We did not have a celebrity wedding.
This offended Cousin Joe the most, of anyone in the family, but only because he had been planning on selling invitations to the press. But I made him meet with me and the tax attorney who would be handling my business while I was out on maternity leave. The attorney read out the list of financial penalties that would come down on Joe if he tried to capitalize on our relationship in fifty-two listed ways and “all other conceivable means of gaining payment or favor through his connection with his cousin Yoni.” Joe looked pretty limp after that. He might still go bad on blow, but he wouldn’t take my company, my reputation, or our family with him.
I think Aunt Maybellyne and Uncle Chester were relieved that I was taking a break. I was twenty-seven and in top condition. They were in their early fifties. All this running around after me wasn’t good for them.
Cousin Verlette actually said so. She herself, she said, was planning an extended Caribbean cruise, followed by eighteen months of concentrated loafing.
That was pretty much my plan, too.
Our plan.
I was still freaking out about getting pregnant, but I stayed certain about Baz. That was backwards. I’d always wanted kids. The husband part hadn’t really figured into my imagination, especially when all the guys I’d met had turned out to be jerks.
But, just as I’d known would happen, I had to dismantle a huge self-image machine to make room for a baby in my life.
What did I have to do to make room for Baz?
Buy him new socks.
He was such an easy roommate. He didn’t get bent about my emo fits or my pregnant lady secretions, which I had not studied up on sufficiently when I was mooning over dolls that wet themselves in my pretweens. He dealt with my family when I wanted him to, and he backed off when I didn’t. He played a wicked bass. He cooked. It was like I’d put in a request to God for the perfect combination of side man, cabana boy, masseur, pit bull, housekeeper, and love slave.
And friend.
I hadn’t had time for friends until now. Just employees. No wonder my relationships with my family were strained.
Every day, as the wedding approached, I got closer to wanting to hole up in a love nest with my guy and unwrap him. After our last spectacular fight, I had an idea this wouldn’t be all roses.
But there would be roses.
The wedding also freaked me out. My aunt was still in shock, so Verlette stepped up. Aunt Maybellyne fluttered around underfoot, and I let her, because I couldn’t stop thinking, She won’t live much longer, maybe another forty years. Suddenly discovering you may live forever makes a person more tolerant.
I even put up with Sophie calling twice a day, asking if I had heard from Veek. My answer was always the same: “No, cookie, I haven’t heard from him, sorry.” Sophie was fit to be tied. I couldn’t really reassure her. I didn’t know Veek. Usually by the end of our call she had talked herself into trusting him, so that was okay.
I kept saying to Verlette, “Keep it small,” but the list kept growing. The band, my road crew, the people back at my office. That was more or less who I’d had in mind. It was Verlette who invited all our extended family, passing over the ones who only came around when they were broke, and playing favorites with those who treated me like a semi-human.
Baz did add substantially to the guest list. He had six ex-roommates, including two guys he claimed were a fallen angel and an out-of-work demon, and each of those guys came with fifty friends and their friends’ girlfriends—we managed to keep them at the reception only. One of his ex-roomies was Hindu. The Hindu guy’s bride had just come through a monster wedding of her own. I guess all those Bollywood movies don’t lie. She kept suggesting things like elephant rides. Her husband had a small cadre of worshippers in Chicago—apsaras and gandharvas—that Baz insisted should come to the reception. Bang, thirty-eight more names. Nobody was more amazed than I was to learn that Max, my new drummer, was one of them. The week before the wedding, Veek turned up back at the Lair for an hour and introduced us to a woman he said was descended from one of his aunts, and she provided two dozen more names. Then he vanished again, just two hours before Sophie arrived, furious that she’d missed him.
The hoopla for even a “small” wedding made me feel like my ears were packed in cotton wool.
I guess it could have been the pregnancy.
At the bachelorette party I found out why Baz had been so pushy about the roommates, their brides, and especially those apsaras. They were all baby goddesses. I learned a whole bunch of things to try on the wedding night that would never work with a normal bridegroom. I also made some friends. Suddenly being Aphrodite’s avatar didn’t feel so scary.
In fact, all Baz’s ex-roomies had married people I could relate to. One of them, a GQ-perfect gay guy, turned out to belong to this huge Hungarian Jewish family, and three of them were sex demons. Everybody was incredibly warm and accepting.
It looked like I could get coaching on this goddess thing from plenty of people, in addition to my husband.
All things eventually happen, even CD launches and weddings. Uncle Chester gave me away, sniveling and sobbing. I stood up with Baz, wearing the white dress I was retroactively entitled to wear. Baz looked marginally less scruffy in a tux, with his dreads back in a ponytail. I only threw up once that morning. I cried. It was nice.
At the reception, the usual rituals were more spaced out, and reality could seep in.
Four of the Hindu cadre were found in the men’s restroom, performing what they called a “fertility rite.” Since one of them was my drummer, we couldn’t very well boot them out. Baz even let Joe peek through the keyhole for thirty minutes on the pretext of guarding the door while they finished.
Baz and I fed each other cake.
The Hungarian ex-roommate and his husband toasted me and made a prayer they said was Jewish, for good luck, and I took their word for it.
I threw the bouquet straight at Verlette and she caught it.
Baz and I danced all by ourselves to a whole string of corny songs before he would let anybody else join us.
Did I mention he could dance? My bridegroom danced really well.
I began to relax. Uncle Chester scolded me for getting some cake frosting on the dress. I also put my heel through the hem. Using safety pins, Londa gathered the dress up at the knee, so I could walk while tipsy. Aunt Maybellyne hugged me and cried. Boy, that brought me back to reality fast.
Baz kept circulating around to me and asking if I wanted to tear off a quickie in a broom closet.
When I finally threatened to clobber him, he said, “Good. You’re back to normal.”
He also introduced me to Sophie’s beau, Veek, the best man and Baz’s last remaining roommate. Veek was a stunningly groomed, solemn, dark-skinned black guy who looked about twenty-five. The ink on his cheekbone and the earring in one ear were the only street things I could see about him. Baz nearly broke down when they shook hands at the bar—I guessed I would hear about all that eventually.
A month ago, in my hotel suite, Sophie had confided to me that Veek was really ninety-six years old, and a vodou jam bois. I wondered when she would show up.
As I thought this, I heard a scream. I turned. Sophie stood in the doorway to the reception, looking like a goth whore at her pimp’s funeral in an artfully-ripped-up, pouffy, black lace dress and black high-button ankle boots. Her hair was dyed black-blue-magenta. She was in a rage.
“That broom closet looking any better?” Baz murmured in my ear.
“I’ll take her somewhere private,” Veek said, “where she can scream at me.”
I put down my champagne flute and drooped in Baz’s arms. “Maybe for just a minute,” I muttered against the shoulder of his tux.