The Second Weddins #5
Since his recollection of the lyrics is fuzzy at best, it comes out as:
Looks like we made it
Look how far we’ve got now, baby
Somehow he gets to the safer ground of the golden chorus, and he’s giving it his all.
The bewilderment he sensed in the air is gone.
He dares a glance at George and Lisbet, and sees George hold out a hand to her, and Lisbet, both smiling and crying, taking it, and now they are having an unplanned first dance.
J looks over to his table. Tom is crying, too. V has her phone out—she must be looking up the lyrics, because as he gets to the end of the chorus, she mouths, “Ain’t nothin’ better,” and yes—there it is, the rest of the song. She guides him through.
J looks back at George and Lisbet. He sees how tightly Lisbet holds George, and once again has no idea if it’s out of affection or support, or if there’s any difference between the two.
Both of them have their eyes closed. Both of them sway into the second chorus, the third chorus.
J wants to make the song go on and on, so they can dance like this for days, for years.
The song inevitably ends. The guests erupt in applause. George and Lisbet linger in their dance for a few beats after the song is over. Then they open their eyes at the same time, smile at each other. George kisses Lisbet. Lisbet kisses back. The guests cheer.
J’s work here is done. The wedding band has been gathering behind him. Now he steps aside as the bandleader comes on, calling in a carnival-barker tone, “We’d like to invite you all onto the dance floor for a celebration of George and Lisbet’s fourth wedding!”
J puts his guitar back in its case and heads to his table. Tom stands, walks over, and gives him a hug.
“Nice save,” Tom whispers. Then, when he pulls back, he says, a little louder, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to ask V to join me on the dance floor. I feel I should be there now, you know. And since I don’t have a date of my own...”
“Of course,” J says. “Go ahead.”
The two of them turn back to the table.
“J has been kind enough to allow me to ask you to dance,” Tom says to V.
“Oh, has he?” V replies. She puts her napkin on the table and pushes back her chair. “Let’s go, then.”
J is too wiped out to do anything besides sit.
He is relieved to find that someone else has asked the flight attendant to dance, and that the other couples at the table have also joined the newlywed-agains on the dance floor.
The band is, strangely, playing “Save the Last Dance for Me” as their first dance.
Though when he thinks about it, J wonders if this isn’t fitting, after all.
At the end of the song, J sees George whisper something to Lisbet, and she lets him move away from the dance floor. J assumes Tom will glide into the breach, but Tom doesn’t seem to want to dance with anyone other than V. Another adult, Tom’s uncle Gus-tav, steps in instead.
J is so focused on this wordless dance negotiation that he doesn’t notice George’s approach until George is nearly upon him. He moves to stand, but George says, “No, no—better to sit.” Then he lowers himself into V’s seat.
Immediately, J approaches an apology for his song. “I know that probably wasn’t what you were—” he begins.
George cuts him off. “It was perfect.”
“That’s very nice of you to say, but—”
“No buts. I don’t know how you did it, but you got it exactly right.
What it’s like. And I don’t mean that Shania Twain crap.
I mean your song. That’s what it feels like to me.
I can’t speak for Lisbet—I’d never be fool enough to speak for Lisbet, not at this point.
I’m guessing those probably aren’t the words she would’ve used.
But I honestly couldn’t have said it better myself.
Which I guess is why you’re a songwriter and I’m an accountant. ”
This is too many words for George to get out without a breath. When he’s done, the coughing comes back. J, feeling helpless, reaches for his water glass. George doesn’t look thrilled to take it, but he does. When he’s done with it, it shakes in his hand as he puts it back on the table.
“Are you alright?” J asks.
In response, George looks him in the eye and says, “I’ve never been better, kid. It’s a great day.” Slowly, he rises from the chair. “Now, you better go save your girlfriend from my son. He’s been waiting for that dance for way too long.”
As George shuffles off to greet another table, J looks and sees that Tom is holding V in a way that would signal to a casual observer that she is, in fact, his date to this wedding. The fact that the song is “Always on My Mind” doesn’t help matters.
J makes his way to the dance floor. Nobody stops him to compliment him on his lyrics—but no one throws dinner rolls at him or asks about empty casket imagery, either.
Tom seems surprised when J cuts in.
“Go dance with your mother,” J tells him. “I’m sure she wants you to.”
“I’m sure she’d love a dance with you, too,” Tom replies. Then, hearing himself, he lowers his arms and takes a step back. “Eventually. If you have the time.”
J isn’t sure he’s ready for Lisbet’s review of his performance; he’s going to rest on George’s laurels for as long as he can.
The band strikes up “I’m Still Standing.” J offers his hand to V. For a second, it appears she won’t take it.
“You do recognize I’m a sentient being?” she says. “The last time I checked, I wasn’t an inflatable doll to be passed from friend to friend.”
Their hands clasp. She puts her other hand around his waist.
“I am aware of this, yes,” he replies.
“I just had to be sure.”
“And why is that?”
“Because, if you didn’t realize, he asked you if I could dance with him before asking me. And then, during the first song, he felt the need to tell me how much he’s missed me.”
J’s spine straightens. “Missed you?”
“Missed me. And do you know what I said to that?”
“No. What?”
“Nothing. I said nothing. Because I really don’t want to be a friendwrecker.”
“A friendwrecker? Is that a thing?”
“It is now. You know what I mean.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?”
J twirls V around. They are quiet for a minute, and then he says, “Thanks for the save, by the way.”
“I knew you were in trouble when you skipped the start of the song.”
“I didn’t skip the start of the song!”
“According to lyrics.com, you did.”
“I will gladly turn in my wedding singer license, if you want to press charges.”
“Oh, please,” V says. “You love this kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
“People in love.”
“And you don’t?”
“It makes me uneasy, all these expectations gathered in one room. But at least this time nobody gave a speech pestering the couple about when they’re going to start having kids. That’s progress.”
J kisses V. “Look at you, so down on love.”
“Just down on weddings. Not the same thing.”
“I’m glad you’re with me,” J says.
And V tells him, truthfully, “That’s the reason I’m here.”
Two songs later (“I Will Survive”), Tom tries to cut in.
V laughs and J tells him, with aggressive jokiness, to back off.
Tom avoids them for the rest of the night.
Even when J is sitting alone (V has to take a call from Thor, who has forgotten the name of a financial advisor), Tom keeps his distance.
The flight attendant slips into the conversational space and wants to know if being a global superstar means J has platinum status on more than one airline.
When V returns to the table, J asks her how the call went.
“I have to keep reminding myself that when I was nineteen, I could barely remember how to figure out a tip, not to mention budget my spending. And Thor’s trying to run a company. It’s not his fault he’s not an adult yet.”
“So you get to be the adult?”
“Isn’t that strange?” V says. “My nineteen-year-old self would be disgusted.”
“And what would she say to me asking you to dance again?”
“Honestly? She’d have no concept of being here. She’d be in her dorm furtively masturbating to one of the Backstreet Boys while pretending to be masturbating to Rilke. So to hell with her. Let’s dance.”
Lisbet doesn’t breathe a word to J about his song, positive or negative. She just says to him in parting what she’s saying to all the other guests—that it was lovely to have him there.
But George—George goes out of his way to pull J aside at the end of the night.
“If you get lucky,” George says, “every once in a while, you find someone who loves you so much that you’re not troubled by the meaninglessness of it all. By that measure, right now, I am a lucky man. A very, very lucky man.”
They hug each other goodbye. It lasts longer than it usually would.
“Good luck,” J finds himself saying.
And George has the grace to reply, “You too.”