She began to forgive him, began to feel that those two weeks were just a blip. And so one night, while they were making out in bed, she took his cock in her hand and said, “Yes,” and in her palm he got hard. She couldn’t believe marriage could turn a man on, and she felt all the more certain about her choice.
They went to the registry office to give their intent to marry, and found out they had to wait sixteen days before the ceremony. They picked Marylebone because it was simple and historic; Paul and Linda McCartney had married there.
Steven had his grandmother’s engagement ring shipped to England from Hancock Park, and he and Maddy went to Cartier to select bands. They had agreed to write their own vows but hadn’t shared them with each other in advance. Now, in the Yellow Room, it was real.
The only guests were Terry and Ananda McCarthy and Bridget. “I will be your partner,” Steven said, massaging her hands with his thumbs. “I will be true to you and loyal. I will care for you, laugh with you, and cry with you. I cannot wait to build a family with you. Whatever life may bring, I will be there for you. I am the song, you are the melody.”
She slipped the ring on his finger. “Steven, as I take you to be my husband, I promise to love you and take care of you. I will be kind to you and support you in your creative endeavors, your work, your art. I am your biggest fan, most loyal advocate. You are my companion, my partner.”
She thought of her father not being here to watch, not being able to witness one of the most important days of her life. The guests were all from Steven’s circle; she hadn’t been comfortable inviting Irina or Sharoz. Bridget was there for both of them, but Maddy had known her only half a year.
“I will take care of you when you are sick and cheer you on when wonderful things happen,” Maddy continued. “Whatever life may bring, I am yours.”
Steven had wrapped a glass in cloth to represent the Jewish tradition, and with one stomp, he smashed it. The guests cheered.
As he kissed her, Maddy felt the room swirl. She was beginning her life. When someone was right for you, there was no point in waiting. She felt grateful for the strife that had come before, because it had crystallized what she felt for him, caused him to step up and be a man. In her ear, Steven whispered, “I feel like everything’s about to begin.”
Bridget was very still as the new couple embraced. It was incredible to see the leap of faith they were taking when they had known each other only several months. Steven was stubborn and did things at his own pace. It was one of her favorite qualities about him: that he was not beholden to conventional ideas about men. It had been thrilling to see the changes in his personality, especially after he realized he might lose Maddy and became a better producer, a more attentive costar.
But in that historic room, Bridget knew her relationship with Steven had changed. They had never been deep friends but their intimacy surpassed friendship, it was a meeting of the minds, sometimes an ESP. All that would change. Maddy was the marker between the present and the future.
Bridget had never wanted to marry; as a child in 1950s Flatbush, she had been bored by her friends’ endless wedding enactments. As a teenager, she had visited Coney Island with her friends, and they’d all written with sticks in the sand their plans for their future. Every other girl wrote about the man she would marry. Bridget wrote, “I want to work.”
For almost twenty years, singlehood had been something she’d shared with Steven. “Maybe both of us were meant to live alone,” he had said after one breakup. She had been the most important woman in his life. She had even been his date when he needed one, and many times he had stepped up to assist her. Now he would no longer need her escort services. He had a booster, acting partner, and consigliere in one package.
Someday these two would have children, and Bridget would know these children forever, even if she could not say the same of Maddy. (Bridget had been urging him to get a prenup, but he’d refused. He wanted to marry quickly, he said, and he wanted there to be no doubts. She was holding out hope for a postnup, which was better than nothing.)
She could imagine the baby’s face. A girl. The baby would be good-looking, for sure, and one of the most photographed in entertainment history. Maybe they would make Bridget a godmother and she could bring presents and take the baby to the parks, though God save anyone who mistook her for Grandma. She liked the idea of being a beneficent aunt. Not the mother. She had no desire to be a mother again.
For a while she had dreamed of another baby. When Zack was ten, she was dating a college math professor named Clark who had silver hair. He had been scarred by his divorce, and he thought Bridget was beautiful and powerful, and in bed he wanted to bury his face in her.
They dated on and off for about a year. She loved the sex, but he didn’t feel comfortable at industry events, and sometimes it was easier to leave him home. They spent much of their time together at his house, because she didn’t want Zack to get too close to a man who might not stay. And then one month her period never came. She had been forty-six. Clark wanted her to keep the baby, but by that point she had made her peace with having only Zack. It was already difficult enough to be a good manager and try to be a good mother, see his school plays, check his homework, be home in time for dinner on weeknights.
And she had been old, and she didn’t want to go through all the testing just to find out there was something wrong, then have to end it. She didn’t tell Clark until after she had gone to the doctor, after it was all over. He was stunned and hurt. “You should have talked to me,” he kept saying. They tried to make a go of it for a few more months, but when he broke it off, saying she had betrayed him, she was relieved.
So Zack had been the only, and now he was ungracious and he blamed her for his problems. It started when she changed the contingency age in the trust and now it was continuing, with his jealousy regarding her client. He avoided one-on-one time and refused to live in L.A., despite or perhaps because of the pain this caused her. If Steven and Maddy had a child, the child wouldn’t resent her. Children only resented the mother. If it was a girl, they could go out to lunch and get their hair done and Bridget could visit her in college and tell her she could be whatever she wanted to in life.
Maddy and Steven were exiting the room. Bridget remembered the rice—she had brought rice for everyone—and she threw it at them, beaming at Terry and Ananda on the other side of the aisle. As they passed, Steven smiled at Bridget, and the smile took over his face.
5
After the newlyweds returned to L.A., they were eating dinner one night when Steven wiped both corners of his mouth and said Edward Rosenman had been nagging him about a postnup. Maddy shuddered, remembering Sharoz’s warning. They had just spent a week at the Ritz, mostly staying inside the room, and Steven had been so warm, so gallant. Now he was talking about this cold, ugly document.
“Those are for people who don’t love each other,” she said. “People who are using each other.” She had lost her appetite and pushed her lamb away.
“I’ve always felt the same way. I told Edward I had no interest in it. I said I was going to be with you until death and knew you weren’t marrying me for money.”
“Of course I’m not marrying you for money. How could anyone think that?”
“Because there’s such a discrepancy between us, in terms of earning, he thought it was a good idea to put some stuff on paper. He keeps saying it’s good for both of us.”