All That Is

30


A WEDDING



In the summer of 1984, on a Sunday afternoon, Anet married Evan Anders, the son of a New York lawyer and his Venezuelan wife. Four years older than Anet, with the dark hair and brilliant smile of his mother, he had a degree in mathematics but had decided to fulfill a long-held ambition and become a writer. He was working meanwhile as a bartender, and it was during this adventurous period in his life that he and Anet decided to get married. They had been going together for more than a year.

The wedding was in Brooklyn in the garden of some friends. Anet was not religious and in any case not Greek Orthodox but as a gesture towards her father a few details of a Greek ceremony were included. They were going to wear the little crowns that Greek couples wore, and the wedding rings would be on the finger of the right hand rather than the left. There were fifteen or sixteen guests not including the parents of the bride and groom, the best man who was the groom’s younger brother, Tommy, and Sophie, who was maid of honor. The others were young couples and a few young women who had come singly. It was a very warm afternoon. A table with pitchers of iced tea and lemonade had been set up to one side. There would be drinks afterward at the reception. Several of the women were fanning themselves as they waited.

William Anders and Flore, his wife, liked Anet very much. She was a little reserved, he felt, but perhaps it was only towards him. He was a lawyer of the utmost probity. He was not a man of rash actions. He was the trustee of large estates and had clients that he had represented for years and were his friends, but with his son’s girlfriend something had passed between them from the first all-telling look. He might have chosen her himself and perhaps it was this she sensed and was wary, but at the wedding that day it seemed to him that she returned his look without caution.

Several of the guests had already seated themselves in the rows of chairs, including Christine and her husband. She was wearing a hat with a wide brim that shaded her face and a print dress with a pattern that looked like blue leaves. Everyone noticed her. In the wedding party photograph she appeared to be a woman of thirty standing with one foot forward of the other like a model. In fact she was forty-two and not yet entirely prepared to let youth have the stage.

Some taped music was playing, a string quartet. Anet was usually bored by string quartets but had felt that one was right for the occasion and anyway in the house she could barely hear it. Tommy had caught a glimpse of her in one of the rooms as he came through the house into the garden. She was standing in her white wedding gown and they were pinning it in places. She was too involved to notice or smile at him, too nervous, but proud to be marrying in front of her parents, especially her mother with whom she had been on bad terms for quite a while although by now that had been largely forgotten, that is to say, no longer talked about.

It was Christine who had met her on her arrival back at Kennedy. In the taxi they had sat in tense silence. Christine was seething. It was not that she thought her daughter was innocent although in a way she did, but she had never imagined anything as sordid as Anet sleeping with her former boyfriend. Finally she said,

“So, tell me what happened. I know what happened, but I want you to tell me.”

“I don’t want to right now,” Anet said in a subdued voice.

“Whose idea was it to go to Paris? Was that your idea?”

Anet didn’t answer.

“How long had it been going on before that?” Christine demanded.

“Nothing had been going on.”

“Nothing? Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Yes.”

“So, how did it happen that he left you? What caused it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Well, I know.”

Anet was silent.

“He wanted to show you were a little slut. He didn’t have to try very hard. You know, he’s thirty years older than you are. What did he do, tell you he loved you?”

“No.”

“No. Does anyone else know about this?”

Anet shook her head. She began to cry.

“You are stupid,” Christine said. “You’re a stupid little girl.”


That was six years before, and now her father came in to ask if she was ready. He was giving her in marriage, he was bringing her into the garden on his arm. As they stood together the music of the quartet stopped and was replaced by the familiar opening chords of the wedding march. All heads turned as Anet, almost magical in white, walked with her father from the house. She had a look of calm and even pleasure on her face although she felt her lower lip quivering. She lowered her head for a moment to gain control of it. Her husband-to-be was smiling as she came towards him, Sophie was smiling, nearly everyone was.

During the ceremony when it came to the crowns that seemed woven of cloth with tails of ribbon, the minister said,

“Oh, Lord, crown them with glory and honor.”

They put them on and then exchanged them and did the same with the rings, three times, from bride to groom and groom to bride to symbolize the weaving together of their lives as everyone watched in rapt silence. At the end they drank together, husband and wife, from a single cup of wine. There was applause and congratulations and embraces before the party made its way indoors where champagne and a buffet were waiting.