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Chapter 191 – Wedding PartyAlex still wasn’t sure she was ready even after more than a week, but she drove down to Santa Barbara anyway. It wasn’t that far. And Highway 101 was really pretty for a lot of its length.
Someone had sent her a new computer tablet and a new phone, and the tablet had a file on Jewish wedding customs, and a file on common Hebrew prayers she might hear, and a file on common Yiddish slang she might hear, and some other files. Plus some map files with directions to the hotel and the synagogue and two dozen restaurants and nearby places to shop. And a short list of the stuff Willow needed Alex to do. It was Friday already, so her list for the day was: try on dress for fit, go to wedding rehearsal, go to rehearsal dinner, and not be mad that the bachelorette party had been changed and was now only for women twenty-one and over.
Well, Alex was pretty sure she wasn’t up for wild and crazy partying and pretending to be ridiculously happy. She was still just barely out of the ‘crying non-stop’ stuff. She figured she must have been really bad if both her parents thought this trip was great for her.
But it was an easy drive. Even the traffic on I-5 was okay. And she had a car cooler that was a present from Ray. It plugged into the car cigarette lighter so you didn’t have to worry about ice and melted ice and stuff. It had a six-pack of Diet Coke and some cold roast beef and lettuce and tomato sandwiches her mom had made up from leftovers from all the stuff people had brought to the house.
At least her appetite was back. She must have been really upset, because when she had started eating normally, her mom burst into tears and hugged her. And her dad hugged her. And Ray. And Marsha. And even Louis. And her mom must have texted everybody about it, because Gloria had rushed right over with a dozen fresh Bavarian cream doughnuts.
Which reminded her. Just in case she got hungry some time during the trip, in the back seat she had a cardboard banker’s box that held a dozen apple fritters from Gloria, a case of chocolate raspberry energy bars from her dad, two dozen of her mom’s brownies, and a bunch of high-calorie protein drinks from Ray. So she had that and her camera case and one big suitcase that had nice clothes for today and tomorrow and Sunday, plus another casual outfit just in case, plus a nice casual outfit just in case, plus a dress for the rehearsal dinner, plus a bathing suit and sunscreen, plus her makeup kit and her dopp kit and stuff. There was no way she was ever taking her Terawatt stuff ever again.
When she followed the directions, she found that this wasn’t a motel. It was a huge ‘resort hotel’ thing that was more like a huge collection of really pretty ‘hotel blocks’ and ‘room blocks’ arranged around more than twenty acres of resort stuff. There was a huge pool that looked like it was stolen out of a tropical island. There was beachfront and ocean and a ton of other stuff. And it was only half a mile from downtown, and it was only a few miles from the synagogue. The concierge gave her a map that showed where her room was, and where forty other people’s rooms were in her block and the nearby block, and where the ‘hospitality room’ was, and where the banquet room was for the catered meals for all three days.
And her room was ridiculous. She walked into a ‘living room’ that had a kitchenette off to the side. There was a double door to the bedroom which had a California king bed and a fancy tile bathroom that had soap and shampoo and stuff that was more expensive than what she bought for herself normally. And she noticed that the kitchenette had a big fruit basket on the counter. She opened up the fruit basket out of habit, even though she wasn’t hungry. The bottom layers were all cookies and crackers and biscuits and cheeses and candies and sausages. The middle layers were apples and oranges around boxes of cookies and candies. The top section was a bunch of bananas and some juicy pears.
She managed not to eat anything from the fruit basket. Yet. Instead, she checked the time and decided she had just enough time to go to the dress boutique and try on her dress and shoes before she was supposed to be back at the hotel for the lunch. And she had her own car, plus a map of Santa Barbara, plus driving directions.
It only took about fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the boutique, which was in a pretty little strip mall. And the ladies in the store were so nice, even though she knew she really should have come in a couple days ago and tried it on and given them a chance to tailor it a little more if they needed to. And she had footies and a pair of white pumps along just in case. But it was a beautiful knee-length pastel-green cocktail dress that had long sleeves and a sweetheart neckline that wasn’t too low. And it fit just right. And the matching pumps with two-inch heels fit perfectly. Her mom had told her that the rule was bridesmaids’ dresses were supposed to be ugly enough that the bride looked amazing next to them, but this dress was gorgeous.
