Trudy’s Wedding

Trudy Schwartzstein had planned her second and final wedding to be perfect: idyllic beside a shimmering blue pond, almost Gatsbyesque, reminiscent of another, more hopeful era, far enough from the gauzy late summer stink of Manhattan, but not so far away that her 240 guests (excluding a ten-piece soul band, and a surly French chef) would feel obligated to spend their entire Labor Day weekend in the wilderness beyond the Five Boroughs. Trudy had her friend Tammy’s forty acre property at her disposal. She had hand-picked variegated seasonal hydrangeas and dahlias on each of the 24 tables, name cards written in simple, unadorned calligraphy marking the guest’s seats beneath the high vault of the white party tent. She had ordered a dozen cases of Croze Hermitage, bottled by Chapoutier, and a dozen cases of Montlouis from the Loire Valley to complement the three-course meal, and an apricot marzipan wedding cake for dessert.

Trudy even had a rabbi who had agreed not to mention God. “Jesus,” Trudy thought “that’s not even my coup de grace.”

No, the true victory on that day would be the end of Trudy Schwartzstein, the end of that unwieldy last name forever; no more stuttered missteps and tongue-tied tautologies, and no awkward post-feminist hyphens either. Hello world, meet Trudy Sherwood.

It was the hottest day of the year. 102 degrees with 90 percent humidity beneath the burning August sun. The inside of the tent felt like a greenhouse, even with a dozen circular fans stirring the air uselessly. A distant radio played Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, while the catering staff, clad in formal black and white set up tables with the slow somnolence of lambent sleepwalkers.

Trudy sat in her wedding dress, deflated before a mirror, only an hour before the high noon wedding.

“I’ve got an Afro,” she said. “I’ve got a goddamned Afro!”

Her hairdresser, Miri, an Israeli in New York on an expired visa smiled, “More hairspray?”

“Get out,” Trudy shouted, thinking: any more hairspray and I’m going to combust.

This is humiliating, Trudy thought, an Afro on my wedding day; a day she had dreamt about since her divorce, almost ten years earlier. She sat with her head in her hands and consoled herself: Tomorrow, Michael and I will be in Venice.

“Sweetheart,” Esther Schwartzstein called entering the bridal tent.

“What is it, Mom?” Trudy said, not looking up.

“The guests are arriving,” Esther said stopping short, “Oh, Bunnyrabbit. Is that the way they’re wearing their hair in the City now?”

“Don’t kvetch to me now, okay? I’m a nervous wreck.”

“I’m not kvetching, I’m kvelling. At least you didn’t plan some sort of nose-in-the-air art gallery opening with your caviar eggs and squid ink.”

Trudy spun on her low stool to face her mother, “You’re wearing white!”

“So are you,” Esther Schwartzstein shot back.

“Mom, I’m the bride. I can’t believe you’re doing this on my wedding day.”

“Your father and I were married on a Labor Day Weekend,” Esther sighed, oblivious.

“You and dad are divorced.”

“Thank God for that,” Esther said. “And I’d divorce him again if I had the chance.”

“Wearing white at my wedding is . . .” Trudy was interrupted before she could say “unconscionable.”

“I can wear white if I want to. It’s before Labor Day,” Esther said smiling broadly at her witticism.

“Why are you torturing me?”

Esther pleaded ignorance.

She looked almost sweet in white and younger than her 63 years; still thin as the D.P. she once was, but toned from practicing Ayurvedic yoga, the skin on her face pulled back tightly like cling wrap over a half-eaten Thanksgiving turkey, her dyed blond hair [somehow!], an immaculate, shining helmet. The dress was understated, even tasteful–and that was what bothered Trudy so much. Her mother’s wearing white was an act of aggression of which only Trudy would be cognizant. Her mother was sly and this was payback for Trudy picking out her dress without first consulting her mother.

“You should see what Bobbie is wearing,” Esther added referring to Trudy’s future mother-in-law. “She looks presentable, except her outfit clashes with her bouquet.”

