What is it about weddings?
"Dad!" my son greeted me, wrapping me in a bearhug, a suitable word since he towers over me at 6'3", and outweighs me even in my new, post-Medicare Card size, by at least 50 pounds.
He's an exuberant kid, always had been, and even as an up-and-coming head bright boy at an engineering firm pushing 30 pretty hard, he'll always be my kid. Dads are like that.
"Come on," he said, releasing me.
"Hey," he said, stopping, suddenly, "Shit, I'm such an asshole. Where's Paula?"
"She's home, taking drugs and relaxing. That arthritis is all over her," I said.
"Oh, shit," he said, "Sorry. She's my favorite stepmother."
I laughed. "She's your ONLY stepmother," I said.
"Yeah, there is that," he said flashing that smile that I had always assumed got to the women in his life.
So I explained about muscle relaxers, pain medications, and arthritis.
"Okay," he said, taking a deep breath, "Come on and start meeting people."
In the next half hour, I must have met 50 people, mostly Stephen's friends but a smattering of family members from Meg, his bride-to-be's family too.
A white Mercedes-Benz SL convertible pulled up the driveway in a cloud of dust. I figured I was looking at a clean $150,000 in rolling stock if it was a nickel.
"Nice, huh," Stephen said, and I agreed.
"Come on," he said, "meet Meg's mom and dad."
I walked along with Stephen as he went to the car.
I almost laughed. But I managed not to. It WAS a near thing.
From the driver's side emerged Tony Soprano's sidekick, Pauly Walnuts. He was complete with the salon tan, the silver wings in his hair, the too-tight shirt open three buttons, and, my hand to God, fucking gold chains.
I watched as he moved around the car, gym-rat arms bulging against shirt sleeves, my hindbrain making the automatic calculations. I could take him if I got in the first shot, cleanly to his throat, but if the fight went on more than 30 seconds I would be fucked. The guy had that kind of effect on me.
He nodded to us before turning and opening the door.
And a Barbie doll got out.
She was in a halter top barely covering obviously well-enhanced breasts, big enough that I guessed at 38DD. Her waist was insanely small, making me think of a book I read once that had the women of the dystopian society with two lower ribs removed to enhance the "womanly" figure. Her hips were wide, matching her bust. Her legs were long and in the platform sandals she wore, she was my height as she approached us.
"Jerry, Barbara Sue, meet Phillip Morgan, my dad and your soon-to-be in-law," he said, formally, as his mother and I had taught him. "Dad, meet Meg's parents."
We shook hands, well, Jerry and I shook hands. Barbara Sue wrapped me in an embrace and said in a breathy, high-pitched voice, "Call me Bambi," she said, "Standard spelling," she added with a giggle, "Everybody does."
"Easy, girl," Jerry said, taking her hand.
So we chatted in that awkward way of people from different worlds brought together by circumstances. It turned out Jerry had inherited the family farm, opted to sell most of it but kept the 150 acres we stood on with its spectacular views across rolling hills, and then moved on to other interests. He was a restauranteur now, with the local Taco Bell (I couldn't help but picture Sandra Bullock referring to Tim McGraw's airplane in that movie
The Blind Side
as "Air Taco"), O'Charleys, and Hardee's franchises as well as his pride and joy, a high-end sit-down restaurant
Randall's Restaurant
. When I asked who Randall was he said nobody, he just liked the alliteration.
Barbara Sue/Bambi was, obviously, his trophy wife. I did some quick mental arithmetic. My son was pushing 30, Meg about his age, so that made Bambi, and looking at her made it impossible to think of her as Barbara Sue, late 40s or, more likely, early 50s. If you looked closely, and it turned out I would have the opportunity to look VERY closely, you could see the signs of her 52 years (I peeked at her driver's license before the weekend was over) in the not-quite-erased lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth or the backs of her hands or the tops of her feet. But a combination of exercise, diet, and surgery made it look, at first glance, as if Jerry had bagged a very young girl.
I figured a careful bartender would card her.
So we chatted and got acquainted as I suppose all in-laws meeting for the first time do.
A pretty girl leaned around the corner and yelled, "Come on, we're ready." She looked enough like Meg that there was no doubt that she was a sister.
So we went out and did the rehearsal thing.
First down the aisle was Bambi escorted by my ex-wife's new husband. I was second, as the father of the groom. Since I was stag with my wife home taking care of herself, Meg's grandmother, Bambi's mother as it turned out, a woman who shared her daughter's interest in looking good, was assigned to escort me. She made it pretty obvious that she was available all night but I was being good and declined.
