There were many three-way prewedding phone calls with our mother, who withstood our teasing like a champ. I said, “Maybe Jack and I will wear the same dress, just like when we were little. Mom? Good with that?”
Sounding hopeful but careful, she asked, “Are you talking about a double wedding?”
I said, “Sorry; not a chance.”
Jackleen said, “Different timetables. Jane wants to get it over with.”
I said, “I wouldn’t put it that way. Perry and I don’t want a big production. We just need a judge and a table at a restaurant near city hall.”
“A new dress, at least?” my mother asked. “Our treat. That’s what the parents of the bride do.”
* * *
I ducked into Kleinfeld’s late one afternoon, appointment-less, and got the impression that I was the first customer in store history to arrive without a mother, sister, maid of honor, or best friend. I asked for a dress I could try on, buy, and take home that day, since I was getting married in three weeks. Something simple, knee-length, no froufrou.
The sales consultant found her voice to repeat, “In three weeks? And the venue?”
“City hall.”
I learned that they did have samples, but alterations would be out of the question. I went through them, bedecked and bejeweled dresses, thousands of dollars each. Weren’t samples supposed to be bargains? Halfway down the rack, I said, “They seem so extreme.”
She asked what I meant by extreme.
I said, “Big.”
“Most of our samples are size tens.”
“Not that. I meant . . . so much volume . . . and stuff.”
She picked up the pace of her hanger-sliding as I considered each gown, but after no interest from me, she stopped. “They’re wedding dresses. Dream dresses. Our customers have been imagining themselves walking down the aisle since they were little girls.”
I looked at my Fitbit, pretending it was a watch, pretending to be startled. I said, “Thanks so much, but I have to get back to work.”
* * *
The personal shopper at Saks, recommended by Meera, asked if I’d brought pictures of dresses I loved. I told her no, because I wasn’t looking for a wedding dress, per se, just . . . well, a dress to get married in. Maybe something, as my mother had suggested, that used to be called a going-away outfit? Maybe a suit I could wear to work and to court?
The notion of suits seemed to sadden her. Was it a second or third wedding?
I said, “It’s a first marriage for both of us.”
“Don’t you want your partner to choke up when he or she sees you?”
I said, “I’m not walking down the aisle. We’re going to city hall. I’d just like something . . . pretty.”
“Let’s do this together,” she said.
I vetoed most of what she pulled off the racks, most too summery, many not my taste, some a fortune. The suits I stopped to consider she vetoed as too MOB.
“MOB?” I repeated.
“Mother of the bride.”
She was the one who spotted it, triumphantly, on a sale rack, a pale silvery gray, full skirt, three-quarter sleeves, boatneck, a heavy silk-like fabric. My size. “When would I wear it again, though?” I asked.
“We don’t care,” she said.
It was the only thing we took back to the dressing room. “Close your eyes,” she instructed, slipping it over my head. She zipped me into it and made some professional pulls, tugs, and smoothings.
“Now open,” she said.
Was it possible that I was feeling what I’d heard conventional brides who’d been picturing their weddings since childhood felt when the right dress appeared: a moment?
I touched the fabric, which was somewhere between stiff and silky. My shopper explained, “Lined with crinoline for fullness.”
I whispered, “I love it. How is it possible it was still here?”
“It was waiting for you,” she said.
I said, “I’ll take it.”
“Flowers? Maybe a wrist corsage?”
I said I could do that. “With a matching boutonniere? I know he’d do that.”
She fished the price tag out from my neck and said, “Hmm. Let me take another ten percent off this. Okay?”
I took out my phone and snapped a selfie in the mirror, not a preview for Perry or Jackleen or my mother, lest anyone think I was asking for their opinion. I wanted it for the record, in case we forgot to take photos at city hall.
“Can I see a picture of him?” my shopper asked. “I like to see my brides’ intended.”
I showed her a selfie Perry had sent from Central Park on his first day out, grinning, a thumbs-up in front of Bethesda Fountain. It was my favorite of the many he’d sent me from the day’s outing, which he’d captioned “From My Freedom Trail.”
She nodded with conviction and smiled.
“You approve?” I asked.
“He loves you a lot,” she said.
* * *
Three weeks later, still at The Margate, sleeping apart the night before our wedding, for reasons of tradition and superstition, Perry knocked on my door, late. “Not supposed to see you!” I yelled.
“I know. Slipping something under your door. I’m leaving. Sleep tight.”
