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HOLIDAY FORMAL WAS the best idea for a wedding theme.
Nino thought so the second his car pulled up the drive of the church, the dressed-up trees in the parking lot and people in jewel-colored garb welcoming him to the venue. Inside was an even better sight, not because of the expanse of it. The church itself was a study in modesty—in its size, in what Nino could make of its architecture, even in the number of witnesses filed inside. The spectacle was in the way the colors and textures were applied—red and white petals with sparse greens and stems on the bouquets, a line of tea candles inside fishing bowls marking the path to the altar, swaths of gold fabric marking perimeters. It was all very pretty, and Christmas-y, lifting everyone’s mood with the double dose of celebratory spirits.
After the mass Nino walked ahead of the crowd to the reception hall half a block from the church, and he had to pause at the doors. So this is where the party is at, he declared to himself.
All restraint the bride and groom showed in the church ceremonies seemed thrown out the window when the serious business of the homily and the marriage contracts was over. The guests seemed to triple in size—made sense to Nino, here was where they served the free food after all. Lights and blooms and beads and glitter were in excess wherever he looked. Loud jazz poured out of the trumpets and trombones of the live band. People came up to him in all directions, faces and names he’d somehow remembered. Clapping his back, bussing his cheek, throwing him into some embellished college memory they’d then laugh over together.
It was chaos. And it helped.
Helped him move through gaps in people, slot himself in little groups and linger to chat if he wanted to. Made it easy for him to slip off and find a different cluster to join. People-ing always held a propensity for fun to him, if calibrated to a certain degree, and these were people he’d known. Who were the kids like he was back when their biggest worries were grades, terror professors, slighted hearts, and bruised egos. They weren’t above the last two even now but at least they no longer stressed over school. He shouldn’t have been surprised to enjoy these people’s company.
It was good for him to come. Santana was right.
There was a minute’s break after the jazz band’s song then the horns were blaring again, a roaring musical introduction to the doors swinging open for the entourage to march in. To dance their way in, more like, as was the thing that happened in weddings these times, as Nino was reminded. The bridesmaid dresses were flashes of gold, muted beams of light that mingled with the deep red of the groomsmen’s suits.
Nino looked down at the red of his own three-piece number, his chosen shade on the bolder, brighter end of the color spectrum, remembering the vision of Santana in the sparkly, short lace dress she’d tried on. He laughed because yes, they matched the entourage, but how they’d stand out from the array too. Then he stopped because Santana wasn’t here and he wished so much she were.
He hoped the thought could conjure her, as it did for heroes in movies. When he sent her the private link to the farewell episode of ‘Why Aren’t You Banging the Drummer,’ a three-hour giant of a playlist he’d headed off with the most sincere, most aware babbling he’d ever done in his life, he’d held out a little hope that she’d come. He had echoed what she’d said, that they’d talk after today’s festivities were done and over and he meant it. But he also hoped she knew he was here to do what he needed to and she might have wanted to come see.
It made sense she was a no-go (haha look what you made me do, you Free Elf). It was fine. Where he was, it made sense Santana’s wasn’t the face he saw.
It was a face of the familiar. That was the first thing his mind gave him. He’d been surrounded by familiar faces all afternoon. None too changed or too different from when he last saw them. College hadn’t been too long ago after all.
This one came to him in sharper relief. Her hair longer, primped and curled in a way he’d never seen it before. Her lips painted a bright, unapologetic pink, standing out among the red suits that came and went around her. It was a color she’d preferred. That was a fun fact easy enough to access, as he saw her glide across the room in a pale pink dress.
For a few long seconds Nino thought she was walking toward him. If only from the way she caught his eyes and held his gaze. She looked surprised, then she smiled. He used to be able to read a hundred pages from shifts on her face but right now he didn’t. Like he had a seat with a limited view, and he smiled back at her because he’d chosen that place, and he preferred it this way.
She stopped in her tracks, pausing when a waiter offered her a drink. He could come closer, take the last few steps to close the distance. See if there was anything up close that changed after all.
But what is the point? What would it matter? He wasn’t all that curious, and besides, there was nothing important left to say. Suze and him, they ended things that way. They made sure of it.
Her eyes found him again, and he waited for that kick in his chest. That pit of dread, his old friend. The deadened weight in his stomach that pegged him down, made him incapable of thinking anything but the worst of himself. When what came was only a prickle, a slight denting shadow, Nino wondered if the guilt had really gone away. If this was what it felt, forgiving himself, or if he was only getting better with the process.
He decided he was going to take the time to get there.
Suze lifted a hand and waved at him.
Someone tugged at his jacket, turning him the other way—one of his and Jasper’s classmates in elective who’d hated his guts but was talking to him now like they’d had many isaw and dirty ice cream breaks together. Nino clasped the guy’s shoulder back because the guy was funny, then remembered to look back at Suze for a return wave.
The night was young. The toasts and the jazz numbers stretched out endlessly. The party had a lot more of it to give. He had nothing to say to her now, nothing to move him to leave the entertainment of his current company and cross those few tables to where she was. He was bound to run into her in the course of the night anyway. He was sure they’d come up with more words than waves when they did.
And for him that was enough.
