Rumaan Alam - Rich and Pretty

“I’m actually her something old,” Lauren says. “I’m working on new, borrowed, and blue.”

“Guys, excuse us for a second, would you?” Dan places his hand gingerly on Lauren’s back, but only barely touching her. She must look immaculate. She lets him push her back into the house, floats away at his touch, happy, for the moment, to cede control to him. She doesn’t know what to do with herself anyway.

“You want a drink?” His tone is less formal, but still not quite intimate. Dan’s always respected the distance between them.

“Maybe I do want a drink,” she says.

Dan nods at a girl who’s standing at the kitchen island, measuring out piles of paper cocktail napkins.

“Where do you think we could get a whiskey?”

The girl smiles a smile that says she’s helped many a nervous groom. “I’ve got some ice right here,” she says. She stops what she’s doing, fills tumblers with ice in one fluid motion. “There’s whiskey upstairs or”—voice dropping to conspiratorial whisper—“there’s the good stuff, from their regular bar. You want the good stuff, right?”

“We want the good stuff,” Lauren says.

She points down the hallway. “It’s in the apartment. Do you want me to go grab it?”

“We’ll get it,” Lauren says. “You’re busy.” She takes the tumblers from the girl. “Thanks.”

Lauren’s never actually seen the apartment, and in her imagination, the place was amazing, impressive. A teenage daydream: that Sarah, at sixteen, could have relocated down there, come and gone as she pleased, though in fact, she enjoyed plenty of liberty, not to mention more square footage. The place is disappointing — sealed up, a relic of another time, like those underground bunkers where families once imagined they’d while away the hours, post-apocalypse. The bottles that usually crowd on the kitchen counter have been transplanted to a table here. Lauren chooses the Oban, a splash in each glass then, upon reflection, another splash. She’s not the one who’s pregnant.

“Cheers,” she says. She lifts the glass in salute.

“Thanks.” Dan touches his glass to hers, sniffs the whiskey, takes a tentative sip. “I needed that.”

She sits on the one corner of the bed not covered by plant stands, coffee-table books, magazines, vases, and other accessories temporarily moved from the upstairs rooms. The mattress groans, but nothing falls over. She’s not sure she’s ever been alone with Dan before.

“How’s she doing up there, really?”

“Great,” Lauren says. “She looks amazing, we’re all good to go.”

“She always does. Is everyone driving her crazy?” Dan smiles. “Sarah doesn’t like to be fussed over, you know.”

“I think she’s taking it in stride,” Lauren says. It’s sweet, how the first thing he says, in response to being told of Sarah’s beauty, is a reflexive “of course.” “But, you know, I think she wants it to be over.”

“We’re pregnant, I know she told you.”

“Another thing to say congratulations for,” she says.

“Thanks. I’m excited.”

“You should be.”

“The next chapter, or something.” Dan pauses. “I’m glad Sarah has you, had you to talk to, about the baby. You were the first person to know.”

“As well I should have been,” Lauren says.

“She’s lucky, to have you, to know you.” Dan looks embarrassed. He takes a long sip of his drink. “I’m nervous. Is that stupid?”

“Drink up,” she says. “You’re going to need it. The madness hasn’t even begun.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he says. “This wedding thing got a little out of hand. Almost two hundred guests? This ridiculous menu?”

“It’s fun! Your parents look thrilled. Everyone will be so excited to see you both. Just let it go.” Lauren finishes her drink, but sits, looking up at him.

“You understand, though,” Dan says, talking to her, but also not to her, almost like he’s delivering a monologue. “You’re not like this, we’re not like this, the big wedding type. The first dance, the bad hors d’oeuvres.”

“First of all, those hors d’oeuvres look amazing.” Lauren pauses. “Anyway, who cares? It’s a wedding.”

“That it is,” he says. “Pomp and circumstance. Pageantry. How many people here do you think will count backwards when we send the birth announcements and be scandalized?”

“No one,” she says. “It’s not 1951, as you yourself just said ten minutes ago.”

“I feel like you’re the only sane person at this wedding. Where’s Rob?”

“Oh, he’ll be here, eventually,” she says. “He was sleeping it off. Last night got a little crazy.”

“I amend my previous statement. You and Rob are the only sane people at this wedding, except for Sarah and me. I have to tell you — I wish we could ditch everyone and go have ice cream or something.”

“Like something out of an independent film.”

“Something like that,” Dan agrees.

Lauren needs to eat something herself. One drink and it’s in her head: that warmth, that swim. “Our moment is over, groom-to-be.” She stands. “Willa is going to be looking for you. They’re going to want to do your picture with your parents, to move things along later.”

“Willa.” Dan snorts.

“She who must be obeyed.” Lauren takes his empty glass. “I’ll ditch these. You go find the folks, put on your big smile, and then go greet the guests. We’ll talk later.”

“We’ll talk later,” he says, taking her by the wrist, because her hands are full. “When I’m a married man, I guess.”

“I guess,” she says.

“It’s time to get dressed.”Willa speaks in a firm, quiet voice; every sentence ends with some emphasis, like she’s clapped her hands, though she wouldn’t do that. Willa’s talents are wasted coordinating weddings; she should work for the president.

For the occasion, Willa has had a large standing mirror moved upstairs from Lulu’s dressing room. Sarah looks at herself. She’s wearing a tank top, gray, something she’d wear to the gym, and sweatpants, green, the sort of thing she’d never wear out of the house, or in front of anyone but Dan. The mirror is so big, the ceilings so high, that somehow she looks small, in the mirror, like a child. Fitting: Getting dressed had once been play. She’s read that play is actually work, that children need to do it to understand the world. So they pantomime fetching cakes from ovens, when really they’re conjuring plates of sand from thin air. Or they pack imaginary bags, head off to the office, cannily echoing daddy’s unconscious, put-upon sigh. This is genius: rehearsal for our unremarkable lives. She herself did this many times, wrapping Lulu’s scarf around her waist like a skirt, announcing she was leaving for “lunch with Kissinger,” as one favorite and probably apocryphal family story has it.

She can hear, downstairs, the bustle — chairs being set up, trays being arranged, flowers propped up and back to life. But she’s been forgotten. She feels, for a moment, like stamping her feet, like demanding attention. This is her game they’re supposed to be playing. The feeling passes. The dress, strapless but somehow modest, is on a hanger, the hanger hooked over the top of the closet door.

“You look beautiful.” Lulu charges into the room, hair pulled back tight against her face, showing, to best advantage, the shape of that face, its flat planes, its soft beauty. She looks at once older and younger. “They did a wonderful job.”

Sarah’s about to respond when Danielle steps in, and then Ines, and Lulu redirects the compliments directly toward them, and again, Sarah’s forgotten. The three of them talk, their voices excited; even Ines, who was so subdued before, seems to come alive near Lulu, a not uncommon phenomenon.