A Catered Affair

by Sue Margolis

  “I know. I know.”

  “How could he do this? How could he be so cruel?”

  “This won’t help, but I don’t think that he meant to be cruel. He’s weak and he’s protecting himself.”

  “What about me? Who’s going to protect me?”

  “The people who love you and care about you. You mustn’t be afraid to call on them. And it’s important to realize that you are going to need time to mourn for the relationship. Give yourself some time, but if after a few weeks you find you’re not coping, come and see me.” He said I could e-mail him at napoleonbrownstein@aol.com.

  I wasn’t likely to forget that.

  “Thanks, Napoleon. It can’t have been easy having to break this sort of news.”

  He patted my hand by way of reply and asked me if I was ready to go back downstairs.

  “I don’t know. God, what do I tell everybody? There are two hundred guests waiting for a wedding. They are going to be so pissed off.”

  Napoleon assured me that nobody was going to be pissed off. “And if they are—well, they’ll just have to get pissed on again.” I felt myself let out a half laugh. Then I told him I had to do something before we left. I went over to the waste bin and shoved my bouquet into it—flowers first.

  Downstairs in the foyer Rabbi Feldman was telling Mum that another wedding party was due any minute. “I think I should make some kind of announcement to your guests, and then—and I’m sorry if this sounds harsh—but I will need to ask you to leave.”

  “Make the announcement,” I said. “Josh has called off the wedding, our life, our future, everything.”

  “Omigod,” Nana muttered. “I don’t believe it. Tell me it isn’t true. He was such a lovely boy. We all thought the world of him.”

  Mum came up and put her arms around me. “Oh, sweetie. I am so, so sorry.” Then she turned to Napoleon. “So what do you think has gone on with Josh? I mean, is he just acting out here? Or venting? Is there some kind of transference going on connected to his father? Could we be looking at full-blown psychosis?”

  Napoleon looked slightly puzzled. “I really don’t know. So are you a therapist?”

  “Not exactly,” Mum said.

  The rabbi was shaking his head. “What can I say? This is such a sad day.”

  Nana was crying now and going on about Nazi curses. My mother glared at her. “Mum, please. Not now.”

  I asked Rabbi Feldman what he was planning to tell the guests.

  “Only that there will be no wedding today. I don’t think it is for me to give out any more information. It’s probably best if the details came from the immediate family.”

  Details. There were no details. Josh had dumped me. End of story.

  I turned to Napoleon. “Have you spoken to Judy?”

  “Uh-uh. I thought you should be the first to know what happened. I’d better go and find her.”

  Rabbi Feldman disappeared to make his announcement. Napoleon went to break the news to the Eisners. In the months I had known Josh’s family I had developed a real fondness for them. I was pretty sure that was mutual. I hadn’t simply lost Josh. I had lost them, too. I ached with the sadness of it all.

  For the next few minutes, the five of us sobbed, hugged and clung to one another.

  We were too far away to hear the rabbi’s announcement, but we knew he’d finished when people began trickling through the double doors and into the foyer. One person who didn’t trickle was Rosie. She came striding towards me.

  “What on earth has happened?”

  I fell into her arms. “He left me, Rosie. He left me.” I was vaguely aware of my tears falling onto the emerald satin of her cocktail dress.

  “My God. Oh, hon. I don’t know what to say. How could he be so wicked?” She held me tight and just let me sob. Eventually Mum came over with tissues and I made an attempt to pull myself together. Rosie put her arm around me, and she and I, along with Scarlett and Grace, retreated to the Sid and Ada Greenspan bench.

  By now I had calmed down enough to pick up snippets of conversation. As I said, it was inconceivable for a Jewish bride to get dumped, so nobody was thinking that Josh had left me. Most people seemed to have their money on a car crash—probably serious (or, God forbid, fatal) since Josh hadn’t phoned or texted to say he was OK.

