Listen to “Part 1. The Rehearsal”
For as long as she could remember, Angela Taylor had wanted candles at her wedding. She wanted lots of candles, in polished gold stands, tapering from the altar in the center out to each side of the rostrum, and single candles in clear crystal lamps at the end of every pew along the center aisle. But now she stood alone in the chapel, seeing only the barrenness of an empty stage, waiting for the others to arrive for rehearsal.
At once she was aware of a presence. She didn’t have to turn at all to know that it was Mark’s arms that encircled her waist, his wet lips that caressed her neck, his warm body that always sparked erotic energy. “Hello,” he murmured into her ear, his hot breath sending electric swirls through her.
“I wanted candles,” she said softly, taking in a deep breath and letting it out in a slow sigh as she leaned against Mark’s chest.
“Yes, I know,” he said, “so did I. But–”
“But Mom told us from the beginning how Burlington Chapel is about ‘dripless’ candles, and how we’d be spending our honeymoon scraping wax off the carpet!”
“We have our unity candles,” Mark cooed, in his little-boyish way.
“Only if Mom can rent a stand to put them on,” Angela sighed with a hint of desperation. “Anyway, how are we going to light the unity candles when there won’t be any other candles burning?”
Mark said nothing, only looked at her with the same blank stare he gave to his monitor screen when a computer program he was writing seemed to loop into a dead end.
Suddenly the double doors in back burst apart, as chattery giggles and a catcall or two exploded into the chapel. Then someone yelled in mock remonstrance, “Be quiet, you turds, this is a church!” The wedding party had arrived, and Angela felt a hot flush as she glanced quickly through the crowd to see if Mom was there. Nope. Only my impudent sister Cheré and our funky but lovable friends…let’s see, Chuck, Shelly, Dave, Misty, Paul, Nanette.
“Where’s your sister Tina and your…moms?” Angela directed toward Mark.
He shrugged, glancing at his watch. “They’ll be here. Their plane got in two hours ago.”
Angela rolled her eyes, her face tightening. “I just hope Mom and Dad don’t say anything stupid to your mom and…and…”
Mark chuckled. “Mom and Lorna are cool,” he reassured her. “Don’t worry.”
But Angela did worry that Mom and Dad would, at best, totally ignore the existence of Mark’s two lesbian moms, or, at worst, would cause some unthinkably horrible scene. The two sets of parents–one in California, one in Texas–had never met, never spoken on the phone, never even e-mailed.
Mark was laughing now, playfully shoving Dave away, undoubtedly for some irreverent remark he had made, Angela could tell by his familiar smirk.
Now the girls were filling the space around her, pulling her from any thoughts of candles in the chapel. “When will the flowers be delivered?” “How are you going to keep Mark from seeing you in the morning?” “How many gifts do you have so far?” Angela shivered, a good kind of shiver, grinning, answering, not answering, listening to everyone else’s excitement, feeling her heart pound, hearing in her mind’s ear the hauntingly incessant music of Enya that she and Mark had chosen for their wedding.
When Tina, Lorna, and Mark’s mom Jessie arrived, Angela was the first to see them come in. “We’re just waiting for my parents and Pastor Greene now,” she said with a calm façade to no one in particular.
“Oh, Mom!” Angela hugged Jessie just after Mark did. “Thank you for buying the unity candle set for us. They’re the only candles we’re having, you know.”
Pastor Greene arrived just after John and Mary Taylor, and he took full charge of the wedding rehearsal, choreographing every movement of every attendant. Lorna sat at the sound system mixer board, manipulating the cassette tapes and CDs and MIDI disks that contained the full program of wedding music. This was the first time Angela had heard all of the music together in a contiguous whole.
“I hope it’s okay,” Lorna said to Angela during a brief break.
Angela’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, yes–thank you. It’s perfect!”