smile, she saw at oncethat she’d been mistaken: he was shorter. They must look utterly ridiculous together every time she wore high-heeled shoes, and other people must always have known it.
“Well, it’s not really all that bad, dear,” Curtis told her. “We’re close enough. You can still say we’re the same height, if that’s how you’d like it to be.”
Sitting straight and alert in the taxicab that took her away from the train, Gloria tried to see all she could of the subtle community sweeping past on either side. She knew she couldn’t expect to see very much, because one important characteristic of the people here was their disdain for ostentation of any kind; still, there were a few quick, small rewards for her curiosity. Once she saw a blue-white pebble driveway, uncommonly clean and wide between two elegant stone pillars, but it vanished in a blur of hedges before she could even hope for a glimpse of the house it led up to; another time there was a sign reading Cold Spring Harbor Historical Society, and that was satisfying in itself.
The chapel was smaller than she’d imagined, but that didn’t matter because there weren’t very many wedding guests; everything, apparently, had been planned on a small and dignified scale. Charles Shepard sat only a few feet away, in a front-row pew across the aisle from her own, but she guessed he hadn’t seen her come in. She guessed too that the thin, high-shouldered woman beside him was his wife.
Then an electric organ began to emit various slow, unsteady sounds. She supposed she should have known that Curtis Drake would want to “give the bride away,” but it came as a little shock, even so, to see the two of them make their solemn way toward the altar. They were both too small even for small-scale pageantry, and their two embarrassed faces looked exactly alike.
Gloria had a cigarette in her lips and was ready to strike the match before she remembered you weren’t supposed to smoke in church, which seemed a cruel deprivation. How long did these things generally last?
But soon enough she found herself smiling fixedly in the back seat of a car packed with strangers, heading for the Shepards’ reception, and that meant the day might still be saved.
All her life, from the time she was eight or nine years old, Gloria had relied on a neat, nearly automatic little trick of her mind for adjusting to minor disappointments. When you opened the bright wrappings of some meager or poorly chosen gift, you simply let your mind tell you it was just what you wanted; that way you could always make the right response, and you could even believe it.
“Oh, isn’t this nice,” she said in the instant of her first, sharply disappointing look at the Shepards’ house—small, ordinary, all made of brown-painted wood and too-closely flanked on both sides by bigger, better houses—and then she said it again, while getting out of the car, to make it true. “Isn’t this a nice house.”
Now there would be a party, and Charles Shepard might open his arms to greet her with a decorous kiss on the cheek.
But there weren’t enough people in this place to make a reception. Except for a laughing cluster of guests around the bride and groom, near the liquor table, there was hardly anybody here at all—and Charles couldn’t have opened his arms for her even if he’d meant to, because he was carrying a drink in each hand as he approached her across the empty floor.
“I’m afraid my wife won’t be able to join us,” he said. “She hasn’t been feeling well; she’s resting now, upstairs.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry,” Gloria said. “Was she the lady sitting with you in the church? In the chapel?”
“No, that was my sister. She lives over in Riverhead. Curious: it’s not really very far away, but this was the first time we’d seen each other in years.”
“Has your family all come from around here, then? For generations?”
“Well, ‘generations’ makes it sound
“Well, it’s not really all that bad, dear,” Curtis told her. “We’re close enough. You can still say we’re the same height, if that’s how you’d like it to be.”
Sitting straight and alert in the taxicab that took her away from the train, Gloria tried to see all she could of the subtle community sweeping past on either side. She knew she couldn’t expect to see very much, because one important characteristic of the people here was their disdain for ostentation of any kind; still, there were a few quick, small rewards for her curiosity. Once she saw a blue-white pebble driveway, uncommonly clean and wide between two elegant stone pillars, but it vanished in a blur of hedges before she could even hope for a glimpse of the house it led up to; another time there was a sign reading Cold Spring Harbor Historical Society, and that was satisfying in itself.
The chapel was smaller than she’d imagined, but that didn’t matter because there weren’t very many wedding guests; everything, apparently, had been planned on a small and dignified scale. Charles Shepard sat only a few feet away, in a front-row pew across the aisle from her own, but she guessed he hadn’t seen her come in. She guessed too that the thin, high-shouldered woman beside him was his wife.
Then an electric organ began to emit various slow, unsteady sounds. She supposed she should have known that Curtis Drake would want to “give the bride away,” but it came as a little shock, even so, to see the two of them make their solemn way toward the altar. They were both too small even for small-scale pageantry, and their two embarrassed faces looked exactly alike.
Gloria had a cigarette in her lips and was ready to strike the match before she remembered you weren’t supposed to smoke in church, which seemed a cruel deprivation. How long did these things generally last?
But soon enough she found herself smiling fixedly in the back seat of a car packed with strangers, heading for the Shepards’ reception, and that meant the day might still be saved.
All her life, from the time she was eight or nine years old, Gloria had relied on a neat, nearly automatic little trick of her mind for adjusting to minor disappointments. When you opened the bright wrappings of some meager or poorly chosen gift, you simply let your mind tell you it was just what you wanted; that way you could always make the right response, and you could even believe it.
“Oh, isn’t this nice,” she said in the instant of her first, sharply disappointing look at the Shepards’ house—small, ordinary, all made of brown-painted wood and too-closely flanked on both sides by bigger, better houses—and then she said it again, while getting out of the car, to make it true. “Isn’t this a nice house.”
Now there would be a party, and Charles Shepard might open his arms to greet her with a decorous kiss on the cheek.
But there weren’t enough people in this place to make a reception. Except for a laughing cluster of guests around the bride and groom, near the liquor table, there was hardly anybody here at all—and Charles couldn’t have opened his arms for her even if he’d meant to, because he was carrying a drink in each hand as he approached her across the empty floor.
“I’m afraid my wife won’t be able to join us,” he said. “She hasn’t been feeling well; she’s resting now, upstairs.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry,” Gloria said. “Was she the lady sitting with you in the church? In the chapel?”
“No, that was my sister. She lives over in Riverhead. Curious: it’s not really very far away, but this was the first time we’d seen each other in years.”
“Has your family all come from around here, then? For generations?”
“Well, ‘generations’ makes it sound
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