The Book of Daniel (29 page)
Of all the Cams I knew: happy Cam, sad Cam, angry Cam, working Cam, playful Cam, and so forth, the hottest by far was formalwear Cam. He was a massive living doll I would be allowed to strip and pleasure at the end of the night, and I couldn’t wait. I wanted to get on my knees right there, right on the beach in front of every one of his St. Nacho’s pals and peel him out of his trousers and worship him, but then the ceremony began and I lost my chance, because it’s ever so déclassé to blow the best man while the rabbi is talking.
Silly rabbi, dicks are for…
Cam nudged me and whispered, “Pay attention.”
The chuppah whipped around in the wind, but it held, thanks to some ingenious spikes and sandbags and children who kept it in place. The poles had been, as Mary Catherine promised, covered in vines and—in deference to the delay—brilliantly colored autumn leaves. As the ceremony took place, the sky went from blue to a dazzling orange to violet to indigo. The crescent moon shone in one part of the sky and the sun in another, as if there was some magic holding them both in the heavens at once.
Jana and Katie marched before the grooms like walking confections, scattering rose petals, which got blown all over by the breeze. Jana broke formation to gather them back and put them where she’d been told, but her mother caught her and motioned her forward and the show went on as planned.
Jake and JT observed the rituals of blessing, the unity cup, spoke their vows to one another, and gave each other plain gold bands. The rabbi spoke the seven blessings of the Sheva Brachot over a second cup of wine in her firm, clear voice, and they shared that.
For some reason, maybe just because it was natural—or it was inevitable—I caught Bree’s eye and remembered what I’d said to her on our very different, nondenominational wedding day. She gazed back at me and placed her hand over the baby growing inside her. She dismissed me with a warm smile and turned toward Jim, who didn’t really feel comfortable with a same-sex marriage but showed up with his game face on anyway. He clutched her hand like a lifeline.
When it came time to break the glass, JT positively crushed it beneath his foot, and everyone, Jewish or not, shouted “mazel tov” in one loud, loving voice. I had plans for that little bag of handblown glass; I’d ordered it special from a company that would take the shards and create a unique, one-of-a-kind decorative glass piece from it, something the newlyweds could enjoy for a lifetime, God willing and earthquakes aside.
Maybe I just liked the idea that something shattered could be made into something wholly new and beautiful.
Since Jake and JT had spent a solemn day fasting and praying, they observed the custom Yichud. After the ceremony, they took themselves off to the tiny room at the top of the stairs at Nacho’s bar, which had been decorated by the ladies from Miss Independence pies and set up with a little champagne and a gourmet private snack. Cam and I ushered the rest of the guests into the dining room and offered a toast to the health of the newlyweds while we waited for them to join us for dinner downstairs.
“That was really something,” Cam kept his hands in his pockets.
“It was. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prettier wedding.” I couldn’t help adjusting his boutonniere—just to touch him—but it wasn’t really crooked or anything. He raised a knowing eyebrow.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Nope.”
He took my hand and led me to a quiet place on the patio. “I didn’t understand about the wedding ceremony.”
“What didn’t you get?”
“I didn’t realize how much tradition goes into the words and the symbols.”
“Tradition is important to both of them.”
Cam brushed the side of my face with his knuckles. “Are you very religious?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’m not above thanking God—every single day—that I have you in my life.”
“That’s very nice.” He pressed his lips together, and I turned to kiss his fingers. “So. You wanna do it?”
I sucked in a breath. “What? Get married?”
“Mmmhmm.” Cam nudged my nose with his.
Did I
? “I could. I would if it will make you happy.”
“What about you? Won’t it make you happy?”
I took his hands in mine. “They’re only words, Cam. Words on paper. Words in legal documents. We have all that in place, everything that’s mine is yours, you hold my life in your hands if I’m injured, you have the right to shut off life support if—”
Cam pressed his fingers to my mouth. “Shh. I hate talking about that shit.”
I shook his hand off. “All right. But I believe in you. I believe in us. I just don’t believe in words because I know how easy it is to say and how hard it is to live.”
“So then what?” Cam’s blue gaze bore into me. “You don’t want be my husband?”
“I’ll do anything for you. Anything. I’m just saying for me, for the first time in my life, I’m speaking with actions, not words.”
“I want the actions. But I want the words, the ring, and the cake. The whole thing. I just…” Cam glanced behind me at the chaos inside the crowded bar.