  People—particularly the older women—made a beeline for Mum and Nana. Crepey, cleavaged aunties I barely recognized, who looked like they had been poured into their cocktail dresses and forgotten to say when, were falling over themselves to find out what had happened to Josh. Maybe he’d collapsed from the stress of the wedding. A minor stroke or heart attack maybe. You shouldn’t know of it, but even young men drop down. Had we started phoning round the hospitals?

  “Josh has left her,” Mum was saying to a group of women in front of her. “It’s over.”

  “Noooo!” an aunt boomed. “Hey, Morty—did you hear that? Josh jilted poor Tally.”

  “Of course, I blame myself.” It was Nana. “I paid for the wedding with my Nazi money and put a curse on the whole thing.”

  Eventually the aunts sought me out. They came towards me, arms outstretched. One, then another, held me in a tight, bingowinged embrace and told me how devastated and traumatized they were and how they would never get over it.

  Among the aunts was Aunty Brenda. I hadn’t seen her in years. Mum and Brenda still spoke on the phone every few weeks but were nothing like as tight as they had been since Brenda went to live in Spain. She’d moved to Marbella a few years ago with her new husband. Her first, Sam, had died suddenly one Christmas. Nana Ida, who was staying with Mum over the holidays, took the call from Brenda. Hand over the mouthpiece, Nana Ida announced that Sam had died of a massive internal fart. She passed the phone to Mum, who registered her shock and offered condolences. “But I don’t understand. Sam died of an internal fart? How does that work?”

  Aunty Brenda became even more distraught. Sam had died of a massive myocardial infarct.

  Now Aunty Brenda, who had come from Spain especially for the wedding, was giving me one of her bear hugs that I remembered from childhood. She still smelled of Exclamation, the cheap drugstore perfume she used to use. “Oh, darling. I am so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s OK, Aunty Brenda,” I said as she released me. “There’s nothing to say. It’s good to see you, though.”

  “You, too, but not on such an occasion.”

  She hugged me again.

  I couldn’t help noticing that the shock was causing an outbreak of acid reflux among the elderly guests and that Tums were being offered around like hors d’oeuvres. “No, have one of my proton pump inhibitors,” Nana was saying. “They work much better.”

  I knew the wedding-gift issue would come up, but I wasn’t expecting to face it so soon.

  “So what are you doing about the presents?” my cousin Stella began. She was the eldest daughter of smelly Uncle Alec—and as cheap as he was whiffy. “Of course, I know you’ve got other things on your mind right now, but in a few days, when you’ve got over the shock, you might feel up to sending the salad spinner back to me and Maury. The thing is, we’ve got Maury’s cousin Amanda’s wedding next month and it would be just perfect. But absolutely no hurry. When you’re ready.”

  By now Rabbi Feldman was trying to clear the foyer. The next wedding party had arrived and were waiting outside in the heat. “I’m sorry,” the rabbi said to me, “but the Pfefferberg-Goldbergs must be allowed to come in. Mrs. Pfefferberg, the bride’s mother, is getting quite irate. The wedding was due to start twenty minutes ago.”

  Nana had issues with Rita Pfefferberg. A few weeks ago, Nana had phoned her to let her know that we had commissioned our florist to decorate the wedding canopy with ivy and white orchids and to ask her—since the Pfefferberg-Goldbergs would benefit from this as well as the Roth-Eisners—if she and Mr. Pfefferberg would care to contribute towards the cost. Rita Pfefferberg refused on the grounds that she and her daughter hadn’t
been consulted about the type and color of flowers to be used. Even though the woman was clearly looking for excuses not to shell out, I could sort of see her point. But Nana wasn’t having it. She lost no time in giving Rita Pfefferberg a free character reading. It goes without saying that the Pfefferbergs refused to budge.

  Right now, the woman I took to be Rita Pfefferberg, her size-sixteen bulk encased in salmon chiffon, was remonstrating with Rabbi Feldman. I prayed Nana hadn’t noticed her, but she had. Not only that, but she was striding towards her.

  “I hope you’re happy,” Nana said. “Now you’ve got the flowers all to yourself. My granddaughter has just been jilted.”

  “I’m very sorry, but that’s hardly my fault. Now, get your guests out of here. You have no right to ruin my daughter’s big day.”

