Page 21 of Endless Summer: Stories
“I’m celebrating today,” Glenn says. “Sharon Rhodes, please meet Barbara Pancik, my fiancée.”
Sharon arches her eyebrows. “Pancik?” she says. “Are you by any chance related to Grace and Eddie?”
Barbie smiles at the woman in a way that says,Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.
Glenn says, “I couldn’t have special-ordered a more beautiful day to get engaged. It was nice seeing you, Sharon.”
Sharon nods in slow motion, her eyes not leaving Barbie’s face. “Good to see you, Glenn. Congratulations.”
As Barbie drives home from the office later, she decides that she’ll tell Glenn about everything except her involvement in the prostitution ring. She will tell him that she exaggerated about her relationship with Comanche Jones and wholly made up Earl Fischer.
But as Barbie pulls the Triumph into the crushed-shell driveway of her adorable cottage—which she and Glenn have decided they will rent once Barbie moves into Glenn’s upside-down house in Tom Nevers—she thinks,Why bother?It’s not as if Earl Fischer will ever show up to call Barbie out. And she’s pretty sure that Comanche Jones was lying not only about his name but also about the fact that he was single. If Barbie ever does bump into Comanche Jones again, say, while shopping for a kayak at Sports Authority, she’s certain he will treat her like a complete stranger. Her romantic life before Glenn was pathetic indeed. But it hardly matters now—she’s getting married!
She runs inside the house to call Grace.
Barbie wants a big wedding, and Glenn wants to get married as soon as possible, as if Barbie is indeed being pursued by past lovers who might snatch her from his grasp at any moment. Glenn would get married tomorrow in the Nantucket town hall. September is too soon, so Barbie suggests October. But October is a popular wedding month on Nantucket, and with a few exploratory phone calls, Barbie realizes that every church, every restaurant, every venue is booked and has been for at least a year.
Their only option is to get married on the beach on a Wednesday during the last week of October and have their reception dinner at the Company of the Cauldron, which seats forty-two people. Forty-two people does not constitute a “big wedding,” and Barbie doesn’t know how she feels about getting married on a Wednesday afternoon only a few days before Halloween (bad luck, her gut tells her)—but she supposes it’s better than waiting an entire year. God only knows what might happen over the course of a year.
“Let’s do it,” Barbie says.
“That’s my girl,” Glenn says.
Grace is a huge help with wedding arrangements. She accompanies Barbie to Parchment, the stationery store, where they pick out invitations. For someone who wants a big wedding, Barbie has very few people to invite. Her parents are dead; Eddie is in jail. Grace will come, and Allegra and Hope will serve as Barbie’s bridesmaids. Barbie will invite Uncle Andy and Auntie Guinevere, who live in a retirement community in Fall River. She will invite her best, most loyal friend, Molly Brimmer-Crawley, from high school, and Molly’s husband, Jimmy Crawley, whom they used to call Jimmy Creepy-Crawley, although he has turned out to be a winning choice in the husband and father departments.
Who else? Madeline King and Topper Llewellyn for certain, as well as all the staff from the office of Bayberry Properties. Glenn has a huge family—he’s one of six children—but he informs Barbie that only his two brothers will show up.
“My sisters don’t speak to me,” he says.
“Theydon’t?” Barbie says. This is news to her. Whenever Glenn talks about his siblings—his brothers Bruno and Leon, his sisters Angela, Carrie, and Libs—he does so with equanimity. But now that Barbie thinks of it, all of Glenn’s stories about his sisters are from childhood. Glenn is originally from Chicago, and the siblings live in places like Evanston and Winnetka. Barbie took a trip to the Windy City with him right after they started dating. They stayed at the Drake Hotel downtown and had drinks with only Glenn’s brother Bruno, who lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oak Park, a fact he mentioned three times in an hour. “Why don’t they speak to you?”
“Oh,” Glenn says. “It’s a long story.”
“Tell me,” Barbie says. It never occurred to her that at the same time she was lying to Glenn, he might have been lying to her. Lying by omission! Why didn’t his sisters speak to him? Did it have anything to do with his former drug use? Or did his sisters take Ashland’s side in the divorce? How could they have taken Ashland’s side? Barbie had witnessed the woman with her own eyes, albeit from afar—documented psychopath.
“Money,” he says. “My parents’ will.”
“Oh,” Barbie says. She breathes a sigh of relief.
Barbie spends a very pleasant Saturday afternoon with her nieces shopping online for bridesmaid dresses. Barbie tells them they can get whatever they want, and she will pay for it.
“Mom already said no black,” Allegra says.
Hope elbows Allegra. “Only you would evenconsiderwearing black to a wedding.”
Allegra is a fashionista, there is no denying it, and Barbie figures she’ll pick something by Carmen Marc Valvo or Parker from Neiman Marcus, but both girls turn out to be surprisingly conservative. They pick the same strapless silk shantung sheath from J. Crew—Allegra in dove gray, Hope in dusty pink.
Barbie likes the color of Hope’s dress so much that she calls Flowers on Chestnut and orders three bridal-party bouquets in roses just that color.
She contemplates her own dress. She’s forty-one years old, hardly an ingénue, and it’s a midweek, midafternoon ceremony. She should probably wear a suit. But Barbie doesn’twantto get married in a suit! She wants a dress. She could ask Grace to go with her to Boston to the Vera Wang boutique or Musette on Newbury Street. But that feels like too much—a beaded bodice, a train, even a veil.
She decides to stay within her comfort zone. She orders a long lace gown from Diane von Furstenberg in a color called blush, which is the palest, palest pink. The gown has an open back, which is perfect—Glenn always says he loves Barbie’s back. He’s mentioned it so often that Barbie has contorted herself to get a glimpse of her back in the full-length mirror.
The dress problem is solved. Barbie will go barefoot at the beach, and she buys a pair of shocking-pink patent leather Manolos with four-inch heels for the reception.
She and Glenn meet with the chef-owner and the chef de cuisine at the Company of the Cauldron. They pick out a lavish menu: an appetizer of lemon-thyme linguine with pan-roasted lobster, followed by a seasonal salad of greens, roasted butternut squash, and warm goat cheese coated in spiced pepitas, followed by grilled sirloin, rosemary potatoes, and asparagus drizzled with maple-bacon hollandaise. The cake will be a triple-layer devil’s food with two layers of mocha mousse and house-made chocolate buttercream icing.
Barbie is excited. This is starting to feel like a wedding!
