“Good.” The question touched something tender, but didn’t sting. “You?”
“Like a baby.”
“A baby who sleeps through the night or a colicky one?” Ronnie asked.
“Option one.”
They were learning the new shape of their friendship, figuring out where the boundaries would be. Her friends smelled like cigar smoke. Ronnie would win that battle, but not today.
Brad Collins was in the crowd, his face etched into her memory like a tattoo she would remove if she could. She almost pointed him out to Nev, but decided it wasn’t worth troubling her. All the Collinses were there.
Ronnie waved to Nonna, who waved back in a pale pink dress and matching hat, rosy like the inside of a seashell.
The officiant nodded to Nev, who nodded to Ronnie, who started playing the opening bars of the reel. In front of a crowd music came easier and faster—electric, alive—almost an out-of-body feeling, as if it was playing itself.
Nev sang more expressively in front of a crowd.
Now that Ronnie was in a flow state, she easily followed Nev’s pace. The moment the wedding party began walking down the aisle there was nothing outside the song, the lawn, and the crowd. The whole world was here. Everything else disappeared.
A wedding in motion had the inertia of a spherical stone rolling down a steep hill. The show would go on until the last slice of cake was boxed in the freezer, the hall floor swept, and the lights turned off. The processional was the carpet on whichthe wedding walked. They walked because of the song, and she played because the people in pastel dresses and suits walked.
Strumming and harmonizing happened instinctually. Rehearsal did that. All the clumsy work they had put in transformed into something spontaneous and ecstatic, water tumbling over a rill. The song came without thought because she knew it by heart.
Peggy’s elderly fiancé Tom shuffled arm-in-arm with his daughter. A woman walking her father down the aisle—already not a dry eye in the crowd.
Everyone turned to watch Peggy. Peggy had answered the phone of the police department since before Ronnie was born. She carried a long-haired dachshund and glowed, barefoot in one of her batik sundresses and a wide straw hat. The crowd oohed and aahed, filming on their phones. Peggy shimmied and danced her way down the aisle.
She deserved a good man like Tom. Her first husband had been a monster.
Peggy walked arm-in-arm with her son, the District Commissioner, Brad’s father, who was a real bastard. With any luck he would retire soon. Both were crying. Michael Collins sat down in the audience and Peggy took her place across from her fiancé Tom in front of the officiant.
The ring exchange drew a laugh from the crowd. The octogenarians hammed up the fact that their knuckles were too swollen and arthritic, until with the help of butter, both rings slipped on.
“About time,” Nev whispered in Ronnie’s ear. “I was about to fetch the lube from my glove box.”
The laugh relaxed Ronnie’s stomach, released the tension in her shoulders. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
Peggy kissed Tom, and the white-haired couple were married.
Rainbow’s secret great-grandparents.
Nev stood with her guitar across her chest, then put her straw hat on. She walked behind the couple and played as they shuffled away down the aisle.
When Nev began to sing the recessional, Ronnie recognized the Robert Burns poem her mum used to sing to her on brisk nights camping in the Outback, staring up at stars thick as sand on a beach.
Careful not to make a sound, she slid her guitar back into its case. It had been generous of Nev to let her play lead guitar on the processional. Nev could have easily played and sang without her, like she was doing now. But that was Nev in a nutshell: patient, understated, generous with those less skillful than herself.
Straightening, she noticed two late arrivals walking across the lawn.
Maude and Rainbow.
Ronnie raised a hand. They waved back.
She checked her phone. Two missed texts from Maude, saying that she was dropping Rainbow off.
Maude waved again and headed back towards the car park. Rainbow continued alone. Ronnie beckoned her closer.
Guests trapped in their seats until the closing music ended watched as the newlyweds shuffled up the aisle towards the country club, arm in arm, leaning on each other and giggling like kids.