And she was totally not surprised that someone had already paid for the dress and the shoes and the matching clutch purse. Clutch purses looked beautiful and stylish, but really you could only fit a lipstick and a powder compact and maybe a cellphone in one. Her mom had once told her ‘that’s what your date is for, so he can carry all your other stuff in all the pockets he’s got in his suit.’ She had thought her mom was kidding at the time, but now she wasn’t so sure.
She changed back into her nice shirt and jeans, carried her gorgeous dress and stuff out to the car, and got back to her room in plenty of time to check her hair before she went over to the banquet room where lunch for the visiting wedding guests was being served. From what Willow had said, pretty much everyone was ‘visiting’ except a couple of Willow’s parents’ long-time friends and a couple of Willow’s old friends, because even Willow’s parents no longer lived there. So there were already maybe forty or fifty people there for lunch. Alex recognized Jack and Charlie, and Hanna and Janet, and Riley and his wife Samantha, and Forrest Gates, and Graham who was with a pretty brunette who Alex was guessing was his girlfriend Rita that Alex had never met. And Alex recognized Willow’s mom and dad from Willow’s pictures, because they really hadn’t changed much in the last ten years. And there were half a dozen people who looked like they had to be related to Willow’s mom or dad, and they were with people who were probably their wives and husbands and such. And the woman who looked like a thirty-year-old Sheila Rosenberg but with a tiny nose and pronounced cheekbones and D-cup breasts and dyed red hair had to be the ‘cousin Becky’ Willow had mentioned once or twice. But there were plenty of people Alex had no idea about.
Willow came rushing over. “Alex! Alex! Hi!” They hugged, and Willow checked, “Have you tried on your dress yet?”
“I did! It’s so pretty.” Alex pouted. “But someone already paid for it.”
Willow grinned. “How about that? How strange. I wonder if someone already paid for your room, too …”
“You didn’t! That’s way too much!”
Willow frowned. “That’s not what my cousin Becky said. She said, ‘In that case, why can’t I have a suite?’ ” Willow took her arm and rushed her over to the tables. “You met my fiancé, but you haven’t met his family, or my family.” Willow led her over to where Jack was sitting with Charlie and Willow’s parents and an older couple.
As they got there, Willow’s dad finished some story. “… so the rabbi said ‘step on the glass and smash it, and drive away the evil spirits!’ and so I did, but when I turned around, my mother-in-law was still there.”
Jack and Charlie laughed, and Willow’s mom gave her spouse a pretend-scowl. “You’re a goniff!” She looked around the table and insisted, “He heard Alan King do that joke decades ago, and he stole it. He’s told it at every wedding we’ve ever been to.”
Jack grinned. “Well, I can’t see it playing well at a bris.” Ira Rosenberg chortled.
Alex knew what that was, because she’d looked in Willow’s list of Yiddish and Hebrew words, so she knew it was the circumcision ritual a mohel did on a baby boy when he was only a few days old. And because Willow’s list had a word and then a definition and then something using the word, Alex now knew a really dirty joke about a mohel, too. Like that was ever going to be of any use.
She knew she wasn’t supposed to know all the SRI personnel really well, but A.L. Mack had met Jack, as well as the Finns, so she could greet them. She said, “General O’Neill! It’s nice to see you again. I never did thank you enough for that lunch and the tour and everything.”
“Well, you can thank me by calling me Jack. Unless you join the Air Force, you’re never gonna have to call me General O’Neill ever. And this is my son Charlie, who’s gonna be my best man. Even if he’s a little young for you. And his girlfriend is lurking around here somewhere.”
Charlie grinned and played along. “Nice to meet you. I’ll introduce you to Hanna. I’m sure you two will hit it off.”
Jack pointed at the Rosenbergs and said, “These are my soon-to-be in-laws, Sheila and Ira.” Then he pointed at the older couple sitting next to him. “And these two unfortunates are my foster parents William and Ina, who were burdened with me throughout my misspent youth.”
Alex shook hands with everyone, while Ina insisted, “Don’t pay any attention to what Jack says. He was a great kid. He was smart as a whip, and captain of the school hockey team —”
“Had her fooled, too,” Jack smirked.
“— and he almost always managed to avoid getting caught when mischief happened.”
