The Heart Goes Last - Страница 59

As an extra treat, a group of five Marilyns, hired by Charmaine and wearing pink taffeta dresses with an off-the-shoulder line, sort of like the big production number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes where she sings the song about diamonds, only without the long train. The Marilyns smile as if they’re delighted out of their minds, which is what you want at a wedding, and there aren’t any actual relatives to do it, so Charmaine booked this fivesome. They really give value for money, they cheer and laugh and throw rice on all of them at the end, and one of them catches Aurora’s bouquet.

Charmaine doesn’t have a bouquet as such because she isn’t exactly getting married, though it feels like that to her, but she has a spray of pink roses, and that’s almost the same. She’s wearing a floral print in pink and blue, and Stan has a shirt with penguins on it, she found it online. It’s sentimental, but she’s a sentimental person.

There’s champagne at the outdoor reception with a sun area and a shade area, and a fountain with three mermaids holding mics as if they’re a backup group, three surfers playing guitars, and three cupids, each one pouring water out of a fish, with a stone head of Elvis at the top, smiling his Elvis smile. Someone has put a wreath of flowers around his neck.

Charmaine is so happy. The dark part of herself that was with her for so long seems to be totally gone. It’s as if someone has taken an eraser and erased the pain of those memories. It’s not that she can’t remember the things that happened – those things Grandma Win used to tell her not to think about. She can remember them, but only like pictures, or a bad dream. They don’t have power over her any more. It must have been something the doctors did when they were fixing the inside of her head so she would love Stan, only Stan, and nobody else. It was the other Charmaine who’d wandered away from him, and that Charmaine is gone forever. It’s so amazing what can be done with lasers!

She even watched Max, or Phil, being married to Aurora without a twinge of longing or jealousy. And at the reception, when people were kissing the brides, Max kissed her mildly on the cheek, and though once she would have melted like a microwaved Popsicle at his smallest touch, it didn’t bother her at all; it was just more or less like having a fly land on you, she could brush it off and think no more about it. All those things they did, that time when she was so crazy about him – crazy is the right word for it – they’ve faded. It’s like she was under some kind of a spell and then, poof, it was gone. She recalls those interludes clearly but distantly, and also fondly, almost as if she’s recalling the antics of a child, though not herself as a child. She didn’t do any antics then. She was too scared.

There’s Max, or Phil, with Aurora now; he’s under one of the sun umbrellas, he’s got Aurora backed up against the table, his arms are around her, his torso is squashed up against hers, he’s kissing her neck. You can tell he can hardly wait to get her into bed and run those skilful hands of his all over her face job. Charmaine searches her heart, and the only thing she can find in there in the Max compartment is the best of wishes for Aurora, because it’s obvious Max is devoted to her, he follows her around with his eyes all the time, despite what she looks like. Anyway she looks better than she did, because she’s glowing with joy, and it’s the inner beauty that counts. Most of the time. Some of the time. And Max must be happy too! He must be!

There’s Stan over by the Cupid fountain with two Marilyns, who are feeding him bites of the wedding cake. The cake is white, with blue-and-pink icing in a design of bluebirds holding ribbons and festoons of roses in their beaks and claws, which is the design Charmaine ordered to go with the total decoration scheme. It’s very intricate, but she got it 3-D laser-printed.

The Marilyns are definitely overdoing the act, and in those pink taffeta off-the-shoulder dresses you can peer right down their fronts, which is what Stan is doing, but you can’t blame him, because what’s a shelf display for except to be looked at?

It’s time for an intervention. She strolls over, rather quickly. “Thank you for taking such good care of my wonderful husband,” she says, linking her arm through Stan’s. Then she sees that one of the Marilyns is Veronica, though with a white-blond wig, and everyone knows Veronica can love only her blue bear, poor thing, the same way that Charmaine can love only Stan – that story was all over the TV, Veronica’s quite the celebrity now – so it’s all right.

“Veronica!” she says. “I didn’t know it would be you!”

“How could I miss it?” says Veronica. “I wanted to see the happy ending. You remember Sandi?”

