The People We Hate at the Wedding
Page 32
Paul stares forward toward the stained-glass window on the east face of the abbey. He squints at the figures, at the light that gives them life: Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John, talking shop with a few saints. He wonders, briefly, what it would be like to be stuck in one of those windows; to perish each time the sun went down, only to be reborn into the exact same conversation the very next morning.
The quartet plays the final notes of the nocturne. This time, no one bothers to clap.
“Excuse me,” Paul says, standing. He buttons his morning coat.
Donna takes hold of his sleeve.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Before he leaves, he leans down and kisses her cheek.
* * *
The sun streams through the trees that frame the abbey’s perimeter, leaving shadows across the lawn. Paul blinks at the brightness and, feeling again that he might be sick, considers ducking back into the solemnity of the church. In the air hang traces of lavender and lilac, and as he breathes them in, he steadies himself and steps out onto the grass. He doesn’t immediately see Eloise, or Alice—in front of him is the small drive that circles up to the north end of town, and then beyond that Half Moon Street, with its cadre of squat pubs and shops. He walks a bit farther, down a set of ancient stairs and toward those same shops, past some invisible barrier where the distant murmurings of the Nocturne in E-Flat Major are suffocated by the general discord of the town, and that’s when, finally, he sees her.
Eloise sits on a bench behind a low stone wall, out of view of the church. She’s alone—Alice must have returned to wherever the bridesmaids are being held, circling in their holding pattern—and next to her lies a bouquet of lilies, their petals drooping down toward the sidewalk. Across the street from where she’s sitting there’s a pub with an outside patio, and Paul watches as people drink sweaty glasses of beer and light cigarettes and check their phones, oblivious to his sister’s presence. Looking down on her from where he’s standing, he notices that she’s watching them, too, and he wonders if she’s thinking the same thing he is: that it would be so easy to join them, to order a few drinks, to say fuck it and make friends with a new bunch of assholes who don’t know them and how awful they’ve managed to become.
He tilts his neck from side to side, feeling the joints crack and pull, and he walks the rest of the way to the bench.
“Hi,” he says, when he’s close enough for her to hear.
Startled, she turns and sees him.
“Oh, God.”
Unsure of how to respond, he sits down next to her, moving the bouquet to the ground.
“You must be loving this,” Eloise says.
Paul shakes his head. “I’m too hungover to be opportunistic.”
Across the street at the pub, an empty pint glass falls from a table and shatters into pieces.
A woman in khaki capris, a Westmoreland terrier tucked beneath her left arm, unlocks one of the souvenir shops. A place called Sherborne Mews.
“What are we doing out here, Eloise?” Paul says.
“I don’t know.”
“You’d better damned well know. It’s your wedding.”
“I don’t know if I can do this, Paul.”
A plane flies overhead, cutting a cloud in two.
“Oh, no,” he says. “No. You don’t get to rent out a church that was considered old when Henry the fucking Eighth was around. You don’t get to haul your whole family across the goddamned ocean. You don’t get to make our entire lives about your happiness just to say that you don’t know.”
She looks down. Her shoulders are bare, and in the sun her skin has begun to freckle.
Paul continues, “I mean, people are on the verge of death in that church, Eloise. Have you been in there? Have you felt how hot it is? Hell is cooler than that church is today.”
Her cheeks tremble, and he notices for the first time that she’s started to cry.
“Christ,” he says.
She dabs beneath each eye with the back of her index finger, and her nostrils flare.
A cab crawls down Half Moon Street and slows in front of them. Paul waves its driver on, and then watches as it turns around a low brick wall.
“I was so awful to you last night,” Eloise says.
Paul nods. “You were. But then, I also talked about getting fucked in front of your in-laws. We’re even. Eloise, come on. Let’s get this done.”
Paul moves to stand, but she stays seated, so he lowers himself back down again. The wool trousers press against the backs of his thighs in damp, warm patches.
“I told my dad to leave,” she says. “I said I didn’t want him here after what he did to you and Mom.”
“I pissed on him. If I’d pissed on me, I’d’ve slugged me, too.”
“You know that girl wasn’t even a guest? She was some cook from the catering company. He met her when he was waiting for the bathroom next to the kitchen.” She scratches a spot behind her ear. “I lied to Mom. She asked where he was today, and I told her he was running late.”
“I think that was a good call,” Paul says, and he genuinely means it. “Keep the body count low. Now, let’s go.”
She doesn’t budge. She just sighs, and rolls her shoulders back, and stretches her long neck from side to side. Paul watches as taut skin stretches over vertebrae. Down some distant medieval street, a car honks.
“Do you remember the Warners?” she asks him. “The neighbors who lived over on Bluebird Court in St. Charles? There were four kids—Nick and Robbie were the boys; Jill and Heather were the girls.”
