Firecracker Page 13

  “You look so beautiful, Astrid,” she said.

  I was less immediately inclined to agree. “This dress makes me look like a Polish prostitute,” I told her.

  “Hey!” Lisbet had a lot of loyalty to clothes, and she did not like people speaking ill of them.

  “And not like one of those Hungarian prostitutes with their standards.”

  “This dress was very expensive.”

  “Really? How much did you spend on this thing?”

  Lisbet tried to do math, then gave up. “I don’t know. I had it made in Tokyo, and I can’t convert money in my head. But it was one point five million yen.” Lisbet had me tilt my head up so she could administer powder to my cheeks, and she tilted her head down because I’d hurt her feelings.

  “It’s a very nice dress, Lisbet,” I said. “You know how I am. This is just weird for me.”

  “I know. But it’s great.”

  We were both quiet for a few minutes while Lisbet decorated my mouth. When she finished, I looked at myself in the mirror. As difficult as it was to admit, Lisbet had done a very nice job.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for making me look nice, Lisbet.”

  Lisbet smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  “I’m sorry I put a dead frog in your flute when we were kids.”

  “You did?” she said. “It’s okay. Everything is okay. Because at two o’clock, I’ll be married.”

  Behind Lisbet was a stack of robin’s-egg-blue boxes full of engagement presents she was planning on returning. All of a sudden, I realized they could be incredibly useful. “Can I have some of those?” I asked. “They’ll go to a good cause. Every door is a window.” Happily, she agreed.

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>

  The wedding planner instructed me to wait in the foyer until she gave the sign for the music to start and the walk down the aisle to proceed. The wait was long and boring. There had been a rehearsal dinner the night before, but no one had actually rehearsed anything. I had no idea what I was supposed to do when the event began. I had agreed to read a passage from Corinthians and anticipated it would be followed by a lightning strike and the wedding party getting swallowed up into the gates of hell. I had looked up my duties, and mostly I was just supposed to walk up the aisle and stand there, which was something I could definitely do. Also, I had yet to decide if, when the minister said, “If anyone sees any reason why these two shouldn’t be married blah blah forever hold your peace,” I would say, “Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce,” or “Lisbet farted.” Both sounded good.

  I was to walk down the aisle with the best man, Randy’s friend from college, who said, “Everyone calls me Jimmy Raincoat. Wanna know why?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t wanna know why.”

  My dad and Vivi were also waiting in the foyer. Vivi smiled as if to say, “This is the sort of daughter I signed up for. I signed up for a daughter who looks like this.”

  “You look beautiful, sweetie,” my mother said. It may have been the first time she had ever said anything like that without adding something like, But why must you make that face all the time?

  My father was puzzled. “Who does she look like?”

  “I don’t know,” Vivi said.

  “You don’t know who I’m thinking of?”

  “I don’t.”

  Then my dad snapped his fingers, having figured it all out. “Leslie Van Houten.”

  “The Manson girl?” Vivi said.

  “The prettiest Manson girl,” he clarified. Leslie Van Houten murdered people in the sixties, but she also did happen to have nice cheekbones, so my father meant that as a compliment.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Noah. His suit didn’t fit him very well. He was holding a corsage. The box was all fogged up from being in the refrigerator all day. I was familiar with the look that boys get when they want to touch you or grab you or kiss you. He didn’t look like that, though. It was more a look of admiration. Maybe it was the way you would look at the Grand Canyon from very far away. I certainly wasn’t used to someone looking at me like that. I had no idea what to do with it.

  “I was waiting in one of the big rooms, but I wanted to see you,” he said. “You look beautiful.”

  “Go on . . .” I said, batting my eyelashes.

  Noah took the corsage out of the box. It was white, purple, and yellow. He had done a good job finding flowers that looked nice with the dress. I thanked him and said, “How did you know I like presents?”

  He left to sit down and wait for the processional with the other guests, but he returned five minutes later. He leaned in, a serious expression on his face, and whispered, “I heard something. I heard someone talking. I thought you needed to know.”

  “What?”

  “I heard they, um, lost the groom.”

  “He’s dead?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “not that kind of ‘lost.’”

  The wedding planner was a stern woman named Ms. Antoinette, and she buzzed throughout the back hall and frowned and snapped her fingers a lot. I stopped her as she tried to whiz by me. I leaned in very close to her face. “Is there a problem?” I asked pointedly.

  “Just stay here,” she said. “It’ll start soon.”

  “Listen, we could go back and forth like this or you can tell me. If you haven’t noticed, I’m the maid of goddamn honor.”

  “We can’t find the groom,” she whispered, looking nervously toward the crowd of restless guests.

  “And you’ve looked everywhere? Couch cushions? Are you sure you’re not confusing him for one of the caterers? He’s very uninteresting looking.”

  She shook her head.

  “Does my sister know?”

  Ms. Antoinette shook her head again. “No. Not yet.”

  “Don’t say anything. How long can you stall?”

  “However long I have to,” she said.

