The Ninth Wedding #6
Thor nods in agreement. Then he turns to V and J, who are now side by side facing the bed, and asks, “What do we do?”
J and V look at each other then—and this time, there aren’t signals as much as sympathies.
J understands: Both of them want to have an answer to give the young couple, and neither of them has any idea what that answer is.
Even though they have been on the earth almost twice (!) as long as Thor and Meta, even though they’ve been in far more relationships and attended far, far more weddings, they cannot solve anybody else’s crisis any better (or worse) than they can solve their own.
J realizes: Thor and Meta might not even know he and V have broken up. What if the reason he’s here is because they think he and V are still together?
Still, there has to be something from all the weddings he’s attended that he can share with them. There has to be some helpful truth he’s gleaned from all the stories he’s witnessed unfolding.
What he finds himself saying is, “You have to understand that none of it matters. Nothing about a wedding matters. It is created to be an exception—the one time your life together is purely for show. It should never interfere with how you feel for each other, or what you mean to each other. You share your vows in front of other people so they will understand what has happened between the two of you...but that part has already happened. It’s like when a scientist makes a great discovery and then a year later announces that discovery in a scientific journal so everyone can know about it.
Your love is the discovery. The wedding is the scientific journal. ”
Thor and Meta don’t look particularly comforted by this.
“I have an idea,” V says. “Both of you, stand up.”
Thor lets go of Meta’s hand and stands. Once he does, Meta swings her legs around and pulls herself up.
“Face each other,” V commands.
They do. It’s an incongruous sight, with Meta in her leisurewear and Thor in his tux.
“Now, I want you to exchange your vows.”
Thor turns his head to V. “They’re in the other room. Oh, no—wait. I have them on my phone!”
He goes for his phone, but J tells him, “No. Stop. Not on your phone.”
“And not with any notes,” V adds. “Speak from your heart. Both of you.”
Thor nods, and without needing to be told, he and Meta clasp hands again.
“You first,” Meta says, smiling.
He smiles back. “I knew you were going to say that.”
He falls silent for a second, sorts things out in his mind. Then he starts.
“I am lost. Before I was considered successful, I only sometimes knew what I was doing, and now that I am considered successful I really have no idea what I’m doing.
I know you get that. When it comes to business, I’m not just over my head—there are times I feel like I am at the bottom of the ocean, staring up, trying to remind myself what the sky looks like.
The pressure is enormous . There is no way to hear anything besides my own thoughts.
It’s scary. And what you’ve done...it’s like you’ve built me a trap door at the bottom of the ocean.
When I go through it, I’m on land again.
I can breathe. There’s a breeze, and trees, and clouds.
And most of all, there’s you. I know the opposite of lost is found, but with you, it’s finding .
That’s what I feel like we’re doing. We are constantly finding.
Right? That is the thing we most have in common.
Our desire to find. And it just so happens that finding someone else who has a desire to find is the thing that can make a person like me feel least lost. With you, I know what I am doing. ”
As Thor says this, his eyes run to tears, even as his mouth smiles at the tears, as if to say, Isn’t it funny that tears are happening ?
One of the most intense human urges is the one to wipe away tears, but Thor clearly doesn’t want to let go of Meta’s hands.
So he lets them trace their way down his face.
To J, a crying Thor should be the antithesis of the happy-go-lucky guy he’s seen so many times before.
But J doesn’t feel it’s contradictory at all.
If anything, Thor has just reversed things a little.
Right now, he looks lucky-go-happy. The tears ride along with that.
“Most of my life, I’ve met my friends playing games online,” Thor goes on.
“Even when it was just building things on Minecraft, that was a hallowed space for me. So naturally I wanted to stay in those spaces with my work and give people more of a way to connect. I still think there is value in that. But at the moments when I doubt myself the most, I worry that I am slowly becoming a computer. Every time I go online, I lose a small part of my humanity. I feel if I hadn’t met you, I might have wired myself too much into the machine.