Jack blithely said, “I think it must’ve been a curse. The bullies around school just seemed to have the worst luck. Their cars kept breaking down, their backpacks came apart at inopportune moments …”
William smiled. “I’m sure it was a curse that caused that Red Heet stuff to end up in those boys’ jockstraps.”
Jack just gave him one of those patented Jack how-can-you-suspect-me looks.
Alex plastered on a smile she really didn’t feel and said, “It’s great to meet all of you.”
Willow scooted her over to the buffet tables, and Alex got herself a big corned beef sandwich on dark rye and some yummy-smelling stuff that Willow promised was mega-tasty even if it was ‘chopped liver’ which was cooked chicken livers and onions ground up with hard-boiled eggs. So she got some of that on a couple of crackers. And some cheese blintzes and a helping of noodle kugel and a scoop of the tzimmes. Her plate was pretty overloaded by the time she sat down across from the Finns. There was a big choice on drinks, but she’d never had a ‘cream soda’ before so she grabbed one. After all, if she didn’t like it, she still had a lot of Diet Coke in her cooler.
“Riley! Sam! Hi. Is it okay if I sit with you? I don’t know anybody except you two and Willow and the general.” Riley and Sam both knew that was a big fib.
They both smiled at her and assured her it was okay to sit with them. Then, while Alex started eating, they ‘introduced’ her to Forrest and Graham and Graham’s girlfriend Rita, and they ‘explained’ how A.L. Mack interviewed them in Davenport and they had dinner together. So then the guys started telling Jack O’Neill stories. If Alex hadn’t felt so sad, she was sure she would have been laughing really hard.
Boy, the tzimmes was really good. It was carrots and yams chopped up and stewed with raisins and some other fruits and sweetened with maybe honey. At the brief thought that she needed to get the recipe to cook it for Shar, she nearly broke down in tears.
Okay, everything was really awesome. She’d never been a huge fan of liver and onions, but the chopped liver was delish. She totally needed some more of that on crackers. Except that Alex Mack couldn’t pig out like Terawatt in front of all these people. Oh, well, there was all that stuff in her fruit basket back in the room. She didn’t want those pears and bananas to go bad or anything.
A hand gently touched her shoulder. “Alex?”
She turned her head. “Yes, Dr. Rosenberg?” It wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed someone coming up from behind her.
“Sheila, please. I just wanted to explain how this afternoon and tomorrow are going to work. We’ll be going to the Reform Temple here in town for the rehearsal, and coming back here for the rehearsal dinner. Then anyone who wants to go to Friday night Shabbat services can ride on the bus Willow rented. I’m sure you’re not going to get to go to the ‘bachelorette party’ because Becky took that completely out of Marilyn’s hands, and trust me, Becky will be taking them someplace with too much liquor and anything else inappropriate she can find, but maybe you could get to know Charlie and his girlfriend. Hanna, I think. A very pretty girl. Then services tomorrow morning that you can skip if you prefer, and we’ll go over to the temple before sundown. You and I will help Willow put on her wedding gown, and we’ll do all the wedding photos first, and then we’ll have the wedding and dinner and dancing before the bride and groom sneak away. I have no idea what the military does for a bachelor party or for decorating cars after the wedding or any of that nonsense, but that’s not our headache.”
Alex fibbed a tiny bit. “I interviewed Riley Finn and researched him. He doesn’t drink or smoke or anything. And he supports his wife, even though she works as a doctor in a really dangerous part of Africa. If he’s involved, I think it’ll be more wholesome than the kind of bachelor parties you hear about on TV.”
Sheila glanced over at Riley, where he was standing with his wife and smiling at a Jewish couple Alex hadn’t met yet. “He does look like the All-American boy.”
Alex replied, “I think he kind of is. His senior year at West Point, while he was finishing first in his class, he also placed fourth in the NCAA track and field competition in the decathlon, and he got an invite to the Olympic trials. And he turned them down because he already had some really hard Army training course scheduled, even though he could’ve found some high-ranking officer to get him out of it for all the Olympic perks. And his parents are hard-working Iowa farmers.”
Sheila smiled and asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Sure!” Alex told her. “Could you introduce me to Willow’s side of the wedding party? I got to meet Jack’s son and foster parents and officers, but all I know about Willow’s family is what she’s told me and the pictures she showed me.”