“Sandi!” Charmaine cries, giving her a hug. The last time she saw Sandi in person she was plasticuffed, with shackles around her ankles. “Oh my god! I’m so glad you got out okay! I saw you on TV! It’s like a miracle!”

“It was a close one,” says Sandi. “They’d stuck the hood on and I was just being hauled out the cell door, I figure now on my way to get recycled for spares, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Then there was a lot of cellphone babble, Jocelyn telling them to hold off on everything till further notice because there’d been an exposé and Ed had gone AWOL with the profits. Those guards dropped me on the floor and ran for it, and by the time I picked myself up and made it to the outside, all the gates were open and it was like, Out of here! What a traffic jam! Plus I got a bruised elbow. But hey! Who’s complaining? I’m still in one piece, I’m not shishkebob.”

“I keep telling her they wouldn’t have cut her up for parts,” says Veronica. “She’s too cute. They would’ve shipped her out here and done the brain thing on her. She would’ve ended up with some wrinkly rich dude, acting out his every whim.”

“Like the Fuck Tank,” says Sandi, “only this time with feeling.”

”And with a lot more cash,” says Veronica, and they laugh.

Sandi raises her champagne glass. “Here’s to the old days,” she says. “May they rot in hell.”

The Marilyns head over to the champagne table for a refill, and Charmaine puts her arms around Stan and squeezes him. “Oh, Stan,” she says. “This is so wonderful! Aren’t we lucky?” Stan squeezes her back, though in an absent-minded way. He seems dazed, or maybe it’s the champagne. He’s been drinking it like soda pop, he’s had more than enough. But he’ll be fine tomorrow, thinks Charmaine. It’s worked out for the best, because what’s past is prologued all’s well that ends well, like Grandma Win used to say. Not that this is the end. No, it’s the beginning, a new beginning. The beginning as it should have been. Not everyone gets a chance at that.

She does have a lingering doubt. Does loving Stan really count if she can’t help it? Is it right that the happiness of her married life should be due, not to any special efforts on her part, but to a brain operation she didn’t even agree to have? No, it doesn’t seem quite right. But it feels right. That’s what she can’t get over – how right it feels.

It was Jocelyn who paid for this whole thing, or who arranged for it to be paid. But although Charmaine urged her to come, Jocelyn didn’t attend the wedding ceremony proper. “I don’t want to be the wicked witch at the feast” was what she said. Truthfully, Charmaine was relieved by that, because despite everything that Jocelyn had done for her and Stan, it must be admitted that some of those things might not be viewed as positives by everyone. Such as Jocelyn humping the jockey shorts off Stan. But Charmaine has no hard feelings about Jocelyn, because she isn’t entitled to them. And everything balances out, so it’s like having nothing in the bank and no debts owed.

But here she is now, Jocelyn, walking into the chapel area. She’s come to the reception, as she hinted she might. She’s wearing mauve, which isn’t the same as the pink-and-blue colour palette, but doesn’t clash with it either. Charmaine is pleased that Jocelyn has given this angle some thought, and has come up with a tasteful solution.

Stan’s upsetting brother, Conor, is with her, wearing those reflector sunglasses he thinks make him look tough, and three of his criminal friends. No, not criminal, Charmaine won’t use that word. Unusual. That is a better word, because Conor and those men rescued her from Ed, so how could she ever view them as criminals, even if they are criminals in the rest of their time? Though Conor has always been a bad influence on Stan, in her opinion. Or he was when they were younger. Today he’s looking more mature, in Charmaine’s opinion. Maybe he will meet a wise older woman who will help him become a productive member of society. That is her wish for him, on this wonderful day when everyone should be granted something good.

Charmaine detaches herself from Stan so he and Conor and the unusual friends can do that back-slapping and fist-bumping and name-repeating routine they do. “Con!” “Stan!” “Rikki!” Jerold!” “Budge!” Like they don’t know each other’s names already. But it’s a male-bonding thing, she’s seen a TV show about that, it’s like saying “Congratulations” or something. Now they’re moving over to the champagne is, even though Stan should really not have any more of it or he’ll be too drunk to do the things she’s hoping they’ll do, once they get to the hotel room and she’s had a lovely shower, with white fluffy towels and almond oil body lotion all over her.