Esther's Wedding
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The day began early at 5:30.
Puck was up like a shot.
“Penguin’s gonna get married today,” he said.
“To whom?” Collette asked.
“Donkey.”
After a coffee stop for OLeif (and powdered sugar donuts and apple juice for Collette, because OLeif spoiled her with sugar as usual…), to the house to load up the Odyssey and the Fit in the blighting cold and the light rain. Dad, Mom, Collette, Puck, and Linnea in the Odyssey. Joe, OLeif, and Francis in the Fit.
Another stop for McGriddles and Egg McMuffins, OJ, etc. And across the Illinois border.
About the time that the cold front gusted curtains of leaves across the sky, Puck expressed confusion over the whole business of Esther getting married…
“I’m not getting married!” he declared. “I will get up and walk away!”
Nearing the end of Illinois, Collette turned around to see Puck covering his ears.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him. “You don’t like this song?”
“No,” he replied.
At least someone besides herself did not appreciate Country…
Around 10:30, Puck arrived in his fourth state: Kentucky.
Their third McDonald’s of the morning after passing a homemade metal statue of a dinosaur with someone’s legs hanging out of its mouth…
Linnea went in to get a large Oreo McFlurry.
There was also a large bag of chocolates in the car, that she had won at the costume party the previous night for ‘best costume’: an Egyptian.
Nasvhille, and Puck’s fifth state.
So his tally now stood at…
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Missouri: at birth
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Illinois: at two months
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Arkansas: at two months
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Kentucky: at three years
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Tennessee: at three years
About the time they arrived in Nashville, Puck slipped Linnea’s cloth headband over his eyes. The trick worked, and he inadvertently fell asleep.
The Hilton.
Surrounded by a blazing explosion of glowing red trees.
Inside very much resembled a smaller version of the Opryland Hotel, with a full arboretum of porticoes and fountains, arrangements of greenery and trellises and swags of lanterns, surrounded on all sides by four stories of halls and doors. And there was a parlor with crackling gas fireplace. Indoor pool. And glass elevators, which Puck especially enjoyed.
Puck was enthralled with everything, in fact.
“Look at this! Look at this!” he cried.
As they walked down the hall, he stopped to press his hands into the carpet.
“It’s so soft!” he exclaimed.
As they entered to ride up to the fourth floor, they saw someone in the opposite elevator.
“That guy kind of looks like Bristol,” said Dad. “He looks uncomfortable. Probably because there’s eight people looking at him now.”
“Or he’s looking at OLeif hanging Puck upside-down,” said Collette.
The rooms were full suites. And they didn’t have long to look them over before they met Curly at Chick-fil-A for lunch, where, of all places in town, they also saw Uncle Hilario, Brit and little chubby Mary with two tiny pigtails on the top of her head, Fernando, and Jashub, where also eating lunch.
“Hi hi!” Fernando said, with his big grin, in what seemed to be his usual greeting.
And Puck took a seat by Curly, anxious to devour his fries and chicken tenders.
It was almost time to leave. So by shortly after two-thirty they were back to the hotel to getting ‘wedding-clothesed’, the boys in their suits, and Collette tried her best to work with their road-trip hair.
“OK, boys, raise your hand if you’re wearing hairspray,” said Mom.
Then Joe gave Puck a squirt of cologne to make him feel important.
Before leaving, OLeif took Puck aside.
“Now, Puck, listen to me. We’re going to a wedding. Do you know who’s going to be there?”
“Me!”
“Yes, and also adults.”
Puck nodded.
“Do you know what adults like you to do at weddings?” OLeif asked him.
“They like me to don’t touch stuff.”
Twenty till four saw them walking in the cooling gray and autumn leaves toward Ocean Way Studio, where they signed a piece of hanging artwork, painted wood panels, as the guestbook, and then took their seats on the third row, reserved for their family.
It was a small place, once having been a church, where panels of stained glass windows hung, printed with reminders of who had donated them. And in the front of the rows of white collapsable chairs, were two panels covered in gold satin and two arrangements of large yellow and white vases, filled with bare branches.
