“I have wonderful news,” Andreas begins. But instead of saying,I found the perfect velvet Elvis for you,orDo you think you could use a lime-green couch in your next video? he follows with, “I’m getting married!”
“Congratulations!” J replies, even though his heart is still stuck on something akin toYou have no idea what you’re in for.
“I had to tell you because Kerstin, my wife-to-be, loves your records. The first time I went over to her house, there was one sitting by her phonograph, and when I told her that I knew you, she couldn’t believe it. It felt like serendipity.”
“I’m glad I could help,” J says, somewhat awkwardly. “When is the big day?”
“The day after tomorrow! We decided yesterday. It’s going to be a very small, very quick ceremony.”
J waits for the request to come, therealreason for the call. But as Andreas goes on with some of the details of the wedding (hillside, the bride’s sister as officiant), J realizes Andreas has no ideathat he sings at weddings, and that this call isn’t meant to be a request in disguise. Andreas just wanted him to know he played a small part in getting them together.
Which is why J finds himself offering to sing at the wedding. Andreas replies with genuine surprise and deep emotion. J explains the whole thing about the wedding song, and at first Andreas says no, no, that is way too much at such short notice. But J insists, happy to be able to do a good deed for someone who lives by good deeds. Andreas in turn insists on paying, and J gives him something between the friend fee and the stranger fee. After arrangements are made, and Andreas has said thank you more than J thought was humanly possible, J hangs up.
Instantly, he is returned to the emptiness of his apartment.
They meet the next day in a coffee shop not far from J’s apartment. Andreas first, with Kerstin to follow.
When Andreas arrives, he is genuinely anguished to find that J has already bought himself a coffee and a pastry.
“It should be on me!” he insists. Then, once he has gotten his own sustenance, he sits down and more than makes up for it with a silver cigarette case he hands J as a thank-you gift.
“I’m not doing this to encourage you to smoke,” Andreas says. “Just to possess beautiful things.”
“You really don’t have to give me anything. You’ve already given so much,” J says.
Andreas waves this off. “I won’t hear of it!”
J knows it’s pointless to prolong the argument, and that he only has twenty minutes with Andreas before Kerstin arrives for her turn.
“So,” he says, picking up his pen and hovering it over his notebook, “a simple ceremony on a hillside?”
“Yes, that’s all we want.”
“But I would have thought...you know.”
“What?”
“Considering all the access you have to props, you could have constructed something elaborate. If anyone in my life can find a horse-drawn carriage at the last minute, it’s you.”
“Yes, but that’swork. Do you think of singing at your own wedding?”
The truest answer is: J thought he’d be together with V for a long time. But he didn’t think they’d ever want to get married. Or, really, thatshe’dever want to get married.
“Honestly,” J says, “no.”
“With all the weddings you do? You’ve never thought about your own wedding?”
“I mean, details, sure. We’d say, ‘Oh, we’d never dothat.’ Or, ‘Those canapés were a nice surprise. Maybe we’ll make them our next dinner party.’”
“Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“I guess if I walk in a room and it’s a lovely room except for one really ugly lamp, I’ll imagine the lamp I’d put there, and by doing that I’m starting to imagine living in that room, making it mine. Not for long. But for a little bit, I role-play every room I walk into. I figured you’d do that with weddings.”
J wonders if this is actually a problem, that he’s never looked at an altar and imagined standing there with V. It’s hard to imagine her in a wedding dress; she has nothing but contempt for lace.
“Maybe I’d keep it simple, like you,” J says, more to keep the conversation moving than out of any deep belief in what he’s asserting. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Andreas asks him about V. “There’s something very appealing about that.”