Sheila smiled. “Are you sure you want to meet Becky? We worry about someone cutting themselves on her cheekbones.”
* * *
When Alex got back to her room after meeting twenty or thirty of Willow’s relatives, she got into the fruit basket and had a bunch of crackers with sliced summer sausage and white cheddar cheese. She was just putting the remnants of the sausage and cheese in the little fridge in the kitchenette — the fridge that someone had stuck two six-packs of Diet Coke into before Alex got there — when her phone rang.
“Alex? It’s Janet.”
“Oh, hi! How are you?”
“Not as well as we could be. Can we drop in on you? Hanna wants to apologize.”
Alex cringed. “Hanna doesn’t need to apologize. I totally do. And if she feels bad, it’s my fault for being a total jerkhead to her when she must’ve saved my life while I was out cold.”
Janet carefully said, “Well, then, why don’t you tell Hanna that?”
So, even though Alex didn’t think she was ready to see Hanna, Janet brought Hanna over to Alex’s room, and they sat in the living room area and apologized to each other a whole bunch. And then Hanna hugged her and cried, and that made Alex start crying, and then even Janet cried some, too, and they just cried for a long time.
When they finally stopped hugging, Janet just said, “I think we all need some cold compresses and some Visine.”
So after Janet and Hanna left, Alex soaked a washrag in cold water and wrung it out and put it on her eyes for a few minutes. She could have used the teabags in the kitchenette, but she wanted to save them in case she really needed them tomorrow afternoon. Then she used a drop of Visine in each eye and she looked back to normal.
She really wished she wasn’t bursting into tears at the drop of a hat.
Now that she knew there was Diet Coke in the fridge, she checked the rest of the kitchenette. Someone had tucked a box of energy bars on one of the shelves. She really needed to give that someone a big hug and thank her, because Willow totally had way too many things to do to be messing around with stuff like snacks for the maid of honor.
Her phone rang, and she saw it was Willow. “Hi!”
“Hi, Alex, are you in your room?”
Alex replied, “Sure. Where else would I be?”
Willow told her, “Well, you could be out at the pool, or the wave-pool, or the beach, or the hospitality room, or one of the restaurants, or even out driving around, or —”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Lots of stuff to do. But I’m still in my room. I had a snack from all the amazing stuff that some really mega-nice person put in my room.”
Willow explained, “Well, I got fruit baskets for every room. Yours is just the biggest one with the most stuff in it.”
“So why did you want to know if I was in my r–…” A knock on the door interrupted her. “Oh.”
She rushed to the door, and it was Willow with Jack. They stepped in, and Willow gave her a big hug. “How are you holding up? Really?”
Alex admitted, “Better, but not great. I almost fell apart just eating the tzimmes and thinking about getting the recipe for … for Shar. And then I apologized to Hanna and cried for like ten solid minutes. It’s a good thing I brought a lot of Visine. And how come more of the SRI isn’t here?”
Jack grimaced a little and said, “That would be because the SRI is on high alert because some dimwit general is getting married to a high-profile Orphan and there are gonna be even more high-profile targets here by tomorrow afternoon, and if someone thinks the SRI is here, they might opt for a major strike somewhere else. I’ve got Carter running Team One with the sergeants and Klar. Lupo’s running Team Two with Carlson and the lieutenants and Azure Crush. Ultraman’s on call. And everyone’s on alert just in case.”
Willow added, “And Terawatt’s on an extended leave of absence until you feel better.”
Alex stared at the floor. “Terawatt’s gone. Forever. I can’t do this anymore. It just hurts too much. I’ll give you back the apartment, and I’ll pay Willow for the furniture and I’ll understand when you take back my spot at Corcoran and —”
“Like hell I will,” he growled. “You gave this job everything you had for well over a year, and you saved the goddamn planet way more times than anyone else ever did. You stopped everything the Collective threw our way. Thanks to you, there’s no more America bloc, and no more India bloc, and a hell of a lot fewer Orphans in the primary bloc, and no Shop and almost no NID. If you need to stop, then you stop. We’ve got Ultraman coming on board. And Ayananta and Shaman and Tsurara. And we already have Action Girl and Klar and Azure Crush and some kick-ass Orphan soldiers. You can stop and not feel guilty about it. You just keep that apartment and that college spot and that boyfriend and everything. You deserve it. Just one thing …”
“I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t.”
