Chapter 35
35
I hate this magenta pantsuit.
The brief introspection triggered by my conversation with Ana has swiftly been replaced by irritation at my assigned attire for the day. Since I didn’t get dressed at home and wasn’t invited to get ready at the hotel in the city with the rest of Rosie’s party, I had to shove myself into my bridal party getup in the bathroom of the camp’s drafty theater building. The pantsuit is unflattering as hell, in spite of the tailoring. The pants flare wildly at my already-wide hips, the blazer smooshes my boobs, and the color converts my olive-toned skin into a pallid shade of sickly winter yellow.
It’s hard not to feel like Rosie chose this just to make me look bad.
Tugging a little at the bosom of the blazer, then sighing because there’s nothing else I can do, I go to find Mom and the golem. Turns out “Big Paul” was swiftly put to work by the facilities team. He earned the affectionate nickname by towering over the rest of the facilities staff and being able to move whole long tables by himself.
When I walk from the theater into the adjacent cafetorium, I’m amazed at the transformation. Lace-covered tables fill the room, each adorned with a beautiful arrangement of white roses and silver-encased tea lights. String lights loop like cursive letters throughout the room, telling a twinkling love story. At the front of the room is the bridal table, with a giant filigree menorah rising from the center, awaiting the lighting ceremony planned for sunset.
“You look...nice,” says my mother, looking up from a centerpiece she’s needlessly rearranging. “Doesn’t she look nice, Paul?”
Across the room, the golem nods.
“Anything I can do to be helpful?” I ask.
Secretly, I know the answer is that I should be writing the toast I’m supposed to give this evening. When composing it in my head proved useless, I’d briefly taken a stab at it on my phone. But I’ve always been an awkward phone typist and quickly gave up. Plus, I had to keep dismissing messages from Sasha. I finally gave up and turned my phone off again.
“Oh, wow,” says a voice behind me, and I turn to see my sister.
Rosie’s hair and makeup are impeccable, but she’s not in her dress yet. Instead, she’s donning a dark purple quilted down coat, open over a pair of painter’s overalls and her big winter boots. Looking around the summer camp cafetorium now converted into a Hanukkah wedding wonderland, she puts a hand to her heart. Beside her, Layla squeezes her other hand.
“It looks beautiful,” Layla says, taking in the scene. She looks surprised when she sees me there. “Did you help with this?”
“I was more like moral support,” I admit, much as I wish I could claim to have done one maid-of-honor thing better than Layla. “Paul and Mom, though—and Ana—they really worked some magic.”
Layla nods approvingly, like I finally got something right. I look away, my gaze landing on the golem. He’s standing on the far side of the room, looking from one corner to the next. Memorizing the exits, I suppose. We should probably be paying him for providing event security.
I walk over and slip my hand into his. It feels cold, much colder than I’ve ever noticed before. He doesn’t look down at me when I clasp his hand, just keeps surveying the scene.
“Thanks for all your help,” I say.
The golem says nothing.
I return my attention to my sister, who is walking around, lightly touching the tables, the centerpieces, marveling at the twinkling string lights above it all. For a moment, my heart softens, seeing how genuinely charmed she is at the carefully assembled ornamentation. Then she pulls out her phone, glittering in its silver case covered in sequined roses. She aims it first at herself, then all around the room, and I realize she’s sharing the whole scene with her TikTok audience.
My heart hardens once again.
Why does Rosie always have to make everything into a show?
I look back up at the golem, whose dark eyes have narrowed. He’s still in his T-shirt and sweatpants, the Cubs cap shoved low over his distinctively lettered brow. He looks like a plainclothes officer, watching Rosie carefully, his fists curling and uncurling. Apparently his protective inclinations extend to her, as well. Or maybe he sees her as a threat, since she so clearly gets under my skin.
I squeeze his cold hand, remembering my conversation with Ana. I don’t want to ruin the wedding, and I don’t want my date to be a distraction. I need to make sure he’s not so on guard. I want him to just be the man I spent the last two days with, drinking coffee and wine, buying clothes, pulling him into my bed. The pleasant memories warm me, reassuring me that everything really will be all right. I need to give the golem that same reassurance.
