Anyway, that’s what you missed while you were on vacation. Just wanted you to know.
Sincerely,
Debbie
My agent, Meg, loved this story and sent it to an editor at Redbook who said, “We love it but it’s too long.” But they said they’d buy it if I cut about two thirds of it, so I did. Meg said, “If I ever need anybody to do Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, I’m calling you.” If you want to see the short version, go to Appendix B in the back of this collection; the Redbook version and another note about the story are there.
I Am At My Sister’s Wedding
In the early drafts of Crazy For You, Quinn had two close friends, Darla and Stephanie. Both had married young, but while Darla had settled into permanency with Max, Stephanie had divorced and remarried, and at the time the book took place, was coming unstuck from her second husband. Stephanie was such a bright, simple character that I couldn’t get a grip on her, so I wrote this story about the arc of her life and marriages, seen through the eyes of her practical and disapproving younger sister. In the process, the story turned out to really be about Caroline, the sister, a much more interesting character to write, but it also did what it was supposed to do: it gave me closure on what was going to happen to Steph, a woman who was thoughtless in the best sense of the word, living in the now with such fervor that sometimes she forgot there could ever be a tomorrow. I wonder now if I should have made Caroline Quinn’s other BFF instead of Stephanie; I think the simplicity of Stephanie’s outlook on life made her much easier to cut from the novel than Caroline’s whacked-out view of men and relationships would have. And as a side note, if you’ve read Crazy For You and don’t remember Caroline and Stephanie, it’s because they were cut from the novel.
1967
I am at my sister’s wedding, looking stupid in a pink lace dress with a lot of ruffles and a butt bow, and I’m feeling putrid since I barfed up half a bottle of pink champagne an hour ago, and of course, my father saw me, but that’s my life for you.
My sister, being my mother’s daughter, would never do anything like that. Stephanie is no rocket scientist, she just married Andy the Slime and the ink on her high school diploma is still wet, but she always does the right thing about people and clothes, two things I am never going to understand but that my mom and Steph just know.
Like she picked a wedding gown and matching bridesmaids dresses with ruffles across the boobs, and I know she did it so I wouldn’t look so flat because she has plenty up there, more than the other bridesmaids, and the ruffles on her look sort of too much. I saw her during the fittings trying to smooth them down, so I know she noticed. I mean, she did that for me, got a wedding gown that wasn’t exactly what she wanted so I’d look good and everything would match. I get fed up with her because she’s eighteen and I’m fifteen, and she’s supposed to be the mature one, and I have to tell you, she’s totally dumb, but nobody ever said she wasn’t a really good person.
I’m not a good person but I’m interesting, like my dad, who’s really smart, so whenever I say anything good, my mother sighs and says, “Caroline, you’re just like your father,” like that’s not a compliment, which I guess it isn’t to her and Steph. But it’s not like I have a choice. I tried to be like them last night and look where it got me. Andy is the scum of the earth and I hate him and I hope he dies.
But, as my father says, at least he’s a primate.
The reason I hope he dies is that the rehearsal dinner was last night, and that’s when I decided to see if I could do the Stephanie thing, you know, be charming and good, since I was going to be dressed for it, Steph having picked out my dress again. It was blue this time with more ruffles, but I didn’t look so tall and skinny in it, and I thought I might have a shot at the girl thing. Steph made sure I was paired with the tallest usher (as my father says, beanpoles should have my reach), and he looked nice even though he was one of Andy’s cousins, so I thought I might have a chance.
But then instead of letting Steph introduce me, Andy grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over and said, “Scott, this is Steph’s titless little sister, the giraffe. You’re stuck with her and her zits for the night.” Then he laughed like he was hilarious and staggered off to evolve or something.
I don’t care what you say, not even Steph could come back from that one.
Scott tried to help me. He said, “The family doesn’t claim Andy much,” but I couldn’t say anything for the rest of the night, and if I can’t talk, there’s not much to me. Steph says Andy gets defensive because he thinks Dad and I don’t like him, and we don’t, but I never did anything to deserve that. I mean, I wanted to say, “Oh, yeah, well, Andy, I may be titless, but you’re stupid, and I might grow tits someday but you’re screwed for life,” but I didn’t think of it until I was sitting up in bed at one this morning, still thinking about how dumb I must have looked when he said that.
Thank God my father didn’t see me just stand there like a dumbass.
Since I couldn’t sleep, I went down to the kitchen and there was my mother, the big detail freak, with about a quart of red food color and my dress, dying the punch until it matched so that the wedding theme—“Pink of Perfection”—would be carried out in the refreshments.
I said, “Ma, it’s punch, not the Sistine Chapel,” and without looking up she said, “Caroline, your sister will only get married for the first time once. It has to be perfect.”
That threw me for a minute, but it never does much good to think about what my mom says since she doesn’t, so I said, “Where does that leave Andy?” and she put the food coloring down and looked at me, and I knew we were going to have a Moment.
