Married? I didn’t want to get married. What had I been thinking? I would lose Michael forever! And he had promised to take me to Felicity and Ginger’s Hookers’ Ball, a night I had been anticipating like a high school girl for months. Now it would never happen. And the illustrious Tommy Shelter had been coming around lately, minus his bodyguard. He had actually phoned me once or twice. And the Life! How was I supposed to leave the Life? I surprised myself when I realized I didn’t want to leave it, just as Corinne and everyone else had predicted.
The first thing I did, even before Gunther had left to retrieve his clothes, was call Corinne. She was amused.
“Remember, let him decide who to vote for. You just take the checks. Get a joint account,” she said.
Gunther and I giggled. As if anybody voted. As if anybody had any checks. But we did have some cash, and that happened to be a good thing, because his business was through. He was too hot now. And I was never to work at my trade ever again. My romantic husband-to-be was rescuing me from all that.
I took Gunther up the Hudson to Cobb’s Wharf to meet Rayfield and his fourth wife, Betsy. When my father saw how Gunther doted on me, he approved, as did Betsy. By this time, Gunther loved me openly with abandon. I hadn’t expected it, but once we got engaged, a torrent of love worthy of Schubert lieder rained down on me. He couldn’t keep his eyes or his hands to himself.
“He loves you so much,” Betsy said to me, sounding a bit wistful I thought. Rayfield’s idea of affection was a pat on the head, a gesture he also lavished most democratically on his horse, the dog, and their three Siamese.
The second time we went up to Cobb’s Wharf, my father sat us down in his slightly shabby Yankee-WASP-style living room in front of the big stone fireplace. The walls were lined with musty books, and the room itself was dotted with ancient American antiques, nothing but family hand-me-downs, really, which were teetering under back issues of Car and Driver. The whole house smelled vaguely of cat piss and pine needles. It was banked with towering old trees in front and a full acre of sloping lawn in the back. You could see the river from the rear windows. Ever since Highcrest brought my father and I together, I used to love to take the train up to this house once in a while for Sunday dinner. I would just sit by the hour, listening to the grandfather clock and watching the crows fly. The ambience suggested a hard-won, unruffled peace.
Rayfield said nothing for a minute or two. He stood by the fire and poked a few logs around. Betsy sat with her long, elegant legs crossed on a modest-sized club chair. Gunther and I were perched side by side at the edge of the stiff Duncan Phyfe Edwardian sofa, facing my father.
“Betsy and I have decided to give you a proper wedding,” he said.
Then Betsy spoke up, and I understood immediately how much of this was her doing. She believed that life is better with a man in it.
“I’ve already talked to the local Presbyterian minister. It’s true, I’m lapsed, but he seemed to welcome the business. He can’t marry you in the church, of course, but he agreed that the chapel would be fine, and it’s just down the road. He’s a jolly man. I think you’ll like him,” she said.
Gunther and I looked at each other. A chapel, a Presbyterian chapel? Rayfield caught our expression.
“I was married four times: twice by a judge and twice by a minister. Believe me, when the ceremony is performed by a minister, it carries a lot more weight,” he said.
After he got over the initial shock, Gunther thought it was a great idea. So, it was decided. We made an appointment to meet with the Reverend Webb.
By this time, I was dying to call the whole thing off. The reason I didn’t, even though I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into the most outrageous lie, is because I did not want anyone to think that I was not “a man of my word,” that I had no sense of honor. God forbid somebody might discover I was capricious. No, I had only proposed once in my life, and I was going to stand by it.
One day, Maggie called. I had stopped talking to her again, as I did so often, shortly after I moved away.
“Betsy said that you’re getting married. The least you could do is invite me to the wedding, Janet,” she said, sounding genuinely hurt and trying to disguise it with anger.
“I’m really sorry. I’ve been meaning to call. Of course you’re invited.”
“What are you doing for a wedding dress? I hope you’re not planning to wear jeans,” Maggie said.
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, in that case, I want to buy it for you,” she said.
“OK, thanks, Mom.”
“And what about the Times? We have to let the Times in on it, on account of who your grandfather was. Frankly, it never would have occurred to me, but Betsy and your father insisted,” Maggie said.
“Fine, fine, put it in the Times,” I said.
“I’ve got to know something about this Gunther. Where did he go to school? What does he do?”
“He didn’t go to school. He’s a drug dealer,” I said.
“I should’ve figured,” Maggie said.
When the announcement appeared that Sunday, Gunther and I had no idea whom the paper was talking about. It’s true, I had attended Pendleton until it kicked me out, but Gunther was definitely not studying to become an engineer. He had no intention of becoming an engineer.
“Where’d you get that one?” I asked when I called Maggie back.
“Well, he’s German, so I thought ‘engineer’ had the right ring to it,” she said.
“Sure, makes a lot of sense,” I said, feeling resigned.
“How dare you complain, when the whole thing was just dumped on me? I had to come up with something, didn’t I?” she yelled through the phone.
Now that my mother had gotten involved, my engagement took on a peculiar aspect. I felt as if I’d been herded and trapped by all of them, as if my family and Gunther were conspiring against me.
The two of us, Maggie and I, went tearing up and down Madison Avenue, in and out of the tony shops, screaming at each other. Finally, defeated, I let her pick my dress. She settled on an overpriced faux naïf number in off-white. It was decided that the groom would be outfitted the same way, in an off-white, hand-embroidered shirt and off-white pants. Great, we were now going to be married in a Presbyterian chapel disguised as Mexican peasants. Well, everything considered, it seemed appropriate enough.
Betsy and Maggie sent out announcements and invitations far and wide. I felt oppressed and ashamed to be suddenly exposed to legions of relatives and family friends. Fancy gifts from Tiffany and Georg Jensen—things I felt that, being an imposter, I didn’t deserve—were piling up unopened in the corner on the floor of my studio apartment. Often, I found myself gasping for air. I kept wishing that Gunther and I had snuck off to city hall, or, better yet, that we had decided to simply live together. It had gotten way out of hand.
The only bright note is that Felicity had decided to throw Gunther a bachelor party. A bunch of us was planning to leap on him and ravage his body. But Gunther didn’t go for it. He was genuinely hurt.
“You’re all I want, Janet,” he said.
We killed the last week of our single lives awake on Gunther’s notorious etherized speed, flitting from saloon to saloon, saying good-bye to all my old friends. Gunther had gotten it into his head that he was stealing me away from these people. He imagined that all the men were in love with me. I didn’t bother to enlighten him.
One night, when we were both drunk as hell, I tried to call the whole thing off. First Gunther burst into tears, said he’d kill himself if I left him. Then, as if to emphasize his point, he slapped me so hard, it was almost a punch. I went flying across the tiny studio room, smack against the wall. After that, he cried some more. The next morning it was like it never happened.
Michael, in particular, had gone out of his way to befriend my fiancé, to emphasize that there were no hard feelings. He offered him work repairing the duckboards behind the bar upstairs at Slim’s Wide Missouri. The two of them agreed that Gunther would start work there right after the honeymoon. Everybody on all sides was taking him into the fold. I was the only one, apparently, who harbored doubts.