Chapter 10

Monday morning dawned early, and I got out of bed full of anticipation. It was my wedding day. Tina and Sherry had gone over to their parent's house on Sunday afternoon. Supposedly, it was bad luck for the bride and the groom to see each other on the day of the wedding, at least before she was taking that long walk down the aisle to finally become my bride.

The wedding rehearsal, and the dinner that followed, had both gone very well. I finally had a chance to meet my four groom's men. They all seemed like nice guys, husbands of four of Tina's bride's maids. Kaitlyn was the matron of honor, and, of course, Sherry was to be the bride's maid of honor. Two of Tina's cousin's children, twin girls, would serve as flower girls.

Mr. Axelbland had prevailed on several of his young legal associates to serve as my ushers. The dinner had ended up serving as a combination bachelor/bachelorette party as well. After the dinner, the older folks and the Anglican minister all excused themselves. At first, some of the ushers and groom's men started to leave also, but Danny put a quick end to their doing that, by announcing that there was an open bar for the next three hours, his treat, and that I couldn't get married without a proper send off. Kaitlyn and Mona prevailed upon all of the girls to remain as well.

It was probably the wildest, most drunken bash that staid country club had ever hosted. It became obvious, an hour later, that most of Tina's friends weren't used to downing copious amounts of alcohol in very short order. Danny showed all of them how to do rum and seven up shooter's. When you drink them all fizzy like that, so quickly, they don't make that big of an impression on you. It sneaks up on you though, especially if you aren't used to drinking, and your body hasn't built up the tolerance for it. I like to think that most of our wedding party really enjoyed being led down the dark side by Danny, Kaitlyn, and Mona.

I accidentally caught Danny getting himself blown by Pattie, one of Tina's married bride's maids. Rick, Pattie's husband, was sleeping it off down in his car at the time. I'd gone out a side door of the room we were partying in, hoping to get some fresh air to try to clear my head, and that's when I discovered the two of them. Danny laughed when he saw me, but Pattie didn't seem happy at being discovered down on her knees like she was.

Kaitlyn and Mona, the two oldest women in the party, by at least a decade probably, managed to find something to amuse them out in the member's bar area. They both disappeared for better than an hour, but no one was looking for them out there either.

I was starting to be worried about Sherry. I hadn't ever seen her so quiet around me, not since she had first started talking to me. She kept to herself the whole time of the party, really the only one not getting into the spirit of our celebration. I tried talking to her, as did Tina, but she refused to speak to me, and only answered Tina's questions by either saying no, or else just shaking her head from side to side.

It was after eleven when the party finally broke up. A very drunk Danny needed to come to me to get some extra cash to pay for our bar tab, and to take care of the two cocktail servers. He hadn't realized the difference in prices between the kind of bars he usually frequented, and those charged at a private country club. Tina stepped in then and took Danny to see the night manager of the country club, insisting on putting everything on her father's tab. I was glad to see Danny go over to each of the cocktail girls, as well as both bartenders, to give them some tangible reward for all their efforts. I then saw him put whatever money he had left in his pocket. I guess it went against his grain to ever pay back any borrowed money.

Back at the house, after first dropping off Tina and Sherry on the way, Mona tried to get me interested in knocking off one last quickie with her before I actually got myself married. I hope I couched my refusal in a way that didn't hurt her feelings, when I begged off by claiming performance fears for my wedding night if I wound up over indulging with her.

My loss was apparently Danny's gain, because I later heard him and the two former Keller sister's having a romp together, across the hallway, in Sherry's bedroom. My guess was that this was another thing Danny and Kaitlyn couldn't get up to anymore, not with their older kids right there in the trailer with them.

I didn't get that nervous until the four of us arrived at the church, just before one o'clock. The wedding was scheduled for two, and, when they led Danny and I to a back room, right behind where the choir room was, it finally really started hitting me. Danny looked really good, all dressed up in his tuxedo. His eyes were the only indication that he'd tied a big one on the night before. I tried to hand him my tiny bottle of Visine, telling him to use it to get the redness out of his eyes. Rather than accept the offered bottle, Danny smiled and brought his own little bottle of Murine out. We both shared a little laugh at that.