“Bouquet?” Trudy said, “What bouquet?”

“Bobbie’s bouquet. The one she’s going to carry down the aisle.”

Trudy stood up, teetering precariously on one heel, “Bobbie’s not walking down the aisle. There’s no procession. It’s just me and Michael. That’s it. Me and Michael forever. We’re adults for fucks sake.”

“Do you want me to take care of it?” Esther said.

“Mom.”

“Sweetheart,” Esther said softly. “My only daughter is getting married—again. I’ll do anything I can to make this the most special day of your life. I love you so much. You’re my baby.” And here, Esther paused and cleared her throat. “Who’s the best mother?”

“You are.”

Esther smiled, flashing her porcelain capped teeth, “I’ll boot the bitch.”

The first guests to arrive were the elderly, conveyed from the distant parking area on balloon-adorned golf carts. Aunt Rennie from Boca Raton, oblivious to the smothering humidity, dressed in a royal blue suede suit waved at Trudy, calling out, “Hey, gorgeous,” as her fourth husband Burt mopped his forehead with a polka dotted handkerchief. Grandma Dot with her gleaming Trinidadian caregiver arrived wondering when the tournament would begin. Uncle Israel – Izzy Sherwood – Michael’s father’s only brother, the putative family patriarch, who hadn’t spoken to half his family in half a lifetime – including his three sons – arrived alone, resplendent in a blue double-breasted suit. With his signature red carnation hanging limply from his lapel he announced, “Here’s Izzy!” and then under his breath muttered “It’s as hot as a frying pan,” as he lit one of his famous cigars. More family arrived; cousins, uncles, stepchildren–an adopted Asian nephew from Trudy’s father’s wife’s family – all of them slouching towards the shade of the ivory-colored big top.

And then, at the last moment – when it seemed it would be only a family affair – they appeared out of the shimmering haze almost magically, materializing in the far reaches of Westchester County as if they had all caught the same 10:55 train from Grand Central Station–Trudy and Michael’s friends had arrived.

Gary and Lennon, both chorus dancers on Broadway, arrived wearing matching tails and top hats. Michael’s boyhood friend Simon huffed and puffed up the slope of the grassy hill carrying an outsized gift on his narrow shoulders. Their non-profit friends came laughing up the hill in vintage clothing, cuffs and sleeves rolled to the knees and elbows, mocking the train conductor’s pronunciation of “Scawsdale.” They dumped bottles of Pellegrino water on their heads as they reached the crest of the hill and the gray shade of the tent. Michael’s ABD friends from Columbia arrived open-shirted and pale, bewildered by the sun that seemed to be stewing their brains in their shells. Jefferies, the painter, wore shorts and a baseball cap, his jacket coolly slung over his shoulder. Marcus and his Deadhead girlfriend sang “Ob-la-di-ob-la-da,” and squirted each other with green neon water guns. Steve, Trudy’s former crush from college, arrived last, just in time to see Trudy skipping down the back of the hill with her shoes in her hands and her dress hiked up to her still-beautiful knees.

Standing beneath the failing shade of an ancient willow tree on the far side of the pond, Trudy felt her butterflies disappear – after all, there was her man. Michael wearing his third suit of the day, stood with his family, Bobbie and Max, his father, his two sisters, and his oldest friend Simon Levy. Uncle Izzy placed a hand on Michael’s shoulder and seemed to be giving him a private pep talk before the signing of the marriage contract.

My man, she thought, smiling.

“Trudy, take off your sunglasses,” It was Esther.

Michael drifted over and kissed Trudy on the lips. She noticed that he had a small cut on his cheek, and a dilution of pink blood was running down his neck.

“Mom, the sun is in my eyes.”

“Fine. Spoil the photos,” Esther said, turning to her ex-husband.

Michael leaned close to Trudy and whispered slowly in her ear, “Tomorrow we’ll be in Venice.”

“Yes,” she said, taking off her glasses and laughing. “Yes!”

