The Wedding Party

Madelaine Krauss climbed slowly out of her car and walked across the white gravel to the door. This is a mistake, she thought. Tracy, the daughter of her former best friend Cynthia, was getting married in an hour. Madelaine remembered how adorable the child had been, but the friendship with Cynthia seemed long over. They hadn’t really spoken in years. And now there was this.

Inside the house, a well-dressed crowd stood and chatted in clusters. At the far end of the room, a long table draped in white stood decorated with bouquets of flowers. A large crystal bowl of pink punch sat on a smaller table at right angles to the first, surrounded by trays heavy with hors d’oeuvres, baked shrimp, small sandwiches, wraps and pinwheels, sliced raw vegetables. Madelaine walked over to the food. The screaming hadn’t started yet.

She looked around at the flowers and felt too filled with the past. The yellow were especially beautiful, a golden cascade, she thought, like the garden she once had had, how long ago? How many men since then? Two and a half, if you count that miserable affair, that endless love of six short weeks. But the flowers! Cynthia had always had such exquisite taste, each item the reflection of her nearly perfect life. Madelaine wondered if that was why they no longer talked.

She touched the yellow roses for a second, flesh against flesh. There was a fireplace, and a high beamed ceiling. The decor was replete with decorative accents, faux ancient statuary subtly lighted in corners and on shelves, great swaths of gold brocade framing the windows, small tables and chairs placed in the corners and hinting at intimate conversations, and art in colors chosen to highlight the furniture. Then she finally saw her friend.

Cynthia had become a woman of middle age with short, styled hair and careful makeup. She was dressed in a severely tailored asymmetric jacket and skirt suit with a belt she couldn’t quite pull off. Madelaine opened her arms and rushed.

“Look at you!” Cynthia said, ever the diplomat, and held Madelaine out at arm’s length.

“You’re still lovely,” Madelaine said, though she privately thought her friend appeared tired. She had seen that look before, years ago when they partied or stayed up late cramming for tests together. But now, Cynthia’s skin had grown blotchy, and the rims of her eyes had darkened.

“You’re managing all of this wonderfully,” Madelaine said.

Cynthia seemed pleased. She smiled and gestured elaborately. “We’ve redone almost everything,” she said, “since the last time you were here.”

Was that a tacit admission? An apology? A snub?

Madelaine framed a suitable compliment on the furnishings and started to speak, but before she could finish the sentence, the screaming interrupted her. There was a moment of stillness, then she followed the crowd down the hall and outside to the back yard.

A bright blue canvas canopy stretched tight on aluminum poles stood over a large swath of grass. Dozens of white plastic chairs half-circled around a long table. It took Madelaine a moment before she saw, spread across the table, what once must have been a four- or five-tiered wedding cake done in white frosting. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

The crowd spoke in hushed, indignant tones. They stood, as if waiting, until Cynthia walked forward, arms lashed across her chest. She seemed nearly frightened.

“What’s going on?” she asked. She went to the table and looked closer at the mess. The cake was crushed and scattered, the layers strewn across the beige lace tablecloth. Cynthia touched the edge of it with a finger. “What did this?” she asked, her voice shaking now. “Who did this? Do you know how much this cost?” Her voice climbed into registers she could no longer control. “Do you have any idea at all?”

Two elderly women closed in on Cynthia and touched her arms, speaking quietly.

“What will Tracy think?” someone in the crowd asked.

But the bride was sequestered, waiting for the music to begin, out of sight of her future husband, her relatives and friends, and the destruction that was done.

Madelaine examined the crowd around her. The people appeared decent. They were decked out expensively. There was a knot of young adults, friends of the bride and groom. They seemed nervous, uneasy, in motion though standing there. They talked with one another, hushed syllables. A paunchy man in a light grey suit laughed, sharing a joke with the man beside him. The women closest to the table seemed most distressed.

Madelaine knew it was no accident. Holes from clenched fingers were still visible in the spongy sections scattered across the table. There seemed such fury there, such petty retaliation for something. Someone wasn’t as they seemed. She thought of hidden plans and secret satisfactions.

Thirty minutes later, the pastor arrived. He was a young man in a dark suit and old shoes. He carried a small black book in his hand, not the Bible, but the Handbook of Rituals. He obviously didn’t yet know by heart the words for the Ceremony of Marriage.