My mom’s big on moments. Like Steph stopping and shooting us that winner smile of hers from the stage when she graduated from high school two weeks ago. Or me picking up the debate cup, except that I got embarrassed because everybody was looking and I didn’t stay at the podium, so Mom didn’t get her fix. “You have to pause, Caroline,” she told me later. “You have to cherish the moment.” Other people’s moms just take pictures. My mom pauses, cherishes, and then she takes a picture.
Of course, maybe I feel that way about it because other people have moments like Steph has moments and I have moments like the one with Andy the Slime last night. I don’t think I’m going to have the kind of life where you want to pause and cherish a lot.
The biggest moments in my mom’s life, she has told us over and over and over, are going to be when Steph and I get married, which was why she was dyeing the punch, so that when Steph paused behind the punch bowl with Quinn and Darla and me an hour ago, our dresses matched the punch that matched the roses on the cake that matched the roses in Steph’s bouquet, and my mom got her moment.
Like I told my father, it could be worse, she could be hooked on religion or uppers, so pausing isn’t much to ask. He laughed, so it must have been an okay line.
Anyway, when my mom paused last night, I knew that’s what we were having, one of those mother and daughter things that she was going to look back on, so I pretended I was Steph and paused, too.
And then she said, “Caroline, no man is perfect. Choose for potential.”
If you ask me, Andy’s only potential is as an organ donor, but my mom had a lot of punch to dye, and the last thing I wanted to talk about was the Slime, so I let it drop.
But it did make me think about Scott again, because he had loads of potential even though I couldn’t talk to him, so I decided to give the Stephanie thing another shot at the wedding reception. It’s not that I’m desperate for somebody, but it would be nice to be with somebody who can talk about things the way my father does. But I hear my father talk about the guys he teaches at the Lima Branch, and I figure college guys must be pretty much the best there is when it comes to brains, but he doesn’t seem to think much of them, and he’s the smartest person I ever met. That was another thing about Scott; when I got to the reception, I saw my father talking to him, so I figured he must be pretty smart be
cause my father gets bored fast.
Scott had a drink in his hand, and I wanted to look cool, so I went over to the bartender and told him I wanted a gin on the rocks, he said no, so I told him I was part of the wedding party, and he said, no, so I told him I was the bride’s sister, and he said, “Look, kid, I don’t serve twelve-year-olds.” I’m five ten and he thinks I’m twelve? Jerk.
So when he wasn’t looking, I lifted a bottle of champagne, and he never even caught on.
Twelve-year-old, my ass.
Then I went up to Scott, trying to be Stephanie, and I said, “Hi,” like she does, just so happy to be there, except she usually is and I was just nervous. And he said, “Hi,” and I said, “I have some champagne, do you want some?” and he looked around and saw my mother squinting at the punch bowl, and Andy making a pass at Darla, and Darla’s boyfriend Max coming up behind them, and then the band struck up “Close To You,” and he said, “God, yes.” But then an hour later when most of the champagne was gone, I asked him if he wanted to neck, and he said no. I know you’re supposed to wait for them to ask, but I got tired of waiting.
Then Scott wandered off and I finished the champagne and tried to stand up and that’s when I got sick. I did manage not to throw up in the middle of the wedding, but my father must have seen me stagger behind the caterer’s tent because when I looked up from heaving, there he was, holding out a handkerchief. He said, “Champagne?” and I nodded and took the handkerchief and wiped my mouth, and he said, “That’s such a cliché, Caroline. Try not to act your age.” Then he walked away, and I thought about killing myself. It was bad enough that I had to wear this damn ruffley dress and walk down the aisle looking like a pink giraffe; now my father thinks I’m a loser, too, acting like a fifteen-year-old, which I am but he always says I’m fifteen going on forty and talks to me like I’m an adult which he probably isn’t going to do anymore since I threw up in public.
Oh, hell, I’ve got to go. We’re all going to go pause by the car now, so Steph can leave with Andy, and then my mom can cry since one of her big moments is over. I’ve already told my mom I’m going to be thirty before I get married, so she’s got a while to wait for the next one. I told her to think of it as a really big pause, and she didn’t think it was funny, but my father laughed.
Maybe he’ll forget I threw up.
1971
I am at my sister’s wedding. Yeah, again.
This time, she married David, Andy’s cousin, who works for Dow. When Steph brought him to dinner a couple of months ago, he bitched about the anti-war nuts from the college who were picketing just because he was making a little napalm, so I showed him the newspaper photo of the protesters storming the gates of the ungodly.
“That’s me, second from the right,” I told him. “Not my best side, but you know the media.” I don’t think we’re going to be close.
My dad loved the whole thing, including my arrest. When he bailed me out, he said, “I’m so proud. Your first bust at nineteen. We thought you’d never get one.” Actually, I’ve had a bust for a while, but my father has this thing about running jokes.