“Yeah, we called them Aryan Youth. Said they were fueled by sunshine and superiority instead of food and water.”
“I loved them.”
A june bug crawls a few inches away from the toe of Paul’s left shoe. Reaching his leg out, he lightly nudges it, and it rolls over on its back.
“I still trade Christmas cards with Heather, actually,” Eloise says.
“You’re kidding.”
“They all still live in Chicago. Within blocks of each other.” She leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees. New folds appear in the dress’s skirt. “Heather says they all get together for dinner once a week.”
Paul licks sweat from his upper lip. “Those poor, wretched things.”
Eloise sits up straight again and turns to face him. “I thought that’s what this was going to be, Paul. That’s what’s so crazy. I thought that this wedding was going to turn us into the Warners. You and Alice always had each other, and I never had either of you. I thought that this was going to change all that. Like, suddenly we’d all stop acting like such idiots and start loving each other and, fuck, I don’t know, take a family portrait in matching shirts at the brunch tomorrow.”
She’s crying a little harder now. Paul folds his hands together and looks down at the june bug, which is still struggling on its back, its legs flailing in six directions at once. Its underbelly glows iridescent in the sunlight.
“That’s never going to happen, Eloise.”
“But why not?” She says this louder than Paul suspects she intends, and her voice ricochets off the buildings across the street. At the pub, drunk Brits turn their heads. “I’m serious,” she pleads, now with her voice lowered. “Why can’t we be like that? Why can’t we be like the Warners?”
“Because we’re not the Warners. That’s just … that’s not who we are, okay?”
He reaches forward and turns the june bug upright again. Fazed, it scrambles in erratic circles before hiding in the shade beneath the bench.
“And besides,” he says, “I bet they all hate each other, anyway. I bet they all go home at night and tell their spouses how awful their siblings are, and then drink a bunch of wine and feel guilty about it and cry themselves to sleep.” He brushes his hair out of his face. “At least we have the dignity and respect for one another to do all that in public.”
A man flicks a cigaret
te from the pub’s patio out into the street.
Pigeons flock to the abbey’s belfry, and their coos echo in great iron domes.
Eloise says, “I think you’re wrong. The Warners have got it figured out. Somehow they’ve managed to hold onto something that we lost. I mean, you should read these Christmas cards, Paul.”
“Yeah? Maybe you’re right. Maybe they really do all sit around on Sunday nights and make tacos and play Pictionary and do whatever the fuck else people like the Warners do.” He goes to fish in the pocket of his morning coat for a cigarette before remembering that the morning coat has no pockets. “But we’re not them, Eloise. You get that? That’s not our tribe. And we can sit here and bitch about it and blame Mom and Henrique or whoever else because we aren’t compelled to call each other every time we, like, bake a batch of cookies, or we can appreciate that when it matters, we’ll do what’s right by our family.”
“We’ll piss on someone.”
“Sure, whatever, we’ll piss on someone.”
She reaches down for the bouquet, and Paul sighs.
“This is why I’m leaving,” she says. “This exact reason is why I’m not going through with this.”
Paul snatches the bouquet from her and hugs it to his chest. One of the lily petals snaps from its stem and floats down to the sidewalk.
“This is batshit,” he says.
“No, Paul, it’s not. Listen. Did I tell you Ollie wants to adopt a kid? Well, he does. He can’t wait to be a dad, he says. We’ve already started talking to some agencies. I’ve been going along with it, but the whole thing makes me sick to think about. Because—no, don’t interrupt me. Just listen. Think about it: If I go in there, if I go through with this and marry Ollie, and in a year, let’s say, we adopt a child, you know what’s going to happen? I’m suddenly going to have a family of my own. Great! you say. Everything you ever wanted! Everything the rich boarding school brat has been pining for! And, okay, maybe I thought that. Up until, like, a month ago. Because guess what, soon that kid’s going to grow up. Soon Ollie and I will start fighting. Soon, I’m going to find myself in Mom’s position—tied, by blood, or you know, whatever, adopted blood, to these people whose job it is to disappoint me. I mean, fuck, Paul. I can’t even bring this family together at a goddamned wedding! Think of what I’ll do with a family of my own!” She shakes her head and wipes away more tears, this time using her whole hand. “No. I can’t fail like that again. I’m sorry you flew all the way here. But I just can’t fail like that again.”
Paul looks directly at her. He grabs her shoulders.
“Of course you’ll fail!” he yells. “Everyone fails!”
“The Warners didn’t fail.”
She’s sobbing now.