“Alex? I’m not asking you to. But I am ordering you to talk to a DHS shrink twice a week until this isn’t ripping you apart.”
“Jack, why are you being so nice to me? I let everyone down. I failed Shar. I wouldn’t come to the funeral. I quit on you. I’m a totally bad person.” She couldn’t stop the tears.
He hugged her. “You’re a wonderful person. I didn’t tell you this nearly enough, but you’re an amazing person who’s done amazing things and you deserve an amazing life, not this shit that got dumped on you. And it sounds to me like you didn’t let anyone down, not even you, even if you’re way too hard on yourself.”
Willow stared sadly at Alex. She whispered, “Jack, this is why I love you a stupid amount and I can’t wait to have your children.” She hugged both Alex and Jack tightly. “And Alex? I am so going shopping with you when you and Ray get to D.C. I already found this eight-quart slow cooker for you. It’s got this rectangular ceramic liner that you can pull out as a serving dish or just shove it in the fridge to preserve the food.”
Jack snarked, “Or since this is Alex we’re talking about, that oughta be just about right as a soup bowl for her.”
“Jack!” Willow protested.
But for the first time in days and days, Alex felt a real smile on her face.
* * *
She still had a few hours until it was time to go over to the temple for the rehearsal, so Willow and Jack talked her into getting out of her room for a while. Either going down to the hospitality room to spend time with other guests, or else going over to the huge pool near their motel block. She opted for the pool. She had a cute little bikini. It wasn’t mega-skimpy like a Victoria’s Secret bikini. It was just a nice Land’s End paisley bikini in ‘deep blue’. It wasn’t like she was going to be getting tons of sun when she was in D.C. in the winter.
She got a hotel towel and stretched out on one of the comfy lounge chairs north of the pool so the sun was shining right on her. The pool looked like it was made of white sand and crystal-clear water. It was really gorgeous.
She felt someone walk in front of her and she heard them lie down on the chair next to her. She opened her eyes a tiny bit and took a peek. It was Sheila Rosenberg.
Sheila said, “I was really hoping we’d get a chance to talk in private … Terawatt.”
But Alex had gotten to practice this bit plenty of times. “Me? Terawatt? Please. I’m just a photojournalist. And she’s got huge breasts, too.”
Sheila snorted softly. “Right. You met Becky. She wore gel falsies for a couple months before she had the surgery, just to try and fool everyone that those cantaloupes are real. So when I thought about you possibly being Terawatt, I immediately remembered Becky.”
Alex tried, “But why would you even think I could be someone awesome? I mean … I’m just me.”
Sheila smiled slightly. “I wouldn’t have made the connection. But I foolishly complained about Willow’s choice of a maid of honor, like I have any right to stick my nose in after all the time I spent not intruding in her life, when that was probably what I should have done. But Willow defended you rather vehemently. In fact, she used most of the same words she had used when she was defending Terawatt. And the exact tone. And I wondered … could they be the same person? So I did a little research. It wasn’t hard to find your interview on the Today show and compare that with Terawatt’s interview at the White House. The visible parts of your faces are identical. You move your hands the same way — you might want to watch that in future. You even have a few speech patterns in common, but that really just told me that Terawatt is younger than she appears to be. But there are a lot of people who can look a lot like Terawatt with a wig and falsies. I wasn’t really sure until I came out here to talk to you and I saw your musculature. Even the Terawatt impersonators don’t have Terawatt’s abs or her legs.”
Ugh. Alex looked down at her belly and decided she was way too cut. She needed to not wear bikinis any more. Even if she really liked this one. Maybe she just wouldn’t wear it in public. She lied, “I just work out because I carry around a lot of heavy photo and video gear all the time.”
