At The Breakers: A Novel

Part Seven: January 28

January 28 part seven 313 ONE And now the bride: flowing down the third-floor hall in an under-the-sea silvery-green garment, yards of silky material, the most bundled-up Jo had seen Wendy since she was in a snowsuit. It draped over one shoulder, fell in pleats to her feet, which were clad in silver sandals. Jo waited for her daughter at the head of the stairs, in her long midnight-blue dress (fifteen years old, worn just once, for her own last wedding) and her pearls, with a red rose pinned to her shoulder. A replica of Miss Liberty’s dangerous and, to Jo’s mind, singularly inhospitable-looking crown of spokes or spikes or rays or whatever they were supposed to be was fixed to the back of Wendy’s head, fashioned cunningly out of Styrofoam, painted with sparkly silver. Instead of a wedding bouquet, she carried a torch, its trelliswork laced with roses. Jo hoped to God the INS didn’t get wind of this joke. But then she saw that it wasn’t a joke. Wendy stopped at Jo’s side, slid her eyes to look at her mother. She smiled from within her costume like a young girl playing dress-up, nothing there but thrilled happiness, a smile expectant of Jo’s smile back. Her body within the folds of its garment was erect and precise. Jo reached across with her free hand to cover Wendy’s small hand, which held to her mother’s arm. “Can you light this thing, Mom?” Wendy whispered, handing her a matchbook. Jo lit the torch, leaning her head to the side to avoid the points of Wendy’s headpiece. There’d be hell to pay when Jo’s parents found out about this ceremony, but there was always hell to pay with them. And Lottie 314 was boycotting the exercise, after spending an hour on the phone with Wendy, trying to talk her out of it. “Jeez, Lottie, I’m doing something sensible for once. Just like you.” Now they descended carefully to the landing, under the stainedglass window. Erica was waiting for them, along with Wendy’s friend Madge, both of them in slinky cut-on-the-bias 1930s-looking white floor-length shifts, with lengths of red silk draped diagonally over one shoulder, beauty-queen style, caught at the opposite hip with white carnations, then falling to the floor. They each carried a white candle, set into a holder from which red and white satin ribbons and ivy trailed down. Nick was there, too, handsome and giddy in his new blue suit, his dark hair spiked with Wendy’s mousse, a gold stud stuck to his ear with glue. Jean-Luc—who had spent the intervening days moving furniture around for them with a winning display of strength and amiability —now took up his position at the back of the back lobby, with the justice of the peace (Herb Damrosch, who ran the TCBY place out on the highway) and Monsieur Fabian, a Haitian social worker, in his long blue tunic and loose trousers. Jean-Luc’s uncle Claude from Brooklyn stood beside him, as best man. Jean-Luc wore a white embroidered Haitian shirt and belled jeans. He looked tall and princely, with his dreadlocks, his thin, expressive face and luminous eyes. The congregation consisted of Victor (who had hustled in only a few minutes earlier), sitting in the front row, a few of Wendy’s New York friends, her under-the-streetlight Sea Cove buddies, Jean-Luc’s relatives from East Flatbush—Uncle Claude, Aunt Yolande and a minivan-load of cousins had arrived early in the afternoon. JeanLuc ’s band had come, too. They wore matching red dashikis, and had brought along some tapes to play at the reception—Irv wouldn’t let them bring their instruments, though Jo saw a serious little bespectacled boy in the crowd holding a medium-sized drum in his lap. Mrs. Caspari sat near the back between Iris, who was flamboyant in her red chiffon Christmas dress, and Al Jacik. But now he rose and took his place at the piano against the wall, so amused by what had 315 been asked of him that he seemed to be working hard not to burst into helpless laughter. Irv was there, too, direct from his office, holding Charlie (with a red, white and...