Monday Night, Memorial Day
Is Bess “taking it easy” at the wedding? Not especially. But, as they say, doctors make the worst patients.
She shouldn’t be dancing, at least not to every song. Granted, Bess isn’t exactly smoking up the floor with her deft moves, and she’s feeling better by the hour. Distance helps. Evan helps. Vicodin and one and a half glasses of Dom help, too.
The band is fantastic, playing a bit of this, a touch of that. They take requests though reserve the right to refuse Evan’s suggestion of “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Who wouldn’t want that at their wedding? It makes no sense.
“You could sing it yourself,” Bess says. “Just like at prom.”
“It’s crossed my mind. Why do you think I’ve been chatting them up? I’m trying to get on their good side.”
“Great. Warn me if you succeed,” she says. “I’ll get a front-row seat. Or leave.”
“There will be no warning.”
Over the course of the night, Bess detects some wonky-eyed glances in her direction, which she figures are due to how closely she’s dancing with Evan.
Wait, isn’t that the local boy she hooked up with in high school?
Or maybe: Doesn’t he have a girlfriend? The one with the kid?
Whatever they’re saying, Bess doesn’t care. She will leave and Cliff House will come down. It’s time to squeeze the last few morsels from this Sconset life while she can.
“I hate to bring this up,” Evan says.
It’s almost midnight. Closing time. He’s holding Bess tight, they’re dancing to a song that is not quite fast but not slow either. Sort of like “Gangsta’s Paradise,” but without the heaviness or implication of shooting.
“Have you noticed who didn’t show?” Evan asks.
Bess nods. Because the only thing as conspicuous as Cissy walking into a room is when she’s not there in the first place. Bess has spent the evening actively evading worry because she’s had enough of that.
“I’ve noticed,” Bess says. “But the party’s not over. She could still make it.”
“It’s almost over though,” Evan says, looking around. “And the fifty-plus set has all but dissolved.”
It’s true. Of the gray hairs, only her dad, Aunt Polly, and Uncle Vince linger. Bess hopes that Polly has consumed enough champagne to overlook the Cissy no-show. Whatever bizarre marital estrangements are happening between Polly’s brother and sister-in-law, Cissy should’ve shown up to her niece’s wedding.
“You’re right,” Bess says. “The elders are gone. This is going to be the toughest of Cissy’s shenanigans to explain.”
“Everyone’s having too much fun to notice,” Evan says.
“That’s the dream.” She smiles. “It’s been a great wedding.”
“The best I’ve been to.”
“Me, too,” Bess says. “And I’ve even had my own.”
With a laugh, Evan spins Bess once and then a second time. He dips her low, though it’s not at all a dipping sort of song. When he pulls her up, Bess is dizzy. She sees stars.
“You okay?” Evan asks, noticing the mixed-up eyes and clammy skin, both of which have little to do with the dipping.
“Yes. Yes. Fine,” she says. “I’m getting a little melancholy though, thinking about how it’s almost over. But I suppose everything ends eventually.”
“Not everything.”
“Um, hello? Have you seen the ninety-nine-year-old house across the street from your dad? If that can’t last, what will?”
“Plenty of things,” Evan says. “For example, I’ve felt the same about you for approximately forever.”
Bess’s skin erupts in goose bumps. Her breath gets short.
“Evan, don’t…” She shakes her head. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
He narrows his gaze.
“Why wouldn’t I mean it?”
“What about, whatever her name is?” Bess says. She looks away to avoid meeting his eyes. “Grace.”
“Who’s Grace?”
Bess looks back at him. His face is baffled.
“The girl with the jerk lacrosse kid? Your girlfriend?”
He laughs oddly, uncomfortably, and with no cheer at all.
“Jack’s mom? Uh, no. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s married to a buddy of mine who travels a lot. I try to help out where I can. Like I said, her son is a turkey. He needs the supervision. What made you think…”
“Never mind,” Bess says, and cowers in humiliation. “It’s a long, stupid story. I’m an idiot.”
She buries herself in his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she says into the warm place on his shirt. “I’m so lame.”