  “What about my granddaughter’s big day? We’re grieving here.”

  “So who’s stopping you? Just do it somewhere else.”

  At this point an elderly man, his frame swamped by a tux that most likely hadn’t fitted him for three decades, lashed out at my aunty Sadie. It wasn’t unprovoked. Aunty Sadie had been cursing old man Pfefferberg in Yiddish and telling him to get the hell out and take his fat daughter with him. At which point he struck her on the arm and Aunty Sadie screamed that she was being attacked by an insane lunatic.

  “As opposed to a sane one,” Scarlett muttered.

  She and I charged towards the fracas, but one of the synagogue’s security men—hired to protect the place from anti-Semitic attacks rather than brawling Jewish octogenarians—got there first and sent the Pfefferbergs packing, which I couldn’t help thinking was rather generous, bearing in mind Aunty Sadie’s behavior.

  When things had calmed down, Rabbi Feldman turned to me. “Tally, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I really must make way for the next wedding party.”

  In fact, the foyer was already emptying. I was aware that Josh’s relatives were sloping off, leaving only my family.

  “What do we do?” Nana said. “Send everybody home? I mean, some people have traveled miles. The least they deserve is a nice dinner. And it’s all paid for.”

  I said that all I wanted was to get wasted and go to bed.

  Scarlett suggested that getting drunk alone wasn’t such a good idea. “You never know—maybe talking to people will help.”

  I gave a shrug. “I can’t see it, but Nana’s got a point; people do need to eat.”

  “Right,” Mum said. “I vote we send the photographer and the magician home and carry on with the reception.” She looked at me. I gave a less than enthusiastic nod. “OK, I’ll make the announcement right now.” She clapped her hands. “Rabbi and Mrs. Feldman, ladies and gentlemen. If I could have your attention for a moment, please …”

  Mum’s invitation to join us at the Park Royal for dinner was met with applause and cries of “Good for you, Tally.”

  We were about to leave when I realized I needed to pee. I was on my way to the ladies when I noticed Judy Eisner. She saw me and came straight over. Her eyes were swollen from crying.

  “Tally. I was coming to find you. I’ve just finished speaking to Napoleon.” She moved towards me as if she were about to give me a hug, then thought better of it. “I am so, so sorry. I don’t know how Josh could have done this to you. I knew he still had issues around his father, but until Napoleon explained everything, I had no idea of the extent. I don’t know what to say to you.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “We are all going to miss you. Maybe in a little while, when you’re feeling up to it, you and I could meet for coffee or lunch.”

  I so wasn’t up for this discussion. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll leave it a few weeks, then give you a call.”

  “Fine.”

  “Just to let you know that the kids and I won’t be coming to the reception. I thought that was for the best.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Judy finally found the courage to hug me, but I couldn’t hug her back. She was part of Josh, and right now, I didn’t want to be near anybody that reminded me of him.

  The five of us plus Rosie drove back to the Park Royal in one limo. Nana was crying again and blaming herself for what had happened. Grace was trying to comfort her. Scarlett held my hand. Mum stared out of the window. I wondered what she was thinking.

  “I really thought he loved me,” I said to nobody in particular.

  “I know,” Scarlett said, squeezing my hand.

  The Park Royal waiters had clearly been briefed. Drinks and canapés were offered along with somber expressions. I sat on a chair, knocking back champagne cocktails while friends and family who hadn’t spoken to me at the synagogue came over to say how sorry they were. They might as well have been wishing me “long life,” the traditional words of sympathy offered at Jewish funerals.

  People spouted plenty-of-fish-in-the-sea, pebbles-on-the-beach clichés or Oprah-speak. “This has happened for a reason. You just don’t know it yet.” Everybody assured me that I would get through this and emerge stronger. Eventually I would move on. They all meant well, but I wasn’t interested in moving on. I just wanted to disappear. It was a strange feeling—not wanting to die exactly, but failing to see the point in living.

