Andy sighed. “I’m thirty-three, Grams. And Max is thirty-seven. Hopefully we’ll have children at some point, but I can tell you we’re not planning on starting tonight.”
“Andy? Where is everyone?”
“Lily? We’re back here! Come in,” Andy called.
Her oldest friend swept into the room, looking lovely in the halter-style dress she’d chosen using the same plum silk as the other bridesmaid dresses. Next to her, in yet another style of the same fabric, stood Max’s younger sister, Elizabeth, who was in her late twenties. She and Max had the same general build, strong legs and wide shoulders, perhaps a touch too wide for a girl. But the crinkles around Eliza’s eyes when she laughed and her perfect smattering of freckles softened her look, feminized it. And the all-natural blond mane that cascaded down her back in thick, shiny waves was spectacular. Elizabeth had just started dating Holden “Tipper” White, an old classmate from Colgate. They’d met at an annual charity tennis tournament in honor of his father, who’d flown his plane into a mountain in Chile when Tipper was twelve. Andy had a startling thought: Did Elizabeth think Andy wasn’t good enough for Max, too? Did she and her mother talk about it, sit around pining for Katherine, with her impressive golf handicap and lilting, aristocratic accent?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Nina.
“Ladies? May I have your attention, please?” Nina stood at the doorway, looking anxious. “It’s time to start assembling outside the great hall. The ceremony will begin in approximately ten minutes. My team members have your bouquets and will meet you downstairs to show you your places. Jill, your sons are ready?”
Andy forced a smile. Her mother, grandmother, and friends said good-bye, wished her luck, squeezed her hand. Too late now to say something to Jill or Lily, let them tell her she was overreacting.
The sun was close to setting, the October days growing shorter, and the dozen tall silver candelabras added exactly the drama Nina had promised. Andy knew that the seats were beginning to fill, and she imagined they were all enjoying the passed flutes of champagne and the soft harpsichord music that had been arranged for these exact preceremony moments by one of the myriad thoughtful planners.
“Andy, sweetheart? I have something for you,” Nina said, closing the distance between the door and Andy’s chair in three strides. She held out a piece of folded paper.
Andy took it and looked at her questioningly.
“From before? When you got sick? I guess I stuck it in my pocket.”
Andy must have looked stricken, because Nina rushed to reassure her. “Don’t worry, I didn’t read it. It’s terrible luck for anyone but the bride or groom to read a love letter on the day of a wedding, did you know that?”
Andy felt a familiar roil in her stomach. “Will you give me a moment, please?”
“Of course, dear. But just a moment! I’ll be back to escort you downstairs in—” Andy closed the door on the rest of the sentence.
Andy unfolded the letter and moved her eyes once again over the words, although they had already been seared forever in her memory. Without thinking, she moved as quickly as she could in her dress toward the bathroom, where she neatly tore up the paper and tossed the pieces into the toilet.
“Andy? Sweetheart, are you in there? Do you need any help? Please don’t try to use the bathroom yourself, not at this stage,” Nina called through the door.
Andy stepped out of the bathroom. “Nina, I—”
“Sorry, honey, it’s just that time, you know? Everything we’ve been planning for the last ten months, all perfectly executed for this very moment. Did I tell you I saw your groom? My goodness, he looks spectacular in that tuxedo. He’s already down the aisle, Andy! He’s right there waiting for you.”
Already down the aisle.
Andy felt like she couldn’t control her own legs as Nina guided her around the corner. There, beside the double doors, stood her beaming father.
He walked toward her and, taking her hand in his, kissed her cheek and told her how beautiful she looked. “Max is a very lucky guy,” he said, holding out his left arm so she could link her arm through it.
The simple words almost unleashed a tsunami, but Andy managed to choke back the lump in her throat. Was Max “lucky”? Or was he, as his mother suggested, making a colossal mistake? Just one word to her father and he would make it all go away. How desperately she wanted to lean in and whisper, “Daddy, I don’t want to do this just yet,” the way she did when she was five and he’d encouraged her to dive off the board into the deep end of the community pool. But as the music filled the space around her, she realized in an almost out-of-body way that the ushers had opened the double doors and the entire room had stood to greet her. Three hundred faces turned to look at her, smile at her, cheer her on.
