The Two-Family House(68)

“It is?” She squinted her eyes, trying to read his expression, but he only looked down at his shoes. “Thanks.” The silence became uncomfortable.

Johnny recovered first. “Let’s head over that way.” He pointed across the dance floor. “There’s a waiter with those tiny lamb chops.”

Natalie stood up on her toes to look and grabbed his hand as soon as she saw the tray. “Let’s go,” she told him, already running. “I’m starving!”





Chapter 50





JUDITH


“I’m never getting married,” Judith said. Her cousin Harry raised his eyebrow at her. “How come? You don’t like any of those Harvard boys?” They were moving slowly around the dance floor, neither of them particularly graceful. Harry’s wife, Barbara, was dancing with Uncle Abe.

“It’s not that,” Judith tried to explain. “I just don’t want all of this.” She gestured to the ballroom and the couples dancing around them. “I don’t want a big wedding with everyone looking at me and lots of people I don’t even know. Mimi likes being the center of attention. But I would never want something this elaborate.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Harry told her. “Not unless Mr. Moneybags has a brother.”

Judith shook her head. “Just Lillian, his sister. Over there.” She pointed across the room to a young woman wearing the same bridesmaid dress. It was obvious that the color had been selected to flatter Lillian rather than Judith. Mimi was by the girl’s side, and the two of them were laughing and sipping champagne.

“No offense or anything, but Mimi fits in much better with Edward’s family than with yours,” Harry observed.

“Hmmph,” Judith snorted. “Did you know Edward’s parents bought them an apartment in their building as a wedding present? Mimi never stops talking about how wonderful they all are. Or about all her shopping trips with Lillian and Mrs. Feinstein to pick out her gown. She didn’t bother inviting me or Dinah.”

“Did she ask your mom?”

“No, but my mother wouldn’t have gone even if they had invited her.”

The music stopped and the bandleader approached the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “it’s time for the bride and her father to have their dance.”

Judith watched Mimi down the rest of her champagne and hand the empty glass over to Lillian. Mimi and Mort took two uneventful turns around the ballroom before Edward cut in. When her father exited the dance floor, Mimi’s face flooded with unapologetic relief. “I’ll see you in a little bit,” Judith said to Harry, and she followed her father to the bar.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” she told Mort, as she took the seat next to his. He ordered two glasses of champagne, handed one to Judith and raised his glass. “To your sister,” he said.

“To Mimi,” Judith agreed, and the two of them touched glasses.

Judith was curious. “So what do you think of Edward?”

“He’s the kind of man your sister always wanted to marry.”

“You mean rich? I guess.” She sighed. “I feel like this is the wedding of a stranger, not my sister.”

“Well, your mother and I agreed that it was best to stay out of her way while she planned this. Mimi made it clear that she didn’t want our input.”

“Were you upset?”

“It wasn’t unexpected.”

“Still, we’re her family.”

Mort took a sip from his glass. “I think you already know this, Judith, but I’ve been trying to…,” he searched for the right words, “to look at things … differently.”

“I know, but—”

He held up his hand to silence her protest. He looked tired. “Some things we just have to accept,” he told her. Judith followed her father’s gaze across the room to where her mother was sitting alone, looking as grim as possible. He turned back to Judith and finished his thought out loud. “So we can save our strength for other problems.”





Chapter 51





ROSE


Tradition mandated that Mimi be escorted down the aisle with her father on one side of her and her mother on the other, but Rose had no intention of participating. An hour before the ceremony, while the photographer was taking pictures on the hotel terrace, Rose complained of dizziness. It wasn’t a lie—she had been dizzy for a moment. But when the moment passed, she stayed quietly seated and kept her eyes closed. She tried to imagine she was somewhere else.

She must have been doing a pretty good job of it, because when the photographer was done, the women and girls all left for the powder room without her. Dinah ran back to retrieve her before the ceremony. “Still not feeling well?” she asked. Rose kept her eyes shut and nodded. She didn’t have to say why she wasn’t feeling well. She didn’t have to say anything at all.

Dinah had been given strict instructions. Whether they were from Mimi or Mimi’s new mother-in-law, Mrs. Feinstein, it didn’t matter. If Rose wasn’t feeling up to walking down the aisle, she was to be given a cup of water and brought to the room where the ceremony was to take place. She was to be shown to a seat in the first row on the right, next to the groom’s grandmother. Dinah settled her there, gave her an obligatory kiss on the cheek and left to find the other bridesmaids. The wedding was about to begin.