Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory Read online

  “It sounds like there’s some tension,” observes my little brother, who when he’s done learning about slaughtering goats could probably benefit from a class in minding his own business.

  “The only tension is coming from the outside,” I say. “It’s outside tension. There’s no tension between Dorothy and me. Besides, who’s going to pay for a wedding planner? I can’t ask Dorothy’s dad for more money.”

  “So, don’t hire a wedding planner,” says my mom. “Just meet with one, see what she has to say.”

  So we set up a meeting with Clarissa the Planner of Weddings.

  “The first thing you need to know about us,” Dorothy says to Clarissa the Planner of Weddings, “is that we’re really not looking for a big, complicated extravaganza with a lot of moving parts,” and I’m so happy that Dorothy says this, confirming again that we are in fact one hundred percent not having tension.

  “Okay,” says Clarissa. “What are you looking for?”

  “It’s very simple,” I say. “We walk down the aisle. Dorothy looks beautiful. I’m wearing a suit. The officiant says a few words about love. Then I say a few words. Then Dorothy says a few words. Maybe Aunt Estelle reads a Gertrude Stein poem. Then the officiant says, ‘Well, do you love each other?’ I say, ‘Yep.’ Dorothy says, ‘Yep.’ Then we kiss and everyone claps, and then we dance—”

  “The Dance of the Cuckolded Woodland Sprite?”

  “No. Not the Dance of the Cuckolded Woodland Sprite. Just normal dancing. Like ‘Twist and Shout’ or ‘Crazy in Love.’ That kind of thing. We do that for a couple hours, and then everyone goes home. Just like your basic Ikea one-size-fits-all wedding.”

  “But that’s so unromantic,” says Dorothy’s best friend Nikki, who is also at this meeting for some reason.

  “It’s actually very romantic,” I say, “because it’s just about us. It’s not about all this other stuff that has nothing to do with us.”

  “What does Gertrude Stein have to do with anything?” scoffs Nikki.

  Dorothy smiles. “We both love Gertrude Stein. On one of our first dates we went to see Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights.”

  “I love that part,” says the Planner of Weddings. “It’s special, it’s specific to you, and it means something. But I do want to circle back to the whole not-having-a-big-ceremony thing. How solid are you on that idea, one to ten?”

  “Ten,” I say.

  “Ten,” says Dorothy.

  “Okay, so pretty solid, but maybe there’s a little bit of wiggle room there?”

  “No,” I say.

  “No,” says Dorothy.

  “Okay, I love that you two are on the same page. I do want to make sure you’re thinking about all this practically, though, because part of the reason for having a big ceremony is that it could get interrupted at any time by the sudden Weeping and Flailing and Shouting of Lamentations by the Shrieking Chorus. The Weeping and Flailing and Shouting of Lamentations could go on for at least twenty minutes—so if you don’t have enough other stuff going on, suddenly the whole thing becomes about the Shrieking Chorus, and then you’re not getting that special small feeling you’re looking for. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen.”

  Dorothy sinks in her chair, and I try to stay strong, for both of us.

  “But that’s part of what I’m saying. We’re not going to have a Shrieking Chorus.”

  Dorothy spins like a lighthouse and shines directly at me, “Wait, are we really not having a Shrieking Chorus?”

  “That’s half the fun of a wedding!” says Nikki.

  “It is not half the fun,” I protest, but Nikki doubles down:

  “Literally fifty percent of the fun of a wedding is that you never know when the Shrieking Chorus is going to start the Weeping and Flailing and Shouting of Lamentations. If you don’t have a Shrieking Chorus, why are you even having a wedding?”

  “Because we love each other,” I argue meekly, and I feel like if I have to say it one more time, we won’t even need a Shrieking Chorus, because I will start Weeping and Flailing and Shouting Lamentations all by myself.

  Dorothy’s still mulling it over. “I guess it never occurred to me that we wouldn’t even have a small Shrieking Chorus. It doesn’t really feel like a wedding without one.”