  After an hour or so, the toastmaster announced that dinner was served. Under normal circumstances, the etiquette was for everybody to take their seats in the banqueting room—having first looked at the table plan and complained bitterly to fellow guests about being put at a table with the cousins they hadn’t spoken to since 1979—after which the bride and groom would make their grand entrance to a suitable musical accompaniment. The last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself as I went in to dinner, but it worked out that way.

  After the “dinner is served” announcement, Mum had insisted that Scarlett and Grace take me to the ladies’ to “sort out” my makeup. She said that I looked like “a clown caught in a monsoon.”

  Ten minutes later, paint job done, we headed to the banqueting room. By now, all the guests were seated. The second we walked in, the band struck up. It was a moment or two before I realized they were playing “I Will Survive.”

  “What? God. No. This has to be down to Mum.”

  It was. Before I knew what was happening, she had grabbed me and was pulling me onto the dance floor.

  “Mum, I’m begging you. Please don’t make me do this.”

  “Come on, this is exactly what you need.”

  “I agree,” Nana said. She was a couple of paces behind us, already bopping.

  It seemed that other people needed it, too, because pretty soon every woman in the room—including waitresses and a few gay waiters—was following our lead. There we all were—girls, mums and grans—singing along and boogying for all we were worth. It had to be the all-time cheesiest moment of my life. It was also one of the sweetest.

  Afterwards we Roth women, plus Grace and Rosie, sat down at what was meant to be the top table. Of course it was half empty because the Eisners were missing. The entire room was half empty.

  “What a waste,” Nana said. “And it all looks so pretty.” She pointed to the table centerpieces. “Aren’t they fabulous? I’m glad we went for the tall ones in the end. Not that it matters now.” Then there was the silverware and crystal twinkling in the candlelight, and as for the white linen chair covers with huge organza bows at the back (I’d fought hard against these on grounds of tackiness), weren’t they just perfect? I patted Nana’s hand and told her that they did indeed look perfect.

  “Everything looks wonderful,” I said. “It would have been the best wedding reception ever.”

  “You know what? I think you’re right.”

  “Nana, I refuse to let you pay for a wedding that never happened. I promise I will pay you back every penny you’ve spent.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t your fault. This was my gift to you. Let that be an end to it. I absolutely refuse to have this conversation. Now
, come on, eat.”

  But I couldn’t get anything down—at least not anything solid. Courses came and went and I pushed Kenny Platters’s artfully arranged—and no doubt delicious—food around my plate. I made up for not eating by downing a bottle of Sauvignon.

  By the time dinner was over, I was feeling the opposite of inhibited. The booze had caused me to become totally hibited. When the dancing started up, I began pouncing on men: single, married, young, even the old ones with the bad comb-overs—and dragging them onto the dance floor. I draped myself over them and came on to them all—even my ancient uncle Solly, who had to be in his late eighties but seemed to have been in them for as long as I could remember.

  Scarlett or Rosie would cut in and make me go and sit down, but I would only get up and head for the bar or start cruising the room again.

  By the end of the evening I could barely stand. When people came to say their good-byes, I couldn’t work out if it was them or me who was swaying. Everybody said how brave I’d been. Nana’s friends from the Jewish day center promised they would get their accountant, lawyer, financial consultant grandsons to call and ask me out. They insisted I wouldn’t be on the shelf long because I was a great catch, which made me feel like a halibut.

  When close friends started leaving, I got maudlin and started falling onto people’s shoulders, blubbing that my life was over. I will never forget how each one invited me to come and stay with them—even my friend Lilly, who had a husband and two kids in a one-bedroom flat. Mum thanked them all and explained that I was coming back to her place for a few days.

  When all the guests were gone, Scarlett and Grace suggested I come and stay with them. Rosie thought I should come to hers.

  “No, she’s coming back with me,” Mum said. “It’s all settled.”

  “When was it settled?” I said, aware that the room was refusing to stay still. “I never settled anything. Ac-shully, since the penthouse suite is paid for, I intend to stay in it. I’m gonna sleep in every bed.”

  “Then we’ll all stay with you,” Nana said.

  “No … way … José. Iwannabealone.”