“Riiiiight,” Sheila said in the most sarcastic tones ever. “You have just utterly convinced me that I was wrong and you are not Terawatt.” She went back to her normal tones. “However, if you were Terawatt, I would want to say this. I’m sorry. I was wrong about you, and I was wrong about the job you do. I was the most impressed with the footage I saw from India, where you consistently put rescuing innocents above pummeling supervillains. And some of the things you’ve accomplished, I simply don’t see how anyone, even you, could have done them. And I wasn’t supportive when Willow wanted to talk about you, but thank you. For everything you do.” She cleared her throat a little. “And even if you weren’t Terawatt, I’d still want to thank you so much for being Willow’s friend, and supporting her when I wasn’t there like I should have been. And thank you for giving us back our Willow so she’s in our lives again. I hope you don’t mind, but I suggested to Willow that she should name her first-born Alexander or Alexandra for you.”
Alex tried not to blush as Sheila stood up and strolled off.
* * *
Alex stayed and sunned herself for another twenty minutes or so before she casually strolled back to her room to frantically make the panicky call to Jack that Sheila had pegged her because of something Willow said. But Jack was totally calm and said he had everything under control. Maybe she just trusted him a ton, but hearing him say that made her feel way better about it.
And she still had to shower to get all the sunscreen off before she dressed in her nice outfit for the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. She even did her hair with more styling gel than usual, and she put on makeup. Not Terawatt makeup, just her regular ‘fancy Alex’ makeup: foundation, blusher, a little contouring, her nice-dinner-out eye makeup, and a nude lip-color. She put all the makeup in her purse, along with her GoPro and her cheap still camera and her phone.
But the wedding was going to be mega-simple, so only half a dozen people had to go to the rehearsal. Jack and Charlie rode with her in her car, so she was totally glad someone like Louis had cleaned it out and washed it. And Willow rode with her mom and dad. That was all. And they met Rabbi Weisberg in front of the really nice temple that was way bigger than just a church nave.
She said, “It’s nice to meet you, Rabbi Weisberg.”
“Oh, please, you can call me Sol. I know, I know, a name like Solomon Weisberg, and he becomes a rabbi, it’s so stereotypical. But it could be worse. So just call me Sol, or ‘rabbi’, and I’ll call you Alex, or A.L., whichever you prefer.”
“Alex, definitely. A.L. is just for copyrights on pictures.”
He smiled. “And it is very nice to meet a real, live Pulitzer Prize winner. Especially a Pulitzer winner who isn’t a fifty-year-old white male who eats and drinks and smokes too much and needs to lose about a hundred pounds.”
So Sol led everyone back to where the synagogue’s rabbi, Rabbi Frankel, had his office, and he said, “All right. We’ll meet here while Rabbi Frankel is holding the final Shabbat service, and Jack and Willow will sign the ketubah and the certificate, and then Charlie and Alex will sign the official wedding certificate to make the state of California happy. Then Sheila and Alex will take Willow down the hall to a lovely room they have just for this kind of purpose. It has nice chairs and a couch, and it has its own bathroom, and you can get Willow all dressed up so she makes everyone else in the synagogue look like dreck. Then Alex and Sheila can get dressed, and you three can relax until you’re ready. Meanwhile, Jack and Charlie and I will hang out here and talk about whether the Knicks can beat the Lakers.”
Jack glanced over at Charlie and interrupted with a smile. “The Sixers.”
Rabbi Sol grinned and said, “Oh, good. Now I know the Lakers can win that matchup.”
Then they walked to the church part of the building and Rabbi Sol asked, “Sheila? You got those muslins?”
Huh? Okay, this was one Alex had no idea about. It wasn’t in the files Willow sent her.
But Sheila had a big shopping bag, and she pulled out what looked like muslin like you’d use in sheets but it looked like it was cut up and stitched together.
Oh. It was a model for the bottom half of the dress. When Sheila pinned it around Willow’s waist, Alex finally got it. She’d never heard of anything like this, but it made a ton of sense. It hung like a floor-length dress with a train behind it, so Willow could walk around and see how to manage with her long dress and its train.
It turned out the train was going to look really mega-pretty, but be just a bear to deal with. They were going to have to roll it up so Willow could walk to the top of the aisle, then they could unroll it there and arrange it in folds on the floor so she could wait for her turn to walk down the aisle, and then Willow would have to pick up the front of her skirt enough not to step on it while she walked up the seven steps to the podium, and then Alex would need to adjust the train so it draped properly down the stairs right before Alex took the flowers from Willow so they could do the ceremony. And then Alex would have to gather up the train again after the ceremony so Willow could turn around and walk down the steps and walk up the aisle with Jack. And then they were going to have to roll it up and tie it in place so Willow could eat dinner and do the dance with Jack afterward.