What happened to Andy? Well, my sister caught him in the sack with his cousin, Marlene, three years into their happily-ever-after, and she gave him the boot, which was more than I thought she’d have the gumption to do, but then she may have developed some backbone during that marriage. Steph and I never have understood each other, and her being married to Andy didn’t improve things, so I wouldn’t know where her head was.
Or is, for that matter. Her thought processes elude me. For example, that’s Andy, over there by the buffet; Steph felt she should invite him to show that she had no hard feelings, although I notice Marlene is not present. Personally, I still have hard feelings for the bastard, one of which I’d like to beat him senseless with right now. He hurt my sister, the nicest human being I know, and I think he should die. I’d have canceled the wedding before inviting him, but then I’m not Stephanie, thank you, God.
I can’t believe I ever wanted to be like her. I must have been out of my mind.
I mean, Dad and I are just amazed that Steph still buys into the whole marriage thing. Where she gets her faith in it, I’ll never know because I sure don’t have any. It can’t be from our parents; they have nothing in common and barely speak to each other. My mother is obsessed with decor—that’s what she calls it, decor—and spends all her time varnishing pine cones and making ribbon wreaths and redecorating the house for whatever season we’re experiencing. When I was a kid, it was fun, watching Mom haul out the holly or the shamrocks or the flags or whatever she was into that month even though my dad made wisecracks and rolled his eyes, but now that I’m grown up, it’s just sort of sad. I mean, this is her life. Dad at least has a real life. He’s a law professor and a good one; we talk all the time, and he knows everything. And yet he’s married to my mom, who is a good woman and all that and I love her, but I don’t see them together much.
And Steph, who is pretty enough and nice enough to marry anybody, once thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with Andy the Slime, and now is going to spend the rest of her life with David the Dork. If Dad with all his brains and Steph with all her beauty can’t pick out winners, what chance do I have?
I figure the closest I ever want to get to marriage is my sister’s weddings.
Which is why I’m wearing something Steph calls Sunshine Yellow Chiffon which, my father says, makes me look like a giant, radioactive banana. It’s part of my mother’s Theme for Second Weddings: “Sunshine of Our Love.” Mom has wisely dropped the “perfection” idea, but the wedding is beautiful which I have a feeling may be more important to Steph than the actual marriage. It certainly is to my mother. Even though she hired people to tie big floppy yellow bows on all the white folding chairs and made sure the florist plastered yellow rose wreaths everywhere, she was the one who stenciled sunbursts on every flat surface and wired little papermache suns into our bouquets and the table arrangements and all the napkin rings. Of course she did her usual good work on the punch: it’s sort of a glowing yellow, like toxic waste. God knows what she put in it. I met David at the punch bowl a few minutes ago and asked him if it was something he’d brought from work. He just sort of smiled and backed away.
I know that was mean. I don’t know why I’m so hard on David. I mean, aside from his Fascist mode of employment and his boring conversation, David is not a total loss. In fact, he’s just loaded with potential; this guy is going to be making money from the grave. And he’s steady as hell, and wants kids right away, and is already talking about his retirement fund, and he does seem to love Steph. I’d be screaming every time he came near me, but after Andy, David is a definite improvement, so from now on I’m going to be nice.
After all, as my father could tell you, my boyfriends haven’t been anything to brag about, either; I’ve never brought home one that he liked, and after he pointed out all the defects in them I’d missed, I couldn’t like them much either. I don’t know why I’m so stupid about men. I’m doing great with the rest of my life: I’m knocking them dead in pre-law and even my father says I’ve got a future in litigation. He says it’s the only way to make a mouth like mine pay since there’s no money in heckling umpires. But when it comes to relationships, my dad says the only thing that tells him that Stephanie and I are sisters is our terrible taste in men. But, as my father keeps saying in front of Steph, at least I don’t bring mine home with me and ruin the holidays. He loved last Christmas; Steph was divorced so it was just the four of us again, no losers.
He came by about an hour ago and told me to give up all hope of finding anybody at this wedding. “I think they’re all Andy’s cousins,” he said. “Those people know how to breed.”
“That’s harsh.” I pointed to the bar where Scott, the usher from Steph’s first wedding, was sitting. “I remember he was a good guy.”
Actually, Scott looked like more than a good guy. He’d matured from a cute usher into a go
od-looking human being in a nice suit and a great tie. Or as my father said then, “Well, the tie’s not bad.”
My father has a thing about ties; if a guy wears one that’s too loud, he says, “Kind of makes you want to go up and say ‘Sorry about your penis,’ doesn’t it?” but if it’s too quiet, he says, “There’s a man who will never have an exciting moment in his life, and neither will any woman he’s with.” I finally gave up and just told my dates to go tieless, but Scott was sporting something interesting in muted checks, and my father approved.
My father eventually wandered off, and I went over and sat down beside Scott.