The Sixth Wedding #7
J resists pointing out that Tara isn’t Hugh’s wife yet. Instead he says, “I only heard from her last weekend. She saw I was in town from Sweden. It’s been years since we last spoke. She asked me to sing in the ceremony and invited me and my girlfriend to the reception afterwards.”
J is hoping the mention of a girlfriend will satisfy a man like Hugh...and in this case, it’s the right call.
“I see,” Hugh says. “So where’s your girlfriend now?”
“On her way,” J bluffs. “I’m here early to see the stage—I mean, the venue. Amp my guitar if that’s possible. See where I’m supposed to stand.”
“I have all of that information for you,” Maria says. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ll introduce you to the priest performing the ceremony, and he can tell you when you’ll be singing.”
Hugh calls out to his groomsmen, “It’s a surprise . From Tara. I swear...” The groomsmen murmur in response, nod.
J can see Hugh reading the room, understanding the situation and his options within it. He can’t quite muster an apology, but he does say to J, “Look—no hard feelings.”
J echoes this: “No hard feelings.” Even as he does, he thinks there are two ways to take the phrase.
He’s always heard it with hard meaning not soft —you shouldn’t carry around feelings you aren’t able to swallow or digest. But right now the other meaning of hard comes to the fore, and he realizes people like Hugh who say “no hard feelings” are actually asking for all their feelings to be easy ones.
They resent having to deal with any complications.
It’s Maria who says “I’m sorry about that” as they leave the larger ballroom and step out onto the sweeping balcony where the ceremony will be held, with the skyscrapers of Manhattan looking on.
“I told her I don’t like surprises at this stage.
But she was so excited to have you here, and to have you perform the song.
It’s a great song, by the way. She had me stand there and listen to it as she played it on her phone.
Anyway, will you and your girlfriend be staying for the reception? I don’t think we planned for that.”
“No,” J says. “I think we’ll make our exit after the ceremony.”
“Yes, I think that’s for the best.”
Maria heads off to find the priest, and J places a quick call to V.
“Hello?” she answers.
“What are you doing right now?”
“I was washing the dishes until I had to answer the phone.”
“Look—I need you to come to this wedding.”
“Has something happened?”
J fills her in.
“I told you!” V laughs. J can’t say he’s particularly missed this brand of self-satisfaction in her voice.
“Just come for the ceremony. Meet Hugh. And then we’ll run off. There’s a great view here.”
“Where are you?”
He tells her the name of the hotel and where it is.
“You want me to come to New Jersey?!?”
“It’s not like The Sopranos . Much less gunfire. Possibly less therapy.”
“And you need me there in an hour?”
“Ideally. I can order you an Uber.”
“How do I let myself be dragged into these things?”
“Because of your love for chaos. I promise, this is a chaos site. And also, I need you.”
He makes the I need you sound site-specific, although as he says it, it feels bigger than that.
V says, “I’ll send the address. Order that Uber and screenshot the driver info for me. If you need me right away, I’m not going to change for the event. What I’m wearing is nice enough.”
J does not see Tara until her father (around the same age as Hugh) walks her down the aisle.
V, sitting next to J at the extreme left of the front row, whispers, “She’s not what I pictured,” and J wants to ask her why she bothered picturing anything at all.
And with the veil, how can V tell what Tara looks like?
J isn’t sure himself... although in this case the vague sense of Tara under the veil matches his blurred memory perfectly.
The ceremony itself is so traditional that J wonders whether he should have rewritten his song in Latin.
The vows have been composed with a hand so heavy it might as well be God’s— you are my possession and I am yours, and nothing will ever stop this chain of mutual ownership . Or something like that.
The veil is lifted, and Tara comes a little more in focus, both in person and in memory. For all J knows, she is the one who got away. But probably not. Almost certainly not.
The priest admonishes Tara and Hugh to be kind to one another, to be beacons for their children, and to live a good life together.
“Before we conclude,” the priest says, “we have a special treat. One of Tara’s dear friends will now immortalize this moment in song.”
This is not the cue J would have written, but it’s the cue he’s been given.
Tara beams and actually waves as he walks up to the microphone and plugs in his guitar.
Hugh keeps his hand on Tara’s back and tries his best not to grimace.
J does not make any opening remarks this time.
He just plunges into the song, which has a new, happier ending that the original version.
I’m calling from the last payphone in New York
After looking for quarters on the ground
I don’t have much time, I’ll cut it short
Since you’re probably hearing more static than sound
Can you hear the music from the subway doors
As it’s swooshing by our platform
They don’t stop at our stop anymore
Baby soon we’ll be
On the junkyard of history
About to be forgotten and obsolete
The world is picking up speed
At a pace that I can’t keep
But time stood still when you were here with me
Slowly we slide out of existence
Like trilobites, old satellites, and rotary phones
They stopped making upgrades for our systems
So listen
You and me
We are version 1.0
Baby we are telefax and paper maps
We’re Betamax. We’re personal ads
The incandescent light that shines through the cracks
Why don’t you meet me
On the junkyard of history
We’re about to be forgotten and obsolete
The world is picking up speed
At a pace that I can’t keep
But time stands still when you are here with me
When the song is over, Tara begins the applause. When the applause is over, J bows in the couple’s direction, then returns to his seat and takes V’s hand. He has no idea if she’s letting him do this to keep up the facade or whether she is enjoying having her hand held.