  The Planner of Weddings grimaces, like she’s really embarrassed that we’re having this discussion in front of her, like this is the first time she’s ever seen a couple have a disagreement about the details of a wedding. “It sounds like you two need to have some more conversations with each other before I can really know how to help you.”

  “Definitely,” says Nikki proudly, and I think that if Nikki loves Clarissa so much, maybe they should be the ones getting married, and then they can have all the Shrieking Choruses they want.

  At this point, we could both use a pick-me-up, so I take Dorothy to the ceremonial egg store to look at the Promise Eggs. I know technically it’s bad luck for a bride to see her Promise Egg before the ceremony, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that Dorothy has maybe more Ideas About This Wedding than she initially let on when we Decided Together that we were Both Cool with a Very Easy, Very Small Wedding Without Frills or Complications, and it is furthermore becoming increasingly apparent that if I go pick out a Promise Egg without her input I’m going to screw it up, and then it’s going to sit in a display case in our living room for the rest of our marriage—a testament to how badly I screwed it up, a testament to how I always screw things up, a testament to how I will continue to screw things up forever.

  Everyone at the ceremonial egg store is very friendly and excited for us. “Congratulations!” says Sabrina the Person of Sales. “You guys are an amazing couple, I can already tell, and I want to help you find the perfect Promise Egg. Tell me what you’re looking for. Just shout some words at me, let’s get real loose.”

  “Something on the smaller side,” I say, “maybe one and a half to two feet tall?”

  Sabrina nods. “Small eggs are very in right now; you have excellent taste. Are we thinking silver? Platinum? Rose gold?”

  I somehow muster the confidence to mumble, “We were thinking maybe we could start with the copper ones?”

  Sabrina doesn’t miss a beat: “Of course! We have some lovely copper eggs, that’s a fabulous place to start. I’m going to go pull some options.”

  “Sorry,” Dorothy says, “I know you probably get paid on commission.”

  Sabrina laughs. “We’re going to find something amazing, I promise.” She squeezes Dorothy’s arm and heads to the back room.

  “You don’t need to apologize,” I say.

  “I feel bad.”

  “We belong here just as much as anybody,” I tell Dorothy and also myself.

  Sabrina the Person of Sales shows us a series of copper eggs, each just slightly more expensive than I was hoping to pay, each just slightly not quite the Promise Egg that Dorothy always imagined for herself. She puts on a brave face, but I can hear the disappointment in her voice when she says, “This one kind of feels like the Promise Egg my grandparents have.”

  Sabrina nods. “Well, the copper eggs do tend to be a little more…traditional.”

  Across the shop, another couple is having a blast in the platinum egg section. The man is trying to lift a four-foot egg and making a lot of goofy faces. They look like they got dressed up special just for going shopping, or else maybe right after getting the egg, they’re going yachting or golfing or something, or else maybe they just always dress this nice. I suddenly notice how dirty my jeans are.

  “You don’t have anything maybe a little nicer than these?” I ask. I’ve been in houses with copper Promise Eggs before, and they’ve always seemed adequate, but here in the store, next to all the other eggs, it’s clear how dinky and unremarkable they are. I watch Dorothy run her finger over the crude butterfly moldi
ng on one of the eggs, and I can tell she’s thinking the same thing, even though she would never admit it.

  “Do you want to maybe look at some silver ones?” asks Sabrina. “I get that you don’t want anything too fancy, but we have some very modest options in silver.”

  Dorothy looks at me, like, Can we?

  “Let’s just look at the silver eggs,” I say, a sentence that immediately vaults to the top of the Dumbest Things I’ve Ever Said chart, barely edging out “Can I get it extra spicy?” and “I liked the way your hair looked before.”

  Sabrina the Person of Sales takes us into a back room, and the first thing she shows us is a 1954 Felix Wojnowski silver egg, adorned with rare gems and festooned with religious iconography.

  “This one’s probably a little too showy, don’t you think?” I say, assuring everyone in the room that my primary concern lies not in matters of price but in ostentation.

