Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel (34 page)

At last, Henry lifted her veil delicately, deftly, and then he kissed her, his jawline like the blade of a scythe, her eyes closed sweetly, his hands on her face. They kissed well, confidently, like a pair of people well practiced.

The kiss concluded, the church erupted in whistles and applause, and the new couple paraded down the aisle, hand in hand, away from where I stood, their smiles impossibly happy and Beth seeming near about light enough to levitate right over the center aisle. I could see Ronny’s mother in the pews, a mess by now, ruining Kleenex after Kleenex and clutching his father Cecil’s sleeve, saying, “Never a more beautiful bride. Never ever.”

In the narthex the bride and groom received well wishes beside a pyramid of Mexican wedding cookies balanced precariously on a table, and thanked in turn every great-aunt and -uncle, every second cousin and cousin, every high school friend, neighbor, and teacher. I followed Ronny out into the parking lot, near a side entrance to the church, where a few old farmers smoked unfiltered cigarettes and the younger ones spat tobacco into the gravel. Ronny bummed two smokes and we stood off to the side, rubbing our pounding foreheads. The bells of the tower began to boom out over the flatland and from the arborvitae three dozen starlings suddenly erupted out into the sky. I suddenly remembered our fifth grade teacher, Mr. Smith, telling us: a group of starlings is called a
murmuration
.

And then, someone, one of Beth’s aunts maybe, came rushing around the side of the church and told us to make cups of our hands and into our awaiting palms came mounds of rose petals, the softest, reddest things I’ve ever seen or felt. They felt about as fragile as my feelings, those petals, something that could be blown away by the smallest gust of wind, and I stood that way, beside Ronny, hungover and a little mournful, considering the minute weight in my hands, until a mighty cheer rose up and we moved toward the front of the church where the air was already filled with not-flowers—thousands of those petals tumbling low in the air and into women’s hair.

And then they were gone … ducking into the Lincoln, an older model to be sure, but a limousine and no doubt furnished with champagne and chocolate, and there she was, popping up and out of the moonroof, so happy, so beautiful, so shining. And I don’t know that she ever looked at me, ever even saw me, as she blew kisses at her friends and relatives and then disappeared back inside the limousine. But I saw her, and I’ll never forget that moment, that pile of petals still in my palms, then my fists, waiting to be thrown.

As the crowd dispersed, Ronny and I sat on the sandstone steps of the little church, the bells above still resonating, rose petals beneath our shoes. We looked out over the countryside where a single tractor plowed the black earth, a small flock of birds hovering just above it, searching for tilled-up worms.

“I’m so hungover,” Ronny said.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t seem too happy, buddy. Kinda bringing me down a little.”

“Just the weather, I think. So gloomy.”

“Well, soon it’ll all be green.”

“Should we go?”

“I can get my mom to drop us off.”

“All right.”

*   *   *

Long after Ronny and his parents had gone into the Palladium Ballroom and Supper Club, I paced the parking lot, too nervous to be late, too proud to be early, there, in my tragic rented tuxedo, the cummerbund suffocating across my stomach and enough to make me think of a corset. I watched mostly Beth’s people go into the hall, then five cars of Henry’s farming kin, all big-looking people, fit people, their faces and necks sun-tanned, though no doubt their barrel chests and flat bellies white as a fish’s. They came from all around Little Wing, all the little farming towns, each one a variation on the same sad theme of decline: a boarded-up movie theater, a vacant Woolworth’s or Sears Roebuck, and a used car lot that never seemed to sell any cars. I waved to a few of Henry’s cousins and uncles, men I knew vaguely. The clouds had been steadily burning off, the sky by now the color of sherbet, all American pastels swirled against the fertile horizon.

“Well,” I actually said aloud to myself finally, “can’t stand out here all night long.” Then I dragged my sad-sack ass into the reception, where small groups collected here and there, pulling at canned beer and sipping on cocktails in opaque red plastic cups. I was grateful when Ronny approached me, with two cans of beer in his hands.

“Hair of the dog,” he said, knocking his can against my own.

“Probably too late for that remedy.”

“Cheer up, asshole, and drink your beer.”

