Page 30 of Endless Summer: Stories
They stand at the entrance to the Country Club to greet people as husband and wife. The guest list is much the same as it was for the Christmas party with the addition of Eleanor’s friends from Pine Manor and Billy’s friends from trade school, from UMass, from Boston Latin, from childhood—including his pal Ian, who lost his left leg in Vietnam at the Battle of Ia Drang. He labors up the front steps on crutches, but his countenance is bright.
Glen Bingham has come to the wedding, and as soon as Eleanor sees him, she introduces him to Miss Pitch, her father’s secretary. They head inside together, and Billy turns to Eleanor. “Matchmaking, are we?”
Eleanor doesn’t know what to say. She is so unimaginablyhappythat she wants everyone to feel as she does. She wants everyone to be in love.
The flow of guests has slowed to a trickle, and Eleanor is about to lead Billy inside for a glass of champagne—her mother will be watching—when she sees a young woman in a canary-yellow linen shift dress and a matching pillbox hat approaching. Eleanor’s eyes widen. “Rhonda!” she says.
“Sorry I missed the service,” Rhonda says. “I had to finish something for class.”
“Class?” Eleanor says. She can’t get over how different Rhonda looks. The dress is clean and pressed, the nude kitten heels are appropriate, and Rhonda has cut her hair to shoulder length. It flips up at the ends now, just like Marlo Thomas’s. She is wearing a pearl necklace and pearl earrings.
“I go to Katie Gibbs now,” Rhonda says.
“Good for you,” Billy says. He reaches out to embrace Rhonda, then Eleanor does the same, although she feels discombobulated, nearly duped, by Rhonda’s transformation. The real magician isn’t Frank Paley, she thinks—it’s Win. This is a better trick than pulling a dollar bill out of a lemon. Rhonda is presentable, nearly pretty!
Rhonda holds on to their hands and looks each of them squarely in the eye. “I am so happy for the two of you,” she says. “You are a stunning, dynamic couple. People in this country need something to believe in, and I know that everyone in attendance today believes in the two of you. You radiate more than love—you radiate hope.”
Hope,Eleanor thinks. She felt it in the church, all eyes on them. She felt the wedding guests’ faith and their optimism—despite the war raging in Southeast Asia, despite the killing of President Kennedy’s brother in California just a couple of weeks earlier. Some things are bigger than circumstance, bigger than history. Love is bigger. Resiliency is bigger.
Eleanor squeezes her cousin’s hand. “Thanks, Rhonda,” she says. “That means a whole lot coming from you.” She eyes Rhonda’s dress again and decides that although the dress is fine as it is, it would be even better with a belt, an obi belt, perhaps, like the Japanese geisha girls wear.Yes!Eleanor thinks. She will hunt down a matching shade of linen and make such a belt for Rhonda herself as soon as she gets home from her honeymoon.
She ushers her cousin forward and offers her new husband her arm. “Enough standing around,” she says. “Let’s get this new life of ours started.”
