“Welcome to Eden,” a woman in a green and lavender cocktail dress greets. “Can I help you?”
J says his name and asks if Mikhail is around.
“Oh yes! You’re the missing singer!” the woman says.
“No longer missing!” J clarifies.
The woman talks into a headset he hadn’t even realized she was wearing, and within a minute, a man in an impeccable tuxedo arrives. From their exchanges, J had assumed Mikhail was in his twenties, but this man looks like he could be George Clooney’s slightly older brother. He thanks J for being on time.
“What do you think?” Mikhail asks, gesturing to the garden Celestia has assembled.
“It’s paradise,” J says.
It’s also humid as hell. As they pass by the tables, J sees all the glasses are sweating.
There are two stages at the head of the ballroom tent, facing each other. The first is set up for what could easily be a full orchestra. The other looks like the judges’ table from a singing competition show. Since there are only two seats, J assumes this is Celestia and Roger’s perch. A set of six stairs leads down from the platform to the dance floor.
Mikhail explains the run-of-show. An internationally renowned soprano is performing at the church ceremony but will be gone before the reception. While the guests mingle in the first-six-days-of-creation cocktail area, Celestia will be in her suite changing into her Eve-themed gown (Dior) and taking photos for a popular weekly magazine. Then at 7:07 p.m. sharp—because seven isCelestia’s luckiest number—she and Roger will make their entrance; J will be offstage and the band will play the couple’s first dance, a new “pop-forward” arrangement of “It Had to Be You.” A Very Famous Action Star (who invests with Roger and was available, like J, for a fee) will then make the first toast. When he is done, he will introduce J, explaining that the song is one of Celestia’s gifts to her new husband, because she is such a believer in both love and the arts, etc. J will then sing his song. He may take a bow if he wishes; the Very Famous Action Star will then return to the stage and introduce two dancers from the Royal Swedish Ballet, performing a piece that Celestia commissioned on Roger’s behalf, in her name. It rewrites the story of Adam and Eve, so the two of them get to stay in the garden and become king and queen of all creation.
As J is listening to this, all he wants to do is call V and tell her about it so they can laugh together at the evening’s absurdity. He wants to sneak her into the wedding so she can see it. So they can talk about it for years and years...
He has to focus. Mikhail is asking if he has any questions.
“This whole thing is being livestreamed?” he asks Mikhail.
Mikhail looks back at him sternly, as if expecting J to object. “This was spelled out in your contract—”
“No, no—I’m fine with it. I’d just love the link to send to my girlfriend, so she can watch.”
Mikhail smiles. “Of course.” He tells J it will be available on all of Celestia’s platforms.
J feels like a liar as he types out the message to V, thatmy girlfriendechoing in his ears.
You need to see this,J texts.I should go on around 7:30.
A smaller tent has been turned into a backstage area, and that’s where Mikhail escorts J. Inside there are band members in green suits and lavender suits, as well as ballet dancers in green costumes and lavender costumes.
“Celestia’s two favorite colors,” Mikhail explains. Then he goes to a rolling wardrobe and pulls out a suit composed of green and lavender swirls. J almost expects it to come with a top hat, for in this suit he will certainly look like Willy Wonka crashing the Garden of Eden.
“Go see if it fits,” Mikhail says. “We have two backups if it doesn’t.”
In the changing area, J tries to imagine how much all of this has cost...and honestly can’t. V would have a guess. He goes to call her to ask, before stopping himself. She still hasn’t answered the text about the link. Or any of his texts.
As the guests arrive and the pleasant babble of overlapping conversations resounds from another room, J talks a little with some of the players from the big band and checks his phone constantly. At 6:52, Mikhail comes back in and says, “Places, everyone!” J picks up his notebook and is about to follow the band when Mikhail looks at him strangely and says, “Not you. You come with me.”
J figures he’s being taken to wait somewhere with the Very Famous Action Star who will be introducing him. Instead, Mikhail takes him to a small meeting room, where he comes face-to-face with...an enormous cake. It’s at least five feet tall, and mercifully neither green nor lavender. No, this is the most angelic wedding cake imaginable, a pure froth of white frosting and decoration.
“It’s a lovely cake,” J says, not entirely sure why it’s being shown to him.
Three hotel workers wheel in a ladder, and a caterer gingerly steps up the ladder to remove the top of the cake, which is really just a smaller cake placed atop the larger cake.
“Are you ready?” Mikhail asks J.
And J has to ask, “Ready for what?”
Mikhail laughs. Then he sees J is serious.
“No one told you about this in your first conversations? Celestia’s vision?”