“Everything’s fine,” I tell him. “Let’s get you into your suit.”
An hour later, the camp has come alive with jubilant wedding guests. The cocktail hour before the wedding is in full swing. Instead of hiring cater-waiters, Rosie and Ana asked camp friends to volunteer for the role. They were really getting into it, wearing tuxes, putting on various accents—God, I forgot how many of their friends were aspiring actors—making everyone laugh as they served up the evening’s signature drinks.
One of their bartender friends had concocted the duo: both had a base of high-end potato vodka. One was blended with apple liquor, the other with cream and bitters. Unlike the Dirty Santas on the cruise ship last night, both of these were surprisingly delicious. I take a sip of each, just to know, then set them at the table where Paul Mudd and I will be seated later. After last night, I’d probably better take it easy on the alcohol tonight. But I do appreciate the thematic humor: the drinks are called Applesauce Vodka Latke versus Sour Cream Vodka Latke.
Their wedding is also a phone-free event. There’s a giant white wicker basket beside the guest book, with a looping-cursive sign tied to its handle:
We request your full presence, to help us celebrate right;
please leave your phone here ’til the end of the night!
It’s totally hokey, not to mention superfluous; people could just keep their phones off, like I do. But apparently folks are charmed by this element of the event, and the lacy basket is full of phones.
I’m clutching the golem’s hand, determined to keep him at my side all evening. After a while, I forget that part of my motivation for doing so is to ensure he doesn’t go into defensive mode—because having him beside me generally makes everything more pleasant. Everyone is just so damn delighted to see him.
Paul Mudd had won everyone over at the rehearsal dinner and was now being greeted like a celebrity. Uncle Ira, who I’d forgotten even existed until the night prior, gives “good ol’ Paul” an enthusiastic handshake; my mother tells everyone how helpful he was with the tables today. He’s the mayor of Wedding Town.
No one is suspicious of the handsome golem. Only one person questions anything about him at all—my aunt Rochelle, who points at his fedora and asks incredibly loudly, “So what’s with the hat? Is he religious?”
When no one answers her question, I guess Aunt Rochelle decides that he must be observant, and she shrugs her approval before taking an applesauce latke cocktail from a nearby pseudo-waiter.
“Here’s your coat.”
I turn and see my mother holding out my winter coat to me.
“What?” I say, confused.
“You left it in your car last night,” she says. “Ana saw it when we were all leaving the rehearsal dinner, I brought it with me this morning when I came to get you. I didn’t want you to get cold. But I guess that cute neighbor was heating things up—”
“Mom,” I hiss, cheeks instantly aflame.
“Anyway, I forgot to give it to you earlier—here, take it before I forget again.”
Just then, there’s a loud clap.
“If you can hear me, clap once!”
Almost everyone in the room immediately claps.
Mom and I look around, startled. Layla is at the front of the room, standing on a chair, resplendent in her magenta pantsuit. Somehow, on her, it looks couture. As it should, given what we paid for them. She yells again.
“If you can hear me, clap twice!”
Everyone laughs, and claps twice. My mother and I hesitantly join in, along with our confused older relatives. It dawns on me that this is a camp thing, a cute way of counselors getting kids’ attention. Rosie told me about it at some point, I think; maybe she was saying she also used it when she was teaching fitness classes or something?
But Layla never went to this camp. How would she know about this schtick?
“Okay!” Layla says, grinning like a Miss Universe contestant. “All you campers, how’d I do?”
All the former campers in the room whoop and cheer, Ana and Rosie loudest of all. That’s when I realize that Layla knows about the trick because Rosie told her about it, too, and Layla is the sort of friend who pays attention.
Of course , I think darkly, it’s easy for her to pay attention to her friend’s random little stories; she’s a pretty fitness instructor who dropped out of grad school when it got too hard. It’s easy to pay attention when your life is stress-free.
“Bridal party, we need you in the tay-a-tron!” Layla says, reading the word from a notecard and absolutely butchering it. Her skewering of the Hebrew makes me feel a little better. At least I could’ve bested her on that front. “Everyone else, enjoy your latke vodkas for another twenty minutes and then we’ll really get this party started. Let’s hear it for Rosie and Ana!”