“You ready?” her father whispered in her ear, his voice jarring her back to reality.
She took a deep breath. Max loves me, she thought. And I love him. They’d waited three years to marry at Andy’s insistence. So her mother-in-law didn’t like her. So her husband’s ex cast a long shadow. These things didn’t define their relationship, right?
Andy looked at her friends and family, colleagues and acquaintances, and, suppressing all doubts, focusing on Max’s smiling eyes as he stood so proudly down the aisle, she told herself everything was fine. She took a deep breath in through her nose, thrust her shoulders back, and once again told herself she was doing exactly the right thing. Then she began to walk.
chapter 4
and it’s official!
The sound of the phone ringing woke her in the morning. She sat up with a start, once again unsure of where she was for just a moment, until it came to her in a jumbled rush. The faces beaming at her as she moved one leg in front of the other, slowly making her way down the aisle. The look of tenderness and adoration Max gave her as he reached to take her hand. The conflicted feeling of love and fear when his lips touched her own, sealing their union in front of everyone they knew. Posing for photos on the terrace while their guests enjoyed cocktail hour. The band announcing them as Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell Harrison. Their first dance to Van Morrison. Her mother’s tearful, heartfelt toast. Max’s fraternity buddies singing a bawdy yet charming rendition of their college fight song. Cutting the cake together. Slow-dancing with her father. Her nephews break-dancing to “Thriller” while everyone cheered them on.
The evening had been picture-perfect from the outside, of that she was sure. No one, least of all her new husband, seemed to have any idea what Andy was going through: the thoughts of sorrow and anger; the confusion Andy felt when Barbara gritted her teeth through the least-personal let’s-wish-the-happy-couple-congratulations toast she’d ever heard spoken by the mother of a groom; the constant wondering if Miles and Max’s other friends knew something about Katherine and Bermuda that she didn’t. What now? she wondered. Do I bring it up? Jill, her parents, Emily, Lily, all her friends and family, all Max’s friends and family, had warmly congratulated her throughout the night, hugged her, admired her dress, told her she was a beautiful bride. Glowing. Lucky. Perfect. Even Max, the person who was supposed to understand her best in the world, seemed oblivious, giving her knowing looks all night, glances that said, I know, me too, isn’t this fun and perhaps a bit silly but let’s enjoy it because it’ll only happen once.
Finally, at one in the morning, the band stopped playing and the last of the guests picked up his elegant linen gift bag stuffed with local wine, honey, and nectarines. Andy followed Max to the bridal suite. He must have heard her retching in the bathroom, because he was doting and solicitous when she came out.
“Poor baby,” he crooned, stroking her flushed cheek, wonderful as always whenever she didn’t feel well. “Someone had too much champagne on her wedding night.”
She didn’t correct him. Instead, feeling feverish and nauseated, she allowed him to help her out of her dress and into the massive four-poster bed, where she sank her head gratefully into the mountain of cool pillows. He r
eturned with a cool washcloth and draped it across her forehead, all the while chattering about the band’s song selections, Miles’s clever toast, Agatha’s scandalous dress, the bar running out of his favorite whiskey at midnight. She heard the sink in the bathroom, the toilet flush, the bedroom door close. He climbed in next to her and pressed his bare chest against hers.
“Max, I can’t,” she said, the sharpness in her voice apparent.
“Of course not,” he said quietly. “I know you feel awful.”
Andy closed her eyes.
“You’re my wife, Andy. My wife. We’re going to make such a great team, sweetheart.” He stroked her hair and she could have cried from the tenderness of it. “We’re going to build the most beautiful life together, and I promise I’ll take care of you, always. No matter what.” He kissed her on the cheek and flicked off the bedside lamp. “Sleep now and feel better. Good night, my love.”
Andy murmured good night and tried, for the thousandth time that day, to forget about the note. Somehow, sleep came within moments.