It was not a long wait.
First came Aunt Corliss in dark purple satin, escorted by Jashub. Then the pastor, and groom. And the groomsmen walked themselves down the aisle, followed by the groom’s sister, Lilli, escorted by Brit and Mary, Polly, escorted by Fernando, then Blessing, and then Liselotte in two looped pigtails, one of them tied with a dark purple silk flower and wearing her little yellow dress. And all the bridesmaids wore dark charcoal with black beaded necklaces, and glittering diamond bracelets.
Finally, in came Esther with Uncle Hilario. Slim and in sparkling white, and a bouquet of white roses.
The officiator of the evening, the bass player from Chris Tomlin’s band, handled his first wedding quite well. And after the vows had been said…
“Well, Esther and Jude didn’t want to light a unity candle together,” he drawled in his Texan accent. “They didn’t want to pour sand or paint a picture together. They wanted their first act as husband and wife to be an act of worship. So let’s sing.”
And not a full forty-five minutes later, the ceremony had concluded.
On the way to the reception, downtown, what seemed to be a smaller version of The Loop back home, traffic was snarled around the hockey stadium, and record shops, and pedestrians, and a man holding a sign that read, ‘Repent from your sins. Turn to Jesus’.
After awhile of sitting, Puck had a question…
“Mama? What does Daddy have in his tummy? Is it filled to the top with food?”
Then he thought about dancing with Liselotte again.
“Am I gonna dance with my fourth cousin?” he asked.
The reception was at The Rutledge, what seemed to be a smallish venue of stone and wood and white Christmas lights, and black painted cement in several levels, and a brick patio with large canvas awning-umbrellas. Tables were strewn with festoons of candles and brown and green glass bottles filled with simple flowers and labeled with metallic Scripture verses, many of these arrangements set on sheets of Colonial-print paper in dark colors and ringed with weathered picture frames.
Music was already pouring out of the dark interior, lit with many more candles and chains of lights and photographs. Contemporary tunes, Christian hits, and Frank Sinatra.
The buffet had already been struck up…
Sausage-red pepper rolls, tiny cold square sandwiches, spicy tomato relish on crusted bread, trays of hot meat, pastries filled with, what Collette insisted was tomato crème, but OLeif said was raspberry, salads, stacks of brightly colored grilled vegetables, fruit trays, and things rolled in grape leaves… And then iced tea and coffee.
Shortly after the white cakes had been cut, Puck and Liselotte began their endless game of ‘big bad wolf’ with OLeif on the portico, and seemed to have a smashing time together, and attempting to blow out the dozens of candles, through the glass. As they ran around, giggling together, the wind picked up, and somewhere nearby a train’s whistle blared.
Then the band began to play. Quite loud, really. Somehow little Mary, who had fallen asleep on her mom’s shoulder, slept through the whole thing.
And it was about time to leave.
“Goodbye, Puck!” Liselotte called to him through the wrought-iron gate. “I’ll see you at Christmas!”
There, they parted ways, OLeif and Joe to Curly’s apartment where they joined him at a coffee house to hear his next gig, and the rest of the family back to the hotel.
In their room, Collette got Puck down to snoozing by nine o’clock, while Dad took Mom and Linnea to Target to look for swimwear for Linnea. And Francis watched a documentary of three Uruguayan men who had been in a plane crash in the Andes in the 70’s, and had hiked 37 miles of mountain in ten days, starving to death, before returning to civilization, survived.
And at the end of everything, the Snicketts-Black Tally now stood at…
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Collette Snicketts — August 28, 2004 (Saint Charles, MO), age 19
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Brit Black — October 23, 2004 (Columbia, MO), age 28
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Bristol Snicketts — July 2006 (Mexico), age 24
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Polly Black — May 19, 2007 (New Town, MO), age 27
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Esther Black — November 13, 2010 (Nashville, TN), age 28
Good day.
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