Boys aren’t too interested in weddings. Girls like them. Grown-ups like them. But my first-grade year started with one wedding, and my sixth ended with another. Call my story “A Tale of Two Weddings.” I was in both of them.
• • •
One of the weddings was great. In fact, it’s just over. There’s still some cake. And I got a fantastic new suit out of it. The pants are cuffed. The coat gives me shoulders, and I’ll be sorry to outgrow it. I won’t mind being taller, but I’ll miss the suit.
Also, a pair of gold cuff links are involved, but we’ll come to them later.
The other wedding, the first one, was a train wreck, so let’s get that one out of the way. Besides, it happened when I was too little to know what was happening or to stand up for my rights. I didn’t have any rights. I was six.
Did I even know what weddings are? And this one wasn’t even anybody in our family.
“Archer, honey,” said Mom one day. I was in her office for some reason I didn’t see coming. Mom’s maiden name was Archer. I’m named for her kid brother, Paul Archer.
Mom was about to pull me onto her lap. But I held up both hands. They were red and black with touch-up paint. I was paint all over. I’d sat in some. Dad and I had been out in the garage detailing a vintage ’56 Chevy Bel Air.
Mom pulled back, but only a little. “There’s going to be a wedding, and guess what? You get to be in it.”
“Get Holly,” I said. Holly’s my sister, seven years older, so she’d have been thirteen or so.
“We already have Holly,” Mom said. “She’s going to be a junior bridesmaid. She’s tickled pink.”
“What’s left?”
“Ring bearer,” Mom said.
“What’s that?”
“You carry the bride’s ring down the aisle on a little satin pillow.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“You won’t be alone,” Mom said. “Don’t worry about that. There’ll be another ring bearer. She’ll carry the groom’s ring.”
She?
“A darling little girl named Lynette Stanley.”
A girl?
“Her mother and I went to college together. We were best buds in the Tri Delt House. The Stanleys have moved here for the schools, so you and Lynette will be starting first grade together, and you’ll already be friends!” Mom beamed.
How could I be friends with a girl? I stood there, waiting to wake up from this bad dream.
“I can wear my regular clothes,” I said. “Right?”
“Archer, honey, you don’t have regular clothes,” Mom said. “And by the way, racing-stripe paint doesn’t come out in the wash. I suppose your dad’s in about the same condition.”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“We’ll look at what you’ll wear for the wedding a little later on.” Mom glanced away. “A little closer to the event.”
I racked my six-year-old brain. There had to be a way out of this. There’s always a way out when you’re six, right? “Who are they, these people getting married?”
Mom was looking away, far, far away. “The bride is Mrs. Ridgley’s granddaughter,” she said.
“Who’s Mrs. Ridgley?”
“An old friend of your grandmother Magill.”
“Were they best buds in the Tri Delt House?”
“No,” Mom said. “They were best buds at the Salem witch trials.”