Page 29 of Endless Summer: Stories
Billy Frost, Eleanor decides, is on the edge of suitable. She breathes in deeply, then exhales. She is ready to live on the edge. It’s what she’s been waiting for, she realizes.
“It’s amazing that a girl as beautiful as you doesn’t already have a boyfriend,” Billy says.
Eleanor manages to suppress a spurt of nervous laughter. She hascompletely forgottenabout Glen Bingham and his franchise project!
“Not so amazing,” she says.
They are to be married June 22 on the “flat of the hill,” at the Church of the Advent, where everyone in the Roxie family has been baptized, confirmed, married, and memorialized for nearly a century. Eleanor will be attended by her Pine Manor roommate, Ann-Lane Crenshaw, and Flossie will be a junior bridesmaid.
But before this is set in stone, there is a discussion about Eleanor asking cousin Rhonda to be an attendant.
Win Roxie says, “Would you consider it?”
Vivian stands in silence at Win’s side. On this rare occasion, Eleanor’s eyes seek out her mother’s. There isno wayVivian wants Rhonda at the altar with her daughter.
“I’d rather not,” Eleanor says—diplomatically, she thinks.
“Technically, she is the one who introduced you to Billy,” Win says. “I think it would be a nice gesture to ask.”
“If it were only a gesture, that would be one thing,” Eleanor says. “But what if she says yes? I can’t have Rhonda all strung out on drugs, tripping on LSD or high on PCP at my wedding.”
“I have taken measures to neutralize Rhonda,” Win says. “Set her on the straight and narrow.”
Vivian flinches almost imperceptibly. Clearly, this is the first she’s heard of these “measures.” There is more than one way to be unfaithful, Eleanor realizes.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Eleanor says. “I won’t do it.”
This is a gamble. Win is, of course, footing the bill for the nuptials and the honeymoon to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. But if he gives her an ultimatum—ask Rhonda or the wedding is off—then Eleanor will elope. Billy would prefer that, she’s certain.
Win nods, accepting defeat. “All right,” he says.
Not only does Eleanor not want Rhonda as a bridesmaid, she doesn’t want to invite her to the wedding. But this, she knows, is pushing things too far. She considers sabotaging Rhonda’s invitation—dropping it through the sewer grate on West Cedar on her way to the Charles Street post office—but she worries she’ll be found out. What should concern her more than the invitation addressed to Rhonda is the one addressed to Win’s sister and Rhonda’s mother, Cressida. That envelope says simplyFlandreau Santee Sioux Reservation, South Dakota.
It’s unlikely either Rhonda or Cressida will accept. If Rhonda does come, Eleanor imagines she will be there to make a scene. Rhonda might show up at the church in an attempt to steal Billy back, like Dustin Hoffman inThe Graduate,which was, coincidentally, the movie Eleanor and Billy went to see on their first official date. Or Rhonda could create some other kind of kerfuffle. Eleanor imagines protest signs, cherry bombs, fire. She envisions Rhonda streaking naked through the church—anything to call attention to herself, her pain, her beloved killed by the Vietcong. Anything to discredit the establishment, the world of power and privilege that she has never had access to. There is no possibility that Rhonda is as rehabilitated as Win believes. She was too far gone to save. She was, Eleanor thinks, doomed from birth.
Rhonda’s invitation goes into the post with everyone else’s, and a week later her response card comes back:Miss Rhonda Fiorello will attend.No mention of a guest, which is worrisome; a date might serve as ballast or buoy.
There are many other things to worry about, however. There’s an iffy weather forecast for June 22, a fever that Flossie runs the week before the wedding, the failure of the church’s air-conditioning, and whether or not Vivian will be civil to Billy’s parents, Dr. James and Mrs. Tabitha Frost. (“Unusual name, Tabitha,” Vivian remarks. “Is thatJewish?”) Following the reception, photographs are to be taken in the Public Garden. Eleanor hears that a classmate of hers from Winsor and Pine Manor, Suzie Worth, is getting married at the Church of the Covenant in Back Bay and is planning on havingherphotos taken in the Public Garden at nearly the exact same time. Eleanor loathes Suzie Worth and has since ninth grade; this discovery causes Eleanor to dissolve into tears.
The one steadfast element amid all of the wedding planning is Eleanor’s groom. Billy offers Eleanor a handkerchief, kisses her tenderly, tells her that if the wedding planning is making her upset, they can hop on a Greyhound bus to Vegas. All that matters is their love.
It turns out Billy is right. Eleanor puts faith in thelovepart of the marriage and things start to go smoothly. Three days before the wedding, Dr. and Mrs. Frost are invited to the house on Pinckney Street for a cold supper. Dr. Frost is a charming man, older than Win by ten years and avuncular; he smokes a pipe and wears a fine watch—a gold Omega 1954—that Win admires. Mrs. Frost is quieter; her voice still holds a tinge of an Irish accent. She came to the country as a child, she says; her father was an editor at Little, Brown.
This gets Vivian’s attention. “The Little, Brown offices are right on Beacon Street,” she says.
“That’s right,” Tabitha Frost says. “I visited them with my father. He used to show me the manuscripts he was editing in red pencil. Back then, I thought books were born whole, but he taught me about editing, how he would try to tease the best writing out of the author. It’s a process, like anything else.”
Vivian nods, and Eleanor can tell she’s impressed.
Then Tabitha says, “Your daughters, Mrs. Roxie, are two of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“Oh, stop,” Vivian says. A blush creeps up her cheeks, and Eleanor notices the start of that most elusive of phenomena turning up Vivian’s lips.
There is bright sunshine and low humidity on June 22. The church’s air-conditioning works just fine. Flossie is the picture of good health, adorable with her blond curls and her blush-pink dress. Eleanor looks stunning in her gown (designed by Priscilla of Boston) and her veil. Her going-away suit is her own design—pencil skirt and bolero jacket in peach shantung silk. Once again, she told her mother she’d bought it at Filene’s, and once again, Vivian believed her, which seems to bode well for Eleanor’s future career.
Eleanor doesn’t think of Rhonda at all until near the end of the service when Reverend Caruthers says, “If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace.” The church is quiet. Eleanor scans the first few rows of the bride’s side, but she doesn’t see Rhonda, and the rest of the church is a swarm of faces, all of them beaming.
Eleanor and Billy are married.
