About eleven-thirty, I noticed that Nigel had disappeared; the Scourge was propped neatly against the back porch, and his car was gone. By the time the wedding guests--about 30 family members and friends--began to arrive, he was still missing, but by then we were so busy greeting people and moving chairs out to the yard that neither Kevin nor I had a thought to spare him. The sky was alternately greying then clearing; the sun retreated, then burst back warmly from behind skittering clouds. Elderly guests whined their preference for an indoor ceremony; children raced in and out of perpetually-flapping doors. At one-fifteen, the mayor arrived and, checking his Daily Planner, bounced impatiently from one foot to the other, asking, “Where’s the bride? Who’s the groom?”
By one-thirty, rain was dotting the sidewalk, and we yanked chairs back into the house, instinctively arranging them in concentric half-circles facing the wide, black, wood-burning stove that crouched like an iron altar on a raised tile dais on the far side of the front room. Nigel had created a particularly riotous arrangement of gladiolus, sunflowers, and huge stalks of pig weed which sat on the cold stovetop, and the mayor took his place before the stove-altar, turning solemnly to face the guests, his hands folded prayerfully around his Daily Planner. I noticed that the deep purple, fuzzy tops of the pig weed jutted wildly from behind him, and that by closing my left eye, I could make the pig weed appear to protrude directly from the mayor’s ear. I called Kevin’s attention to this, and, as the bride’s sister took her place as Matron of Honor and the groom took up his position, we amused ourselves by opening and closing first one eye and then the other, making the pig weed emerge first from the mayor’s left ear, then from his right.
The ritual was soon over, the mayor dispatched to his next appointment, and the elderly relatives escorted back inside for refreshments. The bride and groom moved around the room, receiving congratulations and advice, and Kevin and I poured champagne and juggled napkins and forks and tiny plates of pink-frosted wedding cake. I could hear my father’s comradely “Ha, ha, ha!” boom from the kitchen. He and the bride’s sociology professor hovered around the beer keg, refilling their glasses and squeezing thin slices of turkey and prosciutto together with their fingers before stuffing them in their mouths. The groom’s parents sat on the stairs, plates balanced on knees, while my aunt Margaret quizzed them on the details of their son’s up-bringing. “So, you said he played football in high school,” I heard her recapping. “Didn’t he wrestle, too?”
Everyone raved about the flowers.
I was shouting an offer of more cake to the groom’s hard-of-hearing grandmother when Nigel appeared at my elbow. “Oh, there you are, Nige. I wondered what happened to you. Everyone’s talking about your handiwork.”
“D’they like it?” He exhaled heavily, and I could tell he’d already had several refills of champagne. “I’m ‘shpecially pleased with the pig weed.”
“Yeah. That arrangement’s quite, ah, entertaining.” I looked at Nigel more closely. His costume incorporated elements of his gardener persona with a jaunty interpretation of the joyous wedding guest. The overalls had been replaced by khaki riding jodhpurs and the puttees freshly rewound over his rubber irrigation boots. His shirt was buttoned high, as usual, and a virulent mustard-colored bandana was knotted so tightly around his neck that one end pointed determinedly at the ceiling and the other at the floor. A snug-fitting tan bush jacket constricted his shoulders and torso, shrugging up an inch or so further whenever he lifted his arms. His hat--brown and wide-brimmed, like Smokey the Bear’s--sat far down on his brow, secured by a cracked leather chin strap. The most noticeable detail of Nigel’s costume, however, was his scent: a confusing mixture of Old Spice, paint thinner, and unwashed man. Unvarnished.
“D’you get something to eat? Come on.” We squeezed past two inebriated guests--former boyfriends of the bride--propped one on each side of the kitchen doorway.
Nigel extended a peeling pink hand to my father, who rapidly shifted his glass of beer from right to left. “A pleashure, sir,” rasped Nigel, grasping Dad’s hand and pulling him forward, off balance. Nigel’s rich breath poured into Dad’s face. “A real pleashure.”
Dad reared back, sloshing his beer. Nigel’s scabby pink thumb pressed into the back of my dad’s hand. Dad looked down at their joined hands, then up into Nigel’s flushed face. “Yeah,” he grunted and shook Nigel’s hand away the way I’ve seen him shake blood and feathers off his fingers while cleaning game birds.
I steered Nigel away toward the table. “Uh, how ‘bout some cake? Here, take a plate.” I cut a large chunk of wedding cake and put it on the saucer Nigel held. Behind us, Dad yanked open the door to the pantry, slammed it shut, then opened the door next to it. He stomped into the bathroom, and I heard him snap the lock and clap the toilet seat up. Neither Nigel nor I turned around. “Sorry,” I said. “I think he’s had a lot to drink.”
Nigel shrugged. “Honey, who hasn’t? Le’sh go look at the flowers.”
I could have predicted Dad’s reaction, I guess. About the only thing he’s ever said about my relationship with Kevin is that he’s glad my mother’s not alive to see it. Dad and I have never been close, and it’s not like he had a lot of expectations of me that I disappointed, so I suppose I should be glad that he doesn’t completely boycott every event in my life. Of course, he’d say he was at the wedding because of his granddaughter, but actually, he was never any closer to my two daughters than he was to me.
