“I’m sure you’ll find a way to keep Mab and Tits happy,” I say.
With that, I leave the antechamber so I can watch over the ceremony from a respectful distance. This was my last official coordination task prior to the reception—and let’s be real, the caterers should be able to manage the bulk of the after-party with only minor oversight, barring major incidents.
“Unthink that, unthink that,” I mutter.
Slipping to the back of the Throne Room, I silently evaluate the scene. Sixty rows of chairs splay out before me, gorgeously wrapped in greens and neutral beiges and whites, with occasional pops of magenta. Beyond the guests is a stagelike platform, where May’s personal harpist, recently enlisted to replace our DJ, has taken a seat. Above the platform is a raised dais, punctuated by two spectacularly mossy fairy thrones. As Rochester ascends to the lower platform, he nods at the harpist. She lifts her obscenely long fingers to the ceiling.
And so the wedding begins.
To my left, Gustavo clicks on his video camera; to my right, Jurgis begins snapping photos; and before the audience, May’s harpist begins plucking a loose version of Pachelbel’sCanon in D. The melody sounds okay… for about five seconds, until it’s time to bring in the accompaniment. She doesn’t do it. Instead, she keeps plucking the D repeatedly without varying it. Or stopping.
Wait, I was wrong. She’s now playing D inmoreoctaves.
Okay. Breathe, Sabby. At least the sounds emitted by the harp are technically music. Mandy will still know to prompt the bridesmaids to move forward. And… there. Applause rings out from the guests. I assume this means Hanry has entered the Throne Room via the royal entrance. I’m not sure if he’s being escorted by his buff fairy servants,if they’re miming him in a cage for effect, or if he’s walking unaided. And that’s because I continue to refuse to look.
Thanks to our vigorous post-lunch rehearsal, May’s fairy entourage succeeds in walking up the aisle, arm in arm with the groomsmen. They’re steady and perfect. Moved to passion, a few guests stand up and attempt to develop some kind of leprechaun-leaping game of hopscotch. I snap my fingers, and fairy minion ushers swiftly intervene.
Something else is much more wrong, however. Something less easily fixed.
I cross the room, maximally stealthy, and sidle up to Mandy. “There’s one too many groomsmen,” I whisper close to her ear. “Or one too few bridesmaids.”
She squeaks, reddening. “You’re right! What should we do?”
“I don’t know,” I reply. But I’m going to have to think of something, fast. I leave Mandy to approach the platform, hugging the wall along the way so I garner minimal attention. Thankfully, my well-honed, borderline invisibility skills remain on point. So much so that when I emerge from the relative shadows to signal Rochester to interrupt the music, no one notices. Except him.
With obvious resentment, the fairy-godmother-officiant clears his throat.
“Now that the processional is complete,” he says, “we will have the entrance of the ring bearers and flower girls.”
Finally, mercifully, the harpist quits ejecting D notes at us. Her music shifts to a folkloric, pleasant tune. At the back of the room, Gustavo smoothly adjusts the angle of his camera, and Jurgis crouches and creeps past me, changing lenses ahead of May’s grand entry.
On any given wedding day, it’s expected that the bride will float down the aisle, an angelic vision in white. Sure, there are variations on this theme. May’s variation is that she’s going to do it literally. I wouldn’t look, and I don’twantto look, except I need to make sure her ceiling entrance isn’t terribly bungled.
And… crap. She’s gorgeous, her face shining with a pearlescent glow. The layers of her white silk kimono float up cloudlike behind her,giving her the appearance of an actual angel. Or, I guess, a fairy. I’m aware that she is gracefully descending on wires—not magic, because this is a human wedding—but that’s beside the point. She’s taking her time with it too, sighing and preening to great applause, her geta shoes dancing in the air.
It isdevastating. Because at the end of it all, she alights on the platform beside Hanry, looking as pleased as any other bride I’ve seen.
And Hanry… Hanry looks happy too.
I really can’t believe this.
Like, two nights ago,less than fifty hours ago, I was texting him about how he makes me laugh. I was thinking about the way he’d told me I was beautiful; the touch of his hand pressing against my back, smoothing down my shirt; how it sent frissons into my stomach. And now he’s not just marrying a fairy princess, he’s actually trying to smile back at her. Wow.
Woooooow.
The officiant begins his opening greetings. “Welcome, welcome, on this happy—”
A deep voice calls out from the front of the room:
“I object!”
I freeze. We all do.
Actually, as far as I can tell, I’m the only one who understands that this word means something. And you know what? That’s good. Becausehell noto anyone objecting to this wedding. I want Hanry to pay. I want him to suffer like I’m suffering. To feel, every day, like there’s a dagger sticking out of the center of his chest.
“Go on!” I shout at Rochester. “The vows.”
“Yes, yes, indeed, the vows,” the fairy godmother says, struggling to recover. Same as Hanry, who searches his pockets. Oh, shit. Mandy checked that Hanry had his vows ten minutes ago. Could he seriously have lost them already?
