Cece opened her eyes and found herself in the same spot she’d been in when she’d closed them: upstairs at the Margolises’ house, wedding dress pooling at her feet, as if she weren’t sitting in a chair at all but melting like a snowman. What sort of person sends an email like that—a drunkmail? a love letter?—to a bride two days before her wedding? A crazy person. A sad fucking douchebag. Cece had decided to keep it to herself. She would tell no one, deny it ever came, pretend she’d answered Garrett’s follow-up plea and deleted it unread. For an hour after reading it, she’d walked around with her head tingling, as if she’d eaten too much wasabi. It was daybreak; the lake was still as a puddle; twice in a row she’d failed to put any coffee grounds in the coffeemaker and ended up with a pot of hot water. Cece had decided to keep this under wraps as well.
She was getting married. A third of the wedding guests had norovirus—including one of her bridesmaids, Ushi—but she was getting married. What’s more, people were helping her. She wanted to cry. What lovely people! What friends and family! Cece knew they were being especially nice because they felt sorry for her, but it didn’t matter. Paige beamed at Cece with a foundation brush in her hand, then crouched down and inspected her face as if she’d painted it herself, which in a way she had. Akriti pinned a red rose in her hair. Cece’s grandmother, crowding in to admire her, agreed she looked gorgeous, smiling her lopsided smile—what Cece’s dad used to call the “Calhoun root-canal grin.”
Cece did her best to smile back. Her grandmother had been through this before, with Cece’s mother, which was maybe why her eyes looked damp. She was happy and sad at the same time. Cece felt her mother’s absence like a crime, an injustice, as if she’d been cheated out of a proper wedding. That was the real disaster. Three generations of Cecelias. What right did the name have to survive when her mother hadn’t?
Cece began to cry. She was ruining her makeup, ruining all of Paige’s hard work, which made her cry even harder. She felt like that stupid wall at Glacier. Everyone in the room gathered around to console her. What’s wrong? they asked, but she couldn’t explain it. It was her mother, her mother—and not her too. No doubt they thought it was because of the sick members of the wedding, the empty chairs. And perhaps it was. Akriti dabbed Cece’s face with a Kleenex.
Then everyone stopped looking at her, because they were looking at something else. Something behind her. Cece turned in her chair and saw Garrett, literally the last person she would have chosen to perform her wedding, wearing a ridiculous tux that pooched out at the stomach. His eyes shone with pity. Cece’s tears turned hot. He took a step toward her, appallingly, and she bared her teeth at him and stood up from her chair and lifted one hand, pretending she had a spray can in it. Then she did the worst thing she could think of—or maybe the only thing she could imagine that might save her—which was exterminate him.
At least a third of the chairs were empty; the rest were filled with people—young and old, yawning and unyawning—who’d devoted a good deal of time and effort to be here and were waiting for the opening remarks to begin. They looked at Garrett expectantly. He didn’t mind. He had a newfound clarity. He’d watched the processional numbly, in a kind of trance, as if he were a sleepwalker who’d come upon it by accident. What Cece had done earlier in the house had cleared his mind completely—liberated him, in fact. She despised him. She’d read the email he’d written, knew the secret feelings in his heart, and had rejected them completely. They repulsed her, and rightly so. Garrett’s heart felt dead, scoured of all illusion, as if it had been dunked in acid. The only life he’d be ruining today was his own.
On either side of him stood the bride and the groom, each flanked by the closest friends who were well enough to stand. He didn’t dare look at Cece so instead focused on Charlie, who was visibly feeling ill, slouched there in his suit and swallowing conspicuously, as if he had something in his throat. Garrett, cleansed of hope, gave him an encouraging smile. Charlie did his best to smile back, staring at the pregnant bump in Garrett’s shirt where he’d stapled it together. Twenty years from now, maybe, they’d talk about how ridiculous Garrett looked. Their eyes would tear up with laughter. Charlie would never know that he’d been in love with his fiancée, or that he’d sent an email hoping to steal her away from him, or that their worlds had hung in the balance.
Cece made a noise of some kind. A cough, perhaps to prompt him to get started. Garrett avoided her eyes. A drab, otherworldly calm had descended upon him. It hardly mattered what his opening words were. In his hand was the legal pad from Mr. Margolis’s office, which, except for the generic preamble Garrett had scribbled at the top, was as blank as before.
