1986
FOR THEIR WEDDING, which, Richie was told, would take place at City Hall with Ivy’s assistant, Jeanine, as a witness and then would be announced by postcard to all of their friends and relatives, Ivy had required only that they go on a Friday morning, always a slow day at her office, and that it be followed by a cab ride to Katz’s Deli just in time for lunch. Her cousin, four years younger, had gotten married in the fall, at their very liberal synagogue in Philly, under a chuppah, with only the two sets of parents present. No one cried, everyone ate blintzes, and, the cousin told Ivy, they’d spent the first night of their honeymoon at a bed-and-breakfast on the Jersey Shore, ripping open envelopes and counting the money. Somehow, for Ivy, this wedding balanced Michael and Loretta’s “show-off capitalist bacchanal,” and though its effects were slow, they were sure. He had asked her six times if she really wanted to get married, until, finally, she’d taken him to Macy’s, where she helped him buy a navy suit and a pink-and-white striped shirt with a white collar.
They got the license before going to work on Thursday. On Friday, Richie left the office at ten and took a cab over to Worth Street, where he saw Ivy and Jeanine climbing the steps, pulling the big gold door open, and disappearing inside. He didn’t call out, because the requirements of secrecy meant that he would just happen to encounter her there, and they would just happen to get married. It pleased him to see her from across the street. She was attractive from the front, but she was dynamite from the back, with her square shoulders, slender waist, pert ass, and sassy walk: Oh, how nice to meet you, Mr. Roth, Mr. Updike, Mr. Cheever, Ms. Morrison — who do you think you are? Inside, he saw her down the hall, and followed her. As he watched her open the door to the clerk’s office, he got a weird feeling, but it wasn’t until he opened the door himself that he understood the reason — Michael and Loretta were standing there, big grins on their faces. As soon as Michael saw him, he whooped and started laughing. Ivy must not have noticed them in the crowd; she spun around. And then Loretta was putting her arms around Ivy and kissing her and exclaiming, “Why would we let you get away with it? Oh, you look great! You must not be pregnant after all!”
Ivy pinched him, hard, on the biceps as she kissed him hello, so he said to Michael, “What an asshole you are. You’ve been in my stuff.”
“Always,” said Michael, and Richie knew that this was true.
They hadn’t seen Michael and Loretta in months, mostly because of the Donald Manes flap. Back in January, he said he was carjacked, and then it came out that he’d actually tried to commit suicide. In March, he did commit suicide, stabbing himself in the heart while his psychiatrist had him on hold. And then it all came out — bribery, payoffs, Mayor Koch at the top and who knew at the bottom, maybe Alex Rubino. Richie’s boss, Congressman Scheuer, was rich and didn’t need to pay any attention to this, and he rather smoothly, Richie thought, eased himself away from the whole thing. Richie explained to donors that, whatever the flamboyant Queens Borough president may have done, his congressman was a war hero, a polio survivor, a harmonica virtuoso, one of the most powerful men in Washington, but Michael went on and on about how corruption was the soul of the Democratic Party, and not only in New York — Loretta could tell you any number of stories about San Francisco, where her parents would not even go anymore. Richie had met Koch. He hadn’t met Manes, but, oddly enough, he had met Manes’s twin brother when he and Ivy were in Queens, looking at cars. This Manes — Morton, his name was — had the BMW dealership there. “Manes” was an odd name, so Ivy asked him if he knew Donald Manes; Morton said that he was the older twin; then Ivy pointed to Richie and said that he was a twin, also an older one. “Is your twin out of control?” she asked, and Manes rolled his eyes and laughed.
Richie had thought that Loretta, Chance, Tia, and now Binky (also known as Beatrice) were in California for the winter. With a smile, Loretta handed him his boutonniere, a small, fragrant lavender rose. She presented Ivy with bouquet of gardenias and wore a gardenia in her hair. When their names were announced, they went before the officiant, said their vows, and signed their papers; Loretta took pictures with the camera that was in her bag. It wasn’t bad; Richie was almost feeling normal, almost feeling, well, positive, until they went back out onto the front steps of the building and saw twenty or thirty of their friends, shouting congratulations and throwing rice. Ivy pressed herself against him and said, “Oh God!” Richie saw at once that Lynne, Michael’s newest mistress, was in the group, next to a friend of Loretta’s from her cooking-class days. He gripped Ivy’s hand and walked her down the steps, and then there were hugs and congratulations, and they were swept over into Foley Square, where, it appeared, the reception was to take place. How Michael and Loretta had gotten all these phone numbers without Xeroxing Ivy’s Rolodex, Richie could not imagine, unless…He stared at Jeanine — she was smiling, she did not look guilty.
A table, a tablecloth, a cake, champagne, little sandwiches. Richie overheard Loretta telling the woman from her cooking class that she had just gotten in from the ranch three days before; she’d brought the nanny, the nurse, and all three children; they were camped out on top of one another at the place on Fifty-seventh. Michael had done most of the inviting, but of course he’d forgotten the flowers, even the cake — what did he think they were going to eat? She’d done all that. Well, she said, if she ever moved back to New York year-round, she had her eye on Park Avenue in the Sixties, which had a pastoral quality, didn’t you think? As she turned away, the cooking-class woman rolled her eyes. Ivy stood beside the cake, staring at it; it looked like white marble encrusted with carved architectural embellishments, two layers. Jewish weddings never had cake. Richie didn’t know whether this was true. Michael had not bothered to invite any parents. But, then, neither had Ivy. Michael popped the champagne — Moët & Chandon — and Jeanine went around with small plastic cups. When she came up to Richie, he said, “Were you in on this?”
Jeanine said, “Not till this morning. I got there first, and they were waiting. They asked me not to tell.”
“Ivy hates this.”
“Only because she didn’t arrange it,” said Jeanine.
Once everyone had their champagne, the toasts began, and Richie had to stand there smiling — with his arm around Ivy, sometimes gazing at her fondly — while shouts went up. Michael declared himself the best man, raised his glass, and said, “I’ve spent years looking out for my little brother here, making sure that he stayed out of trouble, or at least didn’t get caught, and, finally, here we are, I can pass him over to a better caretaker than I am, knowing he’s safe, or safe-ish — let’s say that!” Everyone laughed and took a sip. The biggest laugher was Lynne. Just for a moment, Loretta looked at her curiously; then she pulled her gaze away from Lynne and lifted her glass. She said, “I never had a sister or a brother, and as soon as I met Ivy, even before she delivered my boy Chance in a bathtub on the twelfth floor of some rat trap, I knew she was the one I wanted. I don’t know if this is their dream, but it is mine, and I’m glad it’s a dream come true!” Everyone shouted “Hurray!” and drank again.