgasbord that prompted jeers from students and parents alike.
Mrs. Hayes had warned Mrs. McDevon about all of these flaws—hors d’oeuvres, color scheme, staging. She had done her best to share knowledge of the yacht club venue. But now, as she stood watching the guests all but tackle each other in their search for seating, her worst fears were confirmed. Mrs. McDevon was utterly incompetent. The event was an embarrassment. Augusta was not surprised, of course. Taste was an inborn thing, and Mrs. McDevon could not be faulted for lacking it. She could be faulted, however, for refusing to heed Augusta’s good advice, and worse, for her seeming satisfaction with the end result. Her inferior taste spoke to the inferior nature of her family. It was distressing to think that Lila was marrying into this mediocrity.
Just as she suppressed this thought, Augusta spotted Lila. Her daughter was trying to advance toward her seat but had been slowed by oncoming traffic; a moving huddle of Tom’s older relatives had glommed on to her like a virus.
Augusta grabbed Lila’s arm as she passed, as though offering a hand to a drowning swimmer.
Lila gripped her mother with the same force, attempting to quell her gripe before she uttered it.
“I warned her,” Augusta hissed.
“I know,” whispered Lila.
“She might as well have done a picnic on the grass. Served ribs on paper plates.”
“Mother,” said Lila. “I don’t understand what you have against new money. It’s still money.” With a smile, she signaled her teasing tone and succeeded at diffusing Augusta’s anger. Lila had an amazing knack for speaking her mother’s language while providing a modern translation.
“I told her I’d do it for her,” said Augusta.
“I know,” said Lila. “But it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s having a wonderful time.” The few inches Lila had over her mother in heels provided an automatic edge. “You should try to do the same thing.”
Augusta sighed with all the distress of a deposed queen. “I will try,” she said. Then, as though remembering the appropriate posture for a mother of the bride, she took a step back so that she faced Lila. She grasped both of her shoulders, at once scanning for imperfections and admiring her beauty. “You look stunning, darling,” she decided.
“Thank you, Mother,” said Lila. “Now, if we can only find your groom.”
Together, Lila and Augusta scanned the tent. But the commotion of guests finding seating and the flood of peach ribbons obscuring their view made this a difficult project. Finally, Augusta spotted him. Her frown revealed it before she did. Tom stood at the edge of the lawn, where Laura had stood earlier, staring out at the bay in a maudlin impersonation of a sailor’s widow.
“What has gotten into him?” Augusta barked.
“Leave him alone, Mother,” said Lila. But she couldn’t help agreeing with the sentiment. Tom’s behavior over the last few days had been odd. He had been cold, distracted, not at all his usual self. Of course, it was well-known that grooms suffered a particular pathology and that the planning of a wedding could snuff the fire of even the most passionate romance. But there was no excuse for behaving like a pariah in front of their guests. Checking her annoyance, she took a quick, deep breath, tapped her mother definitively, and set off across the damp grass, stepping gingerly to prevent her heels from sinking into the dirt.
She arrived behind Tom and slipped her hands into his pockets without saying a word, then stood for a moment as his body tensed, then relaxed upon recognition.
“Honey?” she said.
“So quiet,” he whispered. He did not turn to acknowledge her, just continued to stare at the water.
Lila followed his gaze into the harbor and stared with him in silence, as though trying to perceive something he had pointed out in the distance.
“We’re going to have a good life,” he said.
“Yes, we are,” she confirmed.
Another moment passed as they stared at the darkening water. Suddenly, it occurred to Lila that Tom’s comment had been a question. Annoyed, she removed her hands from his pockets and stepped to stand at his side.
Finally, Tom appeared to notice Lila’s presence. Breaking out of his trance, he pivoted her shoulders so that she faced him. He gazed into her eyes as though to confirm their intense beauty. Satisfied, he kissed her forehead.
“How’s your mother doing?” he asked.
“She’ll be fine,” said Lila. She fluttered her lashes in a patent request for another kiss. “You know how she is. She doesn’t do so well with peach.”
Tom smiled and kissed her, this time on the lips. She was undeniably beautiful, and worse, impossible to resist.