  I grabbed my cousin Gretchen by the arm. “You stay with this woman, okay?” I told Gretchen. “Make sure Lisbet is happy. And that she stays happy. Sing to her or something. Keep her distracted.”

  “Well, hello to you too, Astrid,” Gretchen said.

  “I have no time for this.”

  “The last time I saw you, you closed a piano lid on my nose.”

  “It won’t happen again. I promise. I don’t even know where the piano is anymore.”

  I casually walked over to the best man. I didn’t want to make a scene or anything. I said, “Listen, I need you to tell me—”

  “Why they call me Jimmy Raincoat? Of course,” he said. “Back in college, it rained for all of October and at the same time my roommate’s name actually was Jimmy—”

  “Forget it,” I said and took Noah by the arm. “Let’s find my grandfather.”

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>

  My grandfather was in his library, which I found odd, because he should’ve been outside waiting for the wedding to start like everyone else. I figured it was because he was very old and tended to forget a lot of things. (He referred to Lisbet as “Wanda” at least five times a day.) But this was still weird. Most of the guests were people he knew, and my grandfather liked seeing me in nice clothes.

  “Stay here,” I said to Noah. “Don’t say anything to him, okay?”

  Noah nodded.

  “There’s a wedding going on, you know?” I said to my grandfather.

  “Is there a groom?” he wanted to know.

  “How did you know there wasn’t?”

  “Does it matter? It means I can stay here all I want, can’t I? No groom, no wedding.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Wanda will meet someone else, I’m sure. She has a real fertile look. Let’s get out of here. I have at least three children of mine on the main lawn, and I’d like to duck away before your uncle Ellery starts asking for
money.”

  “We need a groom. I need to do this for Lisbet. Please. Tell me what you know.”

  “I need to go to a bar,” he said.

  “I’ll make you a drink right here.”

  “No. The groom. I left him in a bar. If you want him, I’m sure he’s still there.”

  I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t have time to fight about it.

  “How are you, son?” Grandpa had finally noticed Noah.

  “This is Noah,” I said.

  My grandfather waved the smoke around the room. “Don’t you think I know who Noah is?” There was no reason my grandfather should have known who Noah was.

  “No, Grandpa,” I said. “The Noah you’re thinking of is the one with the ark.” Then I looked back at Noah. “Grandpa and Noah with the ark went to high school together.”

  “You know how to drive, kid?” my grandfather said.

  “Yes,” Noah replied.

  “Fine. We’ll save the wedding, then. Unless you can think of a more entertaining way to spend our afternoon. I can think of thousands.”

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>

  “Not this one,” the senator said. We had been to three bars in Cadorette. Noah drove like he was carpooling a soccer team of seven-year-olds, so we’d already wasted an absurd amount of time. “It’s the one where they don’t show sports. There’s no television at the bar I’m thinking of.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I just need to know the name of the place,” Noah said.

  “Do you really think I’d go to a bar where the ladies are dressed as referees? I require my liquor from a man in shirtsleeves. It would be a mistake to trust anyone else,” Grandpa said.

  “He likes the hotel bar,” I said, remembering where it was.

  I looked at my grandfather as we drove. He was slipping. Everyone knew he was slipping. But I’d never really believed it. My whole life, he always knew what he was doing. Even on days when he forgot to put on pants, he’d had his reasons. It was just that lately, he must’ve had a lot of reasons for not putting on pants. Finally I saw the hotel coming up on the right, and I told Noah to pull over.

  “Are you going to give me any information or am I paddling alone here?” I asked my grandfather. “Why isn’t Lisbet’s fiancé at his wedding?”

  “He made a choice,” my grandfather said. “I’m the kind of man who gives people choices. But I can’t make up his mind for him.”

  “Very helpful,” I said as I stepped out of the car.

  “What did you bring? What are you going to do to him?” Grandpa said. “Is there a knife in the glove compartment I don’t know about? Remember what I taught you about sea anemones.”

  “I didn’t bring anything,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt him. I’m just going to make this better.”

  Grandpa laughed. “Sure thing, kitten.”

  I looked at Noah, who was giving me a pleading look.

  “No matter what he says, don’t cry around my grandfather,” I instructed him.

  “Don’t worry,” Grandpa said. “We’ll have a nice talk too.”

  It wasn’t my first time in a bar. My father and my grandfather sometimes had to stop in places like this all around the world for business, so when I went along, I would usually sit in a booth and carve things into the table or bet drunks twenty dollars that they couldn’t drink a glass of black pepper, Tabasco sauce, and dishwater. Even if they won, they lost, and those were the best kinds of bets. It wasn’t even my first time in that particular bar, but in the daylight it looked sadder than I remembered.

  It wasn’t hard to miss Randy, despite the fact that it was almost always incredibly easy to miss Randy. That day he was the only one there. If there had been maybe two other people with brown hair in the bar, I might have had to replace Randy with someone else and hope that Lisbet wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. A similar plan had once worked with a goldfish that I’d accidentally dropped in the toaster, so I thought it was likely to work again.

