Richard Russo - That Old CapeMagic

Her defection left Griffin -who had it coming, of course-too often alone at the long head table. Laura (he could tell) coerced her bridesmaids to dance with him, and out of a similar sense of duty he’d asked Andy’s mother, who said, no, no, she really couldn’t, as if the single dance ticket she’d been issued at the door had already been redeemed by her son. Joy’s sisters had their husbands to deal with and they didn’t like him besides, so he steered clear there. Joy herself was going from table to table, making sure people had what they needed and were enjoying themselves, a duty he begrudged her until it occurred to him that it was his as well, so he started at the other end of the room and did the same thing, as slowly as possible, lest he be forced to return to the nearly abandoned head table.

His sense that something wasn’t right intensified as the evening wore on, though he had no idea what the hell might be wrong. Everybody seemed to be having a good time, especially the young people, Laura and Andy’s college friends, which was as it should be. The only person more disconnected to the proceedings was poor Harve. After successfully lobbying to attend, he dozed through the exchange of vows and then much of the reception, though at one point he struggled to his feet and gyrated his hips with the prettiest of Laura’s bridesmaids, occasioning thunderous applause from everyone but Dot, who thrust him forcefully back into his chair. The boy who’d punched Andy (and his own mother) in the groin the night before-Griffin still had no idea who the little fucker was-recognized Jason and once again attempted his signature move, but the MP saw it coming and put the palm of his hand on the kid’s forehead and let him swing away, and this, too, everyone seemed to think was funny.

Gradually Griffin came to understand that he was waiting for another moment of grace, like the one at last year’s wedding when Laura pulled Sunny Kim onto the dance floor. The night before, in the emergency room with Joy, he’d sensed the proximity of just such a moment, but the twins had interrupted and it was lost, though at the time it hadn’t worried him. If he didn’t force it, he told himself, the moment would come of its own volition, probably at some point during the wedding. Maybe even heralded by that old Bon Jovi song. What was it called? “Livin’ on a Prayer”? He checked with the DJ, who said it was definitely on the playlist, but it didn’t play, and still didn’t, and when some of the guests with small children began to gather them up and bid farewell to the bride and groom, he realized it wasn’t going to.

Feeling his emotions come untethered and rise dangerously toward the surface, he left the wedding tent, whispering to Marguerite that he needed to visit the gents. Inside the hotel he found Sunny Kim sitting alone in the small, dark bar, drinking in the only place where the booze wasn’t free.

“Do you enjoy single-malt scotch?” he asked when Griffin slid onto the bar stool next to him.

Even in the dim light, he could see the young man’s eyes were full. “I do,” he admitted, although hard liquor was probably the last thing he needed right then.

Sunny ordered him a very expensive one. “I love fine scotch,” he said, “but I can’t drink it without remembering my father.” Was this, Griffin wondered, to explain his liquid eyes? “What would he have thought about such extravagance? He didn’t believe in excess.”

“Are you sure?” Griffin said. “Not being able to afford something isn’t the same as disapproving of it.”

“True,” Sunny admitted. “It’s also true that I never really knew him.”

“He’d have been proud of you,” Griffin assured him, because he hadn’t meant to suggest any such thing. “Hell, we’re not even related and I’m proud of you.”

Which clearly pleased the young man, though his smile vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by confusion. “Laura’s uncles? Jason and… Jared?”

Griffin chuckled. Back in the tent he’d noticed the twins had taken a shine to Sunny, introducing him to all the pretty girls, most of whom they hadn’t been introduced to themselves.

“They mock their father,” he said.

Sunny hadn’t been at the rehearsal, of course, but Griffin suspected that even if he’d witnessed the collapse of the wheelchair ramp and the ensuing Ordeal of the Hedge, none of that would’ve been as profoundly inexplicable and unsettling to him as their treatment of Harve. “It’s hard for them to express love,” he explained. “Being men. And idiots.”

Sunny nodded seriously.

“Otherwise they aren’t bad fellows,” Griffin said. “They’d be good to have on your side in a fight. Of course”-he pointed to his eye-“if you’re with them there’s a much better chance there’ll be a fight.”

“I made the mistake of telling them I don’t have to be back in Washington until Monday. They want me to go with them to Bar Harbor tomorrow. Do you think I shouldn’t?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that. Just remember they act first, think later, and then neither clearly nor deeply. Have you ever thought of getting a tattoo, Sunny?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I ask because if you go drinking with them, you could wake up with one.” And it would say Laura .

Sunny must have been thinking along these same lines, because after a moment, he said, “I’m getting married myself later this year.”

“No kidding? Congratulations.” They clumsily clinked glasses. “You want to tell me about her?”

“Yes.” But then, for a long moment, he didn’t. “She’s Korean,” he finally said. “From a fine family. She’s been very patient waiting for me to ask for her hand.”

“Will the wedding be here?”

“No, in Seoul. I’ve invited Laura and… Andrew, but of course I’ll understand if they can’t come. It’s a long trip and very expensive. I’m hoping we’ll get together later. Andrew’s never been to Washington.”

“You’ll live in the U.S., then?”

“Yes, of course. My mother’s here, my brothers, and my work’s important, too.”

“Yes, it is.”

He seemed pleased to be given this vote of confidence, but troubled, too. “Why does a rich country like ours blame people who have nothing for its problems?”

“Good question. It’s a problem that predates Lou Dobbs, and it’s probably not just us in the States.”

“No, but we’re not responsible for other countries.”

“Are we responsible for this one, as individuals? Isn’t that a lot to ask?”

“Yes. But I do believe we are responsible.”

Griffin nodded, surprised to discover that despite raising the question he agreed with Sunny’s response. Also that he’d finished his scotch.

“She’s very happy,” Sunny said, as if this leap from political and philosophical discussion to deeply personal were perfectly natural.

Love , Griffin thought, smiling. Only love made such a leap possible. Only love related one thing to all other things, putting all your eggs into a single basket-that dumbest yet most courageous and thrilling of economic and emotional strategies. “I think she is,” he said, almost apologetically. His daughter was happy and deserved to be. Yet, sitting here in the dark, quiet bar with Sunny Kim, Griffin couldn’t help wondering if the worm might already be in the apple. A decade from now, or a decade after that, would Laura suddenly see Sunny differently? Griffin knew no finer, truer heart than Laura’s, but even the best hearts, as her mother could testify, were notoriously unruly. Would some good, unexpected thing happen in his daughter’s life, something that caused her very soul to swell with pride and joy, whereupon she’d realize that the man she wanted to tell first and most wasn’t who she’d married today but the one who’d loved her since they were kids and who once, in the middle of the night, had trusted her enough to share his family’s shame? Would she understand that such trust and intimacy do not-indeed cannot-exist apart from consequence and obligation? Would she understand then what she didn’t yet suspect, that remembering Sunny Kim at the moment of her own great happiness at Kelsey’s wedding last year had been kind and generous, yes, of course, but also an unwitting acknowledgment of something yet hidden from her?