Chapter 11
Looking at himself in the mirror, Abel turned his nose up at the suit. He looked down at Charlie, who was sitting on the couch by the mirror, watching him as he put on the jacket and now the tie. The suit was about as nice as one might expect a rental to be. Black jacket, black slacks with pleats ironed in them, neatly pressed white shirt.... The fit was a little tight around his arms, but he was sure he wouldn’t be busting out of the tuxedo like the Hulk.
Still, he looked good. He wished he looked better. He tried to do little things to spruce up his look. His shoes had been polished to a new car-level shine. He even put a carnation on his lapel for an extra touch. “I look okay. Right?”
He turned to Charlie, who was sitting on the corner of the couch, smacking his gum loudly. He just turned eight last week and was already starting to sprout up like a weed. He had been sitting with his long legs tucked underneath him, watching Abel fuss over his tuxedo.
“You look great,” said Charlie between chews of bubble gum.
“Hey, remember to spit that out before we go out there. Your mother will kill me if she sees you chewing gum in that suit.”
“Okay, Abel-y.”
Abel smiled to himself. Camilla didn’t like Charlie to call him that. She preferred he called him Uncle Abel or perhaps Mr. Delgado. Charlie could never get the hang of either, so, Abel-y it was. At least for the next hour or so.
He thought about that for a second. They had never sat down and had the talk about all this with Charlie. They did in a rudimentary sense, of course, but little things like what Abel would be called after it was all said and done kind of flew out of the window.
“Hey, come here a second.”
Charlie got up from his place on the couch and walked over. Abel marveled at how little he had been when they first met. He stood just a few inches shy of his hips then. Now, he was almost as tall as his chest. The boy was going to be taller than his mother before he was ten.
“So,” he said, kneeling down to talk to him on his level. “After today, maybe Able-y isn’t the best thing to call me, you know?”
Charlie frowned a little. “Why not?”
“Well…things are going to be different, right? So, we must do things differently, that’s all.”
Charlie’s face was overcome with sadness suddenly. “But I like calling you Abel-y.”
“I know and you can still call me that, if you want, but…but if you ever feel like maybe you might want to call me Dad…I wouldn’t mind it. You know what I mean?”
The sad look went away in an instant and he nodded brightly. “Okay. Want to hear a secret?”
“Sure, kiddo.”
“I’ve been calling you Dad in my head already for a while now.”
Abel’s heart got warm, and he felt the familiar sting of tears coming to his eyes. “Hey, that’s awesome,” he said. He glanced down at Charlie’s bow tie and noted how crooked it was. “Here, let’s fix this thing.”
He untied it and started retying it back. “You know, one day, I might be doing this again when you’re bigger.”
Charlie looked confused for a moment. “When? When we go to church?”
Abel opened his mouth to say no, but then he remembered there was Christmas and Easter Sunday and that made him chuckle. “Okay, so, yeah, at church, but also maybe if you ever decide to…you know.”
Charlie gave him an odd look. His nose crinkled into a scowl. “Nuh-uh. I am never going to get married.”
Abel chuckled. “Never say never. Girls might look a little different to you in a few years. He got the tie straight and stood up, looking at the two of them in the mirror. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think we look pretty sweet.”
Abel chuckled. “Yeah, me, too. You are a good Best Man. You know that?”
There was a knock at the door and Abel glanced at his watch. It was still a little early, but maybe the priest needed something from him. As he walked to the door, he heard Camilla’s voice on the other side.
“Don’t open the door.”
He frowned. “Camilla? What are you--?”
“I just…I wanted to tell you that I loved you. That is all.”
He smiled and leaned against the door, closing his eyes and hoping to get some feel of her. The way she smelled of lavender, her sparkling eyes… “You know, I don’t believe in that superstitious stuff, right?”
He heard her giggle. “Well, I don’t either, but after the last bunch of years we’ve had, do you really want to take any chances?”
He laughed. “Fair.”
“Is that Mommy?” asked Charlie. He started walking towards him and Abel waved him off.
“Yeah, yeah. Hey, do me a favor and get rid of that gum, okay? And wash your hands.”
Charlie nodded and ran off to the bathroom.
“Gum? Gum??” Camilla sounded shocked…and a little upset. “Please tell me you didn’t let him have gum.”
“I didn’t let him have gum.”
She sighed. “Abel. He is going to get it all over his suit.”
