Aftermath of Dreaming(67)

“I’m getting married. Did you hear?”

I hadn’t, but I can tell. Prenup is written all over her, and I don’t mean a contract. Tonette’s ring is huge. A mammoth marquis that does not require a lifting of her hand for me to see, so in that sense it’s discreet. Her dress is layers of whispering sheer creme chiffon culminating in a moment of silence on her amplified breasts, and tiny sparkly flowers dance in her hair.

“Oh, Tonette, I am so happy for you.”

“Are you getting married?” she says, scrutinizing Michael and me. I glance at Michael to see his response. He looks as if he has just gotten on his own personal inner rocket ship that is taking him far, far away.

“No,” I say to Tonette while still smiling, but not inside.

“Uh, you have no idea how awful the planning is, but we’ve only had one fight—which is practically unheard of.” Tonette leans in toward me as if she is about to dispense the secret to a long life. “It’s ’cause I’m keeping those conversations sexy—that helps.”

I cannot imagine what she means. I immediately wonder if whenever I do get to plan that event, the wedding may not even happen because I won’t know how to be sexy discussing a guest list. What—something borrowed, something blue, something porno, something new?

At that moment, an annunciation is made by one of the pale-pinkshirted men that luncheon is to begin. Tonette says she’ll see me later, and scurries over to unknown-movie-star-man, who I realize is her fiancé. Michael has already started walking over to fix a plate, so I hurry to catch up with him. The buffet table runs the length of the house and is overflowing with dishes of every culinary kind. Guarding it like angels ready to serve are ten of the pale-pink-shirted men, while ten more move about under the tent filling all hundred glasses with champagne. Tom, Bill’s partner, is already in line waiting on the carving of a ham when Michael and I join him. After introducing Michael to him, I congratulate Tom on this great event.

“And we’re having a second one next month,” Tom exults as glistening pork is piled high on his plate.

“Second what?” I ask, while thinking, Isn’t this celebration enough?

“Baby! We were picked eight times. That’s never happened before. The adoption agency kept saying, ‘No couple has ever been picked eight times,’ so we decided we’d get two—better for her not to grow up alone.”

I wonder if this is the start of some new maternal movement—single mothers everywhere choosing only men to raise their young. Maybe they figure that way they won’t ever be replaced. Like the way Michael can’t replace Andrew? Oh, good God, will you please stop thinking of him? Jesus.

“The other mother’s fourteen,” Tom is saying as I pick up the conversation again. “Poor thing’s having a baby soon because some guy molested her.”

Though he probably did a bit more than that unless it’s the next baby Jesus they’re getting.

“Is any of this kosher?” Sarah asks, appearing in line.

Michael and I take our overfilled plates to sit down and dine. As we settle at the nearest table, moving aside the swaddling-clothed babes, Tonette and unknown-movie-star-man amble by and sit at a table alone on the tent’s far side. The host who owns the home still has not arrived, but the trinity of parents makes a visitation before us.

“Mind if we join you?” Tom says as Bill pulls out a chair for Sarah.

The only other guest at the party—a woman we haven’t met—pulls out a chair at our table and plops herself down without saying a word to anyone. Considering how little Michael has contributed to any conversation since we’ve been here, her behavior seems oddly normal for this event.

“So,” Bill says, turning to me. “How long have you two been going out?” He gestures at Michael and smiles, as if I might not be sure who he meant.

“For a little while now, and then a longer while last year, so all combined, I guess a good while now.” I glance at Michael to see what he thought of that, but his entire attention is focused on the pork on his plate. He seems to be adopting a strategy of “If I pretend this party isn’t happening, it’ll go away.” It almost makes me wish I hadn’t brought him, but then I see Tonette and am glad I did anyway.

“Congratulations! In L.A., the way things go, that is so unusual.”

“What’s unusual?” says the woman we still haven’t met. “You two are engaged?”

“No,” I say. “We’re usual. I mean, we’re dating. Usually. Anyway.” I wish the conversation had never started, so I turn my attention to Sarah. “You’re having a nice stay?”

“Yeah, it’s been great, although I didn’t go to temple yesterday,” she says, while cutting the pork on her plate, then with a nervous laugh adds, “But what my mother doesn’t know won’t kill me.”

But does she know about any of this? I think.

I actually have gone to temple, once, with Michael, on a High Holy Day the first year we were together. It was nice; a lovely informed—I mean, Reform—service. And I did fine. I didn’t genuflect in the aisle, and I even followed along in the prayer book pretty well. I had to keep quiet during the Hebrew lines, but it was all pretty familiar in an Old Testament sort of way. The service was progressing along fine when suddenly during the ram’s horn time, it hit me that I was waiting for Mary to arrive. Not Jesus, and God clearly was their Big Guy, but Mary was who I wanted right nearby. Then I remembered that actually Mary was a Jew, and for the first time I wondered who she had prayed to. God? The One who needed her to have His son? I tried to imagine what that must have been like for her—to grow up without a mother figure to give her guidance. Sitting at the baby shower with a madonna soon to be bereft of child, I realize that years from now, the baby in the bassinet will have more of an answer to that than I ever will. Though I guess my own mother’s immense and perpetual silence was kind of similar.