They were all called into the family room and seated on folding chairs. Flowers stood along the walls and in the corners, and two larger displays were hung to either side of a gigantic silver heart embossed with the names of the bride and the groom. Someone played the piano in the corner. A woman sang of love and the mutual passing of shared time. The groom and the best man walked up and stood at the pastor’s left. This was as expected. To Madelaine, they all seemed so young, nearly interchangeable. There was a dramatic pause. The music stilled and then started again and the bride appeared, her steps slow to the beat of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, a traditional, if infelicitous, choice. Flowers were knotted in her fingers.

Madelaine thought the girl was beautiful, but all brides seemed to be. She remembered Tracy’s father, divorced and gone now for how many years? He had been a shy, retiring man, hardly up to Cynthia’s expectations, or so Madelaine had later heard. She could still see Tracy sitting on his lap, both small arms wrapped around his neck. Tracy had played with his features. He had grinned sheepishly, caught in such an act of genuine enjoyment. Where was he? Had he died? Had he even been invited to his own daughter’s wedding? The bride. How hectic she seemed, flushed. Or was it merely bad cosmetics? Girls nowadays went to such extremes.

Madelaine had had no children of her own, a fact Cynthia had mentioned more than once. You should. You don’t know what you’re missing. The sweet fulfillment of a new life. At first, Madelaine had thought the childlessness was a decision she had made, one clear and concise and intelligent, but as the years had passed it had come to seem more a fate. Now, she wondered about her life, whether she had conducted it properly at all.

The pastor opened his book and read the words. There were no personal insertions, no private vows, no added sentiments, but rather a sense of urgency, of a task to put behind one. Or was that merely how it seemed? The ceremony sped along until suddenly there was “by the power…” and “…man and wife.” A kiss occurred. The crowd stood and applauded, perhaps with relief.

Everyone surged back into the living room for drinks and photographs and presents and more photographs. A champagne fountain had been set on the table, replacing the pink punch. Wine gurgled and spilled over at the top of the plastic tower and cascaded yellow down the sides, funneling into four steady, convenient streams. The liquid was a bit darker than one would have expected for Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine, but no one noticed that yet.

“A toast!” the best man said, looking uncertain.

There was laughter, the sounds of congratulations. The newlyweds formed the center of a happy circle. Glasses were quickly passed. Heads turned, checking that everyone was at the ready. The best man raised his drink.

“To Tracy and Jack,” he said. “May their happiness…”

There were sounds of agreement before he finished, pleasurable anticipation. The first sips were taken.

Madelaine sipped slowly, thinking there was something wrong. It was the taste. Not the clear, expected tang, but something totally different. Slightly sour. She remembered the cake. Oh no, she told herself, suddenly knowing what might have happened.

She held the glass up against the light. The liquid roiled murky and yellowish. She sipped it again and then held the drink away from her, waiting, until a man shouted out, “I think,” he said, “that someone has urinated in the fountain.”

The faces of the others looked at first surprised, unbelieving. One man, apparently, had taken large swallows and began to cough. A glass broke against the hardwood floor.

“That’s it,” a younger boy said. “That’s it, exactly,” and Madelaine wondered how he knew.

Cynthia was pale and suddenly there. Her makeup stood out garishly against the whiter skin and the darker blotches. “No…” she said. “I…” She stood as if stunned while the others stared, then she put her hands over her face.

“This is something I’ll remember always,” the bride said sweetly to her mother.

There was something going on between the two of them, Madelaine thought. But wasn’t that always the case with mothers and daughters? She sensed conversations in the past and heard strange echoes. “We can do this,” she remembered Cynthia saying, shortly after the divorce, one arm around Tracy’s shoulders and squeezing. “We’re a team, aren’t we?” Madelaine remembered Tracy smiling, but now it seemed it might have been with embarrassment. Perhaps it was merely the situation, the sabotage of what was supposed to have been a joyous occasion. Madelaine didn’t know. The taste. Well, now I’ve drunk urine, she thought, somebody’s pee. Someone vicious. Someone filled with rage. She wondered how it was done, the mechanics of the thing. The fountain was high and back near the center of the table, sitting on a pedestal, out of the easy reach of even a tall man. The urine must have been saved up, lovingly stored and transported to the site. She glanced at the women with large bags and roomy purses.