Tradition held that toasts began during the salad course. How and when this tradition arose was difficult to say. But it was understood that rehearsal dinners were subject to this rule, that the dinner itself was secondary in importance to the performance of the toasts. The tradition was treated with the same reverence as any other universal custom, that gifts were exchanged on Christmas morning, turkey eaten on Thanksgiving. Every rehearsal dinner Laura had ever attended abided by these same rules. It was a genre of its own, much like the wedding proposal, with its own discrete set of criteria. And Lila’s wedding party was perhaps the most stringent set of judges ever to gather for the spectacle. They had spent their college years honing the art of the toast. With the constant stream of athletic team and secret society banquets they had attended over the years, it was practically a graduation requirement to know how to command a room.
Lila’s maternal grandmother, Evelyn Westfield, gave the first toast of the evening, a surprising piece of good luck for subsequent speakers because her toast was inordinately bad. Most toasts made by elders are automatically buoyed by wisdom and perspective. But Mrs. Westfield’s was dry and boring, two cardinal sins in a wedding toast. And worse, it was laden with snobbery that made all but the most staid guests ill at ease. The flaws in her toast, in Laura’s opinion, confirmed that she was Augusta’s mother.
Perhaps it was unfair to fault an older woman for antiquated thinking. Why wouldn’t she see the world through the lens of her generation? But the excuse did not satisfy Laura. This same argument had been used to absolve generations of racists. Peer pressure was not a valid excuse for an act of discrimination. To this day, the only nonwhite people Evelyn had addressed were her driver and maid.
“The McDevons and the Westfields were neighbors,” she began, “and yet we never met until this week. And what a lovely week it’s been. Though I daresay Grandpa Westfield may disagree after Timothy McDevon beat him handily in tennis.”
This joke was met with an obligatory giggle.
The wedding party exchanged a flurry of eye rolls in the privacy of their own table.
“That’s because the Westfields blocked the McDevons’ application to the club,” Pete whispered.
“Oh, the McDevons got in the club all right,” Tripler quipped. “Every morning when they rolled the tennis courts an
d every night when they swept the floors.”
Laura inhaled sharply. Tripler had only just drained her second drink and she was already out of control.
“In 1964,” Evelyn went on, “William Hayes came up from Philadelphia to Boston and captured my daughter, Augusta, who was widely known as the city’s greatest beauty. In 1965, Robert Barclay came up from Providence to Boston and captured her little sister, Eliza. Now, it seems, Tom McDevon has reversed the trade route. He came down from Manchester to win Lila’s heart in New Haven. Let’s raise our glasses to the latest capture. New Haven, Manchester, terrific!”
The toast was met with polite applause and followed by a clumsy huddle as Lila and Tom maneuvered through the narrow corridor between folding chairs and tables. It took at least a minute for them to hike across the grass to share a theatrical embrace with the stately matron.
Before they had returned to their seats, an already-drunk Timothy McDevon rose from his chair. Tom’s paternal grandfather batted at a tumbler of whiskey with short, violent swings, causing the guests nearest him to brace for broken glass.
“Hear, hear,” he said. He had apparently forgotten that this was an appropriate response to his speech as opposed to an opening.
The guests regarded him with some confusion, exchanging the forgiving and patronizing chuckle afforded to the elderly.
Timothy McDevon was already so drunk as to be dangerously off-balance. He stood, holding the chair in front of him, rocking slightly for several seconds before he started speaking.
“When Tommy told me he was marrying Leila.”
A sharp gasp arose from the Hayeses’ table, but Mr. McDevon was unfazed.
“I said to him—”
A consort of distant relatives raced to prevent further indiscretions. Someone yelled “Lila” with the volume and intensity of a catcall.
Augusta fought the urge to stand up and silence the drunken man. But she remained sitting, braced to leap from her chair if the situation demanded.
Timothy paused, confused by the commotion in the tent. He offered the crowd a scolding look, then went on enthusiastically. “I told him.” Here he paused again, this time for dramatic effect. “I said … ‘You lucky son of a bitch.’”