“We’re gathered here today,” he began, “to celebrate two remarkable people, Cece and Charlie, who’ve decided to join their hands in matrimony.”
Garrett, after reading this dismal sentence aloud, found himself staring at the blank lines below it. This did not make them any less blank. Garrett racked his brain for something to say. In the midst of his despair, he had a strange feeling. It felt like someone was standing right behind him, about to tap him on the shoulder. As if he were on the verge of being startled. He actually glanced behind him, which made people laugh. And miraculously it occurred to him, returning to the sunlit void of the page, what weddings were about. They were about promising to fill this blankness. To write a future for yourself. Precisely what his own life didn’t have. He looked up from the pad, letting it drop to his side.
“That’s the way these opening words usually begin. And in fact I’ve got a long speech written here, one that I wrote months ago, full of equally boring remarks.”
More laughter. He glanced at Charlie, who was looking at him with concern. Still, if he knew he was lying, he didn’t show it. Garrett poked at his stapled-together shirt, sort of trying to deflate it like a balloon, which made people laugh harder.
“But I’ve got a better idea,” he said, extemporizing. “I’d like to say a few words about what marriage is, and what it means, because it seems to me that weddings aren’t so much about the day itself. They’re about the future. Because that’s what a wedding is, right? A promise that the present makes to the future. It’s a celebration of some other day—maybe ten years from now, maybe twenty—but a day that rhymes somehow with today. Because the future is what gives meaning to the present. Without it, you’re just sort of, I don’t know, not there.
“So let’s do something. Let’s all close our eyes for a second. No, I’m serious. Everyone, please, close your eyes. Let’s imagine these two wonderful people’s lives—or rather, the life they will have together. Some day in the future, I don’t know, ten years from now. A day that rhymes with today. I have an idea of what this future life might be, having talked to both the bride and groom about it. A pretty good idea. Charlie will be a famous anesthesiologist, having invented some brilliant new painkiller—or no, he’ll be on the cusp of developing it and will soon be famous. Cece will be…well, I’m not sure what Cece will be doing. But it’s going to be amazing. She’ll be famous too. They’ll have two kids, let’s say one boy and one girl, maybe Nathaniel and, um, Sylvia. Sylvie? Sure, why not. And Nathaniel and Sylvie will come here every summer, to this gorgeous spot, and do all the things Charlie used to do as a boy, all the things he’s told me about since I first met him in college. They’ll pick raspberries and cherries. They’ll play games of Masterpiece and croquet and have bonfires on the beach and roast marshmallows for s’mores. They’ll do funny walks off the end of the dock, pretending to be a blind person or a sleepwalker or somebody getting shot. They’ll get horrendous nasty splinters. Charlie will take them in the boat to get ice cream. Cece will be the true fisherman in the family—fisherperson, I should say—and go out trolling for trout and bring them home for Charlie to clean and cook for the family. They’ll go hiking in Jewel Basin and come home and jump in the lake with all their clothes on, including their boots. The whole family will do this, and they’ll grow old together, and they will always have this place, which I know that Charlie loves, and Cece too, and where we happen to be celebrating the promise of their future: not the exact one I’ve just described, of course not, but one just as happy, just as enviable, a rhyme for the day we are this very moment creating.” Garrett found that his eyes behind their lids were growing moist, not at his own words, but out of mourning for the life he’d be missing. “Now everyone please open your eyes again. Open them. And feast your eyes on the bride and groom, who have invited you here today, asked you to meet them in this beautiful corner of the world, one that means more to them than any other place on earth, because they want you to be a part of this future too.”
The guests did as he’d commanded. And what did they see? A green-faced groom, shivering in his designer suit. He seemed moved by Garrett’s words. Or maybe he was just fighting the urge to throw up. Either way, his face trembled with emotion. Garrett stole a glance at Cece, who continued to stare resolutely ahead, as if looking directly at him would turn her to stone. Somehow this made her even more beautiful. Garrett realized, after today, he would most likely never talk to her again. To either of them. Nor would he set foot on this stretch of lakefront, whose wonderfulness he’d just been extolling. His father was in the hospital, probably dying.