“What?”
“I’d like it to be private, just between us.”
“That’s fine.” The longer I thought about that, the better I liked it. “Better than fine. We’ll have a stealth wedding.”
He brightened. “Yeah. And then we can just start wearing rings and that will be that.”
“We’ll tell Jake we want a small cake, just for us, for something else. For…”
“New Year’s.” Cam’s blue eyes were so happy. So full of his own brand of personal mischief.
I nodded. “Okay. All right. It’s a date.”
A commotion from the dining room caught our attention, and we turned to see what was happening.
“Oh, the cake.” Cam had the advantage of height, so he could see it over the heads of the crowd. I had to push my way through. Jake wheeled it, all three tiers of it, in on a stable cart, and presented it to JT with a flourish.
I suspected the presence of red velvet cake beneath the thick, beautifully piped cream-colored icing. In essence, the cake itself was very simple. There were swirls and rosettes and lattice work climbing up the tiers. The top of each layer was decorated with beautiful fresh flowers.
At the very top Jake had created a tower of cartoon-like sculpted figures depicting everyone we knew: me and Cam, Lonnie and Joyce, the St. Nacho’s firefighters, EMTs, and police, the Miss Independence Pies ladies, Izzie and Jordan and Ken, Minerva and Muse, Cooper and his lover Shawn—all of them stacked, one on top of another, shouldering the little fondant figures of our tuxedo-clad grooms over their heads on chairs in the traditional Jewish wedding dance. The grooms were holding hands and leaning together for a kiss. Every detail was perfect, right down to their tiny wedding rings.
“Brilliant.” Mary Catherine clapped her hands. “Absolutely gorgeous. He wouldn’t let me see it, and I’ve been dying of curiosity. She leaned over and peered at it closely. “Jake, does my butt look that big in real life?”
“It’s a cartoon, MC.” Jake buffeted her with his shoulder.
As soon as he saw it, JT grabbed Jake’s face between his hands and brought him in for a passionate kiss. The delighted crowd went wild, clapping and whistling and egging them on. Glasses clinked together and champagne corks popped.
Pretty soon the firefighters, Andy, Al, Lonnie, and I had them up and bouncing on chairs for real, and they got the full treatment. The girls, led by MC, Joyce, and Ellie formed a circle around us. As the band played “Hava Nagila” faster and faster and the dancing grew more chaotic, I’m sure Jake and JT feared for their lives.
While I was cooling down from that, Cam took off to do the hokey pokey with one of Ellie’s girls. I turned and found Minerva standing right beside me.
“Look at them go.” She waved a blue cocktail napkin stamped with Jake and JT’s wedding date to cool herself down.
“Yeah.”
“So. Did you find out what that symbol I drew for you means?”
“I did. It means truth.”
“Imagine that.”
“Oddly enough, I had that very symbol tattooed on my shoulder blade a few weeks before I came to you for that reading.” I glanced at her to see if she gave herself away.
She turned to me and clutched my arm. “For real?”
“Yes. And someday I
will
ferret out how you knew I had that tattoo.”
“But I didn’t know.”
“Sure.” Even though her eyes were wide with surprise, I doubted her word.
Minerva smirked at me. “I really
didn’t
know about your tattoo. I took several semesters of Japanese at university, though. I drew that symbol because I knew what it meant, not because I’m actually psychic.”
“The hell you say.”
“The hell I
do
say.”
“Well…” I admit to feeling something icy crawl up my back.
Muse and Izzie joined us to spirit Minerva away. Before Minerva let them take her she called back over her shoulder, “If you got the tattoo before I said anything, I think that makes you the psychic one.”
At that, all three of them—Muse and Minerva and Izzie—laughed, joined hands, and dived onto the dance floor together.
Loose Id Titles by Z. A. Maxfield
Blue Fire
Crossing Borders
Drawn Together
Family Unit
Fugitive Color
What Child is This?
(a
Crossing Borders
Christmas story)
The ST. NACHO’S Series
St. Nacho’s
Physical Therapy
Jacob’s Ladder
The Book of Daniel
Z. A. Maxfield
Z. A. Maxfield is a fifth generation native of Los Angeles, although she now lives in the O.C. She started writing in 2006 on a dare from her children and never looked back. Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends. If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four manages to find time for a writing career, she'll answer, “It's amazing what you can do if you completely give up housework.”
Check out her website at
http://www.zamaxfield.com
.
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