Elizabeth Crane - The History of Great Things

It’s a June wedding. You should have been a June bride the first time; that was probably mistake number one. (You will never admit that being nineteen was mistake number one; you will claim forever and always that you knew exactly what you were doing.) This time, you have engagements on the books to rehearse for, so you have the dresses made for you: yours, Audrey’s, and mine (though you have to do a bit of alteration work on mine because I’ve gone and grown, again, since the measurements were taken); you plan this shindig with two months’ notice.

You learn the extent to which Victor’s mother is perpetually late; today, two hours. This would be unacceptable on most occasions, save for some horrific circumstances not involving simply getting dressed and made up, and today, it’s just under bring-me-a-straightjacket level. She’s in the wedding. You could go ahead without her, but after an exchange of heated messages between your dressing room at the church and the anteroom where Victor and his best man are waiting (your messages leave your room heated —Tell Victor she has ten minutes to show up or I’m leaving —but they’re delivered by Audrey’s husband, Jack, with enough of a wink that Victor remains calm, and thank Christ his mother shows up before you have to make good on that. There’s no time to shift back into joyful-wedding-day mode before walking down the aisle, but Audrey whispers in your ear that it’s all going to be fine, and Audrey invented the reassuring tone of voice, and on your way down the aisle, on your father’s arm for the second time (thinking: Why in creation did we decide to do it this way? Why such a big deal, again? Why not City Hall?), you give your groom the death glare from the aisle, which only causes him to stifle his trademark loud and high-pitched laugh, over how much he loves you for and in spite of your death glare — which, in turn, reminds you why you decided not to split.

At the reception, some relative of Victor’s in a polyester suit wants to dance with me and won’t take no for an answer until I’m near tears. I turn to you and whisper I don’t want to , you say It’s fine, Betsy, that’s Victor’s uncle, he’s all right . I’m insistent; I try to make you look at my face so that Victor doesn’t see. Mommy, pleeeeeze, I don’t want to. You’d already given me instructions, prior to the wedding, to be an especially good girl today, but I have already established a zero-tolerance policy for creepiness that has served me well to date. You call Victor over to mediate with Uncle Whosis.

— Hold on, Betsy, what kind of creepiness are we talking about here, exactly?

— It was 1971 in New York City. The creepiness levels were at an all-time high.

— Did something happen to you?

— No. Things just happened. And/also things could have happened to me, but didn’t.

— Why didn’t you tell me?

— You had other things on your mind.

—. .

Victor comes over and says Maybe later, Silvio , and escorts me back to my table to sit with my friend Miriam, but now I’m all worked up and demand to sit next to you, and you relent, because though it doesn’t happen often, I am sobbing loudly and you are not having any more of that on your wedding day. You try to squeeze an extra chair between Grandma and Grandpa, but I remain firm that my seat must be next to yours. You remain firm that I must keep my shit together for the rest of the reception, and we reach an accord.

You don’t know, of course, that your doubts about this choice of spouse will remain after the hubbub of the first year. In your honeymoon suite in Mexico, you have your first real shouting match — a preview of the future — when Victor takes off his ring to go swimming and the room is burglarized while you’re gone. Why did you take it off in the first place? I didn’t want it to slip off. You can’t take it off ever! I can do what I like. No you can’t, we just took vows! I didn’t vow not to take off my ring. I knew this was a fucking mistake! Calm down, Lois, it’s just a piece of jewelry, it’s replaceable. No, it’s not! It’s the one I put on your finger and now it’s gone! I’m going down to the bar until you calm down. Oh, no, you are not! If you do, then don’t come back!

Victor does come back, of course, but now you’re too tired to get back into it, and he tells you how sexy you are, and the honeymoon makeup sex helps you deny that this incident could in any way bode for your future together as Mr. and Mrs. Silvestri.

You have big auditions and a calendar that’s almost as full as it can be with singing engagements spread all the way into 1974. You don’t anticipate that someone with absolute conviction in his own opinions might infuriate you at times. How does he know what Mayor Lindsay should do to solve the financial crisis, or that he can buy a stupid two-door LeBaron if he wants because We’ll always have plenty of cash and You can’t take it with you. In that car I can’t take anything with me, Victor. Then we’ll get two cars , he says. We’re not keeping two cars in Manhattan, Victor! Calm down, Lois, everything is fine. How do you know that, how do you know what you’re going to think about something, anything, everything, a year from now? Because I do, Lois.

With Victor, you’re able to dine out, meet powerful people, perform with some of the big stars of the day, send Betsy to private school, buy real, whole milk instead of powdered, don’t have to have some weird braless girl living rent-free in your apartment as a so-called babysitter when you leave town for jobs, because Victor will be there. You’re more resigned to being married than convinced that any one man will ever be perfect for you. Victor’s fun and he’s funny and he knows how to please you and this one will stick. You’ll deal with the arguments; they’ll probably stop anyway. You’ve decided. Stick. (He already knew this, but you believe that you decided it; you’re both right.)

You and Victor have been married for five years now. You love him, in your way; he adores you, still, always. You fight, loudly, sometimes every day. You always, always believe that each fight will be the last, though evidence over time suggests otherwise. Notably, in one of these fights, the kitchen telephone gets ripped off the wall on New Year’s Eve.

— I think it was Christmas Eve, Betsy.

— Okay, it doesn’t matter.

— So you say. It could matter.

— It could for sure, but it doesn’t.

— But it could.

— But it doesn’t.

— I will win. Just let it happen.

—. .

— Sometimes I’m not sure who’s talking.

— Sometimes that doesn’t matter either.

— That’s ridiculous.

— It’s not.

Victor walks toward the door, opens it to leave, all the neighbors can now hear, without a doubt. I’m not going to that party if that bitch Bernadette is going to be there! She’s harmless, Lois! So you say! I see the way she looks at you! You’re crazy, Lois. Bernadette is my mother’s friend. You dated her in high school, Victor! She shouldn’t be friends with your mother anymore! It’s sick! I can’t control my mother. Well, there’s your problem. But that’s not news. Victor buzzes the elevator, slams the door, comes back a couple hours later, apologizes, but also tells you that you make up things to worry about . I know , you say, even though you don’t, really. The following day, New Year’s Day, all is well. You and Victor stay in bed all day, reading the paper, eating cold cuts, and watching The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight on channel nine. You think about Fred, how the two of you never argued; for a moment you think of him fondly, for the first time since the divorce. The whirl of those early years with Fred, the better years, had never really been about Fred. This, with Victor, is love. Sometimes you fight, that’s all.