The Venue Read online

  Amy glanced at Mariko whose own face had wrinkled up in a WTF??? expression.

  “I will be with you, by your side, through ecstasy and agony,” Lilith said, her voice now so passionate and forceful that she seemed to be shouting her words. “Fighting with you. Conquering with you. Overcoming all obstacles with you. Until death do us part.”

  The chapel sat in an uncomfortable silence for a second or two before Father Dave said, “Uh, thank you, Lilith. And now Caleb’s vows.”

  Caleb cleared his throat. “I, Caleb, choose you, Lilith, to be my wife. From now until eternity.”

  Amy could hear his voice break as he spoke.

  “Throughout my childhood, I always felt alone. I’d make friends, and they’d abandon me. I’d try to find lovers, and they’d reject me. I’d try to make connections with colleagues and coworkers, and they would shun me.”

  The benches in the room creaked as people shifted their weight. Amy herself had to look down for a moment. But after a breath, she forced her eyes back up. I never abandoned him, she thought. I never shunned him or rejected him. I was his best friend and I dragged my whole family to support him at his weird-ass wedding.

  With that in mind, she sat up even straighter and looked directly in Caleb’s direction. But his gaze didn’t seem to register that there was an audience. He was locked in on Lilith, still hidden behind her veil.

  “I thought I could reinvent myself in college,” he continued. “But it was more of the same. Rejection. Isolation. Depression.”

  The room stayed silent.

  “I was told that money was the answer. When I looked around at the guys who had girls, I saw that they drove fancy cars. They wore nice clothes. They radiated success and people were drawn to them for it. And so, I went into finance. And investing. I poured myself into my work in the vain hope that I would finally be seen.

  “But it was more of the same. I had never been lonelier. Conversation didn’t come easy, especially with girls. True connections weren’t meant for people like me. Finally, I’d had enough. I was determined to be seen. Seen by everyone who ignored me. Who walked all over me. Seen by the people who didn’t even know I existed.

  “And so, I bought a forty-four Magnum. I carried it down into the building’s lobby. I was going to shoot myself. I planned to do it by the elevators, at 7:55 a.m. so that everyone who came to work that morning, carrying their coffee and talking to their friends, would know. The elevators would be roped off as a crime scene. All my ‘friends’ would have to take the stairs. One final inconvenience for everyone whom I had inconvenienced my whole life.”

  Amy found her mouth hanging open. She slowly closed it, fearing that the slight click of her teeth coming together might be deafening in this silent chapel.

  Mariko whispered in her ear, “Is this for real?”

  “I… I don’t know,” she managed to stammer out.

  “I stood there,” Caleb continued. “I reached into my briefcase. I pulled out my gun. As I was about to bring it to my head, it… something happened… a miracle happened. An angel reached down from Heaven and grasped my hand. I couldn’t raise it. I couldn’t complete my task. She pushed the gun back down into my briefcase. I stood there, stunned. I looked into the angel’s face. Her eyes burning with the brightness of a sun. Of the sun. The sun whose warmth I had not basked in since I was a child.

  “I had seen the angel’s face before. Every day, in fact. The face of an intern. An intern who always arrived early, who always stayed late, who rarely spoke and yet always seemed to be watching and seeing everything. I had passed this intern many times. We had said hello to each other as strangers do in the elevator. But I had never seen her, truly seen her and her love and her beauty and her fire until that very day. She shattered the darkness that had swallowed me and filled my life with a light so bright that I see nothing but her, now and forever.”

  Caleb reached out and grasped Lilith’s hand.

  Amy could see Lilith’s lips stretch into a thin smile beneath her veil. The faint, stoic grin of the bride felt disproportionate to the outpouring of emotion from Caleb.

  “The angel opened her mouth and spoke to me,” Caleb continued. “She communicated not just in words but in emotions. Her eyes told a thousand stories of love and longing. She made me realize that I had more to live for. More to accomplish. More of a mark to leave upon the world. There was a plan for me. For us.

  “Lilith, that angel was you. We left the building right then. We went back to my home. And then we made love. True love. I had been with women before. Mostly women, I’m ashamed to admit, I had to pay for. But I had never been one with someone else. Until that day.”

  Caleb’s voice cracked. His throat seemed to twist up from the emotion. Amy could see the tears rolling from his eyes and on down his cheeks. He made no motion to wipe them away.

  “Lilith, I promise to be one with you forever,” Caleb said as he regained some composure. “Everything in my life has led me to this moment. This is my redemption. I promise to love you forever. I promise to cherish you forever. I promise to defend you, to fight for you, to bleed with you. Until death do us part.”

  Despite his voice building to that triumphant conclusion, none of the assembled guests cried. None of them clapped. The closest thing to a reaction was a drunken hiccup that Amy thought came from the vicinity of Caleb’s parents.

