I dig and the party goes on. There are toasts and cheers and Stevie Wonder sings about his precious daughter—Isn’t she lovely made from love?—and we’ll never have a daughter and I lose my temper and throw my shovel. I crawl into the earth and let the music beat the living fuck out of me. I can’t fight it anymore and joy at the far end of the woods has become monotonous—I’m not one of those people who ever thought “Get Lucky” was so fucking special. I can almost taste their vodka and I am the uninvited guest, out of sight, alone. What soothes me, what allows me to keep digging, is the likelihood that Chet and Rose have a website, a registry. Knowing that I will be able to find them, to see them, is a comfort somehow. Neil Young sings for Chet and Rose—“Harvest Moon” that hurts—and Neil Young will never play for you and me on our wedding day and you don’t hear him now. You are dead.
I lift your body out of the trunk and unravel the area rug that encapsulates you. You are still beautiful and I rest my head on your chest and tell you about Chet and Rose. I will probably die alone, under an insignificant moon and you won’t be there to mourn. You soar on to heaven and I have to summon the strength to set your precious corpse in the ground. Chet and Rose are surrounded by friends and family but I, alone, lift your petite body and maketh you to lie down in green pastures. It would be nice to have a moment of silence; Chet and Rose are rude to be so loud. But I can’t blame them; they can’t see me, can’t hear me. They’re in their own world, where good things happen, a quarter mile and a million light years away. I kneel on the ground and recite the 23rd Psalm. I memorized it for this occasion. You are dead.
There is no way to know what happens to us after the wedding we won’t have, after life. I walk in the woods and look at the world with inhuman night vision and see all that man was not built to see. I don’t know if you will dwell in the house of the lord forever but I lie on my back and listen to the party for Chet and Rose grow as quiet as the night, as death. They will get tired and their party will end and if anyone was ever going to live eternally in the light, I think it would be you.
I cover you with dirt and rocks and branches and leaves and you are so much more than a body. The walk back to my car is a short one. The drive away from Chet and Rose and your body is a long one in the dark of night. I don’t know that I’ll ever make it home, and even when I do make it into my apartment, I remain unsure of whether or not I will ever have a true home. I will never have you. You are buried by Forrest Lake, near Chet and Rose, somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience.
I don’t open the shop the next day. I can’t. You are dead.
53
THE mail I typically receive is boring and financial, bills, coupons, crap. But today, almost three months after your passing, I receive the first wedding invitation of my life, via the United States Postal Service. The envelope is so big the postman had to walk it upstairs and lean it against my door. I know I’m not an expert, but it’s a beauty, Beck, and I have it with me here at the shop. I’m enamored with the triumphant romance of the thick, embossed cardstock juxtaposed with the delicate, gold, italicized cursive. Who knew Ethan and Blythe were royalty? A lot happens in three months. Exclamation Point Ethan and Blythe have gotten engaged and invited me to their wedding in Austin, Texas. A lot doesn’t happen in three months. The HELP WANTED sign is still in the window; Ethan got a corporate job, marriage is expensive.
But, this invitation has altered my perspective. I haven’t felt this hopeful since exiting Dr. Nicky’s office, since entering you. The future exists again because of this invitation. This invitation necessitates that I mark dates on my calendar. And it feels good to flip ahead through the calendar in my phone. Before this invitation arrived—addressed to Mr. Joe Goldberg and Guest!—I was only flipping through months gone by, inventing anniversaries for our life that’s gone. You above all others know the importance of moving on; you like new things, you liked new things. Life is not a Dan Brown book; you are dead and you are not coming back. But life is better than a Dan Brown book because at long last, I have something to look forward to, a wedding. I have to decide between steak and fish and I am genuinely torn about the decision and I have to make this decision within the next forty-one days, according to the rules on the reply card.
The bell chimes on this slow day that’s neither summer nor fall. An unremarkable man in shorts asks about Doctor Sleep. I point him to Fiction G–K and I think of the time I saw you in Fiction F–K and what a fool I was in the days after. I have rearranged the shop; I couldn’t look at F–K anymore. I genuinely believed that reshaping the shelves would make it easier to live in the world without you, the world I built with my own two hands, the world that won’t allow me to tell you that I know you stole your Ritz robes from Peach. I still get flashbacks. I still cringe. I am eating again, but only because I hate fainting. Everything has been an exercise until now. I will always feel indebted to the United States Postal Service, to Ethan, to Blythe. And I will never again underestimate the power of anticipation. There is no better boost in the present than an invitation to the future.
The loner buys the King and leaves with the King and I am going to need to buy a suit. It’s wonderful to have a project and I celebrate by visiting Chet and Rose’s online love nest. I feel like I’ve gotten to know them so well since that dreadful night in the woods. I want to tell them about the invitation. I’ve become obsessed with Chet and Rose, but how could I not? They gathered in the woods to be married so that I could still believe in love. I love them. I’ve watched their honeymoon slideshow hundreds of times. They were there for me. What timing. I used to play the slideshow and pretend that we’re the ones on a honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas. But these days I’m less bitter. I know that we all don’t get to be Chet and Rose. It is an indisputable fact: Some people on this earth receive love, get married, and honeymoon in Cabo. Others do not. Some people read alone on the sofa and some people read together, in bed. That’s life.
I will probably die alone. Karen Minty will probably die married; lots of people love The King of Queens. And I am fine with my fate. It was my decision to spare you the pain of life. I let go of you. I forgive you. It’s not your fault that you carried your demons awkwardly in that big Prada bag, in those giant used robes from Peach’s Ritz. You were toxic, not vicious and the men who did leave you are thriving; that Hesher guy has a television show that doesn’t suck. An online registry at Babies “R” Us shows that your father is about to become a father, again. Some people get it all, they do.
I think you would be happy to know that your voice carries. I am the sole reader of The Book of Beck. I had your short stories bound at FedEx. But millions of people have devoured the story of your life. Everyone knows about the twisted psychologist who murdered you. You never were published in the New Yorker but you did make the New York Post.
You changed me, Beck. I will not grow lonely like Mr. Mooney. I have Ethan and Blythe. I have the girls they periodically foist upon me. The girls are always terrible, wan and patronizing or shallow and simple. I am like Hugh Grant in Love Actually minus the love, which isn’t so bad when you realize that in real life, Hugh Grant is single, like me. Once again, not all animals are destined to pair off. Yes, I understand that we are built for companionship; God gave us vocabularies. We need to speak. We need to listen. I fuck occasionally, girls from the Internet, girls from the shop. But mostly I keep to myself. No longer do I open petal by petal and you were right, Beck. You were not the girl I thought you were and Barbara Hershey wasn’t the one for Elliot in Hannah and Her Sisters. The doorbell chimes and I look up from a photo of Chet and Rose on paddleboards and see a girl, a girl I know, sort of. She wears a University of Pittsburgh tank top and jeans. She squirms. She waves. I wish there was music playing right now. She liked my music last time.
“I saw the sign in the window.” She swallows. “Are you still hiring? Sometimes they forget to take down the sign. Sometimes it’s bullshit. I’m sorry. I’m swearing.”