Rumaan Alam - Rich and Pretty

Willa has been calling the bedroom “the bridal suite” and “the staging area” alternately: the former possessed of too much grandeur, the latter too silly. Neither can elevate what is, after all, Sarah’s childhood bedroom. In this room, what can she be but a girl again — all that childish ephemera: years’ worth of yearbooks, framed certificates for this or that accomplishment; a Lladro figure of a horse; a sterling, hollow pig, filled with Kennedy half-dollars. Behind the door of the walk-in closet — the only space where Sarah was allowed to exercise her decorative instincts, her adolescent psyche made visible. There, glamour shots of horses torn from the pages of magazines gave way to a parade of soft, shirtless lads, interchangeable really, the stars of screens large and small, Jonathans and Tylers and Aarons and Eriks, who were then ripped down, supplanted by postcards of paintings, stolen from the gift shop at the Met, an Avedon portrait of Allen Ginsberg ripped from the pages of Huck’s New Yorker, though she never managed Howl, a photograph of Sylvia Plath she found God knows where. Even here, this assemblage wasn’t necessarily the real Sarah. There was an artifice to it, she was aware even as she had assiduously set about Scotch taping.

Danielle, the hairstylist, is waiting for her, sipping a gigantic paper cup of coffee, as is Lauren, sitting on the edge of one bed and reading an old Vanity Fair . Danielle arrived half an hour ago, rolling a suitcase, black, efficient, the sort a flight attendant uses, in her wake. But now she’s unpacked, the tools of her trade arrayed neatly on the bureau, atop clean, white towels that she must have brought with her.

Danielle came recommended by Willa. Sarah had only glanced at her portfolio, a panoply of dewy brides with stunning updos and tousled manes, but upon meeting her, Sarah knew she was the one: It’s hard not to be impressed with a woman like Danielle, a hairstylist who wears her own hair shorn to the scalp, something black women are uniquely capable of pulling off. Danielle wears a black tank top and black jeans, and Sarah considers, resentfully, her well-formed biceps. After all these weeks of dutifully lifting and dropping those stupid pink barbells, she doesn’t have much to show for it. Danielle had listened carefully at their meeting and seemed to agree that what Sarah envisioned — hair back, not up — was the right thing to want. Danielle had taken Sarah’s face in her hands, studied the shape of her head, and the whole thing was so intimate, so loving, her warm, strong touch. Danielle was the kind of woman you’d let do anything to you.

“You look lovely this morning,” Danielle says. “How are you feeling? Nervous?”

“A little,” Sarah says. Why lie? She can admit to Danielle what she won’t admit to Willa.

“First things first,” Danielle says. “Have you eaten?”

Sarah shakes her head. She hadn’t even tried. Not morning sickness, thankfully, just a disinterest in her usual bowl of yogurt and cereal.

Danielle frowns. “This is your job,” she says, accusingly, to Lauren.

“She doesn’t want to eat,” Lauren says. “I tried!”

“You didn’t tell her she has to?” Danielle shakes her head. “You have to.”

“Maybe I should eat.” Sarah’s still not hungry, but if Danielle says she must, then she must.

“You should. A boiled egg, something with some protein, and some fruit, just because.” Danielle sips her coffee.

“So should I. .” Lauren trails off. “Should I, like, go downstairs and boil an egg?”

“You should,” Danielle says. “That would be the right thing to do.”

Lauren puts the magazine aside and stands. “Okay. One boiled egg, coming up.”

“Make it two,” Danielle says. “One isn’t enough. And find some fruit.”

Sarah finds it reassuring that even Lauren is cowed by Danielle. Lauren stands, sort of shrugs, leaves the room. Danielle’s tone isn’t unkind, but she’s clearly someone to whom other people listen.

“I’m all set up,” Danielle says. “You’re going to sit here. The light is good right here.” Danielle has pulled one of the little benches from the end of the bed to a spot in the sunlight, by the window.

“Sounds good,” Sarah says. “Are you ready for me now?”

“No, no,” Danielle says. “Once you’ve eaten, we’ll start.”

Sarah wonders what Dan is doing, if he’s taken a shower yet. The guests are due to arrive at four. The ceremony itself is supposed to take place half an hour after that. It’s early, but she knows how quickly these hours will fall away. Time being relative, of course, and speedy on a day such as today. Dan will send some last work e-mails, take a shower, dress, take a taxi to the hotel to meet his parents, fetch them, take another taxi downtown to her parents’ place, come inside, chitchat, fuss over the arrangements, retie his tie, and then guests will start trickling in. What seem like hours will turn out to be minutes. She’s excited to see him all dressed up. She likes the way Dan looks in a suit.

Last night was fun. More fun than she’d anticipated, and genuinely celebratory, which had been her biggest concern. She’d worried that everyone would gather in a room and it would feel like an office birthday: sheet cake in a conference room. But it was the kind of night people remember, will be the thing they remember when they think of her and Dan. Remember the night before your wedding, we went to that taco place downtown? That was so great!

Sarah didn’t eat much, something every wedding magazine told her would happen. She nibbled on a piece of corn, sodden with cold cheese, but did her duty — to circulate, to hug and kiss the guests who had made the trip in from out of town, her mother’s cousin in from Miami, her father’s sister’s widower and her cousin in from Los Angeles and New Haven. Willa kept bringing Sarah plates of food, but she mostly ignored them.

Sarah had been dreading the toasts, but in the end, they were sort of charming, even heartwarming, and she’d endured them with as much grace as she could muster. She felt like the actresses at the Academy Awards must: It’s hard to manage poise when you’re so conscious of wanting to seem poised. But there were moments the smile, practiced, conscious, slipped into real happiness. She can’t remember much of what was actually said, now, but never mind. Everyone had a great time, which is what matters.

The party was a gift, her gift from Lolo, the best gift, better than the handblown footed glasses, the Conran plates, the Porthault napkins that the people she knows less well than Lauren will give them. Better because she could never have come up with it on her own. Who would have thought of tacos? They didn’t talk much — Huck or Lulu pushing and pulling her into obligatory hellos and kisses and catch-up conversations. She caught sight of Lauren, in red, across the room, nodding at something that Lulu was telling her, then later, when Huck had the floor, expounding upon his theory of love, a speech that was moving, that was persuasive, because that’s what he does for a living. Sarah watched Lauren, who was listening, reach out and put her hand in the crook of one of Rob’s arms, which were crossed against his chest. Leaving, Lauren had leaned in close and whispered into her ear, twice (it was noisy): “That was so fun.”

“Thanks to you,” Sarah had said. It wasn’t clear if Lauren heard.

Lauren smiled. Next to Rob she looked tinier. Her breath was citrusy, from the wedge of lime the waiters had forced on the participating guests of one round of celebratory shots. Her eyes were the way they got when she’d been drinking, bright, a little wild, wider than normal. “See you in the morning,” Lauren said, leaning in for an actual hug then, surreptitiously, gently, placing her hand against Sarah’s stomach.