====

Rabbi Judah Greenfield, Michael’s boyhood rabbi from Central Synagogue in Manhattan, his retirement suspended for the day, called the couple to stand before a low table where the Ketuba was spread out.

“What happened to your face?” Trudy said softly.

“I cut it shaving. Three hours ago.”

Tall, slim, and white-haired, the revered Rabbi Greenfield called forth the witnesses. Simon Levy stepped forward. And so did Uncle Izzy.

“Neither of you are blood relatives?,” Rabbi Greenfield asked.

“Of course I’m a blood relative, Greenfield,” Izzy boomed. “I’m his fucking uncle.”

“The Ketuba witness must be someone who is not a blood relative,” Rabbi Greenfield said evenly, wiping his brow. “The Ketuba witness must be someone who has not taken payment, and who has the vested interest of the sanctity of the marriage at heart.”

“Here we go,” Bobbie said.

“Izzy, go stand next to Max,” Trudy said.

“Listen, doll. I love you like a daughter and Michael like a son…”

“Come on, Iz,” Max beckoned, “Forget about it. Let the kids go.”

“…I was at his birth, his goddamned bris, his bar mitzvah, and now I’m going to witness this simcha, even if I drop dead.”

Trudy could see the veins pulsing on Izzy’s neck, sweat pouring from his face. She imagined a gondola on the Grand Canal. Michael put an arm around Izzy, “It was a mistake. We didn’t know. But you still get to say the motzei.”

“That true, Greenfield?”

The rabbi said nothing.

“Am I still in with the bread?” Izzy asked.

“Give him the bread and let’s get on with this,” Bobbie said, fanning herself with a wedding program.

It was agreed. Uncle Izzy would say the blessing over the bread. Simon ran up to the house to get Trudy’s best friend, Tammy, to stand in as the second witness.

Finally, everybody was ready. Rabbi Greenfield nodded his head at Trudy and Michael and began. “This is an important part of the Jewish life cycle in the eyes of the Jewish people and in the eyes of God…”

Through her peripheral vision, Trudy could see Michael’s jaw tense at the mention of God

“…continuing the tradition of your ancestors. By signing this Ketuba, you are entering into a sacred union before the community and God.”

“I can’t believe he mentioned God,” Michael said, after the signing, after Izzy had stalked back up the hill, after kissing all the women, and shaking all the hands.

Michael kissed Trudy and said, “I have to talk to him.”

Rabbi Greenfield, looking frail for the first time, withered from the heat said, “Well, Michael.” The rabbi offered a handshake and pulled Michael into a warm embrace. “I’m proud of you.”

“Rabbi,” Michael said, “Remember when we spoke after I got engaged and you promised not to mention God at my wedding?”

The rabbi looked surprised, and dabbed at the blood on Michael’s cheek with a handkerchief.

“I’m a cultural Jew in the humanist tradition,” Michael continued.

“Michael, I’ve known you a long time, through every phase of your life. And the one thing that has been consistent through all the haircuts and girlfriends, trends, and jobs good and bad, is your sense of humor. Please tell me you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“But you promised not to mention God.”

Rabbi Greenfield took Michael by the hand and said, “It would even have been okay for you to have worn your African robes. But asking a rabbi to not mention God is like asking a baker to not use dough. God is not going anywhere. I’m going to mention him during the ceremony. He’s in all seven blessings and I’m going to mention him some more as well. So let’s get out of this sun and get you married.”

After some bargaining, Rabbi Greenfield agreed to say the seven blessings in English, leaving Hebrew, the ancient language, out of all the prayers. Aside from Grandma Dot misplacing the wedding bands with her heart pills and Trudy nearly fainting under the chuppah from the heat, (even her web-thin veil felt as smothering as a blanket) the ceremony was perfect.

Rabbi Greenfield concluded the ceremony by saying, “In these trying times, with evil in the ascendancy, it is more important than ever to continue the traditions of your people.” Rabbi Greenfield placed a glass at Michael’s feet.