Note to self: no train on the wedding dress when she married Ray. Maybe not even something floor-length.
Rabbi Sol told her, “I learned this one the hard way years and years ago when I was at a temple in Chicago. We had a wedding rehearsal that went great, and then at the wedding I found out the bride had a forty-foot train on her dress. It hung on everything. She couldn’t turn around and go back down the stairs. It was in the way constantly for the dinner and the dancing and the party and everything. Even worse was a wedding dress disaster one of my fellow rabbis sent around on a mailing list. It was an Italian wedding where there was such a disaster it made it to YouTube. The bride’s dress was so long in front she stepped on it and ripped the skirt right off. Completely off. Oy! The worst I’ve ever had personally was a bridesmaid walking down the aisle with one of the groomsmen and then going up the stairs and stepping on the hem of her dress complete with a RIIIIP you could hear in the back row. The dress stayed on, but the front of the hem was ruined and she had to stand up there the entire time with a ripped dress.”
Note number two to self: no too-long dresses for bridesmaids, either.
Sheila stood next to her and whispered, “When you put up the train after the wedding, I’ve got safety pins so we can make it stay put.”
“Thanks.” Alex wondered if Sheila had been to a wedding with a wedding dress train disaster.
Sheila murmured, “Ira and I went to a cousin’s wedding once and Deirdre had a long train, and they managed just fine until after the wedding, when she walked up the aisle with Alan, and the flower girl ran up the aisle, ran onto the train, and accidentally made Deirdre fall over backward when she tried to take a step in a dress that was nailed to the floor by a seventy-pound flower girl.”
“Eww.” Note number three to self: re-think the whole flower girl thing.
But other than dealing with Willow’s bouquet and train, the whole thing was really simple. Alex just had to stand there while they did the ceremony. There was a Hebrew blessing over the wine, and a Hebrew betrothal blessing, and the couple tasted the wine. Charlie would give Jack the ring, Jack would make a declaration in Hebrew — which he obviously had been practicing — and then he’d put the ring on Willow’s finger. And the rabbi promised he’d prompt Jack the whole way, just in case. Then Jack and Willow would say their wedding vows, which they wrote.
Okay, Alex thought letting Jack write his own wedding vows was just asking for trouble.
After that, Rabbi Sol would say the ‘sheva brachot’ or seven blessings. Then they’d do the breaking the glass thing, even if Rabbi Sol said they’d use a lightbulb in a heavy cloth bag, because he wanted to make sure Jack didn’t get glass shards through the shoe and into the bottom of his foot, and he didn’t want glass fragments all over the podium. Okay, he called it a ‘bimah’ instead of a podium. Alex really wondered how many ‘stomping on the glass’ accidents Rabbi Sol had seen over the years.
At that point, Alex would need to gather up the train and move to the side so Willow and Jack could walk up the aisle to the banquet hall on the other side of the huge wall at the back of the church. Alex would follow with Charlie, and the parents would follow after them. Alex was just glad she wouldn’t have to stand in the reception line, because it reminded her way too much of the reception line at Shar’s funeral.
Then Rabbi Sol walked them through a small door in the wall and into the banquet room, which was as wide as the whole church room and had a ceiling just as high. There was even a huge stage on the back wall for plays or whatever. Rabbi Sol looked at her face and smiled. “They need all this room and even the room on the stage for the crowd at High Holy Days.” And then she found out what was going to happen after the dinner. At least she’d already thought about what she was going to say when she and Charlie had to stand up and give speeches.
They drove back to the hotel, and they hurried over to the banquet room where Alex had eaten lunch. There was a big buffet line for dinner, and all the people who were going to Friday night services were going through the line first. Jack went to the head of the line with Willow and her parents, while Charlie stayed with Alex and also Jack’s parents, since none of them were going to ‘Shabbat services’ even if Alex was a little interested in what Jewish services were really like.
So Alex ate with Charlie and Hanna and Janet and Jack’s foster parents, and she made sure to go over and say hi to everyone at Riley’s table, too. There was this beautiful butterflied chicken breast stuffed with a chopped crab meat mixture and coated with a luscious crab sauce, and it tasted awesome. She so needed that recipe even if it was probably mega-expensive to fix. Maybe she’d just fix it as a special dinner for her and Ray some evening.
