Chapter 55

I sat in the small church room like so many brides before me. It was a tradition, like my white wedding gown. As I stared at the reflection in the mirror of Debbie standing behind me, fussing with my hair, tucking in a loose strand in one spot, leaning over and picking at another, I wondered how many other brides hadn’t been virgins and still wore white. Tradition. That’s all it was. I smiled at Debbie’s reflection. I thought she was more nervous than me.

The door swung open and my father appeared in the mirror. He was in tails like I knew Paul would be. My mother had insisted on that. Tradition.

“Julie, it’s time,” my father said.

My breathing stopped. I feared it would not start again. It was happening. I was getting married. A moment of hesitation filled me. Doubt. I told myself that it was just nervousness. All brides were nervous, weren’t they? Even Debbie was nervous and she wasn’t the one getting married. Women and weddings. It was a normal feeling. I waited for Debbie to carefully put on my veil before I stood up.

“Then let’s get this silliness over with so that we can party,” I said and chuckled. It was a nervous chuckle.

I was trying to be funny, but my strained voice gave me away. Debbie gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and a squeeze on my arm. She left, going to where the maid of honor was supposed to be. We had practiced it several times. Then my father took my arm and walked me through the empty halls toward the back of the church. Actually, the entrance to the church, but at the rear of the rows of pews. Out of sight in the lonely hallway, I heard the hushed sounds of people whispering, and then my father left me standing there to go to the opening that led into the church. He motioned and the organ began playing “Here Comes the Bride.” My breathing stopped again. This time I thought my heart with it.

My father held out his hand. I walked up to him and he crooked his arm through mine and smiled. I still wasn’t breathing, but started again when he took his first step and I hurried to catch up.

Rigor mortis locked my neck so stiff that I couldn’t turn my head. But my eyes darted right and left. As I forced my feet to take the next step down the aisle, my eyes flitted like I was watching a ping pong match. Everyone was staring at me. My stomach fluttered. Simply nerves? Or dread? My heart pounded. Puffs of air burst from my parted lips. Like an air rifle, they blew out the front of my veil. My eyes finally settled straight ahead. The priest was waiting. Paul stood there in his tails. Debbie and Marty in their assigned spots. After Wally had abandoned Paul, he didn’t have another close friend so, having spent so much time with Debbie and Marty, and Debbie being my maid of honor, to Debbie’s glee he had chosen Marty to be his best man.

I somehow reached the front without tripping, or turning and bolting back up the aisle and fleeing the church. My father lifted my veil, kissed my cheek, lowered the veil, and sat in his reserved seat next to my mother. The rest of the ceremony was a blur. I remember saying, “I do,” and Paul saying, “I do,” and I remember Paul sliding the ring on my finger and flipping my veil over my head and kissing me on the lips, but that was about all. The next thing I remembered was being at the reception in the building next to the church.

There were a lot of congratulations and hugs and kisses from people I didn’t know. Some introduced themselves as an aunt or uncle, but I think they were my parents’ aunts and uncles who I never saw. All the men seemed to want to dance with me. Even Mr. Rigolini, the old tenant who lived beneath my house. I guess my parents felt obligated to invite him. While in his arms, I wished the Russos were still the tenants. I would have liked Mr. Russo to hold me. I was now a married woman belonging to my husband, but I would have enjoyed Mr. Russo’s body against mine, his arms around me, his breath on my ear, and maybe the light touch of his lips there too. I was dancing with an old man I hardly knew and no way attracted to, but my pussy tingled thinking of Mr. Russo.

And then the party was over and it was time to leave for the Poconos. I had wanted to honeymoon someplace more exotic than Pennsylvania, like the Bahamas or San Juan, but Paul had insisted the Poconos was the honeymoon capital of the world.

I hadn’t worn my wedding gown to the church. When I had left my house, I climbed into the back seat of my father’s car in normal clothes. My mother and father, from both sides of the car, had spread my wedding dress, and the crinoline that was worn underneath it to give it body, on my lap from door to door. I had put my gown on in the small church room. But I now had to get into Paul’s car with it on.

When I squeezed into the front seat of Paul’s car, it took both my hands, and then some, to gather the flowing wedding gown and scrunch it up. With Debbie’s help, we managed. I was buried under an avalanche of white wedding dress and crinoline and could barely see over the top. I patted it down, squishing it, flattening it as best I could. Paul and I had a two-and-a-half to three-hour drive depending on traffic. Through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.

I would have liked nothing more than to have ripped my dress off in my new apartment and spend my first night with Paul in our own bed, but we didn’t have a bed yet. We had an apartment with furniture, but there had been a problem with the delivery of the bedroom set. My mother had told me to go straight to the Poconos and that she would be in my apartment when the bedroom set arrived. It would be waiting for me when I returned from my honeymoon. Not having my bed after the wedding was the first disappointment of my marriage.