“Many reasons are given as to why we break a glass at a wedding. It is told we are to remember the destruction of the Temple many years ago in Jerusalem. Some say that we break a glass so that your love should endure as long as it would take to put the glass together again.”

Uncle Izzy called out, “Even longer!”

Cheers rose up a dozen rows back. Trudy turned to Michael and could see his eyes glazed with tears of happiness, and a pink stream of blood oozing from his cut.

“Others would say that we break the glass to set perspective, to know that just as there is sorrow there is happiness and vice versa.” The rabbi paused. “The journey starts here, the dance begins here, to continue, God-willing, forever.”

And at the signal from Rabbi Greenfield, Michael stomped the glass as hard as he could. The crowd shouted, “Mazel Tov,” and they were married.

The guests had some difficulty finding their seats after the ceremony. Trudy had written out the guest’s names on a film of rice paper attached to folded card stock and had it arranged on a table by the entrance of the tent but, had forgotten to use indelible ink.

“I can’t read the cards,” one of Esther’s friends said, tilting her bifocals down onto the bridge of her nose. “They’re blurry.”

“I can’t read them either,” Trudy’s former crush, Steve said.

The carefully-written names had expanded in the humidity like a sponge in water, bleeding into each other like a shrink’s file of Rorschach tests. Jefferies, the painter, planted himself at Table One and began wiping the sweat off his bald head with a cloth napkin destined for Trudy’s mother. Each member of Michael’s family sat at separate tables with their backs turned stubbornly to each other. The band climbed onto the stage and began its sound check, singing the chorus to, “Land of 1000 Dances.”

“It’s a zoo,” Trudy said squeezing Michael’s hand.

Order was eventually restored, after Michael deputized a half dozen of his friends to seat the guests in a close approximation of what Trudy had planned all those months ago.

Finally, a loaf of challah was wheeled in on a cart and Trudy’s friend Tammy appeared at the front of the tent wearing her version of a flapper outfit.

“Is this on?” she said into the microphone.

“Yes!,” people called from throughout the tent.

“I apologize for the technical difficulties,” Tammy said, laughing awkwardly, her lips muffling against the microphone as she spoke. Trudy waved her to lift the mic farther away from her mouth.

“And now, without further ado, everybody’s favorite uncle… Izzy!”

There was a smattering of applause throughout the tent. It seemed to Trudy that there were several different parties going on at the same time, and that her and Michael’s friends at the back of the tent were more interested in the sprinklers that had just come on to water the verdant grass. Sitting at the small bridal table with her new husband, not far from the glazed challah, Trudy saw Uncle Izzy, his jaw jutting forward proudly like a Mussolini portrait, his silver flat-top, proudly standing at attention, step up to the microphone and offer a curt, “Hello.” He then mumbled the prayer over the bread in his Lower East Side Ashkenazi-accented Hebrew and began to cut the bread with great Grandma Mindel’s marble-handled challah knife.

Something’s wrong, Trudy thought watching Izzy sawing away at the bread. His eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites. He sawed for another second, maybe less, then dropped to the floor, his arm still moving up and down with the blade in his right hand.

Esther’s best friend Rhonda Katz stood up in her seat and broke a stunned silence, shouting “Oh my God. He’s dead!”

A collective gasp rose up from the front half of the tent; Trudy and Michael’s friends, oblivious, running through the sprinklers outside the tent.

“Somebody call a doctor,” Trudy shouted. “What do we do?”

Max Sherwood sat stricken in his seat as his only brother lay on the dance floor, his arm moving mechanically, the knife blade slicing through the air. Izzy’s oldest son’s wife Sarah was a doctor. Izzy hadn’t spoken to either of them in almost ten years because of some long-forgotten perceived slight. And there she was running along the dance floor in her heels, dropping to her knees and performing artificial resuscitation on the putative family patriarch. Izzy’s arm continued to slice up-and-down as Trudy and Michael and the rest of the family gathered around Izzy’s splayed body. Trudy wondered whether Izzy had soiled himself because he stank like dirty laundry.

