Joanna Rakoff - A Fortunate Age

“What’s next?” asked Dave. “Is Tuck going to, like, take off the garter with his teeth?”

“I doubt it.” Beth grabbed a piece of cake from a passing tray. Sliced open, the cake looked even more rich: a layer of deep, eggy vanilla, then chocolate buttercream, then a layer of deep chocolate.

“Isn’t this incredible?” she heard Sadie say, her low voice sharpened by drink. It wasn’t actually—the cake was overly dense and crumbly—but Beth ate it anyway and deposited her little plate on the now bare buffet table.

“You know, I haven’t been avoiding you all night,” Dave said. Beth nodded gaily, attempting to indicate that she hadn’t given a moment’s thought to whether or not he might have been staying out of her way. “I just thought that we, you know, needed to talk. That we would be alone later.” Beth nodded again. Why he would think such a thing was beyond her, but it sent a shudder through her limbs.

“Hey,” she said, without knowing exactly what she planned to tell him. “Why don’t we dance?”

The band had started up a rendition of “They All Laughed.” On the dance floor, they found both Dave’s parents and Sadie’s parents, the former self-consciously attempting a modified hustle, the latter smartly executing a neat fox-trot. They were members of an older generation, the Peregrines, having had Sadie quite late in life, and their clothes and habits spoke of an earlier, more storied era. The group tended to align themselves more with the Peregrines’ generation—with their big band music and their cocktails before dinner—than with the one that followed, the boomers, with their Simon & Garfunkel and their marijuana after dinner. Rose Peregrine, for example, dressed to go shopping, ordered all her groceries in from a small shop around the corner, and visited her hairdresser twice weekly. This evening, she wore a fitted suit in dove gray shantung—the color not far off from that of her hair—with a high stand-up collar, and a thick row of complicated beadwork running down the jacket’s front. But Dave’s mom—in a long, shapeless navy blue shift, white threads springing from her red hair—looked nice, too, Beth thought.

“They’re such dorks,” said Dave, waving at his mother.

“I like them,” said Beth.

“Yeah, well, they like you.” He grinned down at her. “But you’re a dork, too.”

“Right,” said Beth, willing herself to have a sense of humor. She’d spent five minutes with Dave and already he’d stung her. Had she actually been looking forward to seeing him? No, she hadn’t. Actually.

Over his shoulder, she watched Lil’s aunts stream out the front door, blowing kisses and waving royally.

“My mother,” she told Dave, “would love this wedding. The loft. All the candles. The little kids running around.” Her mother believed young people raised during the Bush and Reagan administrations were too conservative and complacent. Rebellion, Beth’s mother believed, was healthy. She’d encouraged Beth to experiment—offering her wine with supper, tokes of the occasional joint, taking her to see Bergman and Bertolucci films when she outgrew Snow White and Bambi . Beth wondered what her mother would have to say about her dancing with Dave. For two years, she’d slyly refrained from commenting on him, but once they’d broken up, she’d blurted, “Oh, honey, he wasn’t for you.”

“Lil didn’t invite them?” Dave asked.

“She did. But they already had tickets to California. It’s Jason’s fall break. His last fall break.” Her brother was a senior at Stanford, studying things she admired but barely comprehended: computers and politics.

“Right.”

A song or two later the room was half empty, the older generations gone home. The band finished their set and stood chatting, ties loosened, with Tuck’s friends from Atlanta. Quietly, the caterers began moving crates of cutlery and dishes out to their truck, and Lil and Tuck sat down at a table, white wine in her hand, whiskey in his. The group slunk into chairs around them, Beth both relieved and disappointed to be out of Dave’s arms, Sadie prying herself away from that awful Will Chase, with his idiotic ideas about the “New Economy” (her father said it was all a load of bunk, none of these websites were going to make any money, not from selling pet food in bulk or books or anything), and his smug, overconfident air. Tuck’s friends—the band guys and their girlfriends; the Southern couple, and the couple with the baby; various Columbians and coworkers in suits, among them Will Chase, his tie loosened, his jacket off; and Ed Slikowski, his long, pale face eager and earnest—gathered around them, sprawling their legs out and draping their elbows on the tables. The photographer, a journalist friend of Tuck’s who was shooting the wedding as his gift to the couple, came by and snapped his camera at them, cracking, “Oh yeah , there’s the album cover. Hot.”

The girls weren’t exactly sure what to do. It was just getting on midnight—still early—and had this been a normal party, they might have helped Lil and Tuck clean up, then gone out for a drink at a nearby bar. But the caterers would be cleaning everything up. “Should we see if everyone wants to go to Galapagos?” Emily whispered to Dave. The bartender there was an actor Emily knew from voice class, and would certainly grant them a round of free drinks or a bottle of champagne. “Or is it too far a walk?” The dark-haired band girl conferred with her friends, then came over and squatted behind Emily and Dave, her arms hooked companionably over the backs of their chairs. “Hey, we were thinking, if you guys want, we could go to Irving Plaza. Guided by Voices is playing and we have, like, VIP passes. We can definitely get you all in. Bob”—she pointed to a small, bucktoothed man with extraordinarily greasy hair—“toured with them last year. Lil could go in her dress. It’s cool.”

Before Dave or Emily could say anything, Sadie was standing on a chair, the toes of her silk pumps primly touching, the last trace of her peevish mood vanished. She tinked a fork on a dirty champagne flute, the imprint of someone’s coral lips adorning its edge. “Okay, everyone,” she said, tossing her arms open wide in a gesture of mock theatricality. Sadie was quiet—reserved rather than shy, like Beth—but lapsed, with drink, into fits of irony-fueled giddiness. “It is time for Lil to throw the bouquet. All the ladies must gather here .” She pointed to an open space near the door. Nobody moved.

“Oh, come on, Sadie, they did the cake-eating thing,” Dave protested, tugging on a hank of his hair. “They don’t need to do this.” Emily kicked him under the table. “Don’t be a spoilsport,” said Tal. “You know you want the bouquet.”

“I know I want the bouquet,” said Ed Slikowski.

“Everyone up.” From her perch, Sadie gazed imperiously down at Dave. “Lil, up .”

Wearily, Lil rose, leaving her round-toed pumps at the base of her chair. Without them, she appeared to crumple in on herself, like a doll, her dress trailing sadly on the floor. She walked to the fridge at the back of the loft’s great room and removed a box. “Throwaway bouquet,” she explained, holding a small bunch of roses aloft. “My mom ordered it. It’s so you can keep your real bouquet.” Dave rolled his eyes.

“Okay, on the count of three,” Sadie shouted, jumping down unsteadily from the chair. “One. Two.” The band girls scrambled up, and the others—giving each other looks of forbearance—followed suit. “ Three .” Lil, her back turned, tossed the roses into the air. The bouquet arced up sharply, then dropped directly toward Sadie herself, who tilted her neat profile up in the air, making her hands into a basket for her dubious prize; but as the flowers reached her waiting arms, the smaller band girl, the blonde, jumped directly in front of her, knocking her to the floor, and snatching the bouquet with one outstretched fist. The heavier band girl rushed over to her friend and hugged her, their outsized joy rather undermining their hipstery aspirations. The band guys raised their fists in mock salute and shouted, “ Yeah . Way to go, Taylor. All right .”