  “I don’t know,” says Dorothy, “I think it’s nice.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “it’s definitely nice, but maybe a little too showy?”

  “How about this one?” asks Sabrina. “This is the new trend—it’s silver plated, so it’s elegant but it doesn’t feel too heavy.”

  Dorothy nods. “You hear that, Peter? Silver plated.”

  I smile and glance down at the price tag—it’s eight times what the most expensive copper eggs cost.

  “Yeah, these are some great options,” I say. “You’re really giving us a lot to think about.”

  But Dorothy is done thinking. “I want to be surprised at the wedding so I’m going to go wait in the car. Peter, I’m sure I’m going to love whatever you pick.”

  She heads out, and Sabrina smiles at me and says, “Should we look at some platinum options?”

  I cringe. “I wish you could see our apartment. People like us don’t normally get Promise Eggs like these.”

  “Well, it actually isn’t uncommon for a Promise Egg to be the nicest thing you own,” Sabrina offers helpfully.

  “Do you think if I get a copper one, Dorothy will hate me forever?”

  “Of course not! She said she’ll love whatever you pick, and I think it’s important to take people at their word.”

  I nod.

  “That said,” she continues for some reason, “her eyes really lit up when she saw the Wojnowski.”

  I think about Dorothy. I think about our first date, when I tried to take her to the drive-in movie, but my credit card was declined. I felt like a real idiot, but she had the idea to drive up the hill and watch the whole thing without sound. We made up the dialogue ourselves, which turned out to be even more fun and romantic in a stupid sort of way, and I promised myself that night that I would do whatever I could to love this woman for the rest of my life.

  “Can you just hold on to the Wojnowski?” I ask. “I can’t afford it—now—but I want to get it.”

  Sabrina grimaces. “I’m really not supposed to…but you guys seem so in love…I could probably stash it somewhere for a couple weeks.” She winks at me, and my heart is full of baby birds leaping into flight, and I make a mental note to write a good review on Yelp and also to name our first daughter after Sabrina the Person of Sales.

  I slide into the car and Dorothy says, “Don’t tell me what you got. I want to be surprised.”

  “I didn’t get anything,” I say. “I decided to make an egg myself out of construction paper and pipe cleaners.”

  “Har-har.” Then: “Not really, though, right?”

  “I thought you wanted to be surprised.”

  “This must be a great place to work,” says Dorothy, “because all day you’re around happy couples who are in love and you’re helping them plan their future together.”

  I say, “Yeah, and you don’t even need a master’s in social work.”

  Dorothy gives me a look like, Okay, buddy.

  And I give her a look like, I’m just saying!

  And she gives me a look like, What am I going to do with you?

  The good news is the very next day there’s an accident at the quarry and Frankie Scharff breaks her fibula. This is not good news for Frankie Scharff, who already has a husband on disability, or for Joey Zlotnik, the guy who has to climb the ladder to reset the DAYS SINCE A WORK-RELATED ACCIDENT sign, because while he’s trying to maneuver around the giant zero, he falls off the ladder and breaks his fibula—but it’s great news for me, because it means I can pick up extra shifts at the quarry. That itself is a mixed blessing, I know, because the more hours I work the more likely it is that I’ll have an accident and break my fibula, but as I see it, the pros outweigh the cons. As I see it, the pros are:

  It makes me look like a real go-getter and team player to David and David in the front office.

  I get paid more money. This is a crucial pro, because it means I can cover unplanned-for expenses as they arise, such as, say, when my fiancée suddenly decides she wants a Wojnowski Promise Egg or a Shrieking Chorus at our wedding, even though she knows that those are things we did not budget for.

  I get paid more money. This is related to the previous pro, but not exactly the same. The previous “I get paid more money” is a practical matter, but this one is more spiritual. While I’m working extra hours at the quarry, I can think about how I’m earning more money to cover the wedding and also cover the life I’m going to spend with my future wife. This gives me a good feeling, to be a provider, which is so embarrassing and old-fashioned, and if anyone asked me about it I’d deny it, but the truth is it feels good.

