Not that I was a hermit. I was with people all day at work and I kept going to class. I think it was American history that term. My friends called on the phone and came to the house. Aaron and I saw each other all the time; we just didn’t talk about the wedding.
But when the flowers started blooming and everyone put away their winter coats, I started to feel like a dog on a chain. Everywhere I went, I saw couples holding hands and whispering to each other. Aaron showed me an advertisement for an apartment we could afford. I got up my nerve and asked my father how soon we could get married.
He said, “Anytime you want.”
I couldn’t believe it. “You told me I had to wait a year.”
“Did I say anything about weddings? According to the Talmud, if a funeral procession and a wedding procession cross paths, the wedding party goes first. Life is more important than death.”
You’d think he could have told me that before.
“Just don’t make it fancy,” Papa said. “No music or dancing.”
That wasn’t a problem. I’d always wanted it to be simple, and Aaron didn’t care about fancy as long as it was soon. But when I told Betty and Mildred we were thinking about getting married at the beginning of May, which was just a few weeks off, they acted like it was a disaster only a littler smaller than the Titanic. Betty said that since she didn’t have a daughter, this was going to be her only chance to make a wedding. And why did I want to ruin it for her?
For her, right?
She and Mildred complained and noodged until we agreed to wait until June so they could make everything nice. Rita asked if she could give me a bridal shower to introduce me to the other women in the family before the wedding. I’d never been to a shower—it was a new fad at the time—but my sister-in-law-to-be had read an article about them in Ladies’ Home Journal and she had her heart set on doing it just like it said in the magazine—right down to pink icing and sugar roses on the cake. She wanted to invite my friends, too, so I gave her Gussie’s phone number and said she’d get in touch with everyone else.
Rita planned it as a tea party on Saturday afternoon at three o’clock and told everyone to wear nice dresses and white gloves, if you can imagine.
Irene called me to ask if she could come to my party even if she didn’t embroider a pillowcase, which Rita had asked all the guests to do. When I said I didn’t know anything about pillowcases she said, “Gussie didn’t tell me the pillowcases were supposed to be a surprise. Now I’ve ruined the whole goddamn thing.”
The older Irene got, the more she swore. I remember when her grandson pooped in his diaper at his christening, she said, “Holy shit,” loud enough for everyone to hear. The look on that priest’s face!
On the day of the shower, the Metsky house was full of doilies, lilacs, and a dozen aunts and second cousins. After they all got finished hugging me, I smelled like the perfume counter at Jordan’s.
Rita presented me with a trousseau of pillowcases and towels embroidered with my new initials and I acted as if Irene hadn’t spilled the beans.
There were some other surprises, though. I knew Irene and Helen would be there but I was bowled over when Miss Chevalier and Miss Green walked in with Katherine Walters, who I lost touch with after I left the Transcript.
Miss Chevalier kissed my cheek and said, “I’m so happy for you, my dear.” Miss Green seemed to have shrunk two inches but she still had a twinkle in her eye. “I like to think we had something to do with your marriage, since you met your fiancé in our home.”
The Ediths hadn’t been asked to embroider anything, thank goodness, but Miss Green brought me one of the lovely ceramic boxes she designed; you used to put Barbie shoes in it when you were little.
Having all those women together in one place was like looking through a photo album of my life: from when I was a baby to the Saturday Club to Rockport Lodge to working at the newspaper to meeting Aaron.
And it was amazing how well they got along. Miss Green, who had been to Ireland, talked to Irene about the town where she was born. Katherine and Betty
had a debate about who was funnier: Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. I could have told them it was Charlie Chaplin, but I didn’t want to butt in.
I asked Helen where Gussie was. “She’s just a little late,” Helen said. Gussie gave me so much grief if I was even two minutes late, I looked forward to giving her a little of her own medicine. When she finally got there, she put up one hand like a stop sign. Then Irene sang, “Ta-da,” and Filomena appeared.
I don’t know if I shrieked or just stood there with my mouth open, but everyone clapped and Betty shouted, “She didn’t have a clue!”
As soon as we’d set a date for the wedding, I wrote to Filomena to ask if she could come. She wrote back that she couldn’t because that was the week she had promised to take her teacher to a powwow in the mountains and she couldn’t go back on her word or that would be the end of their friendship. I had figured it was a long shot and I could tell how bad she felt because it was the longest letter I ever got from her. Betty was there when I got her wedding present, which came with the note saying not to open it until the wedding day.
They were all in on it: my friends, my sister, even my new in-laws. It might have been the only secret Betty ever kept. She’d rummaged around in my room for Filomena’s address, Gussie sent a telegram, and everyone chipped in for the train tickets.
It had been more than ten years since I’d seen my best friend. Filomena still wore a long braid. Her hair wasn’t pure black anymore, but the streak of white next to her cheek made her look glamorous—not old. It was the same face, though, darker and a little weathered by the sun, but just as beautiful.
She was dressed in a long skirt and a striped shawl, like the Indian girls in her picture postcards. There were stacks of turquoise and silver bracelets on both wrists and she smelled like something fresh and woody. She told me that it was sage, something the Indians used for health and good fortune. I’m making her sound like a cartoon hippie from the 1960s, but she didn’t look messy. No matter what she was wearing, Filomena carried herself like a queen.
When she saw Miss Green, Filomena took both of her teacher’s hands in hers and said, “Thank you for giving me my life.”
It was such a sweet moment. Katherine said it reminded her of how students in India honored their teachers by touching the ground at their feet. I didn’t feel quite up to that, but before the afternoon was over I thanked Miss Chevalier for everything she had done for me since I was a girl.
I wish I’d had a camera. Not that I need pictures to remember that day.