“Oh, Lizzy C.” He kisses her on the head again. “Come on. Look up. Look at me.”
It takes her a minute but Bess does as he asks.
“I love you, you know,” he says.
Bess shakes her head.
“I do,” he insists.
“What about your whole thing?” Tears are rolling down her face now, tumbling unfettered. “Your mantra. Never make the same mistake twice.”
“I still believe that.”
“Then stop—”
“The thing is, you were never a mistake. I loved you then, I love you now, and every hour in between.”
Bess smiles but can’t echo the words despite feeling every crumb of them. These feelings—his, hers, theirs together—these feelings are why Bess has stayed away from her beloved Cliff House for so many years.
As they sway beneath a red anchor flag, the memory creeps up, though Bess has spent four years pushing it away. Still, she can see a younger Bess Codman pulling her wedding dress off the pink wardrobe. She hears the knock, a knock much like the one from earlier tonight.
At the time, Bess assumed it was Palmer or Lala. Dress held to her almost-naked body, Bess flung open the door to find a man standing before her instead.
“Evan!” she gasped.
He was wearing a white shirt, sleeves pushed back, and loose khakis. Sweat dribbled on his hairline.
“You can’t see me like this!” she yipped.
Then Bess remembered it was only the groom who couldn’t see the bride before the ceremony. Random ex-boyfriends didn’t factor into the bad luck. Or did they?
“What are you doing?” she asked. “The wedding’s about to start.”
“Don’t do it,” he said. “Don’t marry the guy.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s not right for you. Not one bit.”
“Oh, he’s not, is he?”
What an intrusion. What galling pompousness. As if Bess would care what the bastard thought, a man who jettisoned her years ago in favor of an ill-advised sojourn to Central America.
“Who is ‘right’ for me, then?” she asked. “Someone more like you, I presume?”
Bess was being catty, purposefully rude, but some speck of her hoped that he might say “Yes.” As she waited for his response, the speck began to grow.
“No,” Evan said. “Not like me. We’ve moved on, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” Bess said, and gave him a hard scowl. “We have. I don’t know what this is about but I’m quite comfortable in my choice.”
She wasn’t, not at all. But it was what had been decided, the fitting course. Anyhow, Brandon was great. Handsome. Successful. Loving and protective. Or that’s how Bess regarded him then: in the best and most determined light.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said. “I have to see a man about an altar.”
With that, she slammed the door in Evan’s face. It was the last Bess saw of him until a week ago.
“When you came to my bedroom door,” Bess says now, as Evan glides her across the floor, “and said not to marry Brandon, I thought you were being difficult. Or argumentative. Until you gave me the entry, I didn’t think it was because you…”
“Because I loved you,” he answers for her. “And I still love you. I’ve loved you for my entire adult life, and then some.”
Bess’s eyes sting as the tears again form. She can’t believe what he’s saying to her, at this moment, in the very last second of everything.
“That’s what my mom said about your dad,” she tells him. “Almost verbatim.”
“How cute. We could double-date. You should know, on that day Cissy told me not to stop you. Obviously I didn’t listen.”
“She did?”
Bess’s eyebrows lift.
“Yep. I went to her, crying like a baby. It was pathetic. I had plans for some big confession, a declaration of love. She told me it wasn’t fair, that I should’ve done it long ago and I ‘had plenty of chances, sonny.’ Leaving you to your day was the right thing to do. She was not wrong.”
“Well,” Bess says, her breath shaking in her chest. “She was and she wasn’t.”
The right thing to do. Bess is beginning to think that in most circumstances there’s no such thing.
“And don’t think I haven’t noticed,” Evan says. “I’ve used the word ‘love’ approximately twelve times in the last three minutes and you haven’t replied once. That’s okay, though, because I know you feel the same.”
Bess smiles and thinks about this for a bit. Pretends to think about it, because the answer is clear.
“Yes,” she says. “I do.”
Just as Bess goes to make a joke (“If this is a ploy for sex, remember, I just got out of the hospital”), the doors suddenly whoosh open and a gale blows in. It’s Cissy in a short red dress, Chappy on her arm.
