7. Paul and Trish’s Wedding, October 2016 #3
“My Vegas buffets usually involve Jandro’s leftover bags of Cheerios in my car.”
“Thai food!” Trish said to everyone, waving at the trays. “It’s amazing. Trust me.”
Trish seemed unexpectedly calm for someone who had seemed poised to be a full Bridezilla in her mid-twenties.
That was a healthy sign, Sarah thought. She glanced at Trish’s parents standing nearby in fancy clothes, chatting with Ian, who was serving as best man.
It was good, also, that Paul had told his parents not to come.
The official reason was that he and Trish were returning to Newfoundland to celebrate with Paul’s parents, but Sarah suspected that he also didn’t want his mother to create any drama.
It was going to be a good night, Sarah decided.
In all sorts of unexpected ways. She and Ren sat next to each other at the table and slowly filled in the details of the last few years.
Ren had never gotten a solid journalism job in the States, but instead had been going out to shoot photos in the desert and had a couple of his photos in galleries.
She told him that her Existential Innocence series was still going strong and showed him some of her favorite commissions.
As the meal wrapped up, she covered a yawn, tired from her long travel day.
“You’re tired,” he said gently.
“I should probably turn in before I nod off into my Tom Kha Gai.”
“I wish I could head to bed myself, but I need to go see what errands Paul wants me to run in the morning.” It was like Ren to be kind and helpful. She always forgot that about him.
“Are you staying at the hotel? I guess not.”
He shook his head. “No, but Jandro is at Paola’s for the whole weekend.”
“Sure,” she said. “Hey, I have tickets tomorrow to that James Turrell art installation called Akhob. Want to come? I reserved them weeks ago on Kristie’s recommendation.
She was on a film shoot here and told me it was the thing to do.
I got two tickets in case I could drag Paul, but it sounds like he’ll be busy, so you could come instead. If you haven’t been.”
“That sounds amazing,” Ren said. “I’ve heard about it and wanted to see it.”
“Then it’s a plan. We’ll go be art snobs together.”
“I thought I was the art snob and you were the voice of pop culture.”
“Either or. I could switch roles for a day.”
He gave her a warm look. “Text me the details.”
As Sarah took a taxi back to the hotel, she wondered whether Ren was going to call the redhead from that morning and meet up again. But she wouldn’t let it worry her.
Sarah and Ren were having a moment, weren’t they? Just maybe not the kind that sent you to bed with someone.
The art installation by the renowned visual artist James Turrell required ticket reservations weeks in advance, and was improbably hidden within a Louis Vuitton store in the mall.
Ren was waiting for her outside at the pre-arranged time, looking much more put-together than the previous morning in jeans and a black button-down shirt.
He gave her a hug when he saw her, and she let herself smell him: the same nice smell of spice and coffee, with a lot less weed.
They were part of a group of only four people allowed to visit the space for the next half hour.
They got a brief introduction to the installation, put on cloth booties over their shoes to keep from tracking in dirt, and then entered the installation via a row of black stairs, stepping inside a round portal.
The space itself was a large hollow room shaped like a giant white egg, perhaps twenty-five feet across, with a distant wall lit up by hidden light sources.
Once they were inside, the whole space began to slowly shift color, the walls slowly gliding into radiant shades of scarlet, then lavender, then blue.
They stood there in silence, watching as everything around them glowed more brightly by the second.
Sarah thought of making a joking remark, but it was too beautiful for her to want to spoil it: the silence, the color, the slow shift of the light.
It began to feel like they were floating in space, with no clear demarcation between the smooth floor and the curved walls.
After a while, Sarah lost track of time entirely.
The other two people were silent as well, staring around them in awe.
She glanced at Ren and saw that he was looking at her intensely. She smiled and he stepped closer, so that he was just beyond her reach, gazing right into her eyes. For a moment, they were the only people in the universe.
She was now even more tempted to make a joke to escape the intimacy of that look, but she stopped herself.
The wall behind him slowly shifted to a cooler blue, endless as the heavens.
The light felt as pure and simple as a prayer.