Everyone claps and cheers.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” I tell my mother, awkwardly clutching the winter coat she shoved into my hands. “I have to go with the bridal party.”
“They made the green room into a coatroom,” she says, nodding toward the theater building. “Drop it off on your way.”
“Fine,” I sigh. I look up at the golem, whose eyes are still roving the room. Pulling him aside, I whisper, “I’ll find you as soon as the ceremony’s over, okay? Everything’s fine, I’m safe, I’ll get you a coffee with dinner.”
“You can sit with me, Paul,” says my mother, sliding her arm around his elbow.
I hurry with my heavy coat toward the tayatron , not wanting the rest of the bridal party to be waiting on me. They’re all still milling around, hugging folks on their way out of the cafetorium, moving slowly. When I open the door to the theater, it, too, is beautifully decorated. Dozens of rows of white folding chairs with aisles between them, all oriented toward the chuppah—the wedding canopy rising majestically on the stage at the front of the room.
The chuppah looks expectant, ready to fill its matrimonial purpose. The canopy is lace, with creamy pale roses adorning each corner—Ana’s choice, I remind myself. Beneath the chuppah is a table with a Havdalah set. The thick blue twisted candle, silver wine goblet, and matching silver spice box are dainty and make me think of my grandmother. I haven’t marked the end of Shabbat with a Havdalah ceremony in years, but I can still hear the crisp kssh! sound of Bubbe extinguishing the braided candle into the wine glass, and smell the sweet spices intended to ease our way from the holiness of the sabbath to the mundanity of the rest of the week.
I hear laughter behind me and know the rest of the bridal party must be right on my heels. Figuring the green room is probably behind the stage, I walk up the stairs on stage left and duck behind the thick blue crushed-velvet curtains. Sure enough, there’s a room back there, crowded with racks to transform it into a makeshift coatroom.
There’s also a man in the room, young, with bad posture, angry acne sprawling across his forehead and chin, and a beginner’s beer gut rounding the bottom of his black sweatshirt. His thinning shoulder-length hair is pulled into a low ponytail, the same dulled-brown color as his eyes.
“Hey,” I say.
At the sound of my voice, he jumps. I don’t recognize him, and he looks a little underdressed for a wedding. Maybe he’s one of Ana and Rosie’s friends who volunteered for cater-waiter duty but drew the short straw and was sent to work the coatroom instead, and dressed down in protest. Or maybe he’s another one of Ana’s weird family members.
He’s still just staring at me.
“Um, here you go,” I say, handing him my coat. “Figured I should hang this up before we get rolling. Thanks.”
It takes a second before he wordlessly takes my coat.
“Oh, wait,” I say.
I pull my phone from my pantsuit pocket. I can’t keep it in there during the ceremony; the whole outline of it is visible through the tight sateen fabric. Plus, it’s supposed to be in that stupid basket anyway. Might as well leave it here.
I shove the phone into my coat pocket, and hand it to the guy again. He takes it more quickly this time. It feels weird not to offer a tip or something. But everyone working here is a friend of Rosie or Ana, doing it as a wedding gift. They probably wouldn’t want my cash. If I even had any on me, which I never do. I recall my recent contribution of a mere quarter to the woman panhandling on the train, and can’t help but cringe. I vow to start carrying small bills on me. Taking some steps toward being a better person, starting Monday.
“Thanks again,” I say to the coatroom guy.
“Wedding about to start?” he asks.
His voice cracks like a nervous teenager’s, and I feel kind of bad for him. What an awkward dude. I wonder again where the brides know him from, since he’s so unlike the rest of their bubbly, extroverted friends—if he’s not some random family member, maybe he’s from Ana’s office? He seems young, but I think they have interns there sometimes. Or maybe he just works for the camp.
“Yeah, in like ten minutes,” I say, realizing I need to get moving before I get yelled at by someone. The bridal party is supposed to start lining up right now.
He nods, and gives me a thin-lipped smile.
“Thanks,” he says. “Wouldn’t want to miss it.”