A Nantucket Wedding(97)

    The necklace sparkled against her skin like tiny rainbows of light.

“I’ll fasten it,” Felicity said.

Alison added the earrings, three-carat studs. “I’m ready!” she announced.

“Mom,” Jane said. “You need to wear shoes.”

This set the three little girls into hysterical laughter, and they bounced up and down on the bed, giggling, until they realized they could see themselves in the large mirror over the dresser. Then they settled down and smoothed their skirts and turned this way and that, eyeing themselves in their wedding finery.

Alison stepped into her ivory satin heels. “Now. Time for photos.”

Everyone had a phone, and everyone was suddenly clicking and rearranging the groupings, and they were laughing like kids, all of them, when they heard a noise at the door.

Felicity ran downstairs.

“Mom!” Felicity cried. “The limousine’s here.”

“My heart is beating really fast,” Alison said, pressing her hand against her chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“I think you’re having wedding-day flutters,” Jane said sensibly, taking her mother’s arm. “Let’s go. We can drink champagne in the limo.”

“We can?” Daphne asked.

“It’s ginger ale for you three,” Felicity said. “And not too much of it. You don’t want to have to pee in the middle of the ceremony.”

This idea sent the three little girls into more explosions of giggling, and Felicity and Jane had to separate them to get them downstairs and into the car.

Alison was left alone. For a few moments. To look at herself in the mirror.

She looked beautiful.

She couldn’t stop smiling.



* * *



—

    The limo driver had made a mash-up of wedding songs, and all the way from Surfside to Wauwinet, the group sang along to The Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love” and the B-52s’ “Love Shack” and “Celebration” with Kool & the Gang. By the time they arrived at the hotel, they were all breathless. Alison saw roses in the others’ cheeks and knew her cheeks were pink, too.

The limo arrived at the Wauwinet at exactly four forty-five.

“Don’t open the door yet!” Alison begged the driver. To her daughters, she said, “Is my lipstick smeared? How do I look?”

“No, your lipstick is perfect, and you look amazing,” Jane said.

“And you girls all look like princesses,” Felicity told Daphne and Alice and Canny.

“I don’t want to be a princess,” Canny said sternly. “I want to be president of the United States.”

“Me, too!” Daphne cried.

“You can be my vice president,” Canny said.

“NO. You can be president of Peru and I’ll be president of the United States.”

“Girls,” Felicity said. “Here’s your opportunity to show your future voters how elegant and stately you can be.”

The girls nodded, agreeing, and with chins high, stepped out of the limo.

“Daphne,” Alice whispered, “can I be your vice president?”

“Sure,” Daphne said graciously.

And then suddenly they were out of the limo, gathered in all their glory on the sidewalk leading to the hotel entrance.

“Is it time?” Alison asked.

“It’s time,” Jane said.

They went into the hotel and through the wide hallway. By the door to the outside was a table with a florist waiting to hand the women their bouquets and the little girls their baskets of rose petals.

They stepped out onto the long, wide porch. In front of them the lawn spread like green velvet down to the beach and the brilliant blue water of the harbor. At the side of the hotel a glorious white tent with banners flying waited, and a boardwalk had been laid to the tent’s entrance, where the main aisle was covered with white cloth. They could hear Mendelssohn filling the tent.

    Hunter and Luke, clad in blue blazers, their hair slicked down, raced up.

“Come on!” Hunter ordered. “Everyone’s waiting!”

“Boys,” Alison said. “You both look so handsome. Can I kiss you?”

“Ugh, no!” Hunter said. He tugged his cousin’s arm. “Come on. Get your pillow and the ring.”

The florist lifted two red velvet pillows and two golden rings and placed them in the little boys’ hands.

“I’m doing this,” Hunter said, and took off, walking rapidly, Luke following.

When they got to the white aisle inside the tent, they stopped for a moment, giggling and nudging each other. They settled down inside the tent, walking down the aisle a lot faster than they’d been taught in rehearsal.

Then it was time for the women.

“You first,” Felicity told her sister.

Jane looked alarmed. “I’m going to throw up.”

“You’re a lawyer,” Felicity chided. “Get it together.”

“But it’s Mom!” Jane whispered.

“Go.” Felicity gave her sister a nudge.

Bouquet in hand, Jane hurried down the boardwalk. At the tent’s entrance, she stopped, and gathering her dignity, she went slowly down the aisle to the altar.