Chapter 51
WILLIAM
William had never snuck into a wedding. A funeral, yes.
There was something about death that seemed holier than a union between two people, but maybe that was because he never saw himself getting married.
And marriage was routine. A white dress.
Vanilla cake. Gold rings, all of them matching, like the bands linked the husband and wife not just to each other, but to all married people.
And perhaps he didn’t want to think about another mass of people of which he would never be a part.
What was there to learn at a wedding? It would be like venturing to the bottom of the ocean to find Atlantis, a perfect city of serene ivory temples and bridges, all the while knowing you could never live there.
That you’d always need to come back to the surface.
The hotel hummed with anticipation. It felt as if it had gotten fuller since he’d left, a new porousness to the rooms. People left their doors half-open to call out to one another about when they should leave for the church, if Emily had put on her shoes, where Art had left his suspenders.
A chorus of You look beautiful and Do you know if and What time is it?
The younger guests were crowded into select rooms, sitting on unmade beds, gossiping and laughing.
They passed silver flasks back and forth and chain-smoked cigarettes, reminding William of the few times he’d visited Shay at college and fleetingly thought, Maybe I want this.
But then he’d return to the quiet of their apartment and think, Maybe I don’t.
And that was easier, wasn’t it? Because Shay had worked so hard, everyone said (though had she, or was she just lucky enough that everyone comforted themselves with that thought?), and William hadn’t (though hadn’t he, or was it just too painful for everyone to admit that he’d tried, he really had, but no one knew how to help him?), so he could never get into a school like Cornell. He would have to find a different life.
He kept expecting to see the woman with the shaved head lighting someone’s cigarette or roughly brushing his baby cousin’s hair.
Her savage grin greeting him, telling him that of course she was there.
He shook the thought away, trying to focus on what he needed to do to get ready for the ceremony.
Shay was safe. She was surrounded by bridesmaids and staff who were spending hours rubbing forks until they shone like glass.
“Oh, thank God,” his aunt Pam said, catching sight of William as he reached his floor. “Do you know when we’re supposed to leave?”
“The wedding’s at two.”
“I know, but when will the carts leave?”
William paused. “I have to be at the church at one thirty, so . . .”
“William doesn’t know either,” she shouted back through the door.
In the silence of his hotel room, he plugged in the new iron he’d requested from the front desk. The prong sparked in its socket.
Outside the church, Andrew looked jaundiced. Not like a man about to be married, but a man about to be ill. Ken handed him a glass of what looked like seawater, and he took rapid gulps.
“What is that?” William asked. His poorly pressed brown suit was slightly too small for him, a remnant from his high school graduation, and he tugged at its sleeves, as if that would help.
The other groomsmen were standing on the lawn, knocking a stray soccer ball back and forth with their polished loafers.
“A cure for whatever ails you. Patent pending,” Ken said.
“It’s just water with salt and lemon,” Andrew said, like he had no patience left. He was breathing heavily, and even drinking seemed to exhaust him.
“Are you going to be okay for the ceremony?” William asked.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Andrew always rallies,” Ken added.
He clapped Andrew on the shoulder, but Andrew just looked down, as if he was trying to will his body not to vomit. After briefly squeezing his eyes shut, he turned his attention back to William.
“Have you seen Shay today? Is she all right?”
“Yeah, she’s—fine. I saw her at your house this morning getting ready with everyone.”
Andrew nodded, and Ken’s hand moved from his shoulder to his neck, like a coach speaking to a boxer in the corner of a ring. “I told you, you don’t need to worry about him.”
“Who?” William asked. His voice harder than he’d intended, his body seizing with the possibility of the woman. He had mistaken her for a man too.
“No one,” Andrew muttered at the same time Ken said, “Just some guy from college.” Andrew glared at him, but Ken just shrugged his shoulders. “What? I bet he knows him.”
“Who?” William repeated.
“Joel Weaver.”
“Oh, yeah, I know him. Why are we—why would we be worried about him?” William asked, remembering how he’d found Joel sitting in Shay’s room the evening before. Though Andrew was about to become his brother, William didn’t feel like he owed him this information. His allegiance was still to Shay.
“We’re not,” Ken said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Is there somewhere I can go lie down?” Andrew asked.
After the funeral, Shay had spoken of Joel occasionally, but it always felt like a mistake, his name slipping unbidden from her mouth, like she’d been trying not to think of him.
And what did William say when this happened?
Nothing, consumed by thoughts of his father.
He let it pass, trusting that she was fine, and so now what could he say about this man his sister had obviously once loved?
What could he even tell Andrew and Ken? Only the name of a Bowie album they’d talked about in a church basement.
It made him feel as ill as Andrew looked.
Ken said they’d find a room, and they disappeared into the church.
It was somehow half an hour before the ceremony would begin, even though it felt like it should be midnight.
The day already felt so long, and the momentary lift William had felt from another cup of coffee at the hotel had plummeted, leaving a headache in its wake.
He scanned the roads and trees, the bare porches of nearby houses, and he saw nothing unusual, the only sounds a whining of gnats and the soft pock of the soccer ball.
But then there was the stuttering of an engine, and golf carts began to crest the hill.