A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [59]
Jerry, to everyone’s surprise and Julie’s evident relief, had acquitted himself with grace and humor. Bill reciprocated by standing and thanking Jerry warmly and then thanking Nora for her generosity. Jerry gave a quick salute. Nora smiled. A waiter hovered next to Agnes, ready to begin taking orders. Matt and Brian drained their glasses. Bridget reminded herself to tell the waiter not to give the boys any wine. She didn’t want her son getting drunk the night before the wedding, or ever again, for that matter.
Ten thousand days, Bridget calculated, was roughly thirty years. She’d be in her early seventies when the happiness ran out.
If only.
Her skirt girdle cut into her abdomen. She ordered the goat cheese salad and the salmon, wondering if she’d be able to eat any of it. She mouthed Thank you to Jerry across the table, and he cocked a finger gun at her. Almost immediately, the decibel level in the room was such that Bridget had to raise her voice even to speak to Bill, the noise increasing exponentially as each person discovered he or she had to shout. It sounded like a party, for which Bridget was grateful. She had feared the gathering might be stiff and dull. She would have minded for Nora’s sake.
Bill had his hand on her thigh. If he could have conveyed good health through that hand, Bridget reflected, he would have, even at the cost of his own health—a kind of health transfusion he would willingly have undergone. There was a sudden lull in the conversation, during which Julie (Julie, of all people) asked Bridget to tell the story of how she and Bill remet. Bridget looked to Bill for help, both of them aware that the heart of the story—the secret assignations in hotels, the betrayal of Bill’s wife, the passionate phone calls when Bridget’s son was in bed—couldn’t be told in Matt and Brian’s presence. Bill gave a meaningful look in the boys’ direction to convey to the group that the R-rated movie would not be shown tonight. Instead he would tell the brief and sanitized version. I went to my twenty-fifth reunion, looked across the room, saw Bridget, and twenty-two years just melted away. It was as though we’d never been apart.
What was not discussed was Jill’s anger, Melissa’s grief, and the cost to Bill, which had been considerable. If Bridget died soon—as was entirely possible, even likely according to the statistics—Bill would have risked everything for so little: three, maybe four years together at best. Would he still think it worth the cost twenty years from now?
Bridget put a hand briefly over Bill’s hand on her thigh. Nora was in a huddle with Brian and Matt. Something she said made them both perk up considerably. Jerry, who might be just a little bit drunk already, was telling the group about how he’d often bragged about being practically best friends with Carl Laski’s wife. Nora blinked. Bridget imagined Nora might have seen the friendship a little differently.
“Of course, I never read poetry,” Jerry said, canceling out the goodwill of the flattery. “Does anyone?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jerry,” Harrison said.
“Okay, so name the last book of poetry you read.”
“I publish Audr Heinrich,” Harrison said.
“You don’t count,” Jerry said, pointing with his glass, a bit of wine sloshing out onto the tablecloth. “How about you?” he asked Rob, ignoring Julie’s restraining hand on his arm.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rob said, “I used to