The Wedding Machine (2 page)

“Who is allergic to my baby!” Kitty B. said, snorting into the sheets before wailing again.

“I know,” Ray said, as she rubbed Kitty B.'s back.

When Kitty B. finally lifted her head, her chubby cheeks were red and her lips were contorted, and there was a spot on her pillow that was a mixture of tears and drool.

“You know I always thought I might end up as a dog trainer, Ray. And now I'm marrying a man who breaks out at the sight of one,” she said.

“Isn't that what Old Stained Glass keeps telling us about marriage?” Ray said, looking to Sis and Hilda to give her a little support. They were all in premarital counseling with the local priest. “Compromise, remember?”

“LeMar can't help his allergies,” Hilda said, pressing down a loose seam of the floral wallpaper by the window before reaching for another cigarette. “You shouldn't fault him for it.”

“Hilda's right,” Ray said. “You don't want to make LeMar miserable and uncomfortable with a pet, but there are other ways that he can make
you
happy.” Kitty B. looked up at Ray, her plump cheeks shining in the thick air. She put her head on Ray's shoulder, and Ray stroked the clumps of curls that had come unraveled.

“You mean sex?” Sis whispered.

“Well, that's part of it, but I mean, he's going to vow to
love
her. And that means cherishing her and taking care of her always,” Ray said. “Oh, I can't wait!” Sis stood up and bobbed on the balls of her little feet, her petite frame casting a thin shadow on the wall beside the bed. “Let's give her the present.”

Hilda set her cigarette in a porcelain bowl on the vanity and pulled a gift box out of her overnight bag. Kitty B. sat up straight and opened the box. It was a pale green silk negligee from Lots of Lace, a fancy boutique on Broad Street in Charleston.

Kitty B. grinned sheepishly, and they all started to laugh, and Sis pulled out a tube of K-Y Jelly that was hidden in the tissue paper behind the negligee. She handed it to Kitty B., who turned it round and round in her chubby hands as her cheeks began to redden. She looked up at Ray, her eyes glistening in the soft light of the bedside lamp.

Hilda took another drag and exhaled the smoke, which hovered around Sis's nodding head, and Peaches barked around the bed before nosing his way over to the window, where they spotted Fitz on all fours in his tan suit and penny loafers, shimmying across the roof toward them.

“Speaking of frisky,” Hilda said. “Soldier boy's here.”

They all turned to look at Fitz, who stood up at the window, loosened his tie, and licked his lips so that they caught the light from the upstairs piazza. He straightened out his slick gold hair for one of the last times before the army would shave it and ship him off to Vietnam. He winked at the pack of gals in their nightgowns. “Go on,” Kitty B. said, squeezing Sis's hand.

“Okay.” Sis kissed Kitty B.'s forehead before climbing out of the window onto the roof.

“Get to bed, girls,” Roberta called up the laundry chute.

“Yes, ma'am,” Hilda said before turning back to Kitty B. The orange tip of her cigarette flared as she inhaled. Then her eyebrows rose as she exhaled deeply before adding, “Now tomorrow we'll just have to use the hot curlers. And we'll fix your face and let you soak in a warm bath for a half hour so the makeup will set deep down in your pores.”

“All right,” Kitty B. said, stroking the lace trim of her new nightie. Hilda walked over to the vanity, where she curled her own hair around the pink rollers before wrapping it in another Ace bandage.

Then the three gals piled into Kitty B.'s king-size bed for the last night they'd all be huddled together on the same stepping-stone—young, hopeful virgins promised to their small-town sweethearts.

At four in the morning, Ray awoke fully alert in bed. She lay perfectly still while Kitty B's dog walked across the bodies of her sleeping friends. He made his way from the foot of the bed, sauntering up to the headboard, then lifted his hind leg to pee on Hilda's bandaged curlers. Ray watched, detached, as a drowsy Hilda awakened, felt her wet curlers, put her fingers to her nose and shrieked.

Hilda was gagging when she got to the bathroom, turned on the bright light, and unrolled her curlers over the trash can. Kitty B. rubbed her eyes before propping herself up on her elbow. “What happened?”

“Peaches,” Ray said with a quiet grin before calling, “Are you okay, Hilda?”

“No, Ray! No, I'm not
okay
! That filthy rodent
peed
on my
head!
”

Kitty B. giggled and scratched Peaches' scruff. Ray threw off the covers and walked into the bathroom and started hot water running in the pink tiled tub. “Come on, Hilda. Just wash it out.”

Fitz and Sis peered through the open window.

“What's going on?” Sis asked.

“Peaches peed on Hilda's head,” Kitty B. said.

Sis and Fitz chuckled, and Ray couldn't stop herself from chuckling, too, though she covered her lips with her hand. “Thanks a lot, y'all!” Hilda screamed. Then she pushed Ray out of the bathroom and slammed the door.

“Listen, Kitty B.,” Fitz said through the window. “I'm real sorry I can't be there tomorrow.”

“Don't worry,” she said, swatting in his direction. “Just bring yourself back in one piece for me, okay?”

