“Well, the first verse...”
“Amazing! There has to be a use for that in Secret Project. We’re absolutely going to have weddings on there. How cool would it be to get your own song? We could have you write a bunch of variations, and then AI could take it from there. Let’s talk!”
Horrified, yet not knowing what else to say, J says, “Sure. Let’s talk.”
Meta somehow pulls a phone from the mesh of her dress and checks the time.
“Any big plans for after?” J asks, just making conversation.
Meta smiles and takes Thor’s hand. “That’s a secret, too.”
“Okay, man,” Thor says. “Again, it’s, like, too amazing that you were the singer in there. Wipe this all from your memory—but I promise we’ll never forget it.”
Meta smiles sweetly at him. “Never.”
And then, as if a spell has been cast, or maybe taken away, they suddenly appear to J as exactly what they are: a newly married couple about to take their first married step out into the world. They practically slide down the banister into the lobby, out of J’s sight.
J is called back into the chapel soon enough, for the rest of the day’s weddings. There is a couple that brings four of their dogs, for “emotional support,” and one friend, to be able to sign a contract. There’s a couple with a practically newborn baby named Theo, who spends the whole ceremony looking like he’s paused for some reflection, his eyes shut but his ears listening. There’s a couple in their forties wearing matching I’M GETTING MARRIED TODAY t-shirts...and when the ceremony is done, they remove them to reveal JUST MARRIED t-shirts underneath.
J tries to put all his thoughts about V aside to focus on these couples, but that proves to be impossible. He tries to imagine sweeping her off her feet and getting her to marry him at Borough Hall. Isn’t that supposed to be the solution, the conclusion, the top of the mountain they’ve been climbing together? He can’t picture it. Not home in Sweden. Not here. Especially not here. Because to get married in Borough Hall, wouldn’t they both have to be living here? And he can’t imagine living here. Not even for V.
She’s known this all along, hasn’t she?
The last couple of the day throws J for a moment—the bride doesn’t look like V, but she does look like she could be V’s sister.At least until she speaks, and the most Brooklyn of Brooklyn accents comes out, full of sweaty syllables and puncturing punctuation. She’s wearing a dress that is, in its own way, as magnificent as Meta’s—this one could very well have been this bride’s grandmother’s. (As if to support this assertion, the grandmother is present and fussing at the dress.) A photographer click-click-clicks like a paparazzo, and a young kid carries a boom box at least five times older than he is, which blares “Empire State of Mind” so loud the Empire State might get a migraine. Judge Pao signals for the music to end and the service to start. The groom holds out his hand to escort his bride up to the podium as if it’s a grand staircase and not a single step. He’s wearing a tuxedo that looks like it’s never been worn before, and he appears both nervous-happy and happy-nervous. The bride and groom keep holding hands and keep stealing glances at each other instead of looking at Judge Pao as she speaks to them and welcomes them to the next chapter of their life. J thinks, okay, this is a couple that knows each other, that will last a good long time—
Until Judge Pao asks for the rings.
And the groom says, “Oh shit.”
And the bride screams, “WHAT THE FUCK, EDDIE? WHAT THESERIOUS FUCK?”
The groom’s pranking her, J thinks. But then he’s raising his hands, as if he doesn’t want his bride to arrest him, and J realizes Eddie actuallyhasforgotten the rings and has no idea what to do about it.
Judge Pao tries to intervene and says they don’t really need to have rings to make the vows, and that some couples don’t, and—
The bride will not hear of it. Her mother and grandmother rush to console her, but she shakes them off, tears in her eyes, saying no, she knew this would happen, that fucking Eddie couldn’t even fucking bother to make sure he had the fucking rings on thebiggest fucking dayof her life.
Now more people are on the wedding platform—friends, cousins, who knows? All of them telling the bride it’s okay, some of them pulling rings off their own fingers to be used. Eddie tries to defend himself, but a bigger man (his father? the bride’s father?) just shakes his head, and Eddie shuts up.
Finally, the bride clears the path between her and the groom, looks him in the eye, and says, “You did this. Not me.” And with that, she makes her exit, leaving chaos and Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys in her wake.
J can tell this is not the first time something like this has happened, or the first time this bride has delivered an exit line. It’s just (probably) the first time it’s happened in the wedding room in Borough Hall. It makes him think of V—not that she’s like that, but this is now, once again, a story he wants to tell her. He wants her caustic, creatively phrased spin on it. Which feels ridiculous at this point.
Because it’s the last wedding of the afternoon, and because there isn’t any paperwork to sign, Judge Pao actually makes an exit before the groom does, telling J in ten seconds how much she enjoyed his singing and then talking to Nick for about two more minutes with things she might be quoted as saying in his article.
Eventually, a few guys manage to get the groom to hold his head up long enough to be able to leave the room. As he passes by, he says thank you to J, which breaks J’s heart. This isn’t a bad guy. He just forgot the fucking rings.
Soon it’s just Nick and J in the chapel. Someone turns off the overhead lights, so there’s only the glow from behind the stained glass.
“So I guess that’s it,” J says, picking up his guitar.
Nick smiles mischievously.
“Come on,” he says. “You’ve gotta play me their song!”
J is tired. But he also sees the sense in it.
Why should the happy couples be the only ones who get a song?