A woman in a coat and tie, one of Cece’s college friends, got up to read a poem. Garrett did not hear a word of it. He was distracted by someone in the audience, an old woman in the second row framed by empty seats. She looked a lot like Cece. Same dimple in her chin; same jack-o’-lantern eyebrows, arrowed into a V; same expectant way of sitting, as if a butterfly were parked on her nose. Cece’s grandmother, surely. She looked very old, fogged with exhaustion, as if she’d traveled an extremely long way to be here.
Only now, in the middle of her own ceremony, did Cece realize that all weddings were basically the same, no matter how many square dance bands you decided to hire. She tried to focus on Colleen’s poem. Her friend had written it especially for her. It was meant to be a surprise, and a statement: a queer woman reading a poem in praise of marriage. Except that Cece wasn’t taking in a word. Her brain had been reduced to a single task: not looking at Garrett. She stared at the grass, or off into the distance, or at her husband-to-be’s face.
This face—Charlie’s—was extremely sweaty. Sweaty and pale. He was clearly not feeling well, swaying like a drunk. Every few seconds he’d close his eyes in a slow-motion blink, as if he’d just taken a hit of something, then swallow in a way that involved his whole face. Afterward, he’d do his best to smile at her and produce instead a kind of perverted leer. It touched Cece deeply, this leer. He was trying not to ruin her wedding day. Self-sacrifice, right through to the end.
Had she really just called it that? The end?
And yet why couldn’t he just tell her he had the virus? Why this instinct, always, to make things seem better than they were?
When it came time for the vows, Charlie gave her a haunted look and then asked politely to sit down. Mr. Margolis pulled out a chair for him. One of Cece’s bridesmaids—Ushi had been assigned this task originally; she didn’t look to see who it was—handed her a folded-up piece of paper, which Cece unfolded silently, like a letter in a movie announcing someone’s death. She vaguely recalled this silent unfolding from other weddings she’d attended. How ridiculous! All the planning she’d put into the wedding, her crazed efforts to make it unique, seemed absurd to her now. Even her trembling fingers seemed like part of the script. How long had she spent on her vows? Months? And yet one glance at them on the page revealed them to be bland, predictable, mawkish. She might as well have gotten them off the internet.
Charlie stared at her from the front row, doing his best to keep his head up. He was breathing quickly. Sort of panting in the sun, like a golden retriever. Now, a seated groom, slumped in his chair during the vows: that was original. Cece could honestly say she hadn’t seen that one before.
She did something she hadn’t expected. She laughed. And Charlie, despite how awful he must have felt, laughed too. That laugh that seemed to come from a different voice, high-pitched and whinnying, as if he’d been dubbed by a horse.
It dawned on her, for the first time, that she’d be hearing this laugh for the rest of her life. A laugh that she loved.
Cece read her vows to him—I promise to never go to bed at night angry with you—though honestly she didn’t register a word she was saying. All she could think about was Garrett standing beside her in his terrible shirt. She had the feeling that he was trying to tell her something. Would he try to stop the wedding? Say that Charlie was too ill, that there was no way to continue, that they’d have to postpone it to a later date? Hadn’t he ruined her wedding enough? Cece went on with her vows, determined not to look at Garrett, to focus on the oaths of love and kindness she was making—but the words swarmed from her mouth like bees. Now and then she glanced up at the groom, who leaned ashenly in his chair, head balanced on the plinth of one hand, looking more mystified than moved, as if he were having trouble following the words as well.
Garrett moved closer to her—she could feel this invisible step, as vividly as anything that had happened that day—and Cece looked at him for the first time. Eyes. Nose. Lips in motion. Yes, he was mouthing something at her. Something abominable. I LOVE YOU? No, something else.
SLOW. DOWN.
The same thing she’d scribbled in the margins of the paper she was holding, as a reminder.
Then she’d finished her vows, abruptly, and it was Charlie’s turn. Garrett helped him out of his chair, letting him grip his shoulder while Charlie fished his vows from his pocket and read from them in a shaky voice, gripping the paper with one hand. He looked like he might collapse. By the time they were supposed to exchange rings, Garrett was supporting most of Charlie’s weight. The crowd began to murmur, shifting in their seats. Cece waited in silent terror. A BB of sweat rolled down her armpit. Garrett helped Charlie fish the ring out of its box when Johnny offered it to him, making sure he had a decent grip on it.
