We went away for a wedding, tho technically we missed the wedding. We spent the ceremony itself in the rental car trying unsuccessfully to find the Florida Yacht Club in time. When we finally got there we swerved up on a patch of grass & parked there. I brushed the sand off my still-beachy feet & slid on my highest heels. We rushed out of the car smoothing our skirts & our hair, putting on our best formal faces tho we felt very worried & frantic, but it was all to no avail; when we got in the door guests were milling around talking & a long line had already formed at the bar & they told us it was already over.
All the same we got to spend some great time celebrating with our friends & of course the happy couple. I have to admit I felt teary & proud & wistful all at once at the reception watching M. & P. dance with each other, & then afterwards with their parents. Paul was beaming & so happy but he was still the same old Paul. For awhile he stood over by the bar with Morgan & Brad & me where we were sipping scotches & being the sarcastic New Yorkers in the corner laughing at the woman with the top-hatted poodle in her purse & wincing at the music.
"This is the one song I specifically asked them
not to play," he said resignedly when the wedding band did "Brick House." But apparently the bridesmaids had begged for it.
The one thing that would have made the weekend better (besides making it to the ceremony) was if I had brought my pot with me. The only person who sympathized with me about that was
Ashley. She looked very L Word in her sharp white suit & rhinestone-dotted shirt & we stood outside the reception smoking cigarettes lamenting how stupidly responsible we had been to leave our bags at home. But by then it was Saturday nite. “If we’d brought it,” Ashley sighed, “we would have smoked it already anyway.”
So. Jacksonville. Actionville, we called it on Friday, because we had a bizarre meth-head Republican bartender at the Radisson with an askew bowtie & an orange tan, & because we saw a guy getting led out of the hotel in handcuffs & another guy being taken out on a stretcher, & because we went swimming at midnite even tho the pool was closed & the water was cold & we were very drunk indeed. We were obsessed with swimming all weekend long & I couldn’t get
this song, from the CD Anise gave me for my birthday, out of my head.
But by today, when the thrill of eating cheese grits & looking at palm trees & paying slightly lower prices for things was utterly gone, I was happy to turn in our slightly dented & scratched rental car & get on the plane. The weather is practically as nice in Brooklyn at the moment & there aren’t any leering orange bartenders named Ron & anyway my pot is here & the Simpsons is almost on.
