The Seventh Weddins #4
“Well, of course it’s the most romance you’ve ever had. You two never had to look at each other. Nothing will kill a romance like seeing what the other person looks like!”
“This is why you don’t have any friends,” Sam says.
“I’m talking about myself as much as I’m talking about you or him! Women look at me, they run. Because, let me tell you, you feminists like to say it’s men who objectify women, but women are just as bad.”
“You know as much about feminism as Bach did,” Sam says. “Probably less.”
Elgar is about to say something else, but he looks over J’s shoulder and stops. A few seconds later, the newly married couple is at the table.
“We’re so glad you’re here!” Imogen says to everyone.
“Even you,” Carl says to Elgar.
Small talk is made. When it’s done, Imogen asks J if she can talk to him for a second.
Once they’re off in a corner, she tells him the few remaining things that will happen before the DJ set begins and confirms the first few songs J will play for the married couple.
Once that’s settled, Imogen says, “I’m so sorry about your table.
You are such a good sport. Carl had to invite them, for professional reasons. We didn’t think they’d actually come.”
“I’m enjoying Pam and Sam’s company,” J says.
“Well, that’s a first. But I’m glad to hear it.”
“Are we really the only single people at this wedding?”
“What a thing to say! I mean, you’re not...if you count the children. Unless I’m forgetting someone. Oh! Carl’s great-aunt! Her husband passed away before I met him. She never remarried.”
Don’t you have any single friends ? J wants to ask. But it’s clear what the answer is. At this point, J doesn’t know if this is odd, or merely to be expected.
If V were here, she’d know.
When the time comes, J excuses himself from the table to DJ.
“Would one of you ladies like to dance?” Elgar asks the sisters.
In response, Sam hails the server for more wine. The old man looks up for the first time in an hour or so, mutters excuses, and steps away.
J loves being a DJ. If performing a wedding song is like midwifery, DJing a reception is like air-traffic control, trying to keep everything in seamless motion and spirits lifted.
He starts with a favorite opening salvo, D Train’s “You’re the One for Me,” which jumps quickly into Diana Ross’s “My Own Piano.” Everything he puts into the air lands beautifully, and the dance floor becomes energetic.
A few people come over and make requests. A teen asks for some Kraftwerk, and J tells him that, lamentably, this doesn’t feel like a Kraftwerk crowd. To his surprise, the next request comes from a noticeably intoxicated Sam, who says she wants him to play “Dancing Queen.”
“Always a hit,” J says, moving it up on his playlist. “Makes people happy.”
“But it’s such a sad song!” Sam protests. “A tragedy!”
“How so?”
“The song isn’t told by the dancing queen.
It’s told by someone standing on the sidelines.
” (Her words make J think of the priest for a second.) “Look, I used to be a dancing queen. When I was younger, you couldn’t keep me off the dance floor.
Those were wild times. But then your friends start to get busy.
Don’t want to stay out as late. And you try to go alone, but it’s like your friends have been replaced by all these strangers.
Younger strangers. First you disappear from the spotlight, then you disappear from the dance floor altogether.
You watch your glory pass to someone else.
And that, my new friend, is what ‘Dancing Queen’ is about.
She’s having the time of her life, sure.
But she has no idea how soon that will end. ”
“And you want me to play it?”
“Maybe I’m no better than Elgar. I like to see young people dance to it. Because they have no idea .”
Sam returns to their table, and when J puts the song on, he looks over to her and she gives him a thumbs up.
As predicted, young people throng to the dance floor—this is the first ABBA song of the night.
More unexpected, Elgar also leaves their table for the first time and steps onto the dance floor.
J wonders at first if he’ll start throwing dinner rolls at the crowd.
But, no—Elgar is plunging in, not quite singing along, but clearly under the sway of the song.
He looks painfully aware of the crowd around him, his expression daring them to say he doesn’t belong here.
But nobody seems to mind his presence. Some look to see who he’s with, and then just shrug when they realize he’s on his own.
Then, unbelievably, he starts to strike that pose where you wrap your arms around yourself so it looks from the back like you’re making out with someone.
