Tell Me Something New

Their oldest daughter, Annie, had picked up the white chairs from the church and she was arranging them now in angled rows facing the trellis. She was careful, going back and fixing them twice, to make sure the lines were straight. She sprinkled pink rose petals in the aisle for a carpet. On the other side of the lawn, her sister Jane was under the tarp dressing a long table in linen and silver and china. She set a place card at each seat. It was their brother Bobby’s wedding. An intimate gathering. Not more than twenty-five people or so to attend. Immediate family, and a few close friends.

Later, there would be music from a local jazz band. The deck would do as a stage. Tiny white lights were wound around the banisters, and up around the trees, too. If someone wanted to dance, there’d be room enough in the yard.

Annie and Jane had been waiting for their father, Richard, to come back with the flowers. They wondered what was keeping him. The sisters looked alike, with longish pale faces and dark, deep-set eyes. Every few minutes Jane, whose hair was a shade lighter, left what she was doing to see if it was her father’s car making its way down the road. “Oh, Daddy,” she said when Richard finally pulled into the driveway. “We thought you’d never get back.”

“I’ll bet,” he said, stepping from the car. “Placed the goddamn order over two months ago and do you know they didn’t have a single gardenia when I got there?”

Annie had come around to meet him in the driveway, too. The flowers were arranged in neat baskets in the backseat and she began filling her arms. She glared over her shoulder at her father. “You did call to confirm?” she said.

Richard’s face warmed as if he felt he were to blame. “Well, no,” he said. He wiped his hands on his pants as Annie passed them, then reached in the car and took a few baskets for Jane to carry.

“Mmmm,” Jane said inhaling the flowers. “Wonderful. Mom’s favorite.” And then, “So how did you get these, anyway, if they were all out?”

“Went to four different stores,” Richard said. “That’s how.”

He filled his arms, and they made their way to the backyard. Missy Ventura, a thin young woman wearing a white shirt with a black bowtie, passed them. She was carrying a tray of sliced fruit. “Lovely day for a wedding, Mr. Cardinal,” she called out with a bright smile.

“Yes,” Richard called back. “Thank heavens for that.” They had been going to the Ventura restaurant from before Missy was born; he was surprised to see her today, and not her mother.

“Mrs. Cardinal doing okay then?”

“As well as can be expected,” he said. Then in a friendlier tone he added, “Mother of the groom.”

The backyard looked just as he hoped it would, but he was still troubled by Annie’s sudden criticism. It had cast a shadow over him which he had tried, unsuccessfully, to shake off. This way she had of talking to him, questioning him. If a person ordered something, where was it written that they had to call and order it all over again? The flowers should have been there.

He heard a sound coming from under the weeping willow tree. The young man was practicing his violin. Oh, but Jane was right. The gardenias were wonderful. Their light tropical scent seemed to lift the backyard up, carry it far away.

In Richard and Eleanor’s bedroom upstairs, a steady breeze from outside made the old lace curtains move like ghosts. Richard was relieved about the weather. May in Whitesboro, New York could have meant anything, he knew. One time, he recalled, it even snowed in May. That was the year of his graduation from Hamilton College, nearly thirty years back. Eleanor would have never forgiven herself, if the kids had done this—had their special day here, for her—only to have it...