Jax
Rehearsal Dinner
Crazy how time flies.
Seems just yesterday that I was slipping the ring on Bella’s lithe finger, turning all her fear into joy. Seems just yesterday that we were sitting down with our domineering wedding planner, arguing about venues and dates, about how I want to have a best man but Bella doesn’t want a maid of honor.
But it has been six months now, and our wedding is tomorrow. Tonight is the rehearsal dinner.
As our limo takes us to the church, I repeat the words to myself in my head, unable to quite believe them: My wedding is tomorrow. Tonight is the rehearsal dinner.
Bella squeezes my hand. “I love you,” she says.
The limo has a mirrored ceiling revealing a secret view of the cleavage of my wife-to-be, a cup-holder for roses for my wife-to-be, and the woman herself. God, is she beautiful. Even in her “lazy” satin tracksuit, red top and bottom, I can’t help but kiss her.
Seems a second later that the limo door is opening and we have to separate and leave. Her hand in mine is a nice consolation as we walk through the church doors. Still, I glide into the church seeing nothing but her, her red-lipped smile, her mocha eyes. Once inside the church, however, my sight returns.
Trip was right to recommend Saint Xavier Francis College Church. Magnificent. That’s the first word that comes to mind when gazing upon the masterpiece before me. The rest is only feelings, sights: the sky-high domed ceiling – awe; the host of column-supported arches along the sides – wonder; the dance of colors on the stained-glass windows – gratitude.
Everywhere I look is another exquisite detail, another expertly rendered gargoyle, another stained-glass window so vibrantly incredible that I force myself to look away.
A hand is on my back. It’s Bella’s, and she’s smiling. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
I nod, still not tearing my gaze away from an expertly-carved angel near the altar. “The pictures didn’t do it justice.”
She pats my back. “The priest wants to begin, Jax.”
I glance at her, then turn around to find our entire wedding party waiting. For a minute, I gape at them, my gaze sliding from Sarah’s glowing rosy face to Emilio’s surly one to Paula’s shy smile to Brax’s skeletal smirk, and Whitey’s ear to ear grin.
I hadn’t even realized that they were there.
“Trip told us to shut it,” Whitey says by way of explanation.
Everyone laughs, and a man in a Hawaiian T-shirt and sandals walks up to us. “Great, so everybody’s here. Let’s begin.”
I eye him uncomprehendingly, and with a patient smile, he explains, “I’m Father O’Riley. We spoke on the phone.”
“Oh,” I find myself saying.
I shoot a glance at Bella, who’s clearly as unaware as I am that this quirky man is the priest.
Father O’Riley scratches his beard, scanning the lot of us. “Not too many bridesmaids or bridegrooms,” he says, then grins, raising his eyebrows. “Good, this will be nice and easy.”
He walks to the end of the room, hands behind his back in a gesture of repose. Returning to us in the same pose, he spreads his arms. “First things first, no freestyling it out there tomorrow. That’s what the rehearsal dinner is for….”
As he talks I find my attention wandering, to Trip and Brax who look hilariously absorbed with every word coming out of Father O’Riley’s long mustache, but finally to Emilio. He looks as surly as ever, with a gaze flicking around the room, searching for something.
I knew we shouldn’t have let him be in the wedding party, or even come to the wedding at all, but Bella wouldn’t budge. Bella squeezes my hand. I squeeze it back. Really, what is one evil bastard of a brother when I’m marrying the woman of my dreams?
“Alrighty,” Father O’Riley says, turning to Bella and me now. “First, let’s practice the bridal party procession. Groom – Jax – you get up to that altar with your best man.”
Smiling brace-faced delight, Whitey comes beside me and claps me on the back. “Our time to shine, boss.”
I clap him back. “Told you not to call me that anymore.”
His smile widens.
As we stride up the aisle to the front, I peer at his tie. “Whitey, is that actually a...”
He nods, and when we stop at the front, he takes it out for me to look closer. I hold it up to my face so I can make out the tiny gray sea creatures on its shiny navy surface. “A shark tie. Alexa got it for me. Some of them are even eating little fish see?”
I let the tie fall, and Whitey shoots a worried sidelong glance at me.