A deejay was situated on a stage at one end of the rectangular space, a slightly overweight man in a tuxedo and red suspenders. I watched him as he peered down at a laptop and adjusted a wall of oversized speakers. The pastor was there too, reclined in a metal folding chair, a bottle of Grain Belt in his thick fingers. He’d once been a pig farmer, I knew, and his sermons were often predicated on farming, on harvests, on the earth. A bank of windows along one wall showed some of our high school friends outside, throwing horseshoes barefoot in the uncut spring grass and smoking cigarettes behind Ray-Ban sunglasses; everyone out there, warming back up to one another, jocular and friendly—none of the feelings I could possibly feel right then. The sound of the horseshoes clanking against a steel stake buried into the ground. The
ooohhs
and
ahhhhs.

The room steadily filled, older people taking their seats at round tables, younger people at the bar, the wedding party now arriving to scattered applause and catcalls. And then, Beth and Henry, entering the Palladium to the accompaniment of Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” arms raised victoriously, new rings glinting on their fingers, hugging everybody in their path to the stage, where a long dinner table crowned the space.

“Please give a warm and hearty welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Henry and Bethany Brown!” cried the deejay.

The crowd went bonkers as Beth and Henry took their spaces at the front of the room, and suddenly there was that good, old cacophony of cutlery against glass, as every uncle, every nephew, every best friend, urged in a sea of voices soon coalescing into a single chant:
“Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!”
And then Henry bending Beth as if a single reed, a single blade of grass, her body now nearly parallel to the floor, his arms so strong holding her there, her body so weightless and elegant.

Before dinner, the pastor stood from his chair, no notes in his hands, no Bible—he’d done it all before a thousand times or more—saying, “Please join me in prayer.… Dear lord, please bless this beautiful couple—Beth and Henry.… Fill their hearts every day with love, with reverence, with patience, and kindness.… And lord, bless this brand-new couple as they grow closer and closer together each day, growing their own family and love. In your name we pray.”

And the room said, “Amen.” And I said “Amen” as well.

*   *   *

I watched everything from the bar: the first dance, the father-of-the-bride dance, the chicken dance, the mambo line, the electric slide. I didn’t feel like dancing. Ronny’s parents, who had known me since childhood, came over to me from another table where they had been sitting with other pairs of parents.

“Doesn’t she look beautiful?” Ronny’s mother, Marilyn, said, kissing me on the cheek.

“Hey, Mrs. Taylor,” I said.

“Nice party,” said Ronny’s dad, Cecil. “
Real
nice party.” A can of Pabst in his hands looking small. He was a construction worker, always sunburnt, always smelling of a combination of fresh air and asphalt. But he
loved
music, had seen Lynyrd Skynyrd in concert. Cream, MC5, The Stones, and Led Zeppelin. He was the first person I ever smoked up with, down in Ronny’s basement around their wet bar. “How’s the music coming along, Lee?” His voice was all cigarette smoke, gravelly as the roads he worked.

“It’s coming,” I said.

“The dollar dance’s coming up,” Marilyn said, the tone of her voice rising with excitement. Then, “Cecil, do you have five dollars?”

“Five dollars!” He laughed. “That’s Beth! We’ve known Beth for years!”

“It’s so they can have a nice honeymoon!” she insisted. “And besides, I want to dance with Henry. He’s looking good. He taken over his daddy’s farm yet?”

Cecil held out a five-dollar bill and Marilyn took it, then walked over to stand in line for a dance with Henry, dozens of women ahead of her.

“Well, boys,” Cecil said, “there they go. Two of your best friends marrying each other. You ask me, that’s how you do it. Marry your best friend. Let me tell you, the sex will eventually run dry, it
will,
and then you’re stuck looking at each other. May as well find someone who can hold a conversation. Who seems to genuinely care about you.”

Ronny and I stared at his father.

“Look, I know how you feel,” he said, sipping his beer, pulling up a chair. “I know how it is.” He nodded, drummed his fingers against the beer can. “You don’t know that your dad’s watching you, but he is.” He stroked his mustache, hitched up his belt and pants. “Everyone’s getting married but you two. And now, look at that. Either of you probably could have married her. Shit, you’re her friends too. Henry’s just brighter than you two. More determined.”

“Dad—” Ronny said.