The strips of sunlight beamed through the slats in the sliding wooden balcony doors, indicating it was now morning. The hotel phone had briefly stopped ringing but it started again. Beside her Max let out a small groan and rolled over. It had to be Nina calling to announce that it was warm enough for the brunch to be held outside; it was the last remaining decision to make about the weekend. She darted from the bed, wearing only her underwear from the night before, and sprinted into the living room, eager to answer the phone before it could wake Max. She simply couldn’t fathom facing him yet.
“Nina?” she said breathlessly into the phone.
“Andy? Sorry about that, sounds like I interrupted something . . . I’ll call back, go have fun now.” Emily’s smile was apparent through the phone.
“Emily? What time is it?” Andy asked, scanning the room for a clock.
“Sorry, love. It’s seven thirty. I just wanted to be the first one to congratulate you. The Times write-up is fantastic! You’re on the first page of Weddings and the picture is gorge! Was that one from your engagement session? I love that dress you’re wearing. Why haven’t I seen it before?”
The Times write-up. She’d almost forgotten. They had presented all their information so many months earlier, and even once the fact-checker had called to substantiate everything, she’d convinced herself there was no guarantee of inclusion. Ridiculous, of course. With Max’s family background the only question was whether they’d be the featured couple or a regular announcement, but she’d somehow pushed it to the edge of her mind. She had submitted the information at Barbara’s appeal, although she could see now that it was a mandate, not a request: Harrison family weddings were announced in the Times, period. Andy had told herself it would be something fun to show their children one day.
“They hung a paper outside your door. Get it and call me back,” Emily said and hung up.
Andy shrugged on the hotel robe, turned on the room’s coffee maker, and grabbed the purple velvet bag hanging off the room’s door, then dumped the huge Sunday Times on the desk. The front page of the Sunday Styles section featured a profile on a pair of young nightclub owners and, below that, a write-up on the emergence of root vegetables in trendy restaurant dishes. Then, just as Emily promised, their little section of glory: the very first wedding listed.
Andrea Jane Sachs and Maxwell William Harrison were married Saturday by the Honorable Vivienne Whitney, a first-circuit court of appeals judge, at the Astor Courts Estate in Rhinebeck, New York.
Ms. Sachs, 33, will continue to use her name professionally. She is cofounder and editor in chief of the wedding magazine The Plunge. She graduated with distinction from Brown.
She is a daughter of Roberta Sachs and Dr. Richard Sachs, both of Avon, Connecticut. The bride’s mother is a real estate broker in Hartford County. Her father is a psychiatrist with a private practice in Avon.
Mr. Harrison, 37, is president and CEO at Harrison Media Holdings, his family-owned media company. He graduated from Duke and received an MBA from Harvard.
He is the son of Barbara and the late Robert Harrison of New York. The bridegroom’s mother is a trustee of the Whitney Museum and sits on the board of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity. Until his passing his father was president and CEO of Harrison Media Holdings. His autobiography, titled Print Man, was a national and international bestseller.
Andy took a sip of coffee and pictured the signed copy of Print Man Max had been keeping in his bedside table since the day they’d met. He’d shown it to her after they’d been dating six, maybe eight months, and although he’d never said as much, she knew it was his most prized possession. On the inside cover Mr. Harrison had merely written “Dear Max, see attached. Love, Dad,” and paper-clipped to the jacket itself was a letter, written on a plain yellow legal pad, four pages in total and folded in the classic over-under style. The letter was actually a chapter of the book Max’s dad had written but never included for fear it was too personal, that it might embarrass Max one day or reveal too much of their lives. In it he began with the night Max was born (during a heat wave in the summer of ⁐75) and detailed how, over the next thirty years, Max had grown into the finest young man he could hope to know. Although Max did not cry when he showed it to her, Andy noticed his jaw clenching and his voice getting husky. And now the family fortune was all but devastated due to a number of terrible business decisions Mr. Harrison had made in the final years of his life. And Max felt personally responsible for restoring his father’s good name and making sure his mother and sister were always cared for. It was one of the things she loved most about him, this dedication to his family. And she firmly believed Max’s father’s death had been a turning point for Max. They’d met so soon afterward, and she always felt lucky she’d been the next girl he dated. “The last girl I’ll date,” he liked to say.
