Page 10 of Hell Bent

Bob stared at me. “Thought you were smart. It’s the NFL, Robillard, not soccer. Serious money on the line, and no time to fuck around. They want you up there yesterday. Well, Monday morning. See Aaron, and get your ass up to Portland.”

“Right,” I said, and stood.

“Good luck,” Bob said. “Do good up there.” And, to my surprise, stood and shook my hand.

“Thanks,” I said. “This is suddenly warm of you. Odd.”

“You kidding?” Bob said. “If you crash and burn, I look bad for picking you up in the first place. Go kick some field goals and prove me right.”

I saluted, and at last, he smiled. “Good kicker can last past thirty-five,” he said. “Forty, even, if he takes care of himself. I’ll see you around. But when you’re playing us, I’ll hope you miss.”

Alix

I stepped out of the limo onto the sidewalk in front of the church and looked up at the creamy building, its Baroque towers and dome so ornamented, it looked like an actual wedding cake. A flight of stairs rose before me, and I asked my grandmother, who was being helped out of the car by my dad, “Do you want me to take you in the back way, so you don’t have to do the stairs?”

“No,” she said. “I think I’d better come with you and your father, don’t you?”

“You’re sitting down in front, Marguerite,” my father said.

“I retain the use of my faculties,” she said. “I know where I’m sitting. I’ll go in with you.”

I shivered. It wasn’t the gorgeous, impossibly bright winter’s day my mother had hoped for, but one of those glowering, gloomy gray ones, where the air feels colder than it should because there’s so much moisture in it. I wrapped the cape around me more tightly, as if it would help—it wasn’t warm, and it wasn’t the feathery one I’d liked, but it was slightly more helpful than nothing—offered my grandmother my arm andhitched up my skirts with the other hand, and walked slowly up the shallow steps with her and my dad, feeling once again like this was happening to somebody else. My dad opened the heavy wooden door, and the swell of organ music I’d heard from the street was suddenly all around me. In my head. In my bones.

The wedding coordinator, Emily, led us to an anteroom, looking extremely relieved. We were late, I guess. White flowers stretched out in all their perfection on a table—my colors were white and white, either classy or another failure of imagination—and I looked at the stack of programs, the text engraved on heavy linen cardstock, and then at my bridesmaids. Five of them, exclaiming at the sight of me. Ned’s sister Ali said, “You look beautiful. Like a princess. See what I did there?” and laughed, and I tried to smile. All of it—the overloud organ music, the suffocatingly sweet smell of Asiatic lilies, the overheated little room with too many bodies in it, my bridesmaids giving off those overly enthusiastic “Oh-My-Gawd”sorority-girl vibes—seemed to be pressing into me. Emily, the wedding coordinator, was taking off my cape and hanging it up, then fussing over the drape of my gown, and I was having a hard time breathing.

I said, “Sit here at the table, Oma, if you don’t want to go sit in front yet.” There was only one chair, or I’d have sat with her. Suddenly, all I wanted was to be at the little house in the hills with her, sweeping her patio, then going inside for tea.

My grandmother didn’t sit down. Not yet, anyway. Instead, she told my father, “Niles, please take the ladies into the entryway for a minute.”

Emily said, “We’re very close on time.”

My grandmother stared at her impassively. “Please take the ladies into the entryway. Niles, give us a minute.”

There’s no authority like the authority of a very old princess, because Emily’s face changed. “Of course,” she said. “Two minutes, and I’ll come check with you.”

My grandmother didn’t answer her. Instead, she watched everybody leave, sank into the chair, her back as straight as always, and said, “Now. What are you feeling?”

“Nauseated,” I answered honestly.

“Better or worse than the hotel?” she asked.

“Worse.”

“You know,” she said, “weddings can be expensive. This wedding, in particular.”

“I know,” I said. “Don’t you think I know? I get it. I’m getting with the program. Iamwith the program. I’m ready to go.”

“Do you know what’s even more expensive?” she asked.

“What?”

“Divorce.” She gazed at me, her hooded blue eyes level. “There’s a word for it, isn’t there? Something your mother used, back when she was going to college for all that finance education. About money that’s gone, so you shouldn’t base your decisions on it.”

“Sunk cost,” I said. “That’s the term.”

“That’s it. I always liked that idea. Sunk cost. It’s not just about money. It’s about thinking you can’t stop doing something because you’ve worked on it so long and so hard. Trying to persuade yourself that this is what you want, because otherwise, you’ll have to admit it isn’t working for you and start over. Tell me, what are you worried about? Is it just the marriage, or …”

I said, “It’s cold feet. I know it is.”