  It keeps me away from fighting with Dorothy about wedding stuff. This one I feel less good about, but the truth is the closer we get to the wedding, the more we argue. Our newest disagreement is about whether to take part in the traditional Week of Lying with the Grand Priest Kenny Sorgenfrei.

  “I have to lie with the Grand Priest Kenny Sorgenfrei,” Dorothy says, “so he can confirm to the whole village I am a virgin.”

  “But you’re not a virgin,” I say. “Neither of us is.”

  “That’s not the point,” she says. “It’s tradition. If the Grand Priest Kenny Sorgenfrei doesn’t tell the whole village I’m a virgin my mother will be mortified.”

  So she goes to lie with the grand priest, and I work more hours at the quarry.

  I bring a casserole to Frankie Scharff’s place. This is maybe a mistake, because even though Frankie’s real glad to see a friend from work, the whole situation really bums me out. She’s in a tiny apartment with her husband and three kids. I feel bad for judging, because of course we’re all doing what we can, but the sink is full of dishes, the walls are water damaged—again, it’s not Frankie’s fault, or the fault of her husband, who really is a decent guy—but the worst part of all is the Promise Egg on display in the corner. I recognize it as one of the copper eggs from the store—one I had half convinced myself to buy for Dorothy and me. In the shop, it looked simple, modest—elegant even—but in Frankie’s apartment I see it for what it really is: cheap.

  I go back to the egg store and I buy the Wojnowski. I put it on two credit cards. I figure if I take all my vacation days on non-holidays, I can work over the holidays and get overtime for it.

  Do I want to pay fifty dollars more to get our names engraved on the 1954 Felix Wojnowski sterling silver egg? You bet I do. Do I also want to buy the special display case that goes with the egg? Absolutely. And who’s going to hold the egg during the ceremony?

  “We can rent a eunuch for you through the Church of the Wine God,” offers Sabrina the Person of Sales. “They know what they’re doing. The Wojnowski is heavier than it looks, and I’ve seen more than one wedding ruined because they asked a random uncle to hold the Promise Egg and then he dropped it in the middle of the ceremony.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s get that eunuch!”

 
That night I’m too excited to sleep, so I drive to the ravine and look out over the water. I think about Dorothy, currently lying with the grand priest, with no idea what her future husband just did for her. I know the egg doesn’t matter; I know what really matters is how much I love her—but the egg is a symbol for that love, and when I think about what a nice symbol I got I feel proud and I feel lucky and I feel blessed. I think about Dorothy—I think about the way she rests her head on my chest as we fall asleep—and I feel proud and I feel lucky and I feel blessed.

  Then the worst possible thing happens: Gavin Cachefski works a double shift at the quarry and conks out at the power drill and five guys end up breaking their fibulas.

  David and David call an all-staff meeting.

  “No more double shifts,” says one of the Davids, the David who talks. “Too many guys are breaking their fibulas.”

  The crowd groans and the other David, the one who doesn’t talk, whispers something in the first David’s ear.

  “Also,” says David, “as of today, we are no longer offering time and a half for work over holidays.”

  “That’s not fair!” I shout. “I’ve been counting on that money.”

  “Me too!” shouts Jose, whose kitchen recently fell into a sinkhole.

  “We all have!” shouts Deb, who has a kid with real silly bones.

  “It’s not about the money,” says David. “This is about your safety. We’re a family here at the quarry, and if we keep breaking fibulas on the job, our insurance rates go way up and then we’re going to have to start laying people off. We really don’t want to do that because, again: family.”

  “So you’re saying we can’t work over the holidays?”

  The David who doesn’t talk whispers something into the ear of the David who does talk and he nods. “No, you definitely can,” he says. “In fact, we’d appreciate it if you would; we just can’t pay you time and a half, because that would be incentivizing it.”