“Though I don’t, you know, have to wear it tomorrow.”
With a smile, I tuck his tie back in. “Nah, wear it. It suits you.”
I direct my attention to the back of the church, where Bella is talking to Father O’Riley. From here he looks like a confused vacationer from the Bahamas who accidentally wandered in. Behind them, Emilio’s roving eyes look as suspicious as ever. And what’s that bulge in his pants pocket?
“So,” Whitey says, “what’s the food situation?”
I shrug. “Some pasta, some sushi, some chicken, some steak, some cake.”
Whitey nods, with a silent pressing together of his lips. His gaze is on the first bridegroom and bridesmaid walking up: Trip and Paula – his hulking arm in her toothpick one. The longer I watch, the more this seems like an elaborate joke: Paula’s woolly sweater with a penguin that looks like it’s having a seizure, while Trip’s donning the old Renegade Devils shirt: a skull wearing a saint hat.
Brax and Sarah, the next to stride up, only further this impression: Brax’s tattoos are tastefully covered by a wife beater, while Sarah’s donning a toned-down neon pink dress.
Even Emilio seems in on it, wearing what looks like the ugliest, most ripped up gray T-shirt in existence. And yet, the sight of him does not fill me with the same mirth as the others did. No, as he storms up, he makes sure his glare touches on everyone before he slumps into the pew with the other groomsmen.
Last is Muffin, whose trainer lets her free at last; she gallops up the aisle, stopping beside me and Whitey. I pet her, and she gives me a doggy grin. We’re old friends by now. Only took three months of regular visits, walks and expensive cat-shaped dog treats, but I won Muffin over.
Now, finally, it’s Bella’s turn. She’s walking up alone, as she requested.
“Feels wrong walking up with anyone but Papa,” she had explained, and I was all too happy to oblige her. Bella has been so reasonable throughout this wedding planning that I’d let her do almost anything she asked.
Father O’Riley claps his hands in delight as he strides up. “Great, great!” Then, passing Whitey and me, he whirls around, gives us a significant look. “Now, on to the vows.”
Bella and I step up to the altar, hand in hand.
“Who wants to go first?” Father O’Riley asks.
“I will,” Bella replies, squeezing my hand one final time before letting it go. “Otherwise, I’ll be crying too hard to get through mine.”
I smirk at her. “Oh, I’ll make you cry all right.”
Bella sticks out her tongue at me, then unfurls a piece of paper and begins:
“Jax. I don’t know how to summarize the best months of my life, how to get heart-bursting love onto only a single piece of paper, how to make you understand that I have never felt anything like this with anyone else and never will.”
As she speaks, I find tears coming to my own eyes, and a strange feeling in my gut that something isn’t right. In the pew, everyone is enrapt. Everyone, that is, except Emilio. His eyebrows are slanted in a purposeless fury, his hand is reaching into the pocket with the bulge.
I reach in mine, grasping the White Lady.
And as his hand comes out with a gun, so too does mine. I shoot the gun out of his hand, and the church goes silent.
Everyone freezes.
“I’ll shoot you in the head if you move,” I bark out at Emilio as his hand trembles mid-air. I stride up to the pew, grab his gun off the floor, then point both guns at him. “Brax, Trip, can you show Emilio out of here? Maybe down to my new office?”
They nod, smiling at each other, as they grab Emilio’s arms.
I turn back to Bella and Father O’Riley, both of whom are white. “Sorry,” I say, “was just getting the kinks out so the real thing could be perfect.”
A half-hysterical laugh bursts out of Bella. I take her hand and kiss it.
“Sorry, babe. What were you saying?”
She takes a deep breath, squeezes my hand back, then let’s go. “I love you more than you can know, and it only grows every day.”
Father O’Riley still looks like he’s been punched in the face.
“I want my vows to be a surprise,” I tell him. “Is it okay if we end it here, with the whole ‘you may now kiss the bride’?”
He nods dumbly, and I turn to Bella.
“Well, you heard the man.”
Before she can point out that what I said makes absolutely no sense, since Father O’Riley is still speechless, I take her soft face in my hands and press my lips to hers. And all at once, everything is fine again.