Cynthia looked, for a moment, as if she were about to cry, but then dropped her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said. She turned her head, addressing her remarks to everyone. “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m sorry. I was going to give you all cake…” She was unable to finish.

Bottles of wine appeared, carried out by the caterers and placed on the table and opened in front of everyone. Two women brought trays of food and set them down. No one in the crowd moved.

“It’s okay,” Cynthia said. “I understand.” There were the high tones of hysteria in her voice. “I’ll try it first. You’ll have a taster. You’ll see. You’ll be like the kings and queens.”

There’s was a soufflé and a platter of Alaskan crab, a Caesar salad, a rack of barbecued ribs. Cynthia quickly stuffed some of each into her mouth, giving herself barely time to chew, certainly no time to taste. “See!” she said. Her lipstick smeared. Her eyes appeared deep and dark. “It’s fine. It’s all okay.”

The young were the first to the table and took large helpings. The rest reluctantly followed, their expressions saying it all.

Madelaine felt she wasn’t all that hungry. It was a nightmare of a wedding. But how often does one get to go to such a thing? And who was the perpetrator? A young man who wanted the bride for his own? A jilted woman, seeking revenge on the groom? There were too many possibilities. Madelaine realized with a shock that she was enjoying herself. She had always loved a mystery.

The bride and groom at last ran off to change. Cynthia walked over. Her steps were stiff. Her eyes looked around the room without finding what they sought, and Madelaine thought back to their childhood, when they were actually able to comfort one another.

“I want to die,” Cynthia said. She always exaggerated her suffering.

“Don’t be silly,” Madelaine said. The crowd was milling, eating uncertainly, talking quietly. Some had already left.

“I had this planned,” Cynthia said. “Everything was taken care of. I wanted to do such a good job.” She raised her hands helplessly. She smiled. “There’s supposed to be a disc jockey now. There was going to be music and dancing, but he’s not coming. Someone called him up and canceled us out.” She seemed almost as if she were going to laugh.

“It’s not so bad,” Madelaine said and thought her friend was on the edge. There was so much emotion spilling out, drenching her, reminding her of when they were teenagers and Cynthia would fly into tantrums and then fall into dramatic tears. Such unpleasantness then, such a bother.

“You’ll just have to bear up under it,” Madelaine said. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“Yes,” Cynthia said, “and my daughter will be gone. She’s going to Minnesota, you know. Jack has a job there. I don’t see why she wants to go away.”

Madelaine understood completely.

She hung around for a while, then turned and climbed the stairs, the heavy carpet making her steps nearly silent. There was a hallway and large rooms to each side, an office with a roll top desk, a bedroom in cool greens with a bed large enough for four or five. There were strips and tatters of white cloth littering the bedroom floor. Only when Madelaine saw the sections rich with brocade and lacework did she recognize what once had been a wedding dress.

A bathroom stood open at the end of the hall. A woman in tight blue jeans was visible from the waist down and Madelaine knew it must be Tracy. She walked up to the doorway.

“Hi,” she said. Her voice sounded to her so artificial.

Tracy turned. She laughed, her expression one of embarrassed delight. “You found me,” she said. She held a tube of lipstick in her hands. On the full-length mirror behind her, written in red letters, were the words: “Mother, I’m out of here, you bitch. Hope you enjoyed the wedding. Hate you! Your daughter.”

Madelaine read the words while Tracy continued laughing.

“She deserved it,” Tracy said. She hugged Madelaine, then jumped away. “You don’t understand,” she said. “After all these years and I’m finally leaving now…” Her eyes started watering. “I got my chance. She was so proud. No expense was spared.” She laughed again, then grabbed her purse from the floor and put the lipstick away. She hugged Madelaine again, then turned and ran down the hall.

Madelaine thought about Cynthia. What a mess for her. And in front of so many people. She hated public unpleasantness, Madelaine knew. And now she had no one. The woman who appeared so perfect will be less happy, perhaps, than even someone like herself, who seems always to have been alone, who never asks for very much, who manages somehow from day to day with only the small disasters, poor service at a store, a restaurant table by oneself, never the grand gesture and the equally final failure. Madelaine looked at the writing on the mirror and waited, making sure Tracy had gone, then grabbed the washcloth and smeared the words into a fine, red haze in one last act for the friend of her youth.