  “Can I see some ID, miss?” the bartender said. I handed him a fake passport, and he nodded. “That’s quite a dress for a Saturday afternoon, Miss Graneveis.”

  “If you’re not going to go out with style, why the hell go out?” I said.

  “What can I get you?”

  “She’ll have some sort of red sweet juice if you have anything like that,” Randy said. It was the first time I’d ever heard him say anything.

  “How did you know what I drink?”

  “How wouldn’t I? We live in the same house,” he said.

  I felt a little bad just then that I hadn’t paid as much attention to what Randy drinks. “How long have you been here?” I asked Randy.

  “He’s been here too goddamn long,” the bartender said.

  “Your grandfather said I can stay here as long as I want, so I have a feeling I’m just going to stay here all night and right through the wedding tomorrow, if I feel like it.”

  “Today is tomorrow,” I said. “Your wedding is now.”

  “What is in this drink?” he asked, looking down at his hands as if he now had four instead of two.

  I motioned to the bartender. “Get him some coffee or something, barkeep. Is it cool to call you ‘barkeep’?” He nodded that it was cool and poured Randy a coffee. “Did he say something to you? My grandfather?” I asked Randy. “Did he threaten you?”

  “He’s been great,” Randy said. “He told me that he knows I have dreams, and he doesn’t think anyone should stop me from realizing those dreams.”

  “What are your dreams?” I asked, hating myself even as I uttered it. Frankly, I don’t even remember what he said. Something about competitive crossword puzzles, soap sculpture, moth collecting, bread making, sports medicine, or maybe animal husbandry. Or it was something else? Who cares?

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked when he was finished. “Go for it. Live the dream. Husband some animals. You have forever.”

  “I don’t have forever. After I get married, I’ll work for your family’s company. And then I’ll become just another cog in the machine. It’s very sad.”

  “That is a little sad. And what did my grandfather have to say about that?”

  “He said I didn’t have to work there and that I didn’t have to get married at all. He said that he would write me a check so I wouldn’t marry Lisbet.”

  I felt a weird tightness in my chest. And I had a vivid picture in my head of the senator with an unlit cigar laughing at his incredible plan. But I didn’t understand it. My whole life, my grandfather and I had understood each other completely. It was almost like we shared a brain, except that my brain had slightly more knowledge about how a computer worked and his had a little more information about fifty-year-old scotch and Lana Turner movies. But I couldn’t figure out why he would try to pay Randy to make Lisbet sad. And it made me angry. Not at Randy, but at my grandfather.

  “How much money did he offer you?”

  “Lots,” he said.

  “So do you want to marry her or not?”

  “I don’t know,” Randy said. “I’m not sure.” Then he started to cry. It wasn’t a dignified, manly, military-funeral cry. It was like a six-year-old girl who’d gotten scratched by a kitten. And then it got worse. Randy put his head on my shoulder and moaned into the ruffles of my dress. By then, I’d had enough. I put the palm of my hand on his forehead and lifted it up.

  I don’t think Dean Rein would have been very impressed by how I dealt with Randy. He probably would’ve encouraged me to slowly stroke his hair as he cried on my shoulder. But even in the very kindest part of my being, that wasn’t going to happen. What I thought about was my sister, and how if this day didn’t end the way she wanted it to end, she wasn’t going to be happy. Lisbet wanted this wedding, and she wanted it to be with Randy. I didn’t have to understand
it. I just had to make sure it happened.

  So I said, “Listen, I need to make you aware of something. I don’t care about you. I don’t care whether you live or die. All I know is that my sister wants to marry you. And if my sister is not married in thirty minutes, you’d better not be interested in having working knees. Are we clear, buddy?”

  He sniffed a little. “How do you know what your sister wants? We barely ever see you.”

  “I’m . . . I’m working on that.”

  “She’s not always happy, you know. She gets sad a lot. It’s not a very happy house over there.”

  “I . . . I know it’s not happy over there. Lisbet is unhappy too? Is anybody happy?”

  “I don’t know.” Randy wasn’t looking to run away because he wanted a big check. He just didn’t know how to make Lisbet happy for the rest of her life. I had always figured it would take nothing more than a school bus and a box of rainbow sprinkles to make Lisbet happy forever. But maybe I was not the only person in the world who was more complicated than everyone assumed.

  “Do you love her?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Randy said.

  “Sure? Or yes?”

  “Yes. I love her very much. I just don’t know if now is the right—”

  “Get in the goddamn car,” I said. “Because girls tend to have a hard time staying in love with guys who stand them up on their wedding day.”

  He looked at me desperately.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m sorry. About all this. The wedding. Lisbet . . .” he whispered. “I really do want to make her happy.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Then get in the car.”

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>

  My father cried as he watched Lisbet get married. He said to me, “It’s times like these when I say to myself, look at these two girls. You and Lisbet. Look at you. I made you. And then you two, you grew up. I guess that’s what it’s all about. You make people, and they grow up. It’s the meaning of life. It’s very sad.”