In Stereo Where Available (36 page)

Toward the middle of March I got a call from Madison, on a Sunday evening while Jerry and I were snuggled up on the sofa watching
The Producers
for the third time. We’d come home from church around noon and had lunch and then spent most of the afternoon making love, which was pretty much all we did on Sundays, besides watch movies. Jerry claimed to have a strong conviction about Sunday being a day of rest, which might have been true but also seemed like a pretty convenient excuse to avoid the mall and spend the day enjoying his favorite hobbies.

“It’s going to be on March twentieth,” Madison said emphatically. I could practically see her sitting on the edge of a bed in a hotel somewhere, her free hand chopping the air on every other word. “At Cottonwood Farms Plantation in Fowler’s Creek, Georgia.”

“Hold on a second.” I gestured for Jerry’s notebook and pen and he passed them to me. “Okay. Is that sweeps week?”

“No, but my network’s having a ratings battle with one of the other networks for the day-before-Easter prime-time slot. It’s a tight competition, but hopefully we’ll win it.”

“Oh, really? What’s the other network running?”

“The Passion of the Christ
. Hopefully we can knock it down to the number-two spot if we do enough promotion. Oh, and I got a commercial with one of the show’s sponsors, but I have to get married before they can release it.”

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s for Afterglow Disposable Freshening Towelettes. Obviously they can’t put my face on the product if everyone knows I’m not married.”

“Why not? You had sex with the guy on national TV.”

“That’s beside the point. And there’s another thing I need to talk to you about, too, just real quick.”

“Are you seriously doing a commercial for those things? Boy, I remember when you used to laugh about the women in the Massengill ads in Mom’s magazines. Are you going to have to be, like, a spokesperson for them?”

“I don’t know. Listen, Phoebe—”

“That’s just totally funny. You know what they’re missing, though? Like, one of those easy-release adhesives on the back, so you can stick them to the sheets. I mean, the waterproof backing is nice and all, but they shift all over the place. They’d sell like crazy if they made a sticky version. I mean, you know. ‘Cause I mean, we’ve got a dark blue duvet cover, and—”

“Phoebe. Stop
it for a minute. I need to talk to you about my
wedding
. Listen, you can’t tell them that you’re my twin, okay? Just say
sister.”

“I can’t?”

“No. You just can’t. I mean, it’s one thing for Colby to know, but if everyone else finds out how old I really am, I’ll be screwed for good. I’ve got a career to think about, okay? Do this for me. I’ve worked way too hard to come all this way and lose everything just because I’m almost thirty. I’m on the cover of
Modern Bride
this month, Fee. The
cover
.”

“But they’ll figure it out anyway. All they have to do is go to our high-school yearbook, for one thing. That’s practically the first thing they check.”

“I’m Madison in the high-school yearbook, though. Just do this for me, okay? All I need is one good acting job and then it doesn’t matter what they find out.
Please
, Phoebe. I’m the closest I’ve ever been.”

I sighed and tickled Pepper with my toe. “Okay.”

The studio called us a week before the wedding to give us all the details—the name of our hotel, the schedule of events, the date and time we needed to report for duty. The day before the welcome reception I picked Jerry up after work and we set off for Blacksburg, a single suitcase and an overnight bag in the back of the Jetta and our dress clothes hanging in their dry-cleaning plastic from the little hook above the back window. We stayed at a Days Inn overnight and the next morning got back on the interstate to Atlanta, still a day’s drive away.

“You’d think they’d fly us down there,” I complained. “They fly out a zillion people from California and won’t pay for two measly tickets for us. I’m her
twin
, for goodness’ sake.”

“They don’t know that.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I guess I’d better not let that slip. The last thing I need is my picture in
People
with the word ‘Before’ over it.”

“Don’t be down on yourself. I keep telling you, I think you’re better looking. You’ve—” He stopped short.

“I’ve what?”

“Never mind.”

“No, tell me. What were you going to say?”

He cleared his throat. “You’ve got a nicer ass.”

I laughed. “Oh, well, thanks. I guess I’ll just take the compliment and not ask why you were looking at my sister’s butt.”

“Your sister doesn’t
have
a butt. She needs a good home-cooked meal. I’d be afraid I’d snap her in half.”

“Okay, you can stop right there.”

“Sorry.” He moved over to the left lane, ducking to look in the side mirror. “What’s this event we’re supposed to be at tonight?”

“It’s just some kind of reception. Madison said something about feeding everybody so they can get the lighting right and have people get to know each other so the real wedding reception tomorrow will look more natural. You know how usually people are wandering around in circles because they don’t know anybody there.”

“I guess. I hate parties like that.”

“I know you do. When we have ours, it’ll be small, okay? Like fifty people.”

“I was thinking more like twenty.”

“See, the problem with twenty is that four of them would be my parents and stepparents, and since they all hate each other except for my stepfather, that’s kind of a small group to have to mingle without setting off World War Three.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. And then there’ll be Rhett, if he’s still around. You’ve seen what he’s like at family gatherings. Imagine what he’d be like with an open bar. We need more people so we can blend him in.”

“Since when are we having an open bar?”

“My dad’ll want one. He’d be afraid people would think he was cheap if he didn’t.”

“Do you think you could bring up the fact that the groom is a recovering alcoholic?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Not particularly.”

“I didn’t think so. Why, do you think it would be a problem for you?”