The tension kept mounting for me until Tina's dad came into the room to tell me that the bridal party had arrived all right. I'd been a little worried that Tina might have a last minute change of heart and decide to cancel everything. After he left, Danny started telling me the strategy he'd devised for his upcoming seduction attempt on Tina's mom. It was a typical Danny sort of plan, something that I would have expected from him.

Later, sensing that I was too nervous, he started joking around with me, coming up with all these very coarse ideas about how else he might get Tina's mom interested in him. It worked too, before too long I was joining in with him, expanding on ideas he'd come up with. His best one was pretending to have caught his dick in his zipper, and then going over and appealing to her for some help in working it free.

It did relax me for a short time, right up until I remembered that I'd left my cheat sheet for the wedding vows that Tina and I had decided to compose ourselves. Neither of us yet knew what the other one would actually say at the wedding. Danny, who had been my practice dummy while I had extensively rehearsed the vows, calmed me back down by repeating the whole thing back to me slowly, word for word.

Finally, the minister had come for me. For the last fifteen minutes, all my groom's men had come into that little waiting vestibule to join us as we waited for things to get started. When the minister came to get me, the others went back to the front of the church to be ready to begin the processional. After I'd taken my place up at the altar with the minister, I looked out to a veritable sea of unknown faces sitting on both sides of the aisle. All of the groom's family were already part of my wedding party, except for Mona, who was seated in the front row on the groom's side of the aisle. At first she was all alone, but as more and more guests kept being led in by the ushers, my side began to fill up as well.

The organist had been playing some music to muffle the sounds of so many people tramping up and down the way, or of all the little conversations people were having as they waited for the services to begin. There had to have been some signal I didn't notice, but I was too busy watching the wedding photographer go around checking on the three video cameras his assistant's were manning, to have noticed it.

From the back of the church, up in the balcony, this woman started singing "Like A Bridge Over Troubled Waters". I couldn't help myself, breaking out into a wide smile. That was the song title I had given to Tina when she'd asked me if I wanted to pick a song for our wedding. I had been joking, but, strangely, as I listened to the lyrics, my pick seemed on point, and totally appropriate for this wedding.

I'll never forget the surprise that Tina and Sherry had decided to spring on me. All of my groom's men and all Tina's bride's maids, along with Kaitlyn and Danny together, had already come down the aisle first, taking their proper places, just like we'd rehearsed it the night before. When I didn't see Sherry, I really started getting concerned. Then, the bridal march started playing, and I was looking all over the church, desperately hoping to see Sherry somewhere. I couldn't believe she'd willingly miss our wedding, no matter how she felt about what had happened between us on Saturday. When Tina's dad and Tina came into view, I found myself truly saddened. I knew I had only myself to blame for causing Sherry to miss out on her sister's wedding. I felt lower than a dog turd on a hangman's boot heel.

Suddenly, Sherry came into view, moving behind her sister's long train on her wedding gown, and moving up along the free side of her father. She too was dressed all in white, not a sweeping full wedding gown like Tina's, but, unmistakably, something similar, something another bride might have picked for a wedding dress, possibly for a less formal city hall type marriage. Both girls carried bridal bouquets in their hands. Sherry looped her arm through her father's free arm, and both girls started moving down the aisle to the strains of the wedding processional.

When the three got to where Tina and her father were supposed to stop, he turned first to Sherry, and kissed her cheek, whispering something to her that I couldn't hear. She turned from him and walked over to Tina, kissing her on her bridal veil before turning to me and walking up to give me a firm kiss on my lips. For the first time since that time with Danny and me, she spoke to me.

"I love you, Jimmy."

Right after that, she moved over and took her place at the head of the bride's maids, just slightly behind a beaming Kaitlyn. I figured out that Kaitlyn had to have been in on this too. From all the twittering going on out in the audience though, all this must have been a complete surprise to everyone else. People didn't seem to know how to take it. I wasn't sure myself. I remember being very happy to hear Sherry's voice, as this meant she was speaking to me again.