====

“Move back,” Sarah said. “Give me air.”

“What can we do?” Tammy said, her eyeliner staining her cheeks.

“Take him to Valhalla,” Sarah answered evenly.

Valhalla, Trudy thought. That’s where the souls of dead Vikings go.

“Valhalla Medical Center is a ten minute drive,” Tammy answered.

Trudy ran out of the tent crying hysterically, thinking, “I’m not going to Venice tomorrow. Izzy’s dead. I’m not going to Venice. He fucked up my wedding. I can’t believe I’m not going to Venice.”

A moment later, Michael stepped into the sunshine, his eyes as thin as slits, and walked over to Trudy wrapping her in a tight embrace. “It’ll be okay,” Michael said. “Izzy’s a tough bastard.”

But then she saw Izzy being wheeled away in a golf cart, his head hanging limply to the side, the blue and white balloons she had so fastidiously tied onto the back, floating playfully on the thick air.

“We’re not going to Venice,” she cried.

Michael kissed Trudy on the forehead and said firmly, “We’re still going to Venice. Even if he’s dead.”

“Trudy,” Esther Schwartzstein called as she tottered along the grass in her four inch heels. “Trudy. You’re ruining this wedding for everyone. You’re out here. Your guests are in there. You’re ruining the wedding.”

Rabbi Greenfield stepped into the sunshine and waved at the couple, beckoning them to come inside.

“We’re staying out here,” Trudy called.

Rabbi Greenfield walked over, looked them both in the eye and put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and the other on Trudy’s. “Whatever happens today. And some bad stuff might happen, has happened. You got married. That’s what you take away. That’s what happened today.”

“Thanks Judah,” Michael said.

The band was playing Stevie Wonder’s, “A Place in the Sun.”

“That’s our song,” Trudy said. “That’s supposed to be our song.”

“Then go on in and dance,” Rabbi Greenfield said.

“I’m a disaster, Trudy said.”

“Go on.”

After the meal the cake was cut and the music played on. Trudy, shanghaied by her former crush Steve, danced a slow-danced with him as he said, “Remember the time we–”

She was pulled into a reggae hora, a spinning circle of whirling bodies, sweat pungent in the air, and lifted onto a chair above the jubilant heads of the crowd. Michael was somewhere down below, wearing a pair of bunny ears on his head with his arm around Simon. She could see her father-in-law, Max sacked out in a chair, with a bag of ice pressed to his forehead, an abject look of misery punched into his face and Bobbie laughing oblivious with a friend. She could see her mother in white, posing for pictures, with Rhonda Katz, and Jefferies, his bald head thrown all the way back, drinking wine from the bottle. And then the band was kicking out Parliament’s “Get up for the Down Stroke,” and Aunt Rennie, in her blue suede outfit was grinding against the lead singer in the most lascivious manner, her neck arched back in ecstasy. Trudy felt hot all over, her teeth on edge, stomach tight. She felt the presence of the whole wedding party all over her body, within her, through her nerves and veins. Up near the high arch of the tent, where the sun shone brightest, Trudy could see everything down below illuminated in a bright, white light.

“Get me down,” Trudy shouted to her friends undulating beneath her. “Get me down. I’m going to throw up.”

She found Michael shaking hands with Max’s business partners. They stuffed their faces with wedding cake and halvah. Halvah?

Just then Trudy saw Bobbie serving sweating chunks of marble halvah to the guests. “The bride loves halvah,” she said “Loves it.”

“I don’t love halvah. I hate halvah. I hate everything about halvah.”

Bobbie looked hurt, “No. You said you loved halvah.”

“No, I didn’t.

“Yes. You said at the shower.”

“I was being polite.”

“Anyway, apricot marzipan. Uch!” And Bobbie went on her way with a tray of sweating halvah raised in the air.

Trudy grabbed Michael by the hand, pulling him away from a man in canary yellow shirt sleeves. “We’re not going to Venice.”