“No, but I can’t guarantee it won’t make me cranky to be around all that booze when I can’t drink any.”

“That’s fine. I can explain it to him. I don’t want you getting cranky at your own wedding.”

He sighed grouchily, glowering out at the road. “We ought to just elope.”

“No kidding. It would certainly make things less complicated.”

“Okey-dokey.” He checked his right-side mirror and shifted over one lane at a time. “Let’s go do it.”

“Go do what?” I laughed. “Elope?”

“Yeah, sure. We’re in Tennessee. It’s like Vegas. You can get married whenever you want.”

“You’re not serious, are you?”

“I’m completely serious. I mean, I’ll do any kind of wedding you want. Big church wedding, little church wedding, skydiving with a minister, I don’t care. I’m just telling you, we can get off two exits from here and be married by dinnertime. By a minister. Probably a Southern Baptist, but I mean, we’re in Tennessee. God will forgive us.”

I looked out at the road and then over at Jerry, his blue-gray eyes jumping back and forth between me and the car in front of us. He raised his eyebrows at me and bit his lip. “You want to?”

I smiled and nodded at him. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

Jerry and I stopped at the Welcome Center to pick up brochures for every wedding chapel in the state and then dropped by the Sevier County Courthouse to get the license. He stuck it in the glove compartment, and we drove all over the city of Gatlinburg, looking for just the right place to sign the thing.

“This one says it’s the most talked-about chapel in Tennessee,” I said, holding up a brochure.

“Uh-oh. That could mean anything. That could mean there was a murder there or something.”

“Oh, that’s a good point. Well, how about this one? There’s a waterfall, and you get an angel keepsake magnet with every purchase of $229 or more. And they’ve got Friday specials.”

“Right here,” Jerry said suddenly. His flat palm turned rapidly on the wheel as he steered into a parking lot. Next to the road was a giant backlit pink heart printed with white lace, like a box of Valentine candy. In swooping powder-blue cursive it said, “Forever ‘n’ Ever Wedding Chapel.”

“You want to get married here?”

“Yeah. Did you see the sign?” He gestured out the window. The marquee under the pink heart said “CHRISTAIN MARRIAGE SERVICE.”

“But they’re
all
Christian marriage services. We’re in the middle of the Bible Belt. I have yet to see a single shotgun wedding synagogue.”

“First of all, it’s not a shotgun wedding. You’re not pregnant, at least, not that I know of. Secondly, did you really
read
the sign? They didn’t even spell it right. It’s perfect. It’s exactly what one of these places should be.”

A bell tinkled on the front door as we came in. A secretary in a white suit with long bottle-blond hair and lavender acrylic nails looked up at us and set down her
Reader’s Digest
.

“We want to get married,” said Jerry.

She looked down at her desk blotter. “We don’t have any openings until eleven.”

Jerry looked at his watch. It was ten-fifteen. “We can wait,” he said.

We sprang for the $379 Romance Special that included a lace-edged silk bouquet, a red rose boutonniere for the lapel of the suit Jerry had brought for Madison’s wedding, a videotape of the ceremony, and eighteen professional photos. We tossed in a couple hundred bucks more for rings they sold for an outrageous markup and a rented wedding gown and veil. The chapel was like a life-sized Barbie playset, with silk roses and stained glass everywhere and the ubiquitous carved unity candle promised by every brochure we’d left in the car. It was heavy-handed, full-throttle romance. Low country music from the secretary’s radio drifted into the dressing room as she helped me get dressed in a frilly white gown I’d chosen from the closetful they had on hand.

“Your man’s going to think you’re the prettiest thing he’s ever laid eyes on,” she said, fluffing out my veil.

“I hope so.”

“Don’t you worry, honey.” She handed me the bouquet and then fidgeted with it, straightening the wires on a few of the flowers. “He’s been in the chapel ten minutes and hasn’t even so much as looked at the emergency exit. You don’t see
that
every day.”

The secretary got stuck on the phone with the florist, so the minister pulled in the guy who was repairing the copy machine to be a witness. He stood respectfully beside a candelabra with his hands folded in front of him, his stiff baseball cap with the strip of braided trim across the brim crumpled against his thigh. It all felt like make-believe until I slid the ring onto Jerry’s trembling finger and, looking up into his eyes, saw the unflinching depth of the emotion that had brought him to stand in that place. We could have been in a minister’s office or Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and it would have made no difference to him either way. He just wanted to marry me.

“You may kiss the bride,” drawled the minister.

Jerry put his hands against the lacy upper arms of my rented gown and gave me a kiss that made the minister clear his throat and the copier repairman look away and scratch the back of his head. And as Jerry took the plastic salad-bar box containing the heart-shaped white cake that the secretary handed him, I picked up the blue Paper Mate pen and signed
Phoebe Kassner
for the last time.

We spent most of our twenty-three-hour honeymoon at the Whispering Pines Chalet & Suites, which boasted free HBO and ESPN, heart-shaped whirlpool tubs, and the best pecan pie in the state of Tennessee. Jerry almost cried with happiness when he saw the Jacuzzi in our honeymoon suite. He took pictures like crazy—pictures of me, pictures of the view from the balcony, pictures of us together that took several attempts with the digital camera to get right. He took pictures of the pecan pie and the Jacuzzi tub. He loaded them all onto his laptop computer and e-mailed them off to his parents and sister in an obnoxiously huge file with the subject line, “My Weekend.”