We went through a dry run, who went where when, and then a second run, more or less perfecting the process of getting my son wed off.
After the second, Stephen announced success and invited everyone to
Randall's Restaurant
for the post-rehearsal dinner.
What is it about a wedding?
My niece, well, my ex-wife's niece but she still called me "Uncle Phil," asked me, very prettily, the interest obvious in her eyes and her voice, for a ride to the restaurant. During the 20 years since I had last seen her, she had gone from being a nearly-six-feet-tall beanpole to a nearly-six-feet-tall vision of round femininity. The offer was there, and obvious, but I was being good and declined.
I did give her the ride and followed her turn-by-turn directions. The restaurant was downtown. It's an old river town with narrow streets and very limited parking. In the end, I found a parking spot for the big pickup about a block away and as we walked back to the restaurant our hips bumped from time to time, she walked that close. It was hard to decline, but I made it clear that I wasn't interested.
In the restaurant, Stephen caught me and walked me to the "Parents' Table" near the front, the front being defined by a long table where the bride and groom and the wedding party would be seated.
I sat with Jerry, Bambi, and Billi, Meg's grandmother, my ex, with whom I get along fine, and her new husband with whom, surprising both of us I think, I also got along with just fine. The dinner was perfectly standard. If you've ever been to a rehearsal dinner you were at this one. Well, the difference being that rather than a buffet and sandwiches, the food was world-class. Filet Mignon steak that could be cut with a fork was served with a tossed salad swimming in a dressing that I wanted to get a recipe for, a loaded baked potato that was a dinner in itself, a vegetable mix that I was surprised to find delicious, and rolls that were true baker's art. I stuck with beer, a fine dark beer at that, but my table mates who knew of such things declared the wine to be excellent as well.
Jerry stood, as the busboys started removing dishes and said, "If you will bear with my staff for a minute we'll get these tables out of the way and do some dancin'."
There was an awkward couple of minutes while we all milled around, staying out of the way, as the staff moved tables to the back of the room and arranged chairs around the perimeter.
"It looks like a school dance," the woman standing next to me said with a giggle.
I dug through memory banks that were overloaded and came up with a name. Tricia, an aunt or cousin, or something. She was big and blonde and working hard to hide her age, but not very successfully.
"Let the dancing begin," came a disembodied voice, and Tricia looked at me hopefully but Bambi came across the room caught my hand, and said, "Parents first."
As Elvis Presley's
Hawaiin Wedding Song
started a curtain I hadn't noticed across the back of the room opened to reveal a professional DJ stand.
It was almost embarrassing. Well, the beer earlier helped. But still, it was almost embarrassing the way she put both arms around my neck and molded herself to me. I tried for the classic slow dance position, left arm out to accept her right hand, right hand to lay on her waist. She ignored it and wrapped those arms around my neck like we were dates at the prom.
There was no doubt that she was well-enhanced. The crop top left no doubt that there was no bra, but her breasts against me were so firm they felt like there was. Her back, where my hands lay against bare skin, was warm and very firm. This was a woman who spent a LOT of time in the gym or doing Pilates or whatever she did to keep trim and firm. Her breath, when she spoke, smelled of wine and, of all things, DoubleMint gum. The thought flashed through my mind that this was a woman who still thought of being the Prom Queen or head cheerleader as her Glory Days.
In many ways, she talked like a teenager too. She was snarky about Tricia's looks and size and actually used the word "totally."
The music ended and when the DJ spun up Willie Nelson's version of
Moonlight in Vermont
my ex grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor.
"She can be a bit much," she said as we stepped into a well-practiced dance. I chuckled at that and enjoyed feeling the woman I had spent 22 years with in my arms. She was more padded, the intervening decade and a half had done that to both of us, but still the pretty fox that captured my heart at one time.
The rest of the night went like that.
What is it about a wedding? I danced at least two dozen times and never asked once. It was like I was a goddam chick magnet. But then, when I thought about it, I realized that I was one of only three men there without a wife attached, while there were several women who were there for the day-before festivities and would probably have husbands joining them tomorrow.
It was about 11:00 when Bambi caught me.
"It looks like I need a ride home," she said, doing the two-hands-on-the-arm thing that women do sometimes to establish their claim.
"Where's Jerry?" I asked.
She smiled at me, her eyes showing the alcohol she had consumed and that damn DoubleMint still on her breath.
"When last seen," she said, "he was heading out the door with some bovine jailbait."
I laughed at that.
