Back When
Friday, May 18, 2007
Friday had been extremely uneventful, for Collette and Puck, at least. OLeif was kept busy running errands around work. He managed to find the time to pick up his tux on his lunch break. Although the haircut would have to wait until the following morning.
The air was cool and still spring-like, unusual for St. Louis in May. And the sun promised to shine out strong against any sort of storm for Polly’s night wedding.
Collette recalled the few days before her own wedding, three years past.
The Wednesday before the big day had been severely hot. Denae, Mom, Carrie-Bri, and herself spent their afternoon around town, picking up the last necessary supplies for the reception, including drinks for the punch and sauce ingredients for the pasta. The only cooling part of the day had been when they dropped off the supplies in the cold basement of the Adams’ house, whose daughter was overseeing the dinner at the reception.
After a long day of errands, the white hot sky had lured in a herd of big puffy whites. By the time they had arrived at home, Collette knew that storms were coming. Dad was out mowing the lawn, and just as he was finishing, the storm blew in against the electrifying green of the lawn and the trees. And with it came cooling winds.
“Can you believe you’re actually getting married in three days?” Carrie had asked her as they watched out the screen door.
“No…” Collette could not.
Thursday she had worked at the office. She couldn’t recall whether or not she had worked Friday as well, but memory believed that she didn’t.
Friday evening the family had arrived early at the little chapel, carrying in the last of the silk ivy and white flowers to place on the altar. Soon, everyone arrived. It was a large wedding party, almost embarrassingly large – two maids of honor (Diana and Carrie-Bri), six bridesmaids (Eve, Lucia, Kitts, Mercy, Annamaria, and Rose), Lydia as the flower girl, two best men (Shepherd and Peter), five groomsmen (Relevance, Sherlock Nibblelung, Arthur Duncan, Joe, and Curly), and two ring-bearers (Izzy and Francis), including two ushers (Justus and Spurgeon). But Collette didn’t mind; it was important that they were all able to be a part of it.
The rehearsal passed quickly enough, followed by dinner. Collette didn’t recall what she had to eat that night. She only remembered that Linnea, who was only six years old at the time, had ordered smiley-faced fries with her food. And it had been a loud gathering.
Collette had gone home that night and dropped into bed (which was the living room couch, as it had been for quite some time, instead of her bed downstairs (Mom was always afraid that there was radon living in the basement)).
Meanwhile, OLeif had headed back to the apartment that same night with Peter and Arthur where Peter smoked a pipe from OLeif’s collection and stayed up most of the night with Arthur and a stash of caffeine, while OLeif crashed for the night.
Big party-ers they were.