Rumaan Alam - Rich and Pretty

Lauren comes in, carrying a can of soda. “I stole this from the bar,” she says.

The can is very cold, and wet. Sarah takes it. Relief. She needed something, she didn’t know this is what it is.

“Let me get you a straw,” Ines says, digging in her things.

“Oh, don’t drink that now, honey, it’s time to get dressed!” Lulu clucks her tongue.

“You get dressed first. I’ll drink this.”

Lulu makes a disapproving face — she’s always thought soda trashy — but steps into the bathroom, where her own dress awaits.

The soda tastes odd, because her mouth is so clean, but the cold and the sugar penetrate some part of her brain, rouse her just enough. “Thank you,” she says.

Lauren shrugs. “I just knew.” She gives her a knowing look, follows Lulu into the bathroom. After a few minutes, the two emerge, transformed. It’s amazing, the extent to which a garment can change every aspect of your being. When she disappeared into the bathroom, she was Lauren; emerging, she’s — something else. Yes, she’s made up, that’s part of it, but it’s the dress. The way it reveals parts of her body, highlighting the parts of the body that remain hidden; the way Lauren seems to understand, somehow, that she has to move her body differently, and then does, expertly, almost automatically. She looks like she wears dresses like this all the time. She looks — it’s not pretty, it’s more than that. It’s that old Lauren: the person Sarah loves so much that sometimes she wants to be her.

Lulu steps out of the bathroom. Her dress is navy, cut close, showing her body, its softness, its curves. She’s fiddling with an earring, looks like herself: a star. She smiles at Sarah, smiles at all of them, the practiced smile of a woman greeting her public.

“Your turn, my love,” she says.

Sarah looks at the dress, the white billow of it, like a cloud, almost sacred.

“My turn,” she says, to no one in particular.

She listens to the sounds of celebration: clicks and clacks on the parquet, the tinkle of glasses, hellos and kisses, the occasional shout of excitement. Danielle smooths her hair. Ines examines her makeup. Sarah can’t sit, because of the dress.

Her father comes upstairs, full of chuckles, but is distracted by the arrivals. Her mother comes back upstairs, still glowing from all the compliments. Lauren comes back upstairs, brings a glass of iced water. Willa comes upstairs, tells her it’s almost time. The photographer comes upstairs, snaps pictures of her with Lulu, her with Lauren, her alone, the three of them lined up at the top of the staircase, waiting for the signal from the string quintet that will be playing them in.

It feels like a surprise party that they are in on. This silly enactment of a ritual makes Sarah want to laugh, and she does, and Lauren laughs, too, and Lulu hushes them, and they stop laughing, and the music begins. Willa has to signal them; they can barely hear it.

Dan looks handsome. Dan is smiling. Sarah feels ridiculous. Everyone stands. She walks slowly, just like Willa urged her to. Slow, slow, counting down in her head. Huck relinquishes her arm, takes his seat. She looks out at the crowd. Sees aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, her parents’ friends, her friends’ parents. Everyone looks back at her.

She looks at Dan, looks up at him, because he’s taller than her. His face is broad, a little chubby at the chin. His skin gleams. He shaved that morning. His cheek looks soft. He smells like soap. His hair looks different, a layer of product holding it in place. She remembers not the first time she saw him — that memory is lost to her, a remarkable moment only in retrospect — but another time, years later, years ago now, at the wedding of Ben, Meredith’s brother, Dan, in a black suit, leaning against the window of the Princeton Club, candlelit, so himself, so handsome, that she’d known right then that she’d marry him, and in fact, here they are.

Rob kisses Lauren hello.It begins as a kiss on the cheek, turns into a kiss on the lips, becomes another kiss, when no one is watching, his tongue grazing hers.

“You’ve been drinking,” he says, not accusatorily.

Then she goes back upstairs, takes her place in line, parades in and stands by the couple as they wed, an ally. She scans the crowd as they’re saying their vows, finds Rob, tall, standing with hands folded behind his back like someone examining a painting in a museum. She wants to signal to him, somehow, a raised eyebrow, a grin, a mouthed word, but she can’t, because everyone is looking, everyone will see. That he is hers feels like a wonderful secret.

They say a few words, then more words, then there’s a cry of delight, and applause, and the guests who are seated stand, and Dan kisses Sarah.

Everyone practically chases the couple as they attempt to retreat down the aisle. They stop, abandon the plan, giving hugs and kisses, accepting compliments, wiping tears. Every cell phone comes out, photographs are taken.

Rob worms through the crowd toward her. Lulu has vanished. The recessional will not continue. Lauren puts her bouquet of green roses on a seat, takes Rob by the hand. “Let’s get a drink,” she says, loudly, to be heard over the chatter.

The day is cool, but the garden is so crowded that even the outside air feels warm. Food appears, and drinks. Dan and Sarah disappear to have their photograph taken on the front steps. Huck and Lulu disappear, too, then reappear. Huck tells stories in his booming voice, drowning out even the string quintet.

The musicians pack it in and leave. The DJ arrives. There are more appetizers, then more drinks, and finally the servers come through, collecting empty glasses and encouraging everyone to go inside, upstairs, to dinner, a buffet laid in the living room.

Lauren takes a plate — salmon, red potatoes, asparagus — and she and Rob sit on the steps, eating, watching the sky grow darker. It is night. They take their plates inside, deposit them back near the buffet. A girl in a black polo shirt whisks them away.

There are speeches and toasts, back in the garden. The chairs are gone, the lanterns are lit. The photographer moves through the crowd. He pauses before them, and Rob drapes an arm around her shoulder, pulls her nearer, and they smile. Huck makes a speech about the first time he held Sarah, and how a parent never stops holding his child. It’s a good speech, but that’s what he does for a living.

There are cupcakes filled with strawberry jam. They drink more whiskey. Lulu sings a song, then another, and there is applause, raucous, excited. She beams. The DJ begins to play music. The kids dance. Some of the older guests dance. Most of them go inside, to drink, tell stories, listen to Huck. She and Rob dance, then sit, and watch the dancing, watch the faces, and then, a couple of hours later, it is over.

Sarah’s hunch is wrong.It’s a boy. Called Henry, for her dad, and then Andrew, for Dan’s. He’s small, a surprise given how big she got. The labor, which she’s been privately terrified of for weeks, is simple. There is pain, yes, and it’s a pain that is beyond any definition of pain she’s previously accepted or understood, but it’s brief, and in the end, there’s the baby, and the pain diffuses, floats away like a cloud, and there’s a dull, general atmosphere of fatigue, a warmth at the hips, an ache in the back, but there’s also him, furious mouth pulling at her nipple, leaving her a little bit ecstatic, and even more spent. It’s so animal it’s almost like incest. She sleeps, and the baby is taken away, and then he is returned to her, and Dan is there, and she pulls on a gown, ties it up, her nipples sore and leaky against the thin cotton. When she is decent, Lulu comes, fragrant with perfume, then Huck, then Andrew and Ruth. Everyone wants to hold and kiss Henry, so they do, in turn, then they leave, and she sleeps and nurses and drinks cup after cup of iced water. A day later, Dan pushes her and Henry in the state-mandated wheelchair to the curb, and they wrangle with the six-point harness on the as-yet-unfamiliar car seat, then drive home, very slowly.