  At the altar, Father Dave — seemingly lost for words — stared at the young couple before him. He shifted his weight and blinked, looking unsure of what role he actually had in this bizarre ceremony. Caleb and Lilith looked at him.

  “By the, uh, power vested in me, I, uh, now pronounce you husband and wife,” Father Dave said. “You may, uh, kiss the—”

  Before he could even finish the sentence, Caleb lifted Lilith’s veil, grabbed her face and pulled her mouth toward his. Even from her seat near the back of the chapel, Amy could see their tongues spring out of their mouths and slosh around on each other like two wrestling sea lions.

  At least it’s passionate, Amy thought. That’s for damn sure.

  The other guests seemed to realized that the silence had gone on a bit too long. Someone, somewhere, started clapping. Everyone else joined in. But in a few seconds, the applause faded away again.

  “The, uh, the bride and groom would like to invite everyone to the ballroom for the reception,” Father Dave flatly announced.

  It didn’t seem that anyone actually heard him.

  They were all glued to the sight of Caleb and Lilith groping each other amidst their wedding kiss.

  CHAPTER 8

  Being in the back row of the chapel meant that Amy and her family were the first out the door, after the exuberant bride and groom, of course.

  Amy stepped out of that dark room and into the well-lit foyer, her eyes blurring a bit from the sudden change in light.

  She stopped for a moment.

  All the staff — dozens of them clad in their crimson vests — lined either side of the chapel door, forming a pathway across the foyer to the ballroom on the far side. Large smiles stretched across their faces as, like a rowing crew, they waved their arms in a synchronized motion to guide the guests along the path.

  As Amy led her family, she occasionally made eye-contact with the staff. They looked right back at her, that smile constantly plastered on their faces. Unnerved by the intensity of the eye-contact, Amy found her gaze drifting toward her feet as her heels clacked on the polished stone floor.

  The manager from the front desk stood at the ballroom door.

  “May I see your guest bracelet, please?” he said to Amy and her group. One by one, they held out their wrists and presented their bracelets. The manager waved some sort of sensor wand over the devices.

  The wand dinged and flashed a green light.

  “Welcome Holgate Family and Ms. Yamazaki,” the manager said. “You are all seated at Table Ten.”

  With a flamboyant tug, one of the bellhops swung open the wooden door.
<
br />   Amy stepped into the ballroom.

  She had to orient herself at first. The chapel had been relatively tight and confined, as had their rooms and all the connecting hallways. The ballroom, meanwhile, was massive. Its open, exposed-beam ceiling was so tall that a layer of haze seemed to drift around it. Bright string-lights crisscrossed above the seating area, casting their light down on the elegant red, black, and white linens.

  A string quartet sat on a stage at the far end of the ballroom, merrily playing sprightly classical music. A DJ stood to the side. He bellowed into a microphone, “Welcome to the par-tay, folks! The bar is open! Don’t forget to swing by the photobooth.”

  Amy led the way to Table Ten, situated in the dead-center of the room. They found their place cards, although Amy had some difficulty actually reading her name through all the ornate, looping, hand-drawn calligraphy.

  As she sat, her eyes were drawn to the side of the room they entered through. A metal, spiral staircase ascended to a small balcony that overlooked everything. Beneath the balcony was a bar, seemingly built into the wall and connected to a kitchen beyond. But she barely registered it because she couldn’t help but stare at the wall itself which was decorated, floor-to-ceiling, in all manner of medieval weaponry.

  The light from the room reflected off the blades of the arsenal. Despite their ancient design of wooden handles wrapped in leather, many of the weapons looked new. And deadly.

  The sheer variety impressed Amy. She didn’t know the names of all the weapons. There was a crossbow, of course. A battle axe that looked too heavy for her to lift. There was that spikey ball thingy. Is that a mace? Amy wondered. Or was the mace the spikey chain thingy? And what was the difference between a lance and a spear? Or a rapier and a saber?

  “Well, that ain’t gonna pass through TSA,” Roger said, one seat over.

  Amy looked. Her father had opened the little box that waited at each guest’s seat. The wedding favor. He pulled out a metal throwing star. He tested its edge but quickly withdrew his finger at the sharpness. It was real. As he held it up, Amy could see the engraving:

  “Make Memories — C & L”

  “Did we all get one?” Candice asked, although by the time she finished the question, she had already opened her own box and revealed that, yes, she too received a throwing star.

  “Come on now,” Mariko said, a note of feigned disgust on her voice. “You can’t mix ninja throwing stars with a medieval European theme. Pick a lane, people.”

  Amy laughed. But it was a forced laugh. She was now busy examining the centerpiece — a framed portrait of Caleb, probably when he was fourteen or so. Early high school. His slicked hair and collared shirt framed a face that scowled back at the camera. The flowers of the centerpiece wrapped around the frame, making it look almost like a memorial. A handwritten inscription was scrawled across the photo. “Thank you for making me who I am.”