“I remember coming to one of your school talent shows. She sang a song … I think it was ‘California Dreaming.’ And I just, I remember sitting there, thinking,
That girl is special
. That was her, wasn’t it?”

I’d actually forgotten that Beth was a wonderful singer, because she didn’t sing that much, she kept it to herself, wasn’t even in the choir, but sometimes you’d catch her, at a party, or riding in the car, and she’d forget herself and let loose and out came this voice, this beautiful, sweet, self-assured voice. Had I been a smarter man, I would have asked her to record a duet with me, but maybe, for Henry’s sake, it was a good thing I never did.

Cecil rose, touching his mustache and brushing back his hair. We watched him stand and gather himself. He straightened his tie and smoothed his lapels, brushed dust off the fabric of his sleeves and shoulders. He took a final drink of his beer and looked toward the dance floor, where Beth and Henry were busy dancing with all comers, the best man and maid of honor holding hats already brimming with cash.

“I don’t know what your problem is, Lee,” he said, more sternly now. “But you’ve been pouting all afternoon long. Hell of a way for the groom’s best buddy to be acting, and now,
Jesus,
you got Ronny back here sulking with you. I ain’t your daddy, but I know if he was here, he’d say quit being a bunch of assholes and get out there and dance with your friends before they go join the real world.” Then he went without waiting to hear our rebuttal, though in truth, we had nothing to refute. We hung our heads like little boys, took a last few sips from our beers before following Cecil to the line of men. Ronny first, me following behind, forming the tail end of the dollar-dance line.

We inched forward over the next twenty minutes, the playlist shuffling between love ballads across various decades of American popular music. I saw that Ronny had a few wrinkly singles in his hand and I reached into my pocket, found a fiver. It was all I had after almost two days of straight drinking. Then it was Cecil’s turn and he handed the maid of honor some money and went out to dance with Beth, who swept some hair away from her face and then began clapping delightedly when she saw it was Cecil Taylor come to dance with her in his black polished cowboy boots.

We watched as Cecil paused before he reached her out on the dance floor. Then, he bowed deeply to her, a thing I’ve never seen duplicated at any wedding, and such a regal gesture you’d never have expected it from Cecil, the construction worker and Skynyrd fanatic. Beth placed a hand on her chest, then went to him, helped him up off his knee the way a good queen might help an old knight. And as they embraced and moved into the dance I noticed for the first time the look of love on his face. I watched him dance with Beth, and it was enough to break my heart all over again, into a million little pieces. A grown man who perhaps had always wanted a daughter, dancing with a grown woman—one of his son’s good friends.

I looked at my hands, remembered the weight and feel of those rose petals.

I don’t remember Cecil’s dance with Beth ending, or Ronny’s dance with Beth beginning. I just remember standing in line, waiting, so lovesick and sad. When my turn came I handed my five-dollar bill to the maid of honor and then moved out onto the scuffed parquet in a kind of trance. I took Beth’s hand in mine, and she placed her other hand on my shoulder and my right hand found her hip, and we slowly began to circle each other the way you do when you slow dance, the way you do at a prom or homecoming. I hadn’t felt her touch in a year or more, and we moved a little haltingly at first, before at last slipping into a slow-circling groove, our hands damp with perspiration, my eyes on her face, her eyes here and there, not
unhappy
but not happy either, and finally, if only out of exhaustion, her head very lightly on my shoulder.

“You all right?” she asked. “You don’t seem yourself.…”

“It’s okay, I mean. I don’t know what it is. The important thing’s that you look just so beautiful tonight.”

“Hey.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t get weird on us, all right? Henry and I have always been together. You know that.”

“I know that.”

“You’re part of our family, all right, Lee? Come on now. Look happy.”

“I know it, I get it.”

I wanted to kiss her, to stop the music, the dancing, the champagne flow. I wanted to tell everyone, everyone in attendance, that Beth and I had shared something—something special and real—and that maybe,
maybe,
I was still in love with her, and she with me. But I couldn’t of course, and wouldn’t. I held her tight to my body, looked her straight in the eyes. I was aware of some people watching us as we orbited the floor, our abdomens touching, faces like Cecil’s and Ronny’s staring at us, no doubt thinking,
My word is he holding her close
.