Then she reached over and held my hand.
I almost pulled my hand away. I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know the first thing about her, honestly. She leaned closer to me and put her lips somewhere near my ear. It was as if she wanted to confide the most perfect secret to Johnny and to me. We formed a conspiratorial triangle.
“It will heal in time,” she whispered. “Not entirely. It never goes away entirely, but you will go on, I promise. And Johnny’s a great love, too, so you see? More comes along, and it will; it will for you, too. It’s probably not fair to my husband to remember the sailor in such a way, but I do remember him, and it would be a lie to say I didn’t. Don’t ever think you’re alone in this. I’ve met many women who have had the great love walk away. You’ll see him all your life—at a bar, in an airport. Something will remind you, and it’s spark and flint again.”
She smiled at me. Her eyes looked soft and kind and tired. Then she reached for Johnny and lifted him to her. I held on to his tiny fist until she smiled again and stood.
“Thank you for watching him,” she said. “You have a good heart, I bet.”
“Good-bye, Johnny.”
She nodded and lifted him against her shoulder. Then she made her way through the scattered chairs, Johnny’s tiny face like a pale moon riding against her neck.
49
Constance’s parents knew the Jeffersons, part of the diplomatic mission in France, and it was at their temporary estate that Constance got married. It was a glorious location, with sumptuous grounds and a large, yellowish Georgian mansion made of pale stone anchoring the land at the head of a white gravel circular drive. Paul Jefferson had been a college roommate with Constance’s dad, Billy, and the idea that a roommate would be so kind to a roommate’s daughter—to host a wedding, albeit a small wedding—seemed somehow to confirm something about our own friendships, we three. We would do the same for our college chums, we knew, and when Mrs. Jefferson, Gloria, led us upstairs to help Constance dress in the late morning on a perfect April Saturday, she opened the French doors communicating to the spacious grounds below, and for a moment we all stood on the balcony and watched as men in blue coveralls set up chairs and the florist misted the violets that Constance had chosen to commemorate the day.
“It’s so beautiful,” Constance said. “I can’t thank you enough, Gloria. It’s what I’ve always dreamed.”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted a wedding here,” Gloria said. “I’ve just had sons, I’m sorry to say, and they refuse to oblige me. Sons may be a little easier in some ways, but they’re not nearly as much fun.”
She was a tall brunette, with a tight head of hair and wide, capable shoulders. She had been a swimmer, a breaststroker, and she had met her husband, Paul, at the Olympic trials one late winter. She still possessed an athletic body, and it did not surprise me when Constance’s mother, Gail, told us that Gloria swam every day to keep her form.
Constance turned and hugged her. Constance, beautiful Constance.
True to her nature, Constance did not want a makeup person or a hairstylist. She had selected her dress for its simplicity. It was a white shift, tea length, with a sheer lace bodice, and she wore white ballet slippers. When she stood in front of the floor-length mirror, her hands trembling slightly as they held her bouquet of baby’s breath and irises, she looked as perfect as a bride could be. Her mother had gone out of the room to find her seat, and we stood behind Constance, and she said nothing but moved her eyes from each of us to the next. Through the window we heard people assembling, and we heard the music—a jazz quartet, naturally, for Raef—begin to play lightly in the background, and Constance turned to us and spoke.
“Remind me in the years to come how happy I was in this moment,” she said to us. “Remember it for me in case I ever forget. Never let me color it with any other emotion. Whatever happens between Raef and me, this moment is a true, I know it in my heart, and I’m asking you to know it, too.”
“I promise,” I said, and so did Amy.
Then it was time. Gloria came in and smiled at us.
“We’re ready,” she said simply.
Amy and I walked down the aisle together. Constance did not want the bridal march to be a long, drawn-out affair. She came down the aisle shortly after we did. She clung to her father’s arm, and she kept her eyes on Raef. Raef stood near Mr. Jefferson, Paul, who had been asked to preside over the ceremony.
The jazz quartet did not play when Constance came down the aisle. Instead she walked to a recording of Yo-Yo Ma playing the music of Ennio Morricone. The delicate sounds came from all around us. Constance, I knew, loved the cello and loved Yo-Yo Ma more than nearly anything else in the world. She owned all his recordings and played them often in her apartment at school and sometimes, when she was a little tipsy, she made everyone stop and listen and marvel to the beauty of his haunting music before letting us resume our drunkenness.
Constance walked down the aisle gently, sweetly, her smile passing over each person there and warming whichever person it fell on. At the altar, she kissed her father, and they had a tender moment where he whispered something to her, then he kissed her again. She went to her mother and kissed her. Then she gave her hand to Raef, and for a moment nothing else mattered in the world.
*
Xavier Box asked me to dance. We were well into the reception, and we had both had plenty to drink. His tie had come loose; his hair stood up like a shoeshine brush turned upside down. His eyes glittered with moisture, not from emotion but from the straight line of booze he had been drinking. I had kicked off my shoes and liked walking on the smooth, slippery wood of the dance floor. I felt … good. Pretty darn good. I had searched all over for Johnny and his mom, but I hadn’t caught sight of them.
I hadn’t caught sight of Jack, either, but that was another thing altogether.
Remarkably, Xavier was one of those guys who could actually swing dance.
And he wasn’t show-offy about it, either. He grabbed my right wrist and shot it to the side, and I spun and he caught me around the waist, bent me back a little, then shot me out the other way. I felt like a yo-yo. Like a Yo-Yo Ma. Like a paper party horn, rolling out with a wheezy blast, then rolling up again. His icy blue eyes followed me everywhere, and I was aware of him being kind of cute, kind of honestly cute, and I wondered, in a distant part of my brain—as I went shooting off again with the whiplash of his arm—why I was so resistant to his charms. Why was I so resistant to every man’s charms for the past nine or ten months? It was useless and pointless, and so when Xavier pulled me back in and held me close, I thought, Hmmmm. I thought double hmmmm.