She picked up the paper again and continued to read.
The couple met in 2009 through a pair of mutual friends who introduced them without warning. “I showed up for what I thought was a business dinner party,” Mr. Harrison said. “By the time we got to dessert, all I could think of was when I’d see her again.”
“I remember Max and I sneaking away from the rest of the group to chat alone. Or actually, maybe I got up and followed him. Stalked him, I guess you could say,” Ms. Sachs said with a laugh.
They began to date immediately in addition to developing a professional relationship: Mr. Harrison is the largest financier of Ms. Sachs’s magazine. When they became engaged and moved in together in 2012, each pledged to support the other’s career endeavors.
They will divide their time between Manhattan and the groom’s family estate in Washington, Connecticut.
Divide their time? she thought to herself. Not exactly. When the family’s dire financial situation came to light after Max’s father passed away, Max had made a series of tough decisions on behalf of his mother, who was too distraught to function and, in her own words, didn’t “have a head for business like the men do.” Andy hadn’t been privy to most of those conversations since it was in the very early days of their dating, but she remembered his anguish when the Hamptons house sold a mere sixty days after the perfect summer day they’d spent there, and she recalled some sleepless nights when Max realized he had to sell his childhood home, a sprawling Madison Avenue town house. Barbara had resided in a perfectly lovely two-bedroom apartment in an ancient, respectable co-op on Eighty-Fourth and West End for the last two years, still surrounded by a number of beautiful carpets and paintings and the finest linens, but she’d never recovered from losing her two grand homes, and she still harped on about what she referred to as her “banishment” to the West Side. The oceanfront penthouse in Florida had been sold to the DuPont family, friends of the Harrisons’ who played along with the charade that Barbara no longer “had the time or energy” for Palm Beach; a twenty-three-year-old Internet millionaire scooped up the Jackson Hole ski chalet for penni
es on the dollar. The only property that remained was the country house in Connecticut. It was on fourteen acres of splendid rolling farmland, complete with a four-horse stable and a pond big enough for rowboats, but the house itself hadn’t been renovated since the seventies and the animals were long gone due to their expensive upkeep. The family would have to invest too much money to update the property, so instead they rented it out as often as they could, weekly or monthly or sometimes even by the weekend, always through a trusted, discreet broker so no one would know they were renting from the fabled family.
Andy finished her coffee and glanced again at the announcement. How many years had she been reading those pages, devouring the photos of the happy brides and handsome grooms, evaluating their schools and jobs, their future prospects and their backgrounds? How many times had she wondered if she would be included among them one day, what information they would list about her, whether or not they would include a picture? A dozen times? More? And now, how strange to think of other young women, curled on couches in their studio apartments, sporting messy ponytails and torn sweats, reading about Andy’s marriage, thinking to themselves, A perfect couple! They both went to good schools and have good jobs and they’re smiling in that picture like they’re madly in love. Why can’t I meet a guy like that?
There was something else. The note, yes. She couldn’t stop thinking about the note. But there was another memory—of writing up her own New York Times announcement with Alex as the groom—that made her feel squeamish now. She must have devised a dozen different versions when they were dating. Andrea Sachs and Alexander Fineman, both graduates of blah, blah, blah. She’d practiced so many times that it was almost strange to see her name beside Max’s.
Why couldn’t she shake the past lately? First the Miranda nightmare, and now the Alex memories.
Still wrapped in her luxe hotel robe with a diamond wedding band on her left ring finger, Andy reminded herself not to indulge in revisionist history. Yes, Alex had been an amazing boyfriend. More than that, he’d been her confidant, her partner, her best friend. But he could also be astonishingly stubborn and not a little judgmental. He’d deemed her job at Runway unworthy almost as soon as she accepted it, and he hadn’t been as supportive of her career as she’d hoped. Although he never said it, she couldn’t help but feel he was disappointed in her for not choosing a more selfless path, teaching or medicine or something nonprofit.