Chappy! Her dad! Bess scoots out of Evan’s hold and turns to look for Dudley. He is across the way, coming in from enjoying a cigar outside.
With a hard glare aimed at Cissy, Dudley takes a terse sip of bourbon. This perfect night, made even more perfect by the fact that it followed Bess’s very worst day, this night is about to end in catastrophe. Damn Cissy. You don’t bring your boyfriend to a wedding that your husband is already at. That’s just straight etiquette.
“Fuck,” Bess says.
Her father closes the door behind him and beats a hot path toward Cissy and her date. Dudley lurches at Cissy and then cloaks her in what can only be described as a friendly embrace. While Bess stands stunned and blinking, her father does the unthinkable. He shakes Chappy’s hand. Proof that the world will never make sense.
The reunion breaks up. Chappy beelines toward one bar, Dudley the other (not too chummy, thank God). Bess turns to Evan.
“Excuse me for a minute?” she says.
He nods, unable to answer. Bess pecks him on the cheek and finds Cissy, who is standing alone at the edge of the dance floor.
“You made it!” Bess says, and gives her mom a hug. “I was getting worried.”
“I had to finish packing! It’s a big job.”
Bess laughs and shakes her head.
“Packing?” she says. “A big job? You don’t say. I’m so glad you’re here, Cis. You look spectacular.”
“So do you.” Cissy takes her hand. “How are you?”
“Oh I’m fi—”
“No, how are you really doing? Don’t give me the pat wedding-reception answer.”
Bess considers this.
“Actually, the pat answer and the real one are not so far apart,” she says with a smile. “I’m fine. Better by the second.”
Cissy smiles in return and touches her daughter’s cheek.
“I love you, Bessie. I’m heartbroken for what you’ve been through.”
“Me, too,” Bess says. “But suddenly it all looks so different. Like for the first time, everything might turn out fine.” She snorts. “I guess because by the time you realize something truly sucks you’re most of the way through it.”
“That’s my girl.” Cissy pulls Bess in for another hug and a strong kiss on the lips. “You’re a remarkable person. Thanks for being there for me. Literally there. In Sconset, at Cliff House. I couldn’t have gotten through this on my own.”
“Yeah, you’d still be on that veranda if not for me.”
“Oh, I would’ve moved on eventually.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Bess says.
Suddenly the microphone crackles. The band changes tune. A rough, familiar voice ripples through the room.
“Wow,” Cissy says, and whips around, a grin erupting across her face. “Is that … ‘A Piece of My Heart’? I’m impressed. You generally don’t get Joplin at a wedding.”
“Oh, God!” Bess cries, though these are happy tears.
“Oh my. Is that…?”
Bess peers around Cissy’s wide, wide hair to see Evan clutching the mike. His shirt is partially unbuttoned, the periwinkle tie is gone. Sweat shimmers on his face as if he’s been singing all night.
“Holy shit,” Bess says.
“Are you being … serenaded?” Cissy asks, then twists up her mouth.
“Holy shit,” Bess says again as she realizes that yes, she’s being serenaded.
And he’s lifted the entire room to its feet.
I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it …
The other guests flood the dance floor. Soon, the entire room is singing, shaking from the power of their voices. Evan Mayhew has brought the house down.
Chappy takes Cissy’s hand and pulls her onto the floor. Meanwhile, Bess’s heart flops all over the place. She is wildly charmed by the gesture, but it sure would be nice to have someone to dance with. Bess prays this won’t all end in the “Macarena.”
As if he can read her thoughts, and hell maybe he can, Evan turns the mike over to the real vocalist and jumps off the stage. He saunters up while Bess stands dumbed and speechless.
“So,” he says. “Better than Coolio?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“I do love you, Bess,” he tells her. “It’s not just the night or the moment or the really good booze.”
“I love you, too,” she answers. Then pauses. “Although I am on Vicodin. So who knows?”
Evan throws back his head and laughs.
“Oh, Lizzy C. A piece of my heart indeed.”
You know you got it if it makes you feel good.