“He will.” Sis pulled him next to her. Then Mayor Hathaway tapped at the closed bedroom door. “Get back to sleep, girls,” he said.

“Yes, Daddy,” Kitty B. said. “Now scoot,” she whispered to Sis and Fitz. “I'll be back in a bit,” Sis whispered into the window and let Fitz lead her onto the far edge of the roof.

By the time Hilda settled back in bed, Kitty B. was snoring lightly with Peaches beneath her forearm. From across the hall Mayor Hathaway blew a low and guttural sound through his nose that sounded like a cow's moo. Ray was wide-eyed beneath the covers as a light breeze rustled the trees. She could hear the scrape of one of the great live oak limbs as it brushed against the white reception tent behind the house. Peaches stirred for a moment before repositioning himself with his head in the nook of Kitty B.'s neck. Fitz and Sis's hushed whispers outside mixed with the soft snores and the crickets and the rustling of a raccoon or a water rat at the edge of Round-O Creek.

Ray had a secret. She kneaded her engagement ring—a tasteful solitaire set in platinum that Willy's mama had picked out from a fine jeweler in Savannah—around her finger with her thumb. This was her silent prayer: that who she was would stay tucked between her and the thick summer night.

Then Ray closed her eyes and fell, finally, into sleep as the pale gray of daybreak crept like a steadily rising tide into the Hathaway home on the Third Avenue of Jasper.

Mrs. Hilda Savage Prescott
and Doctor Angus Addison Prescott IV
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter

Hilda Foster
to
Giuseppe Ricci Giornelli

On Saturday, the thirteenth of August
Two thousand and five
at twelve o'clock
All Saints Episcopal Church
Jasper, South Carolina
and afterwards at the reception
at Pink Point Gardens

ONE

Ray

~ 2005 ~

Ray sits in a hospital robe in the examination room of the Medical University of South Carolina's Women's Health Office thumbing through her wedding notes.
Durn Hilda
, she thinks.
I ought to be
home right now getting ready for her daughter's Tea and See.

It took three months for her to get an appointment with a gynecologist in Charleston, and the timing couldn't be worse. It's just days before Little Hilda's wedding, and Ray has one million things to attend to. Tonight she's meeting the gals to go over the final details, and tomorrow afternoon she will host the bridal tea and gift display at her home.

A nurse pops her head in and says, “Dr. Arhundati will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you,” Ray says as she wonders about the name Arhundati.

As someone taps sharply on the door, Ray braces herself.

A tall, young blonde enters the room, thrusts out her thin hand, and says, “I'm Melissa Arhundati.”

“You look like you're my daughter's age,” Ray says as she puts down her latest
Southern Living
issue. “In fact, you look like a girl from Priscilla's sorority. You didn't happen to go to UVA, did you?” “No,” the doctor says. “I went to the University of Chicago, and I was
not
in a sorority.”

“Oh,” Ray says. “It's just—I was expecting a man.”

“Well,” Dr. Arhundati says with a tight smile. “My husband is a physician, too, but I'm the only gynecologist in the family.” The doctor examines the paperwork Ray filled out in the waiting room. “Mrs. Montgomery, correct?”

“Oh yes.” Ray blushes and fans herself with her wedding notes. “I'm Ray. I apologize for not introducing myself.”

The doctor claps her hands together and turns toward a chart on the wall. “Let's talk about the cessation of menses.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Menopause, Mrs. Montgomery,” Dr. Arhundati says. “From the date of your last period and the symptoms you've checked off here, I think it's safe to assume you're experiencing the cessation of menses.”

She points to a chart on the beige wall that lists the signs of menopause and reads them aloud. “Insomnia, osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, depression, mood swings, urinary incontinence, and vaginal atrophy.”

“That can't be right,” Ray murmurs as she straightens her shoulders and crosses her legs on the edge of the vinyl examining table in the flimsy gown with its thin, faded stripes. She feels like a bar code. Or a carton of eggs well beyond their expiration date. Who does this young woman think she is? Pointing to the word
atrophy
so matter-of-factly with her long, thin index finger.

Atrophy? Doesn't that mean wasting away? Shriveling up? Dying?

Dr. Arhundati adjusts the black square rims of her mod glasses as she flips through Ray's file. “Mmm. You left several sections of the medical history form blank, Mrs. Montgomery.”

“Beg your pardon?” Ray says. “Angus Prescott of Jasper, South Carolina, has been my doctor for twenty-five years, and he's never asked me
any
of those questions.”

The doctor furrows her brow and swings her long blond hair back behind her shoulder. She takes a step closer. “Well, it's important for us to know the medical history of your parents and grandparents, especially any illness that applied to them, so that we can be vigilant in preventive treatment.” She snaps the file closed and hands it back to Ray. “Why don't I give you a few minutes.”

As the door clicks behind the doctor, Ray grabs the pen from her wedding notebook and makes up some names and standard illnesses to appease Dr. Arhundati: a little high blood pressure here, a little heart disease there, and even a thyroid disorder on her paternal grandmother's side so as not to appear too cliché.