(14)
—Originally publshed in The Roanoke Review, Fall 1996
Continued from page (13)
She wore pearls at each ear. Her black hair and white veil were pulled back from her face.
The flesh-colored bandage in her palm was invisible.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Grace whispered.
Sam didn’t know. What he saw in her face was the sadness of the rain, the
unfailing funniness of the world around them, the peace of the quiet hours before dawn,
the sorrow of a waning winter day. He would never know what Clarissa really looked like
until he saw her body without its soul. Is this then death?
The wedding was celebrated at a sung nuptial mass. Clarissa, no ugly duckling,
acted the role of the poised, gracious bride as if she’d been born to it. Grace was the
Duchess of Windsor in peach silk. Jamey’s mother, Betsy McIntyre—a pretty woman
with curly gray hair, a self-effacing blue dress, and a frightened smile—kept explaining
that Jamey’s father, the Colonel, was ill and his younger brother was in Vietnam. Sam, in
the fresh set of khakis he’d wear on the plane, was suitably inconspicuous. Only Jamey
looked out of place. As if by habit, he stooped and hunched his shoulders to compensate
for his size but still towered over everybody. His smile was more apologetic than blissful.
He blotted his seeping perspiration surreptitiously.
Back at the house for the reception, Sam was the awkward one. He wanted it to be
over. His thoughts were jarred by people he hadn’t seen for years. In their faces lay an
unspoken curiosity. Why was he, of all people, at Clarissa’s wedding? Wasn’t he the
jilted lover? He ate canapés and drank wine. He watched Jamey and Clarissa cut the
cake and stuff it into one another’s mouth. He smiled as they intertwined their arms and
offered each other champagne. He drank a toast to them proposed by Grace and another
proposed by Betsy “in the name of the Colonel.” Afterwards, Sam dawdled on the
deserted balcony and watched the sun begin its slow journey down to the sea. He
returned to the crowded living room and stood behind the piano next to the glass wall.
The sun was soft, fat, and orange. He saw a jet glint in the afternoon sky and thought of
the transcontinental flight ahead of him. His spine shivered. He turned back to the
guests. Grace had become Rosalind Russell. She never did hold her champagne well.
The sun’s rays stretched through the glass and touched the far wall of the room.
Grace sat down for the first time. She looked tired. He felt sorry for her.
TOM'S TALES