Once and for All(12)
“There you are,” my mom said to me when I finally returned to the private dining area off the ballroom we were using as ground zero for our planning. All the flower arrangements were lined up on a nearby table, programs already folded and stacked beside them. “Did you get the pennies?”
“I got some pennies,” I said, pulling the rolls from my pocket and putting them next to where she was sitting at the head of a table, her folders organized in a clock face pattern around her. Each one held a task that needed to be completed before the ceremony began, and she’d move through them accordingly, checking each off as she went. “But they aren’t polished.”
“That’s not as important as getting them on the cards.”
“Cards?”
Instead of answering, she reached for a yellow folder not in the clock face, pulling it toward her. Everything at Natalie Barrett Weddings was color coded, so I didn’t even have to see the (neatly printed in William’s writing) label on it to know it held Last-Minute Items. She flipped it open, taking out a sheet of paper and handing it to me. “Josef’s mom was named Penny. She died of cancer when he was ten. They’ve decided to honor her by handing out cards with her name, dates, and a bright, preferably shiny penny to each guest.”
“And this happened in the last two hours?” I asked, having no recollection of hearing anything like it during the previous months of planning.
“It was decided last night, at the gathering after the dinner.”
This was such a dreaded practice we actually had an acronym for it: a last-minute DAB, i.e., Decided at Bar. “Please tell me you are kidding.”
“I wish I was.” She sighed, her face tired. “Now, I know you are going to hate me, but I need you to go back out and pick up the cards from the printer. They were a rush job and are already paid for and ready.”
“Seriously?”
“I said you’d hate me,” she replied, as if this actually made anything better. And plus, I couldn’t hate her, anyway; she’d never made a DAB. She was way too organized. “Just remember; next summer, you’ll be almost out of here to college. No more tasks like this. You can get a nice, normal job, like selling produce.”
This was what she’d started saying to me at times like this, as if a promise of weighing cucumbers in the future softened any current blow. It was also as close as she’d come to addressing me leaving for school, something so fraught with emotion she wasn’t even able to joke about it. Yet. I said, “I know you’re trying, but the idea of working at a farmers’ market is hardly a comfort right now.”
“No?” She gave me a sympathetic look. “How about this: get the cards and I promise, barring any unforeseen disasters, you can knock off early tonight.”
“Define disasters.”
“No. I refuse. It’s like tempting fate.” She shut the folder. “Just say yes to the offer, will you? A free night at the beach! You can study up on the produce business.”
“You’re not funny,” I grumbled.
“Maybe not. But I am desperate.” She took a quick, apologetic glance at the van keys, which I’d deposited next to the pennies. “In all seriousness, I wouldn’t push on this. But . . .”
“. . . the client gets what the client wants,” I said, before she could complete yet another one of her mantras. I picked up the keys. “But I am not polishing pennies. I draw the line there.”
“That’s fine. William will do it.”
“Wait, what?” William said, entering the room at precisely that moment. “What am I doing?”
My mom pretended she didn’t hear him. “Just think about weighing those cucumbers next summer!” she called out as I started to the hallway. “So easy! So relaxing!”
I didn’t reply, just waved a hand behind me as William said, confused, “Cucumbers?”
At six p.m. sharp, Margy walked down the aisle on the arm of her father, looking gorgeous in her cap-sleeved gown with a bejeweled bodice, and crying happy tears. We’d hit the jackpot on the weather: warm but not too hot, a good breeze but not enough to send veils and dresses billowing up. The only wrinkle was a loud Coast Guard Helicopter flying by low over the beach and drowning out the beginning of the vows. Even my mother couldn’t control the military, although I would not have put it past her to try.
After the ceremony, I sat in the BRR as the wedding party and then guests exited to the ballroom, where the bars were open and the DJ already playing beach music, the bride and groom’s favorite. Once the chairs were empty, I helped some guys from the Piers fold and stack them to clear space for what would later be the dance floor. Left behind were crumpled programs, a few stray tissues, and, to me, entirely too many of the penny cards William and I had hastily assembled in record time before the ceremony. Oh, well.
Once the ceremony was complete, there was always an easing in my mother’s tension. So I wasn’t entirely surprised when she joined me during dinner as I stood guarding the display of M & J cupcakes on the cake table. While guests rarely messed with a wedding cake, something about cupcakes brought out serious grabby hands, and not just in children. Until the pictures were taken, though, they were off limits, which meant body blocking them while saying “Not yet!” in a cheerful, yet firm, voice to anyone who tried to approach. It was one of my least favorite jobs, and one William loved. But he was tied up taking over for a queasy bartender until backup arrived, so it fell to me.