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.He’d been having these flashes all day, being with her in the car, and he’d finally had to touch her, if only to brush the back of her neck.Michael stopped in the hallway.He had to get a grip on himself.He was not some breathless schoolboy who’d been kissed for the first time.But it was very difficult being so near to her and not being able to touch her.If he could just keep his mind off the night before—the sound of her moaning as he’d kissed the side of her neck when he was on top of her flooded his mind.A small smile came over him as he opened the door to the restaurant.It was—good—needing something like that again.He exhaled and walked back outside.He glanced at Tony’s face in the car, and wiped the smile off his face.“Got to stretch my legs,” he called over to the car.It was even hotter than he’d thought.He walked over to the restaurant’s deck, overlooking the beach, and leaned down.It smelled of salt water, with a tang of dying shellfish and the perfumed smell of suntan lotion.He could feel his shirt begin to stick to him under the jacket.Tony came up next to him and leaned over in silence.They watched people sunning themselves on towels, walking up and down, splashing in the water.In the corner, a volleyball game was in hot play.“You think I should get married?” Tony’s voice breezed by.Michael stared over to him.“What made you think of that?”“I dunno.Maybe being around Michigan these past few days.It ain’t easy, meetin’ women, you know?”“Yeah.Who you thinking of marrying? Angela?”“Naw, she ain’t right.… I dunno, someone don’t want to talk too much.”Michael turned around and stared at the building, leaning his elbows on the rail.The stretch across his chest felt good.“Maybe you should write to one of the agencies, you know, sends women over from Sicily.…”He grunted and stared over at Michael.“I don’t mean can’t talk, fahcrissake.I mean someone don’t wanna talk.”“They can talk, Tony, just not in English.”“Naw, I get enough of that shit from my grandmother.”Michael shrugged and straightened up.He looked over at Tony, who was leaning on the rail and frowning, as he rubbed his clasped hands together.“Tony, what about getting me off the hook?”“What?”“What I asked you in Forlini’s last night.Getting me off the hook with Solly?”Tony shook his head.“Solly ain’t so happy right now, Mikey.You saw him last night.Look, you do this guy for Aunt Rosa and maybe we can do something—”“No.Don’t you understand? I don’t want to make my bones, Jesus!”“You don’t gotta raise your voice, here.Look, it ain’t so bad.Solly takes good care of you.Look at what I got.I got a nice car, got good clothes, I got money.” His voice stopped as Lisa came out of the restaurant.They both watched her in silence.“So what do you think about me gettin’ married?”* * *A ten-tier lilac-colored wedding cake festooned with gardenias sat on a white linen table fifteen feet long.Twenty thousand white and rare silver-purple roses had been entwined into a thick garland, which hung around a long tent made of yards and yards of the same shade of lilac silk.The tent wrapped around three sides of the huge garden, enclosing the wedding area, overlooking the beach.Folding chairs, cushioned with satin lilac pillows, were lined into thirty rows of ten on each side of a center aisle.A lilac silk carpet, specially woven in China for the occasion, ran the distance of the aisle.Another gracefully draped garland of gardenias ran up the aisle of seats along the inside and outside, creating pews.An altar of lilac-colored marble had been erected at the head of the aisle.This, too, was covered with lilac-shaded flowers, sitting in silver pots.Women in couture gowns of silk and linen, protected from the rays of the afternoon sun by elaborately designed hats, stood poised, talking to men in hand-tailored tuxedos and sipping Dom Pérignon from crystal champagne flutes.Others daintily bit at small toasts of beluga caviar or morsels of Maine lobster covered with dollops of dilled hollandaise.The music of Vivaldi, from a pared-down Boston Symphony, played out of sight behind the tent.The guests were a match for the exquisite decor, not a hair out of place, not a paunch of a belly, nor a thigh spreading from having to sit at a desk day in and day out.These were the tight-muscled, perfectly sculpted bodies of the idle rich.And then there was Henry.Ashen and rumpled in his gray tux, Henry sat slumped over in a chair, guzzling from a champagne flute.He finished off the glass and dropped it under the chair, at the same time picking up the other glass he’d deposited there.He knew these events.If you didn’t follow one of the waiters around, you never got a drink.His eyes didn’t meet any of the people.He was going to be bored to death until the reception.Ushers began walking people over to their designated seats as the orchestra finished “Spring” and began tuning up for Pachelbel, which was going to be the wedding march.Around the other side of the building, in the pool cabana, Morris sat, doling out packets of coke to most of the groom’s ushers.He hadn’t even seen the garden.He’d made two thousand dollars in thirty minutes.The ushers shuffled impatiently around him as the lookout announced that the wedding-march music was beginning, and Morris began to work double time.The room soon cleared out quickly and Morris, wobbly from lack of sleep, walked out and around to the wedding area.Henry’s mother and sister were led over to their seats, next to Henry.His mother had red hair these days, he noted, and she was wearing a deep green sequined sheath over her skeletal body.Her eyes had that startled look to them, and Henry knew she’d had another face-lift.In fact, since the new face-lift, Tiffany looked more like her sister than her daughter.Tiffany, Henry’s sister, was now a blonde.Her nose was short and sharp, the result of an early nose job, and her body seemed to have changed drastically from the last time he’d seen her.She was now as skeletal as her mother.He’d heard a rumor that she’d had all kinds of tucks and pulls and nips right after her thirtieth birthday, and now that seemed to be confirmed.She was wearing a very short skirt, gathered at the bottom and pouffed out almost like a tutu.She looked like a floral bonbon.He glared at them, but they did their best to ignore him.He finished the second glass of champagne and dropped the glass.“For God’s sake, can’t you just once not get loaded at one of these things?” his sister whispered, and pulled her pouffed gown as far away from him as possible.“Give me a fucking break,” Henry said aloud, which made an old woman in front of him turn around and glare.“Lower your voice,” Tiffany snapped.“Why? You weren’t barred from Mother’s house; you didn’t have to pay for a cab to bring you out here—”“That’s right [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]