Anybody Out There?
Page 114

“Calm down,” I said from inside the room.
“Calm down? My daughter’s getting married today even if it isn’t in a church and one of you five bitches has stolen my Multiple Orgasm. It’s like the time you stole all my combs”—this was an often-repeated resentment—“and I was going to mass because it was a holy day of obligation and I had to comb my hair with a fork. Reduced to combing my hair with a fork! What’s your father doing in the bathroom, he’s been in there for days. Go down to Claire’s room and see did she steal my lipstick.”
Claire and family and Maggie and family were also staying in the Gramercy Lodge. Everyone was on the same floor.
“Go on,” Mum urged. “Get me a lipstick.”
Out in the corridor, JJ was kicking a fire extinguisher. He was wearing a wide-brimmed yellow hat, what Helen might call a “lady hat”—part of Maggie’s wedding ensemble, I deduced. I watched his spirited assault on the fire extinguisher and wondered about what Leisl had said; why was JJ so important to me? Why would he become “more important”? Then it hit me: maybe Leisl hadn’t been talking about JJ at all. She’d said “a blond-haired little boy in a hat” and “the initial J”; little Jack fitted that description just as much as JJ did. Maybe Aidan—through Leisl—had been trying to tell me about him? A shiver shot down my spine and I was suddenly covered in goose bumps.
So had Leisl really been channeling Aidan? I didn’t know. And I supposed I would never know. And what did it matter now anyway?
“What have you done with my good hat?” Maggie had rushed out onto the corridor; she was wearing a sober navy suit. “Give it to me and stop kicking that thing.”
From Maggie’s room came the sound of baby Holly singing her head off.
Then Claire appeared. “This place is a kip,” she said. “Mum said it was lovely.”
“The radiators don’t work,” Maggie said.
“And nor does the lift.”
“It’s handy, Mum said.”
“But handy for what? Kate, don’t kick that, it might explode.”
Claire and Kate, her twelve-year-old daughter, were wearing very similar clothes: knicker-skimmingly short skirts, tottery high heels, and a lot of glitter.
By contrast, Claire’s six-year-old daughter, Francesca, wore old-fashioned buckle shoes and a puff-sleeved smock, trimmed with broderie anglaise. She was like a china doll.
“You’re gorgeous,” I told her.
“Thank you,” she said. “They tried to make me wear all that shiny stuff but this is my look.”
“Has anyone an iron?” Maggie asked. “I need to iron Garv’s shirt.”
“Give it to me,” Claire said. “Adam will do it.”
“He’s more like an indentured houseboy than a man!” Helen’s voice shouted from a nearby bedroom. “How can you respect him, even if he does have a larger-than-average mickey?”
Outside the Quaker hall everyone was milling about, looking their shiny best; clear-skinned 12-steppers, elderly, red-faced Irish people, mostly aunts and uncles, and big-haired Real Men, so many they looked like they’d been bussed in from Central Casting. Through the throng I spotted Angelo, all in black. I’d known he was going to be there; he and Rachel had become quite pally since the terrible day I’d showed up at his apartment. I gave him a polite smile—not unlike Mum’s chin-raising gesture—and positioned myself ever more in the thick of my sisters and nieces. I didn’t want to talk to him. I wouldn’t know what to say.
“I’m opening a book on how late they’re going to be.” Helen was circulating and gathering money.
“Rachel won’t be late,” Mum said. “She doesn’t believe in it. She says it’s disrespectful. Put me down for right on time.”
“That’ll be ten dollars.”
“Ten! Oh, cripes, here’s Mr. and Mrs. Luke! Marjorie! Brian!” Mum grabbed Dad by the sleeve and sailed forward to greet them. “Lovely day for it!”
They’d met a few times in the past but they didn’t know one another well. Mum had never seen any point in getting to know the Costellos until their son had done the “decent thing” by her daughter. Wreathed in bright, brittle smiles, both sets of parents circled one another warily—like dogs sniffing one anothers’ bums—trying to ascertain who had the most double glazing.
Someone called out in alarm, “Don’t tell me this is the happy couple!” Everyone turned to see a champagne-colored vintage car heading our way. “It is! It is the happy couple. Right on time!”
“What? Already?” startled voices asked. “Come on, better get in.” A ministampede ensued as everyone stormed the door and crowded, with unseemly haste, into seats. The hall was festooned with spring flowers—daffodils, yellow roses, tulips, hyacinths—and their scent filled the air.
Moments later, Luke marched up the aisle to the front of the hall. His collar-skimming hair was glossy and neat, and although he was wearing a suit, his trousers seemed tighter than necessary.
“Do you think he gets them taken in specially?” Mum whispered. “Or does he just buy them that way?”
“Dunno.”
She gave me a sharp look. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
This was the first wedding I’d been at since Aidan had died. I’d never admitted it but I’d been dreading this. However, now that it was happening, it seemed to be okay.
Up the aisle came Dad and Rachel. Rachel was wearing a pale yellow sheath dress—it sounds horrible but it was simple and stylish—and carrying a small posy of flowers. A thousand camera flashes lit her way.
“Your father’s tie is fecking crooked,” Mum hissed at me.
Dad delivered Rachel to Luke, then shoved his way into our row and the service began: someone read a poem about loyalty, someone else sang a song about forgiveness, then the freelance minister spoke about how he’d first met Rachel and Luke and how suited they were to each other.
“For the vows,” the minister said, “Rachel and Luke have written their own.”
“They would.” Mum elbowed me to share the joke, but I was remembering my own vows. “For richer, for poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.” I thought I was going to choke when I remembered “All the days of our lives.” It felt like a hand around my throat. I miss you, I thought. Aidan Maddox, I miss you so much. But I wouldn’t have forgone my time with you. The pain is worth it.