Tina's father leaned down and whispered into Tina's ear for quite a long time, maybe for half a minute or longer. I could see tears running down his face as he spoke whatever words he felt he needed to say to her. At the end, Tina reached for his hands and pulled him in closer to her. The whole church heard her cry out.

"I love you too, Daddy, and I'm sorry for what I did." From the way she'd yelled it, it was equally obvious to me that she too was crying beneath her veil.

Hearing her, I couldn't quite manage to rein in my own emotions, as I too started to drip tears down from my eyes. I had always hoped, but never actually believed that Tina would manage to find it in herself to forgive her parents. I looked over to see who it was that was bawling so loudly behind Tina, and discovered it was her mother, overcome with her own emotions.

The ceremony hadn't even really begun, and already fully half the guests gathered in the church were crying. Even Danny's eyes looked a little bit misty to me. All the people who really knew of Tina's history with her parents were crying.

The minister had to prompt Mr. Axelbland by asking him who was giving the bride away? He made the customary answer.

"My wife and I are." He paused for just a second or two before going on. "I have two daughters that I'm giving away today, trusting in their judgment that, for them, this is the right thing." He leaned in and kissed Tina's face before lowering her veil back down for me. That was my cue to step down and take my bride's hand from him and lead her up to the altar where the minister would start the marriage ceremony itself. He looked very agitated as the two of us turned to face him as Tina's dad went to take his place beside his wife. We hadn't rehearsed what had just occurred, and I wasn't sure that he'd be willing to proceed with so many new wrinkles having been added.

"We are gathered here today to join Christina Templeton Axelbland with James Irwin Masters, into a state of holy matrimony."

I tried to concentrate on all his words, but my mind was trying to remember the words to the vows I had planned on making. Eventually the time came for me to recite my vows:

I, Jimmy, take you, Tina, as my lawfully wedded wife. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, forsaking most others, til death should pull us apart. I promise to always love you, to make room in my heart for all those that you have in yours. To make a place in my life for us to dwell in great peace and harmony, and to always keep alive the hope we all now feel in each other."

The minister looked like he'd swallowed something that didn't agree with him. He turned his face to Tina, signaling her that it was now her turn.

I, Tina, take you, Jimmy, as my lawfully wedded husband. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, from this day forward, for as long as we all shall live. I promise you both that I will always love you and never leave you, and to forsake all others." As she spoke the words, she, like me before her, had turned to include Sherry in her vision.

When we were done with our vows, we both could tell that we would never again be invited to attend this church, not while this minister was the head pastor of the flock. Nonetheless, he did finally pronounce us man and wife. By name though, making it quite clear that, notwithstanding what we had vowed, he was presiding over the marriage of us two only. We didn't care. We three all knew what the real promise had been.

I've been to many weddings, and to just as many wedding receptions. This was the only reception I'd ever been to that lasted all night, or that finally ended when the police showed up and nine people were arrested for racing on foot, nude, down a public street.

Unfortunately, for my plan at least, Kaitlyn and Mona were unsuccessful in their quest to seduce Mr. Axelbland. Kaitlyn swore she got some mean tongue while kissing him, and that she had groped his crotch while they kissed, for a minute at least, during one of the times the two of them were dancing.

Danny had much better luck with Tina's mom. Danny had spent a good part of the reception in her company. They were two of the nine nude runner's arrested early the next morning. I thought it was a show of real class when Tina's dad paid Danny's fine, along with his wife's. I was left wondering how her arrest would affect their marriage.

The staid country club set living in that part of Southeastern Connecticut had seldom been exposed to people like those three from my family. One thing my family did know how to do was to liven up a boring party. Most of the guests, and all of the staff hired to serve those guests, ended up either very drunk, or else very high, on the half pound of really good pot that Danny had managed to score while we were getting his new tux fitted over in New Haven.