this time, Q and I are far along in the preparations for our wedding. All of the major arrangements have been made—the reception hall, the choice of entrée, the entertainment. The vows have been written, compromises struck on how present God shall be and which God to choose. The honeymoon will be in Barcelona with a side trip to Pamplona to watch the running. Only trifling matters remain such as coordinating the flowers for the centerpieces with the boutonnières of the groomsmen and the music to be played at the reception.
The wedding is to be held in Lenox, Massachusetts. The Deverils are New Yorkers through and through—lifelong Manhattanites—but they have summered for the entirety of Q’s existence at their home on the Stockbridge Bowl, in the heart of the Berkshires, with the appropriate subscriptions to Tanglewood and Jacob’s Pillow. We are to be married at the inn where John and Joan Deveril stayed on their first visit to the Berkshires more than twenty-five years ago. It is intimated at a celebration-of-the-engagement dinner during an alcohol-induced, way-too-much-information moment that Q was conceived at this inn.
Lenox is neither Q’s first choice for the wedding nor mine. All of our friends are New Yorkers and we would prefer, all things being equal, to have a city wedding, preferably on the Lower East Side, where Q and I have settled together. But John Deveril is a powerful and obstinate man. His construction company is the eighth largest in the country and, as he eagerly tells anyone who will listen, responsible for two of the ten tallest buildings in Manhattan. More relevantly, Q is utterly devoted to John, and he is quite wedded (pardon) to the idea of a Berkshires marriage. He thinks it will lend symmetry to his daughter’s life. All things considered, it seems best to let him have his way. I joke to Q that we should arrange funeral plots for ourselves in Great Barrington. She finds this quite funny.
Mr. Deveril’s mulishness is nowhere more evident than in the discussion of the music to be played at the wedding. A swing band will provide the bulk of the entertainment, but a DJ is retained to entertain during the band’s rest breaks and offer something for the younger set. For the unlucky disc jockey, John Deveril prepares an extensive array of directives. These guidelines, seventeen pages in all, contain a small set of favored songs, including the Foundations’ “Build Me Up Buttercup,” the Mysterians’ “Ninety-Six Tears,” and anything by Jerry Lee Lewis; a list of disfavored songs, which includes anything by anyone whose sexuality is ambiguous or otherwise in question—thus ruling out Elton John, David Bowie, and Prince (despite my argument that the secondary premise is faulty); any music by any artist who has ever broadcast an antipatriotic message—thereby excluding, to my great dismay, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Green Day; any song written between the years 1980 and 1992; and a final list of songs, appended as Appendix A to the personal services contract between the DJ and the Deverils, the playing of any of which results in irrevocable termination of the agreement and triggers a legal claim for damages by the Deverils against the disc jockey, said damages liquidated in the amount of $100,000. For further emphasis, as if any is required, at the top of Appendix A, Mr. Deveril handwrites: “Play these songs and die.” The list includes the Chicken Dance, the Electric Slide, and anything by Madonna, Neil Diamond, and Fleetwood Mac.
I happen to like Fleetwood Mac and Neil Diamond. As far as I can tell, John Deveril has nothing against either artist’s music. Rather, he has a long memory and recalls that Bill Clinton used “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)” as the theme song for his campaign in 1992 and that Mike Dukakis used “America” during his race in 1988. John hates all Democrats, but he has a special loathing for Clinton and Dukakis.
I get it with respect to the Chicken Dance and the Electric Slide, and even with respect to Clinton, but the virulent loathing of Dukakis is excessive. It seems to me Dukakis paid a steep price for his concededly ill-advised photo-op in the M1 Abrams tank. The later newspaper photographs in the 1990s of Dukakis walking across the streets of Boston to his professor’s office at Northeastern were a bit more poignant than I could handle. Now one hardly hears of him or Kitty at all. I feel protective. Of course, I am not fool enough to admit my affection for Michael Dukakis to John Deveril. Instead I point out the unfairness of the association with Neil Diamond, whom I greatly admire. I’d like “Cracklin’ Rosie” to be played at the reception.
One evening, at a dinner with Q and her parents to discuss wedding plans, I sheepishly raise the issue. “You know Neil Diamond never actually sang ‘America’ at a Dukakis event,” I say timidly. “Actually, he never sang for Dukakis at all. Furthermore, according to federal campaign contribution reports, he never gave any money to Dukakis.”
At this point, John looks up from his meat.
“Well, if he didn’t want the song played, he could have called up the campaign and told them not to play it, right?”
“I suppose.”
“I mean they wouldn’t have played it against his wishes. They wouldn’t have played it if Neil Diamond had called the newspapers and said, ‘Dukakis is a moron, and Bentsen too.’ The campaign wouldn’t have played the song then, right?”
“Right.”
“So it was a choice.”
“I guess.”
“Just like Dukakis could have chosen to shave those eyebrows, right?”
“Right,” I say quietly, and that’s the end of that.
The truth is, I also like Bill Clinton, but I raise no objection to excluding Fleetwood Mac on the basis of its tenuous connection to the philandering former president. Neither do I protest the venison that will be served at dinner, or the tulips that have been ordered for the reception hall despite my allergist’s strict instructions to the contrary, or the presidential look-alikes (needless to say, all Republicans) who have been hired to mingle with the crowd and sit at the dinner tables corresponding to their numerical order in the presidency. It is objectionable enough to have people resembling Nixon and Ford and Bush (forty-one; John Deveril has no tolerance for forty-three) circulating among the crowd, but I wonder, as a purely practical matter, what the people seated at tables 19 and 34 will have to talk about at dinner with doppelgangers of Chester Arthur and John Deveril’s favorite president, Calvin Coolidge.
This is all quite different than the wedding I envision. In mine, we are married by a Scientologist on the eighteenth hole of a miniature golf course. The minister reminds me that girls need “clothes and food and tender happiness and frills: a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat.” I am asked to provide them all. Q is told that “young men are free and may forget” their promises. Our guests look on in horror. Then the ruse is revealed. A simple civil service follows. We exchange vows that we have written ourselves. Glasses of Yoo-hoo are poured, a toast is made, and the bottle of chocolate drink is broken with a cry of “Mazel tov!” Rickshaws take our friends to a nearby bowling alley, where they are immediately outfitted with rental shoes and given the happy news that they can bowl as much as they like for free. Professional bowler Nelson Burton Jr. has been retained for the day to give lessons in bowling and the mambo. Q and I make a grand entrance as a klezmer band plays the Outback Steakhouse theme song, my favorite. We have our first dance to John Parr’s “Naughty Naughty.” People bowl and shoot pool. They play darts and video games, and eat popcorn and miniature hot dogs. For a few hours, our friends forget that they are adults. They stay long into the night, drunk on Miller Lite and chocolate cake, and sit Indian-style on the lanes telling stories about Q and me, many of which we have never heard about each other before, including the surprising fact that Q had a poster of Brian Austin Green over her bed until she was twenty-four. It is a magical evening.
I nevertheless raise no objection to the wedding plans because I am on tenuous ground with John Deveril. I believe he thinks Q could do better. No one ever says this, of course. Q certainly does not. But I believe it all the same. This is confirmed for me, shortly before my older self’s arrival.
One day John and I are left alone in the bar of the Red Lion Inn. Q and her mother are meeting in a conference room with Mr. Cheuk Soo, the florist, or “floral engineer,” as he calls himself. It is at least the sixth such meeting. Each is a mind-numbing exegesis on color, aroma, and feng shui. Mr. Soo seems to have an opinion about everything. Somehow he has become passionately committed to the