“What do you mean?” “Your only uncle dropped dead at our wedding today,” Trudy said. “We’re going to a funeral. Like it or not.”

A mid-afternoon thundershower did little to kill the humidity – in fact the air was wetter and swampier after the downpour – but it did chase most of the old folks back to their air-conditioning in the City or points beyond. Trudy kissed Max on the forehead and said, “Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said goodbye to Grandma Dot, as her caregiver wheeled her away through the muddy grass. Trudy’s mother said “Well, you can’t help the rain,” blowing a kiss to her daughter.

After a round of perfunctory goodbyes, many to people she had never seen before her wedding day, Trudy went back to her bridal tent to take off her stockings. She saw the bandleader– snorting a line of coke on her makeup mirror. “It’s cool, baby,” he said.

“Sorry. Wrong tent.” And Trudy backed away.

Michael and Simon raced golf carts up and down the slick lawn, spinning out into turf-shredding donuts in the manicured grass. The remaining guests were covered in mud and Jefferies, the painter peeled off his clothes – others followed, sledding on serving trays down the hill towards the pond.

“Let’s go for a swim,” Trudy called.

She felt free now, diving into the cool water in her slip, at peace as she dunked her head below the surface, and the noise of the day was blotted out. She saw legs kicking, luminous bubbles and someone’s penis being playfully grabbed. Down she swam to the silty bottom of the pond, her arms stretched before her, the rhythm of her pulsing heart beating in her ears. She felt her hair flowing behind her. Flowing! I am perfect, she thought, touching bottom.

The band had turned their speakers towards the pond and they were blazing through a horn-heavy rendition of a ’70s funk anthem. Trudy found Michael floating on his back, with his eyes closed.

“This has healing powers,” she said massaging pond muck into his cheeks and forehead. “Give me a kiss,” he said.

After drying off, Trudy noticed the guests pairing off and wandering up towards the house or the privacy of the woods. The sun was finally sliding down the western sky, flickering its oranges and reds through the trees, lengthening shadows across the trampled grass. A thin silver mist rose almost magically off the lawn, shimmering like diamonds then fading like smoke. “It’s beautiful,” Trudy thought.

In the distance, she could see a figure stumbling slowly through the grass. “Michael,” she said. “Look.”

It was Izzy.

Izzy continued tripping his way, zombie-like across the grass until he reached Trudy and Michael. His suit jacket was missing and his white shirt was open at the neck.

“It’s night of living dead,” Trudy said in disbelief.

“You’re alive,” Michael said.

“You’re fucking right I am,” Izzy said. “Checked myself out of the hospital.”

“We thought you were dead,” Trudy said.

“Well, I’m not.”

This is too much, Trudy thought, her throat clenching. “I can’t look at him,” she turned away and was about to shout through her tears, “Get him out of my sight,” when she heard Izzy ask,” It’s over?”

“Yes,” Michael said.

“Aw, I’m sorry doll. I’m sorry for fucking up your wedding. C’mere.”

Trudy heard something plaintive in that gruff voice that she had never heard before. It was clear to her now that nobody had gone to the hospital to see if Izzy were alive or dead.

“Doll. Mikey,” Izzy said in a voice ruined by a hundred-thousand cigars. “This was a tough day, and I just want you to know that I’m gonna look out for you, take care of you,” he spread his arms expansively, and it was clear he had difficulty lifting his right arm. “I haven’t gotten your wedding gift yet. So just name it.”

“Izzy, are you sure?” Michael said.

“Sure I’m sure.”

“Our honeymoon in Venice,” Trudy said.

“That’s thousands of dollars,” Izzy said, and the words hung in the humid air for a moment like every one of his promises since Trudy had met him; so real and then gone.

“I’m parched,” Izzy said. “They pack up the bar yet?”

“No. I don’t think so,” Trudy said.

“Help me up the hill then.”

Trudy gave Izzy her hand and they slowly climbed the hill.