After the wedding ceremony concludes, Tara and Hugh are whisked away to some secret location to prepare for the reception.
J is sorry to stand, because that means letting go of V again. He is hoping, now that they can speak, that she’ll say something about what she heard in the song. When he sang the line about wanting time to stand still, did it mean anything to her?
The truth is, V did notice that line. And she thought to herself that, as lovely as it is, she’s spent too much time standing still.
She wants to get to the next part. Not with J, but with her own life.
J didn’t mean to, but he’s managed to articulate to V something that was wrong with them.
She knows how happy it made him to hit Pause.
And she agrees with him in the fear of Fast Forward.
But right now? It’s not Pause she wants.
She wants Play.
J finds Maria, introduces her to V, then says they’re going to go.
Once again, Maria says, “I think that’s for the best.”
J and V find a pier on the Hudson and walk as far out as they can go. It feels as if only a few more steps would take them into Manhattan; the skyline feels that close.
“Thank you again,” J says. “I saw Hugh taking note of your presence. You probably saved their marriage.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” V asks.
“None of our business.”
“Agreed.”
They look out at the water, the lights. There is so much they aren’t saying.
“That song makes me melancholy,” V says, because she knows J will want her to say something about the song. “The older I get, the harder it hits me. We all want to think evolution ends with us, but the world has other ideas, doesn’t it?”
“You’re hardly obsolete.”
“I mentioned Groundhog Day to Thor and Meta the other day and they had no idea what I was talking about.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’ll happen to them, too, someday. Some assistant will ask them, ‘What was Survivor ?’”
“‘To everything, turn turn turn.’”
“Exactly.”
Somewhere above them, the wedding band strikes up some entrance music for the bride and groom.
J watches V and the way the night breeze makes her hair move. She is staring into the distance...but then she turns to him and asks, “What?”
Instinct kicks in, and he says, “Nothing.”
“It’s something. What?”
“I keep think about what you said, and about where we are. I can’t help wondering...if you don’t want to go backwards to find me where we were, why can’t I go forwards with you? Why can’t I be your future, too?”
V looks at him sadly. “I wish I had an answer for you. For me, too. But it’s not going to appear right now. You called me, and I showed up for you. That’s the best I can do, and even that...I can’t do it that often.”
J feels suddenly defensive, says, “I don’t plan on asking you to do it too often. I’m sorry I got myself in that situation.”
“Don’t get angry.”
“I’m not angry. I’m frustrated.”
“I can tell.”
“Please.”
The tenderness in his voice throws a blanket on the fire.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” V says gently.
“The truth.”
“Okay. I’m going to tell you how I see it, and then I am going to walk back to the hotel and order my own car home. We are not going to resolve this tonight. So let me just say what I’m going to say, and we’ll talk about it again tomorrow. Agreed?”
J agrees. He doesn’t think he has much of a choice.
“The way I’m thinking of it is this. You keep asking me whether the door is closed or open. Are we together or aren’t we? But what I’m trying to tell you is this: The door is open, but I don’t want you to walk through it.”
“How is that fair?” J asks. “We’re not a couple that’s just met.
We’ve been together for two years . And while I understand what an opportunity this is for you, I don’t think you understand what a loss it’s been for me.
In fact, I don’t think you see it as a loss at all for yourself.
Being told to not walk through an open door—how is that different from a closed door?
In your mind, it might be. But for me..
.it leaves me in the same place, doesn’t it? ”
“I’m sorry. It does. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Tell me you love me. Tell me you want me to be with you.”
“What if I can tell you the first and not the second?”
It hits J then. Really hits him.
This is not a fight he can win right now.
A tear falls out of V’s eye, and she quickly wipes it off. The city looms behind her.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I know you won’t believe me, but it’s not about you. It’s about me, my life. I wish I could imagine you here with me, but I can’t. It’s like this new life is forming around me, and it feels right. I’m not leaving you. I’m just arriving somewhere else.”
“What if I’d come with you? What if, when you’d gotten the news, I’d said, ‘Let’s move to New York together’?”
“But you didn’t, did you? You have a life there, much more of a life than I had.
You have family, all these people who care about you.
You’ve always had the chance to leave, but you never have.
This is my first chance. And I’m taking it.
I think if you weren’t dating me, if I were just someone telling you my story, you’d understand it.
Because one of the things I love about you is your capacity to be by yourself, to make connections where you go but not get tied down by them. That’s where I am right now.”
“I hate this.”
“I do, too.”
J shakes his head. “No, you don’t. If you hated it, it wouldn’t be happening.”
Now he starts to cry, and the two of them look at each other with a sadness they’ve never shared before.
“Is this it?” J asks.
He expects a yes. Instead he gets an “I don’t know.” And then an “I have to go.”
V hugs him goodbye and lets him hug her goodbye. Then she walks down the dock, to order her own car. She leaves him with the city, just out of reach.
He knows her “I don’t know” is genuine. He knows she believes the door is still open.
For the first time, he wonders if he should be the one to walk away from it. But even as he thinks that, there’s the hope that if he started to walk away, she’d call him back.