St. Bartholomew’s organ pipes — the oldest in the city — were imperious and soft at the same time. George could feel their vibrations in the air around him. His mother looked lovely, not unlike Audrey Hepburn, with her hair still up in its twist, as she walked him to the altar. There George felt something overhead that he hadn’t felt in some time, hard to describe as anything but a not-aloneness. As if the George beneath the George that everyone could see were in good company. It was like tasting that bottle of wine on Shelter Island, or even like seeing that dead body for the first time. A flicker of something beyond what was known and measurable in the universe. But soon all thought of it was gone, as he saw Sara coming down the aisle with her father.
Warm sunlight washed across her face, the stained glass glinting up above her. Her father was crying a little, just the right amount. She willed herself not to look over again, knowing she would immediately begin crying also. She fixed her gaze on George, who looked magnificent at the end of the aisle, towering over the hunched and sleepy-eyed Minister Thaw.
Minister Thaw had some things to say. Sara could barely hear them. Something about there being this small village in Italy somewhere that had a silver statue of Saint Bartholomew. During his feast they routinely carried the statue around the village. One day it became mysteriously heavy and the villagers were forced to set it down. Just then the rocks ahead of them collapsed into the valley. The very ground they had been about to pass over completely disappeared. Had it not been for the sudden miracle of the statue’s weight, everyone in the village would have died. Then many years later, the village was captured by enemy raiders who sought to pillage anything of value. When they came to the statue, however, they found it was light as a feather. Thinking it was a fake, they let it be. This, according to the minister, was a perfect metaphor for the miracles of marriage. It could sometimes be surprisingly heavy, keeping the couple grounded — and yet at other times it could be as light as air — invisible, unfettering, even uplifting. And just as God had protected the faithful villagers, so would He protect his faithfully wed.
Sara could see George almost wanting to argue with the man right then and there — how could he claim that God, with any great consistency, protected true believers? You couldn’t cherry-pick miracles when they made for a nice homily. That was just bad methodology. But no, he was letting it go — just a cute little eye roll to Sara, as if to say they knew better, and nothing else mattered. She squeezed his hands.
This was happening. This was really happening. Her sister was standing up and reading the passage from The Velveteen Rabbit: “‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’ ‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit. ‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’”
Franklin was next, with good old Psalm 121. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand…”
Now Minister Thaw was recounting Christ’s first miracle, performed at a wedding in Galilee. That word always made George think of the song, “Puff the Magic Dragon” who had “frolicked in an autumn mist in a land called ‘Honah Lee’”—but as a boy he had misheard it and had for some time believed that Puff was from northern Israel. He looked up at Sara, and he could see her lips were moving, mouthing the words to the song she knew was in his head in that moment. They smiled, and Sara wished, a little, that they could recite the song instead of the vows that the church required, and she hoped this wasn’t as sacrilegious a wish as it felt. George’s eyes bugged a little, as if to ask if she could believe this was all really happening, and hers bugged back as if to say that she couldn’t, but it was, and that through everything that had happened, over all the years, they had made it here.
Of course none of the guests could see any of this happening. They fanned themselves with programs, strained to hear, and subtly adjusted their clothing. Grandma Pertie unwrapped a lozenge midway through the vows, irritating more than a few people nearby, but it was quickly forgotten. There was an audible buzz when Franklin Murphy got a text message from American Express, concerned about that morning’s suspicious $103.22 breakfast charge — he hadn’t notified them that he would be traveling out of the Midwest. Beth forgot herself at one point and could be heard softly humming the theme to SpongeBob. Jacob, standing to one side in the front with the other groomsmen, was mentally rewriting his poem and wondering what the hell William was doing wearing a fedora in the back row.
Then there was a sudden blasting on the organ pipes, and a cheer that rose through the pews, with people flying to their feet in applause, for Minister Thaw had just told George that he could kiss his bride, and (with gusto) he was doing so. Beaming, proud, resilient: they came then down the aisle arm in arm, waving and smiling at everyone. Both of them had assumed that since they had known each other so long and had lived together for years already, the moment would feel no different, really, than a million prior moments — but it did. They both were a little surprised, but there it was. A strange sense of having expanded. As if they had been, until now, living in two neighboring apartments and finally had knocked down the wall between them.
They had no receiving line — no time! It was right on back to the limousines, where the first round of champagne awaited them. Sara had arranged for four bottles of the more expensive Krug NV Grande Cuvée Brut, to be shared by the wedding party members only, then stepping down to the more reasonably priced Moët. They went around the corner and up the three blocks and back around to the gorgeous Palm Ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria. The crème marble floors were polished, and the mahogany wood was gleaming in the chandelier light. The band was playing something light and jazzy that everyone could talk over.
The cocktail hour flew by, with people steadily arriving from the church, met by a steady revolution of servers with hors d’oeuvres: crostini with duck confit and rhubarb marmalade, green tomatoes with balsamic and crispy serrano ham, elegant mini mac-and-brie cheeses, a festive French play on pigs-in-a-blanket that involved tiny croissants wrapped around an authentic andoulliette, and the coup de grâce, a gloriously orange spoon made out of Mimolette cheese that contained a single scoop of Prishibeyev caviar topped with crème fraiche. These were passed out with shots of Gray Goose, but there were also blood orange gin and tonics, a ginger bourbon lemonade, and George’s newly refined blackberry sages. There were thick lines at both bars at first, probably because of the hand-carved ice cubes, but within fifteen minutes, at the most, everyone had a glass in hand.
They were young but once. For one night and one night only, let there be no heartburn, no traffic, no bedtime, no chafing, no fears. George and Sara wanted to create not just a moment but a memory — a moment that lives beyond its borders — and the usual shrimp cocktail and steely Chardonnay wouldn’t cut it. There would be nights ahead (oh yes, there would be) as there had been nights before, where nothing would go right, where the memory of a tulip and sea grass centerpiece on a perfectly set table would be needed. Where a turmeric-flavored butter would be remembered. Where a spring vegetable salad could be recalled, along with the way the dressing perfectly prepared the tongue for the truffle in the wild mushroom soup that followed. The earthy quality of which was then met and cleansed from the palate by the perfect purple scoop of beet sorbet that followed. And the steam released from the phyllo-dough parcel containing juicy red lamb loin encrusted with macadamia nuts and a swirl of potatoes mashed with Roquefort…