“FUCK THE WARNERS! Eloise, look, you’ll be disappointed, okay? Love disappoints. It can’t help itself. That’s why … I don’t know, that’s why Ingrid Bergman gets on the plane and leaves Casablanca, or Maude takes all those sleeping pills at the end of Harold and Maude. But what are we supposed to do? Stop trying? Preemptively say fuck it because we know everything invariably ends? That’s bullshit. You hear me? Bullshit. Love may disappoint, but that doesn’t absolve us from the duty of loving. Of trying to love.”
Eloise covers her face with her hands and breathes into her palms. The abbey’s bells chime, and, disheartened, the pigeons flee their roost. It’s two thirty.
“I don’t think you believe yourself,” she says.
“You’re right. I probably don’t. At least not right now. But I’m going to. One day, at least. That I promise you.”
A cloud passes before the sun, and for an instant the world darkens.
“So what do I do?” she asks.
Paul looks at her—at her clear and desperate eyes—and realizes that she means it.
“I’ve got no idea,” he says. “But I think you’ve got a better shot than most of us, and you’d be a fucking idiot not to try.”
Somewhere in the distance, far from the bench on Half Moon Street, they both hear their mother’s voice calling their names. It’s soft at first, but as she approaches them it grows, filling the space between them.
Paul stands and helps Eloise to her feet. A tendril of blond hair hangs in her face, and he pushes it behind her ear.
Eloise nods, slowly at first, but then with increasing gusto. “Okay. Yes.”
She looks back toward the church, and now says, “I think I’m ready.”
Beyond his sister and the stone wall, Paul sees Donna trudging across the grass. Alice trails behind her, jogging as she yells at their mother to wait, her heels dangling from her left hand.
Upon hearing them, Eloise turns as well. Paul watches as she stares at them, and he wonders what she’s thinking: if she sees love or a letdown; salvation or inconvenience. Reaching down, she gathers up the train of her dress and begins trudging up to them, working her way across the broad swath of grass. He stays behind for a moment, and as his sisters and his mother vanish behind the abbey’s arches and spires he stares upward, past his blinding hangover, to a point in the distance that he can’t quite grasp. A bit of infinity where blue bleeds to white, where absence and hope collide. He thinks of the beautiful, gut-wrenching future awaiting them, and the claw marks they’ve left in everything they’ve given up. He thinks of all the times they’ve faced the world on two steady feet, and all the times he knows it will knock them over to the ground. Mostly, though, he thinks—he forces himself to think—that for today, at least for today, they’ll all be okay.
Acknowledgments
This book is indebted to the generosity, humor, talent, and time of so many wonderful people. And I’m going to do my best to name them here.
As always, the brilliant Richard Pine and Eliza Rothstein have worked tirelessly on my behalf. Thank you for taking my calls and keeping me in check.
James Melia is, frankly, a terrifyingly good editor, and an equally impressive drinking partner. Without him, this book would be a stack of pages in a drawer somewhere. Thanks also to the superb team at Flatiron Books: Amy Einhorn, Colin Dickerman, Bob Miller, Marlena Bittner, Greg Villepique, and all the rest. You’ve taken better care of me than I possibly deserve.
When it comes to being a genius reader, unflappable friend, and all-around mensch, Peter Schottenfels is second to none. Thanks for reading every word (often twice).
Special thanks, also, to other early readers: Irini Spanidou, Chris Rovzar, Ali Bujnowski, Beth Machlan, Max Ross, Molly Schulman, Peyton Burgess, and Zach Patton. Your advice and guidance are present on every page.
Topher Burns: Thanks for asking me who I hated at the wedding.
Steph Myatt: Thanks for having the wedding.
Mac McCarty: Thank you for your love, compassion, and patience on nights when I did nothing but type. It’s difficult to imagine what life would look like without you.
Finally, I owe momentous thanks to my family. Mom, Dad, Reid, Katie, Sam, and Henry: You keep me just the right amount of crazy, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
ALSO BY GRANT GINDER
Driver’s Education
This Is How It Starts
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grant Ginder is the author of the novels This Is How It Starts and Driver’s Education. He received his MFA from NYU, where he teaches writing. He lives in New York City. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part One
Alice
Paul
Alice
Donna
Paul
/>
Alice
Paul
Donna
Part Two
Mark
Alice
Eloise
Paul
Alice
Mark
Eloise
Part Three
Paul
Donna
Alice
Donna
Eloise
Ollie
Paul
Alice
Paul
Acknowledgments
Also by Grant Ginder
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING. Copyright © 2017 by Grant Ginder. All rights reserved. For information, address Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.flatironbooks.com
Cover design by Evan Gaffney
Cover photographs: figurine © Ilan Rubin / Trunk Archive; cake © Jamie B / Getty Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-09520-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-15491-0 (international edition)
ISBN 978-1- 250-09521-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781250095213
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First Edition: June 2017