I would have lost sight of the real pleasures of roaming a city late at night, or having someone run her finger down my chest. Because I didn’t know pleasures like that before.
I stayed indoors. You make me want to be outdoors, among others.
You make me want to step away from all my screens, all my simulations.
I am so grateful for you. There’s no way you could possibly know.
“I know I should end this with a vow. I vow to do my part to see that we will always take care of each other. I vow to live with you in the real world, and to support you in all the ways money can’t buy.
I vow to always take you seriously, but to not take life too seriously.
I vow to deal with my failures honestly and with my successes just as honestly.
I vow that this is going to be a wild ride.
..but worth the trip. I vow to love you now, and I vow to understand I will come to love you even more. This is just the beginning.”
Meta frees her hands...but only so she can wrap her arms around Thor, standing on her tippy-toes to give him a long kiss, then holding him as he closes his eyes and hugs her close.
J feels the affection swell within him for both of them—and for love in general.
He looks to V, who seems to be patiently waiting for the embrace to end so the vows can continue.
He smiles at her, trying to get her to smile back, but she’s too lost in thought.
When Meta and Thor finally let go of one another, Meta looks at V and says, “I suppose it’s my turn now.”
“Yes,” V replies with a smile. “Please, go ahead.”
“I think before I start, I need to explain my name to you all. Thor knows all this, but if what I’m going to say is going to make sense, the two of you should understand it as well.
“The story goes like this: When she was pregnant with me, my mother listened obsessively to classical music. That was her biggest craving. Especially toward the end, when she was put on bed rest—instead of watching TV she would put on her headphones and listen to certain recordings on loop. At some point, she decided on my name. Not from the name of a piece, or a composer, or any of the players. No, it was the conductor’s name that glowed bright to her—Zubin Mehta.
If I’d been a boy, I would have been named Zubin. Since I was a girl, I was named Mehta.
“In school, kids thought Mehta was weird, but Meta was cool. So decided to embrace it, especially once I got to high school and realized how meta it was to be called Meta. I legally changed my name. I made a big deal of it, because my girl self made a big deal out of everything. And then I met Thor, and within five minutes of meeting him, I was telling him this story. In fairy tales and fantasy novels, you’re warned to never tell a stranger your true name.
But I did. And because of that, it didn’t feel like we were strangers anymore. ”
With that she turns from J and V and shares her full attention with Thor again. She smiles at him in a way that shows she’s feeling lucky-go-happy as well.
“I didn’t write anything out. I knew you would, but I just wanted to see what hit me.
And this is it, right now: The fact that you, more than anyone else in the world, know my true name and know my true self.
My parents know my true name, of course, but somewhere in my childhood they lost the ingredient of kindness, and now I’m more wary of them than ready to share my truths with them.
Which leads to this whole wedding dilemma.
But putting that aside...I often feel you are the only person in the world who really knows me.
And the reason you know me is because from the start you’ve cared in a way that nobody else has.
I know I don’t make it easy. But you understand why.
Which is why you deserve to know my name and to wear so many of my thoughts.
It’s not you I’m afraid of; it’s everyone else.
I promise. And I vow that every tangent, every spiral, every trajectory I take will always end up home with you. Are we clear, soldier?”
It must be a joke between them because Thor guffaws, then says, “We are clear, sir!”
J wonders: If he had met V at nineteen, could they have been this close, this certain?
If they had met before their adult lives began, would there have been less conflict, less pressure to make it all balance?
Because wouldn’t they have smiled and laughed like this?
Wouldn’t they have been able to tunnel-vision themselves into thinking an eternal commitment was a good idea?
He looks at V, but her focus is on Thor and Meta. She hasn’t finished her ceremony yet.
“The vows have been exchanged. Do you want to exchange rings as well?”
Thor’s smile fades. “My brother has them.”
V holds up a hand. “No worries. It’s a possessive tradition anyway. Plenty of time for that later. I think what our bedroom wedding needs is a song. Do you happen to know anyone who could perform a song right now?”
“Here?” J says.