Then, after dinner, Hanna and Charlie walked over to Alex’s room, and they just talked and had a nice time while Alex ate some more crackers with cheese and sausage, and some cookies, and three pears. She remembered to warn Hanna not to do anything too Action Girl, because Sheila had already figured out Alex’s other identity.
The group that went to services was back about two hours later, so Alex figured the service couldn’t have been much over an hour when you figured in the time to get there and back, and time to get seated before the service, and time to get out to the bus and out of the parking lot after the service. Alex and Charlie and Hanna moved to the hospitality room, which had a ton of snacks and sodas out so Alex had a bunch of cookies and candy and snacks while they talked with people. Jack was planning on being back by midnight or one, which pretty much meant it wasn’t going to be like the bad bachelor parties Alex had seen on TV. And Willow was planning on being back by one or two, even if she said her cousin Becky did the serious party thing at these kinds of get-togethers. And Janet warned Hanna not to get too carried away with ‘alone time’ with Charlie in a hotel room. Hanna gave her one of those Jack O’Neill how-can-you-possibly-suspect-me faces. It was all Charlie could do not to fall over laughing.
There were a couple of teens from Willow’s relatives, and some older people who weren’t going out partying, so there were plenty of people to talk to in the hospitality room for the next couple hours. And Jack’s foster parents bought ice cream for everybody who wanted some, so Alex had a late dessert.
Alex went with Charlie and Hanna and two of Willow’s cousins, Joyce and Deb, who were both in their late teens, and they watched the first couple of Indiana Jones movies because Charlie had brought half a dozen movies and some video games in a little carrying case for when stuff got too dull. Both cousins were totally impressed that Alex was a famous photojournalist who already had a Pulitzer, and they just asked her a ton of questions about Terawatt.
But about midnight, Janet called on Alex’s cellphone. “Alex? Are you alone?”
“Umm, I’m with Hanna and Charlie and a couple of Willow’s cousins. We’re watching movies.”
“Good. Make an excuse and come out to the back parking lot. I need your muscles.”
Well, that didn’t sound good. Alex said to Charlie, “I’ll be back in a while, just keep watching without me.” And she took off. She ran down the hall, down the stairs, and across the lawns to the back parking lot.
She had no trouble finding them, because she could hear the sound of someone vomiting horribly from a hundred feet away. She ran over to find Janet and Rita holding a really wobbly Willow who was urping into the bushes. “Oh, no! What happened?”
Janet growled, “I think that bitch Becky paid someone to spike Willow’s drink.”
Rita said, “I think it was just Everclear, not anything illegal.”
Janet scowled. “That’s still wrong. But if I thought it was anything illegal, I’d be trying to get enough evidence to get her arrested.”
Rita said, “Vodka’s about eighty proof, and Everclear’s about one-ninety, so making a Cosmo with Everclear instead is already like two and a half drinks instead of one, and making it too strong could up that so it’s equal to maybe three or four Cosmos.”
“How many did she have?” Alex asked.
Janet frowned. “Three. But I don’t think Becky bribed the server until drink two.”
But that was still maybe like seven or nine Cosmopolitans instead of three. “Crud! Was Becky trying to put Willow in the hospital?”
Rita grumbled, “She was up to something. She took us to a strip club. I think she was trying to line Willow up with one of the male strippers.”
Willow mumbled, “We won! Riley won’ take Jack ta strip clubbie things wi’ naked women wi’ great big tits, so we won the best par’y!” She urped again, but this time there wasn’t anything left in her stomach.
Janet frowned. “We need to get at least sixteen ounces of water and a couple of aspirin into her, and monitor her for a bit.”
Alex knew Janet had Hanna to take care of, and Rita was probably sharing a room with Graham. “My room. We can put her on the couch and I’ll watch her for a couple of hours.”
Willow mumbled, “Alex, you’re so nice, an’ when things are so shitty for you ’cuz yer Terawatt, and yer bein’ there for me, and I’m all pukey …”
Alex glanced over, and Rita was standing there with bulging eyes and a wide-open mouth. Crud.