From the smoothness with which he does it, J can tell Elgar’s danced this dance before. It could even be his signature move.
J is debating whether he should let the ABBA wave crest now, or whether he should prolong it with “SOS” when suddenly there are screams from the dance floor.
People stop dancing, many turning to look at something happening at the center.
J sees Pam run to this hole that’s forming and realizes that there is a body collapsed at the center of it—the body of the ancient man from his table, who must have attempted a dance.
J does not have a DJ mic, but there is an emcee mic, and Carl is suddenly on it, telling everyone to remain calm.
An ambulance has been called. In the meantime, a doctor is doing what she can. Please give them room.
Now J has a clear sightline to Pam doing heart compressions.
Then she stops, and he can see the old, anonymous man’s hand move.
Guests are murmuring “heart attack” in at least four languages, though nobody knows for sure what’s going on.
J has stopped the music, doesn’t know what to do.
Like everyone else, he waits for the paramedics to arrive, watches as they take the man away.
Nobody else joins him; he is alone on the ambulance journey, in a way that pierces something within J.
Carl gets back on the emcee mic to tell everyone it’s going to be okay.
He says that “the old man”—that’s what he calls him—“overexerted” himself.
Imogen’s mom is now at the DJ station.
“Play something,” she hisses. “We can’t let this ruin their big day. You have to play something good to get the dance floor going again.”
“SOS” is clearly out of the question. J skips to the next song on his playlist—Kylie Minogue’s “Hand on Your Heart.”
Also not a good choice.
Nor the next song, “Heart of Glass.”
Or the next, “I Think I Need a New Heart.”
“Stop playing around!” the bride’s mother chides. J half expects her to grab the laptop. Is it too soon for “Dancing on My Own,” he wonders?
“Just play ‘Celebration’! Everyone loves ‘Celebration’!”
J does not love “Celebration” and doesn’t have it on his laptop. Finally, he lands on Diana Ross’s “Coming Out” and hits play.
Imogen’s mom gives him a strange look. But it gets some people on the dance floor.
J closes his set with Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is”—and almost stops to dedicate it to the old man, who everyone’s been told is recovering well in a nearby hospital.
It’s an odd choice for a last song, but it’s Imogen’s choice, and J respects that.
The wedding party is now intoxicated enough to sing along with near-gospel fervor, and J tries not to listen to the words too closely.
He feels the deep impulse to leave before the song is over, because he can imagine the scene from the service playing out, although in this case instead of filing out pew by pew, the guests will file out two by two, couple after couple after couple, until J is the only one left.
J doesn’t leave first; he can’t abandon his laptop.
Enough couples—and they are all couples—stay until the last dance that J doesn’t feel so alone.
At the end of the song, there’s a half-hearted cheer, and the messy dispersal begins.
Imogen comes over, thanks J for coming all this way, and tells him she hopes he’ll send his song from the ceremony so she and Carl can hear all of it.
J tells her of course, of course, and makes as graceful an exit as he can.
As soon as he’s by himself, he checks his phone. Then he does the math—it is unquestionably a waking hour in New York City.
He texts V.
Why haven’t you responded? Is everything okay ?
To which he gets...no response.
He is angry at her for the silence, and angry at himself for not being able to give her the space she so clearly wants. He feels like he needs to apologize for liking her so much, for how inconvenient that is. Which is ridiculous. And it hurts.
Just after midnight, Leipzig time, Nick Andrews emails, saying he’s so happy to have heard from J, and he will try to pitch the Talk of the Town piece on Monday. This calms J down a little; it’s nice that someone is excited to hear from him.
Plus now he has a reason to go back to New York. Let V wonder if it’s really about her or not.
If she wants there to be games, two can play, he thinks. Then he feels even more depressed, because in his head, that sounds a lot like something Elgar would say. And he doesn’t want to sound like Elgar. Ever.
He knows he has to let go a little in order to ultimately keep hold.
But that’s hard. So hard.
He’s not sure he can pull it off.
That night, he’s awakened by more barking. It’s anyone’s guess whether it’s a real dog outside or just too many thoughts demanding to be heard.