“I have been watching him the whole time. Besides, you didn’t want him to go out there without gum. The kid’s came in here with dragon breath.”
She laughed, then she paused. He pictured her leaning against the door, looking up at the ceiling, smiling…hoping. “Abel? Are we doing the right thing?”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”
“I’m not,” she said. “Really. All I mean is…I guess what I mean is do you really want to marry me?”
Abel smiled and leaned against the door, symbolically touching her through the wood. “I got a whole tuxedo; the church is booked—”
“Yes, but…but have you really thought about it? I mean, I’ve been married before and then there’s Charlie…”
“Camilla, come on. Do you really think I would have gone these three years with you without knowing what I was getting into? I know what I am doing.”
She paused, then said, “What if you get tired of me?”
“I’m not going to get tired of you.”
“What if I get tired of you?”
He sighed, then said, “Then I’ll shave my head and do handstands on the lawn until you’re not tired of me anymore.”
She giggled. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. Listen, whatever we go through, we will have each other. That is all that matters. It’s you, me, and Charlie against the world. Nothing can stop us so long as we remember that.”
She didn’t say anything and for a moment, Abel felt a little bit of panic. Maybe she changed her mind?
She did not, though. After seconds of silence, Camilla replied, “I love you, Abel Delgado.”
“I love you, too, Camilla Nunez. Meet you at the altar.”
She giggled again. “I’ll be the one in white.”
He listened as she walked away and was half tempted to open the door and peek at her dress. She was right, though. They couldn’t afford to taunt the gods on a day like today.
“All set!” Charlie announced as he came out of the bathroom. Abel came out and looked him over carefully. He checked to see if his hands were clean, brushed his thick dark hair out of his face, and straightened his jacket.
“Open your mouth.” Charlie opened his mouth wide, and Abel smiled. “Lift your tongue.” Charlie lifted his tongue. No gum. He pats Charlie on the back.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go get married.”
***
Less than an hour later, he was standing in the chapel at the altar. As the music played, he looked over the guests that were sitting in the pews. Neither of them had much family between them. With Rafael in jail, Abel’s parents and Camilla’s dad long gone, most of the people around the room were friends and employees from the restaurant. The gathering was small, but that was okay with Abel. He never wanted a big wedding anyway.
As he stood there, nervously, Charlie standing by his side, he thought over the last three years. Mostly, he was thinking about how all this started…with the two of them at each other’s throats. Her with her anal-retentive way of doing things and him with his laid-back approach to everything. In the pressure of the moment, he found himself trying to remember the exact moment when he saw past her tough exterior and started to see her. He then started to wonder when the moment was when she started to really see him. He thought about Rafael and how he’d gone to such lengths to keep the two of them apart and how in the end, all his efforts failed him.
At Rafael’s trial, he told the judge he was sorry for what he’d done. He said it so sincerely that Abel might’ve believed him if he hadn’t heard him say it the exact same way so many times before. Abel and Camilla sat in the gallery watching his brother plead to the judge for clemency, wondering if Rafael would ever really learn anything from all this. Abel had been to prison. He knew how hard of a lesson it was to learn for some people.
And in the end, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was what it was to have a soulmate. Despite it all, the two of them were together. And they’d managed to do it against some pretty strange odds. When Rafael was sentenced (to life imprisonment), Abel promised himself that despite it all, he would keep his word and visit him from time to time. Rafael didn’t deserve his brother’s kindness, but he was going to give it anyway.
The organ music started up and suddenly, he felt a rash of sweat break out in his armpits and his stomach started to turn. Here comes the bride. Any second…
He felt Charlie’s hand in his suddenly and a calm came over him. “You got this,” the boy whispered.
He smiled down at Charlie. The kid really was a great best man and a rather good hype man. It was nice to have him on his side. He looked forward to helping Camilla raise him.
He looked up again. Camilla was walking down the aisle towards him. Her wedding dress was a silky, form-fitting dress with a long train behind her. She had a lace covering over her arms and shoulders and rhinestones in the thin veil over her face…and she was smiling at him, her blue eyes shining through the screen of the veil.
This was it. This was what it all led up to. As she reached him and he touched her hands, he smiled down at her. All the nerves were gone. Of course, this was his path. This was where he was supposed to be. It was always going to be the two of them. Camilla and Abel against the world.
The End