Beautiful Day(94)

Margot placed the hat on Ellie’s head and tied the ribbon under her chin.

“Very fetching,” she said, and she kissed her daughter’s nose.





THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 16


Seating Arrangements


The key to seating: Everyone should feel included and important. You want each of your guests to have a friendly face at his or her table, although surprising mix-and-matches have been known to work, such as my cousin Everett and my college roommate Kay, who have now been married for seventeen years. Yes, they met at our wedding.

With the exception of divorce, infidelity, or a long-standing Hatfield-McCoy feud, anyone can be seated with anyone. Give them enough alcohol and they will enjoy themselves.

I do have strong feelings about the “Head Table.” If a bridesmaid or groomsman is married or has brought a date, I believe the spouse/date should be included at the Head Table. This is a controversial stance. If your brother Nick serves as groomsman (per my suggestion on page 6), and he chooses to bring a stripper named Ricki whom he met in Atlantic City the week before as his date, should Ricki be granted a seat at the Head Table? Should Ricki be included in all of the Head Table photos?

Yes.

The reason I say this is because when your late uncle David married your aunt Lorna in Dallas the year before your father and I got married, your father served as best man and was seated at the Head Table, and I was seated across the room with Lorna’s elderly aunts and her deaf, flatulent uncles. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the state of Texas to make me enjoy myself at that wedding.





ANN


The wedding was on! Ann didn’t have many details about how Stuart’s gaffe had been fixed. All she knew was that Margot had found Jenna, Jenna had called Stuart, and they had made amends over the She Who Shall Not Be Named crisis. Or at least temporary amends, amends enough to proceed with the wedding. Ann knew from experience that Stuart and Jenna would revisit the topic of Crissy Pine again, and probably again.

Ann had butterflies as she ascended the steps of St. Paul’s Church. It was beginning!

As luck would have it, the first person Ann saw in the sanctuary was Helen. Helen was wearing fuchsia, which was just another word for the hottest pink the eye could handle—and a fascinator with pink feathers.

Really? Ann thought. A fascinator? This wasn’t a royal wedding, it wasn’t Westminster Abbey, Helen wasn’t British; she was from Roanoke, Virginia. The fascinator wasn’t fascinating; it was absurd. Ann felt embarrassed on Helen’s behalf. The pink of the dress was an assault on the senses. Ann had a hard time looking at the spectacle that was Helen, but she had a hard time not looking at the spectacle that was Helen.

Ann waited in the vestibule for all the guests to be seated, including the Lewises and the Cohens and the Shelbys in the middle pews of the groom’s side. Then the music stopped momentarily and started up again, a new song. Ryan appeared at Ann’s elbow.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered.

Ann beamed. She would never say she had a favorite son, but she was very glad that she had a son who could be counted on to constantly lift her spirits, like Ryan.

“Thank you,” she said. “So do you.”

Pauline was escorted down the aisle by Jenna’s brother, Nick. Ann waited for Pauline to be seated in the front pew on the left, and then she and Ryan stepped forward. All the assembled wedding guests turned to watch them, and this felt good to Ann. She was an important person here, the mother of the groom, and her dress was sensational if she did say so herself. It was a long sheath with cap sleeves in a beautiful shade of turquoise silk that gently ombréd into jade green around her knees. The only jewelry she wore was her dazzling new strand of pearls. She carried a small silver clutch purse that contained her lipstick and a package of tissues. She smiled at the wedding guests who turned to admire her, whether she knew them or not. She couldn’t help but remember when she had been the bride and had walked down the aisle at Duke Chapel to a lineup that included Jim, his fraternity brothers, and Ann’s roommates from Craven Quad. Jim had been grinning, and sweating out the shots of bourbon that he and said fraternity brothers had done only moments before the wedding. They had been so young, so innocent, and unaware that any roadblocks might lie ahead.

The second time they got married, it was just the two of them and the three boys, no trip down the aisle, but that hadn’t mattered. They were older and wiser, and they were resolved. Nothing would take them down again.

Ann knew she should be basking in the moment, but she was distracted by the fuchsia. Helen’s dress was another one-shouldered number that was inappropriate on a woman her age. But the problem wasn’t the dress. The problem was that the scrutiny wasn’t mutual. As Ann passed Helen’s pew, Helen was looking at her cell phone. She was… texting. Texting in church, during a wedding! What Ann wanted, what she required, was Helen’s attention on her.