Chapter 9 The Rehearsal
The Rehearsal
Max
If a wedding is a sacred union, the rehearsal is a hostile military tribunal conducted in a room full of unlit candles and ancient, judgmental stone.
The Cathedral is magnificent. It is a cavern of Gothic revival architecture, stained glass that judges your sins, and a centre aisle that is approximately three miles long. The air smells of frankincense and expensive anxiety.
"Stop!"
The command cracks through the hollow silence like a whip.
Mother stands at the altar rail. She is wearing a charcoal power suit that costs more than the average sedan. She holds a clipboard in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. She looks less like the Mother of the Groom and more like a High Inquisitor.
"Cut! Reset!" She waves her pen at the nave. "Jackson, you are walking like a duck. A terrified, constipated duck. We discussed the glide, Jackson. Why are you not gliding?"
Jax freezes in the middle of the massive centre aisle.
He is a tiny, terrified figure against the backdrop of the high altar.
He is wearing his new Italian leather dress shoes—specifically, the ones Enzo bullied him into buying.
They are sleek, black, and have the structural flexibility of a cinder block.
"I can't glide, Catherine!" Jax protests, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "These shoes are made of wood! I have zero dorsiflexion! My ankles are currently fused!"
"Then lubricate your joints!" Mother snaps, checking the stopwatch. "You are three seconds behind the organ. If you are late to the altar, the organist will loop, and if he loops, he charges overtime. Do you want to pay union rates for overtime because you cannot bend your ankles?"
"I want to take them off," Jax whimpers, looking at me with wide, pleading eyes. "Max. Please. My feet are bleeding. I can feel the blisters forming. It’s a dermatological crisis."
"Statistically," I say, stepping out from the groomsmen’s line near the pulpit to assess his gait, "the leather will yield after approximately four miles of usage. Currently, you have walked forty feet."
"Thank you, Dr. Data," Jax growls. "That is incredibly unhelpful."
"Go back to the vestibule!" Mother commands. "Do it again. And smile! You look like you are walking to a sentencing hearing. Radiate joy, Jackson! Radiate Catholic joy!"
"I am radiating pain," Jax mutters, turning around and stiff-legging his way back down the endless aisle. He looks like a robot with a rusted hip servo.
I watch him go. Beside me, Preston checks his manicure.
"He walks like he’s holding a coin between his buttocks," Preston observes dryly. "It is very... taut. Is that the vibe we are going for? 'Constricted Holiness'?"
"It is the shoes," I defend him. "Enzo designed them for aesthetics, not locomotion."
"Enzo designed them to punish the unworthy," Preston corrects. "And apparently, it’s working."
"Quiet on the set!" Mother roars. "Cue the music! Take fifteen!"
The organist—a man who looks like he has been dead since 1950—presses a key. The pipes groan.
Jax emerges from the vestibule. He tries to smile. It looks like a rictus of terror. He takes a step. He winces. He takes another step. He wobbles.
"Glide!" Mother screams over the Bach. "GLIDE!"
Jax tries to glide. He ends up doing a strange, sliding shuffle that resembles a man on a sheet of ice.
"Catherine, stop breaking the asset."
The voice comes from the front pew. It is calm, authoritative, and carries the weight of someone who runs a Level 1 Trauma Centre.
Rosa Ortiz is sitting there. She is wearing a tracksuit and eating a bag of trail mix she smuggled in. She crunches a cashew loudly.
"He’s not a ballerina," Rosa announces, wiping salt off her fingers onto a hymn book. "He’s a surgeon. Let him walk like a human being. If he glides any harder, he’s going to dislocate a hip, and then I have to do the paperwork."
"We do not bounce in the House of God!" Mother spins on her heel. "And stop eating nuts in the sanctuary! The oil will stain the mahogany!"
"It’s protein," Rosa argues, throwing a peanut into her mouth. "I need strength to watch you micromanage my asset. Keep moving, Jax. Ignore the crazy lady. Eyes on the cross."
"Focus!" Mother yells. "We are losing light! Where is the Archbishop? Why is the altar empty?"
She points her pen at the empty space where the officiant should be.
"Father O’Malley!" she shouts. "You are on!"
There is a shuffling sound from the sacristy. A thud. A muffled curse.
Then, Archbishop Patrick O’Malley emerges.
He is eighty-nine years old. He baptized me. He baptized Preston. He is a York family institution. He is wearing full vestments, despite this being a rehearsal, and he is listing heavily to the left.
"I am here!" O’Malley announces, his voice slurred and booming. He grips the altar rail for support, swaying like a ship in a gale. "The Lord is... present! And so am I!"
"He’s drunk," Preston whispers to me. "He is absolutely toasted."
"I smell ethanol," I confirm, sniffing the air. "Approximately eighty proof. Likely communion wine fortified with brandy."