“Charlie, as you place the ring on Cece’s finger, please repeat after me: I promise you love, honor, and respect, / to be faithful to you / and to forsake all others, / until death do us part.” Charlie tried to slide the ring onto Cece’s finger but was shaking too much and dropped it on the lawn. The crowd murmured. Garrett bent down to look for it, then got down on all fours and snooped around in the grass. “It’s lost,” Cece whispered, close to tears. For a minute it seemed like this was true. But then Garrett found it in a tuft of clover and held it in the air to grateful applause. He handed the ring to the groom, then held Charlie’s hand to steady him while he placed it on Cece’s finger. The metal band was warm from his fever. Carefully, Cece took the other ring from Paige and promised to forsake all others and made to slide it on Charlie’s finger, but he was wobbly and confused, preoccupied, it seemed, with staying upright. Garrett lifted the groom’s arm, steadying it. He buoyed Charlie’s hand with his own, stretching both toward Cece, who leaned forward and slipped on the ring.
The groom took to his bed, disappearing as soon as the ceremony was over. But the guests refused to let a good party be ruined. They ate tacos and drank beers with names like Hoppy Hedonist and did some square dancing courtesy of Rod-O and the Feckless Fiddlers, who were much better than their name. Semis, clattering down Route 35, blared their horns as they went by. Thanks to all the promenading, the do-si-do–ing and right-and-left-granding, the norovirus was passed from guest to guest, infecting every last person at the wedding. There would be projectile vomiting on several planes back to LA and New York. There would be couples in small apartments fighting over the only toilet. There would be canceled vacations and lethargic infants and middle-of-the-night visits to the ER. The DJ came on and played Top 40 hits no one had liked when they were released and yet had somehow become sacred relics of their youth. People whooped when each song came on, as if they’d won something in a raffle. The weather was glorious; the breeze from the lake smelled like cherries; people were picking them from the trees and spitting the pits at each other for no reason. Even the bride, groomless, was determined to have fun, dancing with her friends and singing along to each song while pointing at people in a way that made the pointed-at feel a tiny bit famous. She was sweaty and flushed, more real than she’d seemed all day, and even the most happily coupled guests couldn’t help comparing their partners to her, wondering if they’d underestimated what life had to offer. The fiascoes of the ceremony—the sick groom, the speed-read vows, the dropped ring in the grass—had already taken on the sheen of legend, conforming graciously to a future where they would all seem harmless, even hilarious. The dancing had this sense to it too, as if the dancers had to live up to the stories that would be told about them.
Everyone agreed that the officiant’s remarks were beautiful, that without his steady hand the wedding might have been a disaster—though no one could find the man himself. He’d vanished when no one was looking. Someone said that his father was ill; another remarked that she’d seen him crossing the road to his truck, right after the ceremony.
What a good friend, people said when it was reported he’d come straight from the hospital.
At some point after dark, as always seems to happen when there’s beer and a lake and a large group of people, some of the guests crowded down to the pier and stripped out of their clothes, hooting as they jumped into the water. Even Cece joined them, stepping out of her wedding dress and leaving it on the dock, shivering in her underwear. She glanced behind her for a minute, as if looking for someone. But the groom was ill, he was in bed, her eyes roamed the yard for no reason. She must have known this, and yet she kept searching the crowd. She chewed her lip. Then all at once she seemed to give up; her face eased into a smile, as if she were glad—relieved, even—to be alone.
People sensed this, at any rate, though they knew of course it couldn’t be true, that no bride would prefer to be single at her own wedding. Dancing with his three-year-old daughter on the lawn, Marcus Porter pretended not to look at Cece standing there in her underthings. Paige approached her from behind, still in her heels, then mimed a push before cannonballing into the lake fully clothed, red dress rippling around her like blood. The photographer, cigarette dangling from his mouth, jogged down to the beach, adjusted his flash, and then focused on the dock, hoping to catch the bride middive. He crouched there with his finger on the button. A breeze picked up, and the wedding dress at Cece’s feet skated toward the house without her. Her friends, neck-deep in the lake, cheered her on. Come on! they yelled. You only live once!
The weather was perfect. She couldn’t go wrong. Still, she hesitated, savoring the moment before she leapt, as if she didn’t want to ruin it by jumping.