When it grew to be too much to keep gazing at him, she shifted her eyes back to the walls, and so did he. Everything was a radiant purple, now.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Ren whispered.
She reached over and took one of his hands, and he squeezed her hand and held it for a full minute before he gently let it go.
She felt herself glowing with joy. They were together.
Maybe not forever, but for today. This felt like a date, only better.
It felt like a date where they didn’t have to speak at all.
When they exited back into the upscale mall again, the sense of beauty and quiet lingered in the spaces between their words.
She had taken a taxi to the exhibit while he ran errands for Paul all morning, but now he offered to drive her back to the hotel.
His car was small and practical, a toddler’s car seat locked permanently into place.
She looked out the window, knowing that this time tomorrow she would be on a plane back home.
The music on his car radio was a series of sad, lingering songs by singer-songwriters; it wasn’t at all the kind of music that Ren had listened to in college.
Back then, he had been all about Serge Gainsbourg, Air, and Stereolab: elegant, hip music with a layer of emotional remove.
Now his preference for heartfelt songwriters like Ray LaMontagne and Lord Huron felt startling.
Ren was sitting in his feelings, now. This was new.
An hour later, as she slipped into her wedding-day party dress alone in her hotel room, she took a moment to consider what her sense of connection with Ren really meant.
He lived in Las Vegas and couldn’t move because of his son.
Her work was in Toronto. But at least they were friends again.
At least they could have that. The important thing was that she knew that he cared about her. She mattered to him.
Had he really believed that she would agree with his wife during his divorce? The idea nagged at her. She had always thought he knew her, could guess at her thoughts, but he had gotten that so wrong.
Las Vegas had dozens of wedding chapels, and Trish had selected one with a garden theme, filled with garlands of fake roses and a white arbor decorated with cloth lilies.
Sarah couldn’t fault Trish’s taste; if you had to pick a Vegas chapel, this one was the closest you could get to an elegant countryside wedding with zero Elvis involved.
If Trish was this laid-back, Sarah thought again, if she was relaxed enough to do a Vegas wedding, then maybe Trish and Paul had a chance to work out as a couple.
Maybe Trish could scale her expectations down to what Newfoundland had to offer.
Trish appeared a few minutes later in a lovely white wedding dress that was silky and loose, minimalist to the point of being almost a slip-dress, her blond hair delicately pinned in a low bun.
She looked radiantly gorgeous walking down the aisle, and in spite of herself, Sarah got emotional as she watched Paul’s expression melt at the sight of her.
This was love, Sarah thought. No need for anything fancy. Trish and Paul had learned to bend and adjust for each other. Maybe she could find someone who would do that for her, too.
Sarah tried not to make eye contact with Ren during the ceremony, but she caught him looking at her once, and he smiled before they both looked away.
The event itself was over quickly; the chapel had another ceremony starting in a little over an hour.
They all headed to the rented party room that Trish and Paul had reserved back at their hotel, the same hotel where Sarah was staying.
Ren caught up with her again and offered to drive her to the reception, and again she was happy to accept the ride; she wanted more time listening to sad music with him, regretting what they couldn’t have.
“You look beautiful,” he said quietly when they were alone in his car. “That’s a great dress.”
“Thank you,” she replied, smoothing down the rich green fabric. “It’s a thrift store find. I know those are your favorites.”
“I always liked your clothes,” he said. “I liked that nobody but you would have them.” She looked away, unsure what to do with his compliments.
“Trish looked stunning.”
“She did,” he agreed. She watched his fingers drumming on the steering wheel.
The old, restless energy was still there.
Why was he nervous? It occurred to her that maybe Ren was wondering if they might sleep together tonight.
Or was he worried that was what she wanted and he wasn’t sure how to tell her no?
They couldn’t have a relationship, she thought, but they could have a one-night stand.
One night where they showed that they cared about each other, one night where they could touch each other the way she had wanted to touch him since forever.
She could picture kissing his face, running her hands through his hair, laughing in bed together.
That would still be meaningful even if nothing else followed, wouldn’t it?