Anne Tyler - Vinegar Girl

So Kate was being too critical, clearly.

“With that golden cast to his skin, and his eyes tilting up at the corners…And I love that ropy yellow hair,” her aunt said. “He must have some Tartar in him, don’t you think?”

“I have no idea,” Kate said.

“Or is it ‘Tatar.’ ”

“I really don’t know, Aunt Thelma.”

—

Over supper, Aunt Thelma proposed that she should take charge of the reception. “What reception?” Kate asked, but her father drilled her with a narrow stare. She could guess his meaning: he was thinking that a reception would look so convincing to Immigration.

“I have to admit that this must be a genuine marriage,” the black-and-white detective would report to his superiors, “because the bride’s family threw a big shindig for them.”

Immigration often used 1940s slang words, in Kate’s fantasies.

“It’s just selfish not to let your friends and relations be part of your happiness,” Aunt Thelma was saying. “Why, what about Richard and his wife?”

Richard was Aunt Thelma and Uncle Barclay’s only child, a blow-dried, overconfident type who worked as a lobbyist in Washington and had a habit of drawing himself up and taking a deep, portentous, whiskery-sounding breath through his nose before delivering one of his opinions. He couldn’t have cared less about Kate’s happiness.

“I suppose it’s your decision if you don’t want us all at the ceremony,” Aunt Thelma told her. “I’m not pleased about it, but this is not about me, I suppose. However, we should be allowed to take part in the occasion somehow or other.”

It was like blackmail. Kate could imagine Aunt Thelma parading in front of the church with a picket sign if she weren’t allowed her precious reception. She looked toward Pyotr, who was still wearing his huge, hopeful smile. She looked toward Uncle Theron — deliberately bypassing her father — and he was nodding at her encouragingly.

“Well,” she said finally. “Well, I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, goody. This is so, so perfect, because I’ve just redone the living room,” Aunt Thelma said. “You’ll love what I’ve covered the couches in: this gorgeous satin-stripe fabric that cost an arm and a leg, but it was worth every penny. And I’ve opened out the seating arrangement so the room can hold forty people now. Fifty, in a pinch.”

“Fifty people!” Kate said. This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted her aunt to come to the wedding: she just somehow ran away with things. “I don’t even know fifty people,” Kate told her.

“Oh, you must. Old school friends, neighbors, fellow teachers…”

“Nope.”

“How many do you know, then?”

Kate thought. “Eight?” she suggested.

“Kate. There are more than eight people at the Little People’s School alone.”

“I just don’t like crowds,” Kate told her. “I don’t like mingling. I don’t like feeling guilty I’m not moving on and talking with somebody new.”

“Ah,” Aunt Thelma said. A calculating look came over her face. “How about a little-bitty sit-down dinner, then?”

“How big is little-bitty?” Kate asked warily.

“Well, my table only seats fourteen, so you know it can’t be too big.”

Fourteen people sounded to Kate like quite a lot, but it was better than fifty. “Well…” she said, and then her father jumped in to say, “Let’s see, now: there would be you and Pyoder, me and Bunny, Thelma and Barclay and Theron, and Richard and his wife, and, oh, maybe our neighbors, Sid and Rose Gordon; they were so nice to us after your mother died. And then…how about what’s-her-name?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Your best friend from high school, what’s-her-name.”

“Oh. Alice. She’s married now,” Kate said.

“Good. She can bring her husband.”

“But I haven’t seen her in years!”

“Oh, I remember Alice. She was always so polite,” Aunt Thelma said. “So, how many does that make?” She started counting on her fingers. “Nine, ten…”

“It’s not as if we’re trying to meet a minimum requirement,” Kate told her.

“Eleven, twelve…” Aunt Thelma said, pretending Kate hadn’t spoken. “Thirteen,” she finished. “Oh, dear. Thirteen at the table: unlucky.”

“Maybe add Mrs. Larkin,” Dr. Battista suggested.

“Mrs. Larkin is dead,” Kate reminded him.

“Ah.”

“Who’s Mrs. Larkin?” Aunt Thelma asked.

“The woman who used to tend the girls,” Dr. Battista said.

“Oh, yes. She died?”

“We could have Edward!” Bunny piped up.

“Why would you want to invite your Spanish tutor to a wedding reception?” Kate asked her, evilly.

Bunny slumped lower in her seat.

“Louis,” Aunt Thelma said, “is that sister of yours still alive?”

“Yes, but she lives in Massachusetts,” Dr. Battista said.

“Or…I know you must have one favorite colleague at the Little People’s School,” Aunt Thelma told Kate. “Some special friend there?”

Kate pictured Adam Barnes sending her a sooty-eyed gaze over Aunt Thelma’s Wedgwood china. “None,” she said.

There was a silence. They were all looking at her reproachfully — even Uncle Theron, even Pyotr.

“What’s wrong with thirteen at the table?” she asked them. “Are you all really that superstitious? I don’t want any at the table! I don’t know why we’re doing this! I thought we were just going to have a simple little no-frills ceremony, Father and Bunny and Pyotr and me. Everything’s getting out of control here! I don’t know how this happened!”

“There, there, dear,” Aunt Thelma said. She stretched a hand across the table to pat Kate’s place mat, which was the only part of her she could reach. “Thirteen at the table will be fine,” she said. “I was just trying to observe the conventions, that’s all; we’re not the least bit superstitious. Don’t you trouble your head about it. It will all be taken care of. Tell her, Pyoder.”

Pyotr, who was seated next to Kate, leaned closer to sling an arm around her shoulders. “Do not worry, my Katya,” he said, breathing pink-peppercorn fumes.

“ Sweet ,” Aunt Thelma cooed.

Kate pulled away and reached for her water glass. “I just don’t like fuss,” she told them all, and she took a drink of water.

“Of course you don’t,” Aunt Thelma said soothingly. “And there’s not going to be any fuss; you’ll see. Louis, where’s that wine? Pour her a glass of wine.”

“We finished it, I’m afraid.”

“This is stress, that’s all. It’s bridal jitters. Now, Kate, I just want to ask you one more teeny, tiny question and then I’ll shut up: you’re not going away on the same day as your wedding, are you?”

“Going away?” Kate said.

“On your honeymoon.”

“No.”

She didn’t bother explaining that they wouldn’t be taking a honeymoon.

“Wonderful,” Aunt Thelma said. “I always think it’s such a mistake, starting a long demanding trip right on the heels of the ceremony. So this means we can have our little party in the evening. So much nicer. We’ll make it early, because you’ll have had a big day. Five or five-thirty or so, for the drinks. Now. That’s all I’m going to say. We’re going to change the subject now. Isn’t the chicken interesting ! And you men did this? I’m impressed. Bunny, are you not having any?”

“I’m a vegetarian?” Bunny said.

“Oh, yes. Richard went through that stage too.”

“It’s not a—?”

“Thank you, Aunt Thelma,” Kate said.

For once, she really meant it. She found it oddly comforting that her aunt was proving so unflappable.