Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Jason
My heart pounds and my pulse echoes in my ears as I run away from the photographer and Victor.
Because that’s what I’m doing. Running away. From Victor, from the sight of those intimate photos of us, from my feelings.
I drop down onto a small stone bench surrounded by flowers.
I have no idea what kind of flowers they are, though I recognize them from the little bouquets that sit as centerpieces on the dining tables in the restaurant.
I’m out of sight of the gazebo or the restaurant but I can faintly hear the small live band the girls engaged getting ready in the bar.
There’ll be a dance for me and Kelsey, while Victor dances with Adrienne, and then we’ll swap the brides. I need to get over there.
In a few minutes.
There’ll be more photos of the girls and me, the girls and Victor, and unless I go out of my way to never stand within a camera’s frame of him, probably more photos of me and Victor.
I bend forward and put my head in my hands. Hail Mary, full of grace… I race through the rest of the prayer silently in an effort to center and calm myself.
There’s nothing wrong with those photos. We’re fully clothed, we’re not kissing or doing anything compromising. We’re just two men standing next to each other at our daughter’s wedding.
With our arms around each other.
And holy Mother of God, the way Victor was looking at me…
The way I looked at him…
The only people who will have these photos are me and the photographer.
Kelsey showed me the contract with her. She selects two or three photos from each session to add to the portfolio on her website, but she tells the bride which photos she selects and Kelsey can veto her choices if she wants.
She’ll surely choose photos with Kelsey in them and not any of the photos she took of just me and Victor.
And she agreed to send the last set of photos to just me.
There’s no way those photos should come to the attention of the parish or the bishop. Not if the photographer and I keep them to ourselves and I have no reason to think she would betray a paying client.
I’m on my third or fourth repetition of the prayer in the back of my mind and it’s helping. My heart rate slows and I feel like I can finally breathe normally. Everything will be fine. It is fine.
I’m fine.
And Blessed Virgin and all the saints, Victor is fine. Fine as in so handsome it hurts to look at him. It was my idea to have photos of the two of us taken, so that I can remember what it’s been like to be with him this week.
The photos, when she showed them to me on her camera's display, looked like something out of a wedding magazine. Two men in matching suits, standing close enough that our shoulders touched, looking at each other like—
Like we were in love.
Am I going to just look at those photos when I feel lonely?
When I think about Victor and he’s off on the west coast or some movie location with one of his celebrity clients?
Am I going to go back to torturing myself late at night by watching his yoga videos on YouTube so I can drink my fill of him and hear his voice even if he’s not speaking directly to me?
For the past fifteen years, I’ve castigated myself for wanting Victor. For being too weak to either quit mooning over him and find someone else or be honest about what I feel for him. But being in Victor’s arms just now made me feel something new.
Safe. Like nothing could hurt me with him on my side.
Strong. Like I can handle anything as long as he’s with me.
Safe enough to handle the Church’s rejection?
Strong enough to admit to myself, to Victor, to Kelsey and Adrienne who I love?
I don’t know.
Maybe.
My phone vibrates in my jacket pocket. I pull it out and see a text message from Kelsey.
Where are you, Dad?
On my way, sweetie.
I stuff my phone—and my existential crisis—back into my pocket and head off to the reception.
The reception is fairly low-key and surprisingly fun.
We do the traditional father-daughter dances and there’s a beautiful wedding cake, but Kelsey and Adrienne opted out of what they called the “rest of the heteronormative bullshit.” Kelsey doesn’t throw her bouquet or a garter and they don’t feed each other cake, or smear it all over each other’s faces.
Victor and I both toast the newly-wedded couple, but by mutual, unstated agreement, we keep our speeches short. I catch Victor dabbing at the corner of an eye with his napkin at the end of mine, which I suppose is fair play, since I teared up a little during his wedding sermon.
The band is quite good. They seem to have a broad range and play a nice selection of love song standards and current hits. Victor, the girls, and the rest of the wedding guests dance and sing along with the band until the sun sets. Kelsey even manages to get me on the dance floor a few times.
I’m fetching myself another drink from the bar when the keyboardist starts playing a familiar tune and I hear my name called.
“Senor Perez, your daughter says you will sing for us, yes?” The vocalist holds her microphone out and I catch sight of Kelsey standing near the band, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with the kind of mischief I haven’t seen since she was in her tweens.
“Oh, no,” I call back. I shake my head with a smile. It’s not that I get stage fright—well okay, I still do, every time I sing in public, which is ridiculous, considering that I sing in public every Sunday during Mass, not to mention at multiple concerts a year.
But this isn’t Saint Sebastian’s or any of the other concert venues I perform at. It’s Kelsey and Adrienne’s wedding reception and she hired this band that’s doing a great job. There’s no reason I should put myself in the spotlight here.
“Come on, Dad,” Kelsey says. She crosses the room and grabs my other hand just as I pick up the whiskey the bartender’s set on the bar for me. Kelsey tugs at my hand. “Please,” she wheedles.
The keyboardist vamps the opening bars of the song while Kelsey drags me toward the band. Victor appears at my side and takes my glass from me, after I take a large swallow. I’m not a hundred percent sober, but what the hell, it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with this song.
I take the microphone from the vocalist and she steps back in between the keyboardist and the drummer.
She plugs a second microphone into the amplifying rig and gives me an encouraging smile.
I clear my throat and raise the microphone to my mouth.
“I started singing this song to Kelsey after her mom died,” I tell the small audience gathered in front of the band.
“It was one of her mom’s favorites and, well, it made both of us feel like she was still with us. ”
The keyboardist restarts at the top and I launch into Always Something There to Remind Me. Never mind that in the Naked Eyes music video, the singer is either watching his love marry someone else or he’s fantasizing about a wedding that never takes place.
The band’s vocalist backs me up and everyone in the bar sings along. It’s gratifying to see not just Kelsey and Victor, but Adrienne and all their friends, honoring the memory of a woman most of them have never met, especially at what’s supposed to be a party.
We finish the song and I take a moment to thank and chat with the band members, who then take a short break. Kelsey finds me first and hugs me. I wrap my arms around my daughter and rest my chin on the top of her head, careful not to mess up her coiffure.
When I hear a quiet sniffle, I whisper to her, “Your mom’s always with you, sweetie, you know that.”
She nods. “I know,” she says, her voice muffled in my shirtfront. When she lifts her head, her eyes are glistening but she’s smiling.
Then her expression changes and she grabs my hand and tows me along the bar to the far end. Victor stands with his back to the room, one hand squeezing the high back of a bar chair.
Kelsey puts a hand on his back, and when he turns around, she drags us into a three-way hug, with her squashed in between us. We stand like that for a few minutes, then Kelsey extricates herself and steers Victor and me toward each other, closing the gap between us.
The noise around us disappears, conversation fading into low murmurs, and all I can hear is Victor breathing next to my ear.
All I can feel is his heart beating against mine.