It was an envelope, and inside was an updated hard copy of the outline that had started it all, the one that had enlisted me as his caterer with benefits. The original had been all-business, its bullet points noting we were single, straight, housebound consenting adults. The edited version was titled “Why I’m marrying Jane E. Morgan.” Handwritten above the crossed-out old facts were new phrases, such as “semi-pro headhunting,” “regular gourmet meals,” “forgiving the unforgivable,” “unexpected fun,” and “she loves me back.”
Also edited was the old “but for only as long as both parties want to participate,” and replaced with “as long as we both shall live.”
I called him. I said, “To hell with tradition. I’m coming up.”
* * *
We’d made our appointment through nyc.gov/cupid. My parents, Perry’s parents, my sister, and Duncan were present, having come from work, Penn Station, and LaGuardia to city hall on this weekday afternoon. Knowing in advance that we were allowed only one witness, we’d put the names in a hat. Silently hoping it wouldn’t be his mother or father, and hoping for a Morgan, I was relieved that the winner was my dad.
After signing in at a kiosk, we waited our turn, couples all around us, some in wedding dresses and tuxes, others in jeans and parkas, suits, dresses straining over baby bumps—all languages, most jovial, a few looking less inclined. There was a wall-size photo of city hall, meant for posing in front of for pictures. If I hadn’t been carrying my own bunch of violets, there were flowers for sale.
It was a busy Friday afternoon, as expected. Our names finally appeared on an LED screen, which meant we were to go into a smaller waiting area and finally it was our turn, in yet another room.
We knew the ceremony would be quick. The officiant was a female municipal court judge who smiled indulgently when my dad said proudly and coyly, “My daughter could appear before you one of these days.”
“Not as a defendant,” I said. “He’s trying to tell you I’m an attorney.”
That was it for chitchat. The ceremony was short. Who knew that something so by-the-book, so familiar, could produce two choked-up “I do”s and a weeping witness?
Outside the chambers, hugs, more tears, photos, handshakes. Next, a short walk to a restaurant we’d chosen as posh enough for the Salisburys with an elegant but unchallenging menu. Our party of a mere eight didn’t qualify for a private room, but the five o’clock reservation served us well, no one else arriving for an hour.
The champagne flowed. I appreciated Mrs. Salisbury’s best effort to appear not only happy but something resembling effervescent. She rose to make the first toast, to claim how thrilled she and Calvin were. She wasn’t losing a son but gaining a daughter, and—if she might count the blessing of a twin sister in the bargain—two daughters! They’d waited a loooong time for this day, for this occasion! How lucky that these two wonderful people were, albeit through unusual and not the happiest of circumstances, united. Lemons into lemonade!
“All’s well that ends well,” said her husband.
“If I came across at first as a little overprotective—”
“Time and place,” her husband murmured. “Give someone else the floor.”
“I’m rambling, I know,” she said. “I wrote it down, but left it at home. I just wanted to say that when I see how happy our son is . . . well, isn’t that what counts?”
My mother didn’t say Sit down, DeAndra, but by standing up, she accomplished that. “As the other mother here—I just have to say that from the minute we met Perry, we thought, Please let Jane fall in love with him.”
I knew what she was saying: Happiness is a two-way street, DeAndra. Notice how I’m tossing bouquets to your son because it’s both their happinesses we’re after.
Perry said, “Sally! Don’t stop. You were just getting started on me being an ideal if not highly desirable son-in-law.”
That earned him a laugh and a blown kiss. Would his mother notice the son-in-law affection willingly expressed and his addressing her so easily on a first-name basis?
Calvin raised his glass. “We are tickled to welcome Jane to the family. And all the Morgans, too.”
It didn’t take more than that and much champagne for my parents to forgive and forget what I’d told them about DeAndra’s earlier hostilities. The courses kept coming. Mrs. Salisbury told me that she loved my dress. That its vintage style reminded her of Jackie O. And she loved the antique thin rose-gold wedding band I’d chosen to match her granny’s engagement ring.
“Now known as Jane’s engagement ring,” Perry reminded her.
We were still there at eight o’clock. We’d chosen the restaurant wisely, for its unthreatening American fare. DeAndra complimented the thoughtful black linen napkins, our darling waiter, her sole amandine, the delicious rolls, and the embossed pats of butter.
Perry and I, having anticipated two sets of parents fighting over the check, had quietly slipped a credit card to the waiter during his round of orders. But too late. Duncan had gotten there first with his platinum card, and his practiced sleight of hand.