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What was she supposed to do, spend the rest of her life mourning for a husband who spent his last night in bed with another woman?
We all deserve a second chance at happiness. I got mine when Stefanie put a twenty year hold on the punishing song of Los Ruidos. She deserved a second chance, too. So did Jessie, and so did Davey. My boy was eighteen, looking handsome in his sharp, black dress suit, and his big sister, who had turned twenty-one, was already a clone of her mom, wearing a modest but very charming bridesmaid’s gown. Their mother, the forty-eight-year-old bride, was wearing a cream-colored dress that fit very nicely over her still shapely figure. It was July 1998, ten years after life was sucked out of me by a serpentine redhead at the Ritz-Carlton.
Stefanie’s side of the family filled up most of the banquet room at the Ardsley Hilton, but friends were there too, along with members of Rippey’s family and his college professor associates. All were there to celebrate the happy bride and groom. The late July sunset and the drive from Newark got me there a little after 10:00 so I could feed my masochistic habit of watching Stefanie become happy again with someone who wasn’t me. Somehow I kidded myself into thinking that the reality in front of my eyes would help me let go. That foolishness went out the window the second I saw the love in Stefanie’s eyes as she danced with her new groom.
The kids too, had taken to Rippey. He brought a sense of sanity back in their lives. The suffering and embarrassment from my scandalous death was at last beginning to subside. I was an unpleasant distant memory.
Dominic, Artie and Ramona helped maintain a strong presence for the kids during their growing years, applauding at Jessie’s dance recitals and celebrating Davey’s victories on the baseball field. They were also there to congratulate them for their good grades and beamed proudly as a family at their graduations. Now they were all sharing this special moment together. It was time to say goodbye to the tears and escape the ugly cloud that had followed them for most of the past decade.
Grandpa Artie and Grandma Ramona looked sprite and energetic at their table, even healthier than their son Dominic, who had by then let himself go considerably. He reminded me of that cop Dennis Franz played on NYPD Blue. By the time I got to the reception everyone had already eaten, had a few too many drinks and was dancing to some really bad disco being played by an overpriced DJ. The more reserved guests were off to the sides having their little chats, like this tipsy group of wine-drinking hens I passed. They were colleagues of Stefanie’s from Fordham University, sharing thoughts of how happy they were that she had found somebody new.
“Especially after that first son of a bitch left her so humiliated,” said an over-perfumed fish-face whose glass of cabernet mysteriously tipped over on her lavender dress.
I was then treated to the sight of Rippey and Stefanie playfully dancing to that mind-numbing Macarena. Artie and Ramona also watched happily, enjoying the sight of their daughter smiling again. When that record mercifully ended, the DJ softened the mood with some slow-dance numbers. It seemed to be the preferred music of the evening as the guests filled the dance floor, enjoying the sensual air set by the lush tunes.
For me the music was drowned out by Los Ruidos, and they picked up a few decibels when Rippey and Stefanie again held each other tightly and looked into each other’s eyes. The room then broke into a large round of applause as they went into a long, deep kiss that hammered a crack in my heart no smaller than the San Andreas fault. But hey, what did I expect? It was a wedding. Was I expecting them to sign a contract and shake hands?
Torturous as it was, I was still compelled to look. Maybe I thought I could get used to the idea and make it hurt less.
Boy was I off.
The first notes of the next tune were vaguely familiar. When the bass came in to flesh out the mood, it became a little more familiar. But when Roberta Flack breathed out the first line of the romantic tune, it then became unbearably familiar.
Bad move, DJ. You should do your research before taking a job.
The female guests on the dance floor gasped as a loud sob broke out above the music. When the bride turned away from her husband and ran out of the room in tears, the ladies followed her, leaving their dance partners to wonder what was going on.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”
Dominic was incensed, both startling and confusing the puzzled guests, who didn’t know where he was venting his anger at.
Dominic stomped his way towards the DJ. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” I wanted to say the same thing but obviously couldn’t without turning the reception into a fright fest. “Give me that CD!” ordered Dominic. The DJ was as shaken as the guests who stood nervously on the dance floor. “I said, give me that goddamn CD,” he warned.
The terrified DJ hit the stop button, bringing the room to a sudden silence. He then handed the CD to the seething 260 lb. beast, who promptly broke it in half and threw it back at him. Without offering any explanation, Dominic marched towards the hallway outside the banquet room where his family was trying to comfort Stefanie. She was sitting on a bench with Ramona and Jessie by her side. Artie and Davey were also there lending support while Rippey knelt in front of her and stroked her hair.
In the banquet room, the bewildered DJ was still looking for a clue as to what just transpired. Rippey’s friends had no answers and neither did some of Stefanie’s friends. They all shared the same quizzed expression. But not the Torres side of the family. They knew. And they probably even had a little sympathy for the DJ who didn’t understand that he had just played the wedding song that Stefanie and I danced to back in 1972. It was an unexpected, hurtful jolt to Stefanie at a time she was supposed to be celebrating the start of a new life.
“It’s okay, baby,” said Ramona, stroking her daughter’s back.
Dominic knelt beside Rippey in front of his sister. “You okay, sis?”
Stefanie responded to no one. She just kept on crying. Artie shook his head, frustrated he could do nothing to soothe his daughter. He settled on taking her hand and giving her what was meant to be a reassuring smile. Instead it made her cry more.
Dominic rose and turned back towards the banquet room cursing under his breath, not realizing that yet again, like back in the ball park, he was looking right at me—right at the center of my forehead. If I were visible, it would have looked like he was cursing at me.
Again I checked.
I was still out of sight, but for how long? The high emotions from hearing that song and seeing Stefanie break down had the potential to weaken me. I was still in there. I was still in there, somewhere in her memory, somewhere in her heart.
I had to get out. The last thing that needed to happen was for her dead husband to make a sudden grisly appearance. Afraid of knocking something over and creating some sort of poltergeist moment, I restrained myself from bolting out that very second. But to reassure myself, I checked the mirror across the hall. The reflection was still of just Dominic and the rest of the family. When I turned to face him again, I then saw him squint, slightly tilting his head, looking side to side before zeroing in right back at me.
He was concentrating. Again I resisted moving, for fear that he might hear the rustle of my clothes—and it definitely looked like he was trying to hear something.
I checked the mirror again—still unseen.
Dominic’s eyes continued to wander, now roaming above my head as if he were following a fly that he was going to swat with a rolled-up newspaper.
Suddenly there was no one and nothing else in the hall. Stefanie’s cries had drifted off to the distance. Everyone consoling her had faded from Dominic’s line of vision. His mind was no longer at the Ardsley Hilton sharing space and time with those attending the wedding. He was now focusing at a vague area just below my hairline.
I remained motionless. His calmness unnerved me.
Dominic took a deep breath and nodded. He had returned to Earth. The family had soothed his sister while he was away. Not that they’d noticed he was gone, but gone he was. Where? I didn’t know.
I slowly edged away and backed the hell out of there. For me, this party was over.