"Father," Mother says, marching up to the altar steps. "You are late. And you are... wavering."
"I am moved by the Spirit, Catherine!" O’Malley declares, blinking at her with watery, unfocused eyes. "The Spirit is heavy today. Very heavy."
"That spirit is 12-year-old Scotch," Rosa heckles from the pew. "Don't light the incense, Father. You’ll blow the roof off."
"Silence, heathen!" O’Malley points a shaking finger at a statue of St. Jude, mistaking it for Rosa. "We are in the Presence!"
"Please. Focus. The vows," Mother hisses. "We need to run the vows."
O’Malley squints at the vast cathedral. He adjusts his spectacles, which are currently resting on the tip of his nose. He looks at me. Then he looks at Jax, who has finally shuffled to the altar and is leaning against a marble pillar for support.
"Right," O’Malley says, opening his leather-bound liturgy book. He flips a few pages. A bookmark falls out. He ignores it.
"Dearly beloved," O’Malley begins, swaying. "We are gathered here today... to join this man... and this... person... in holy matrimony."
"Person?" Jax whispers to me. "Did he just call me a 'person'?"
"He is legally blind," I remind him. "You are a blur."
"And a handsome blur you are," O’Malley adds, winking at a candelabra. "Now. Who is the groom? Raise your hand."
I raise my hand. "I am Maxwell, Father."
"Maxwell," O’Malley nods sagely. "Good lad. Always quiet. And you..."
He turns to Jax. He squints. He leans in so close that Jax has to recoil from the fumes.
"You must be... Jennifer."
The silence that follows is thicker than the incense smoke.
"Jennifer?" Jax squeaks.
"Jennifer," O’Malley repeats confidently. "Lovely name. Sturdy. Biblical... ish. But wait..."
He pauses, frowning at the book. Then he frowns at Jax. Then he looks at Mother.
"Catherine," O’Malley whispers loudly. "This is... a man. Jennifer is a man."
"It is Jackson," Mother corrects him, her voice trembling. "Father. His name is Jackson. There is no Jennifer. This is a same-sex union."
"Same-sex?" O’Malley recoils slightly, clutching his rosary. "But Catherine... the rules. Leviticus. The old memos. I can't marry two chaps in the big room. The Bishop will have a fit."
"The Bishop is dead, Patrick," Mother snaps. "And have you not checked your email in the last year?"
"I don't have email," O’Malley says proudly. "I have a pigeon."
"The Pope!" Mother shouts, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "The new Pope! From the Conclave! The one from the Sacred Hearts edict!"
"Oh!" O’Malley’s face lights up with sudden recognition. "You mean the new young fella? The Italian? Pope... what’s-his-face? The handsome one who likes the gays so much he shacked up with one?"
"Yes!" Mother says. "He sanctified it! It is allowed! It is encouraged! We are progressive now, Father! Get with the program!"
"Ah, yes," O’Malley chuckles, leaning back against the altar.
"I remember now. Radical fellow. Said love is love. Got caught in a sex scandal with the Italian Prime Minister. I like him, though I thought I was just watching a daytime television drama. He has excellent taste in shoes. Very well! Jackson! Maxwell! The Pope says it’s a go, so who am I to argue? "
"He forgot the Pope changed the rules," Preston murmurs. "The man is operating on Windows 95."
"Just read the vows!" Mother shrieks. "Page forty-two!"
O’Malley finds page forty-two.
"Do you, Maxwell," O’Malley reads, "take this man, Jackson... to have and to hold... in sickness and in... squints... wealth. Massive wealth."
"HEALTH!" Mother screams. "In sickness and in HEALTH!"
"It says wealth," O’Malley argues. "Or maybe that’s a stain. Looks like gravy. But wealth is better, Catherine. Have you seen the heating bill for this place? We need the wealth."
"This is a disaster," Mother says, throwing her hands up. "The groom is waddling. The priest thinks we are still in the Dark Ages. And where is the Best Man? Where is Luke?"
We all look around. The spot next to Preston is empty.
"He was here a minute ago," Preston says. "He said something about his blood sugar crashing."
The heavy oak doors at the back of the cathedral burst open with a bang that sounds like a cannon shot.
"I’M HERE!"
Luke runs down the three-mile aisle. He is wearing his scrubs, having come straight from a shift at the ER, and he is holding a soft pretzel the size of a steering wheel.
"Sorry!" Luke yells, his voice booming in the sacred space. "I found a cart on 5th! I haven't eaten since 4 AM! I was going hypoglycemic!"
He runs past the stations of the cross, spraying crumbs. He skids to a halt next to Preston, breathing hard. He is clutching the pretzel like a holy relic. There is a smear of bright yellow mustard on his chin.
"You are eating... a pretzel," Mother says. Her voice has gone dangerously quiet. "In St. Patrick’s Cathedral."