  CHAPTER 9

  To Amy’s surprise, she actually enjoyed the reception. Maybe it was because whenever her back was turned, a waiter swooped in and topped off her glass. She had long ago passed the tipsy stage of the night and had entered the stage where she knew she would have regrets the next morning — just not enough regrets to do something silly, like promise to quit drinking.

  The string quartet had transitioned from classical music to classical renditions of pop songs, forming a fun background noise. Amy would forget the quartet was even there until she would catch the familiar hook of Celebration or Love Shack.

  Classic wedding songs, indeed.

  As for the company and conversation, the other guests were fine. With a few exceptions.

  Seated at their table was a middle-aged alpha dog of a man who insisted on being called “Big O.” Amy gathered that his last name was “Ortiz.” His wife was much nicer, much prettier, and much younger.

  At one point, Big O jokingly threatened to leap across the table and punch Amy’s dad in the face for mistakenly confusing the Pittsburg Steelers with the Philadelphia Eagles (Amy still didn’t know which team Big O rooted for; she just knew not to confuse them).

  Big O was Caleb’s boss at one of the first companies Caleb worked for out of college. Amy met a few people from those early jobs. They were mostly frat boys turned stock traders. The kind of people who were accustomed to this level of luxury (or at least pretended to be). They seemed downright entitled to it.

  She struggled to imagine Caleb working alongside these men, all of whom brought trophy wives and girlfriends to the wedding. They flaunted their money as easily as they flaunted their willingness to use the c-word. I’m just kidding! Lighten up, Big O would say when Amy or Mariko shot him a glare.

  Lilith’s side of the reception, meanwhile, appeared to all be middle class, or even lower-middle class. They seemed quiet. Somber. As if the weight of money troubles had slowly squeezed out their joy in life. Whenever Amy briefly chatted with one of them in the line for the photobooth or while walking to the bathroom, she found them to be pleasant but humorless.

  It struck Amy that she didn’t see anyone escort Lilith down the aisle. No father or father-figure. She wondered if Lilith still had parents. Or maybe she wasn’t on good terms with them.

  At some point, a waiter set a plate in front of Amy. Steak so rare that the pink juices had already pooled out to the edges where the plate curved upward. She picked up the knife, noticing how heavy it was. The knife might have looked expensive, but as she slid its serrated blade across the meat, it caught.

  She held up the knife to inspect it.

  Dull and rusty.

  Also seated at the table was Mrs. Crawford, Amy and Caleb’s third grade teacher. The woman must have been in her late 60s, yet she looked very much like Amy remembered — a gray beehive of hair and thick glasses draped with a homemade, beaded lanyard.

  Mrs. Crawford had recognized Amy instantly (she seemed to have a photographic memory of every student she ever taught) and made a comment that she was surprised it wasn’t Amy with Caleb up at the altar.

  During dinner, when Mariko prodded her to talk more about Little Amy, Mrs. Crawford launched into the story of how Amy and Caleb danced a tango in front of the entire school for the third grade talent show.

  “The tango? You?” Mariko exclaimed.

  “I’ve always been into dancing.”

  “Did you even know what you were doing?”

  “Sure. I whipped my head around, looked all sexy, and passed a rose from my mouth to Caleb’s while our entire class laughed at us.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It ain’t a tango if it doesn’t leave emotional scars.”

  “Whose idea was this?” Mariko asked.

  “It was mine and it was adorable,” Mrs. Crawford said. “And I swear, the other teachers and I, we never thought we’d see Caleb grow out of his shell like that. He was a silent child. Obviously very smart but he would never raise his hand. He’d freeze up if you asked him a question. The other teachers thought he was a lost cause. One of those kids who would slip through the cracks if you let him. That’s where smart kids go to vanish. But I said, ‘Amy Holgate is special and this boy is in love with her. He would do anything for her, including opening up.’”

  “That’s why you made us do that?”

  “Oh, yes. He didn’t want to, but I made him. We had a pool going in the teachers’ lounge on whether I could get Caleb on stage. I won a hundred-dollar Macy’s gift card.”

  “And?” Mariko asked. “How did it go for Caleb?”

  “Horrible,” Amy said.

  “Sure, some kids laughed,” Mrs. Crawford said. “There will always be a few knuckleheads.”

  “All kids laughed.”

  “But look where he’s at now,” Mrs. Crawford said while leaning back in her seat and motioning around the cavernous lodge. “Need I say more?”

  “He burned the VHS copies of that tango. He never talked about it again.”

  “Well, that’s the way you handle introverts. You need to
shock their systems. That’s how they realize that when the other kids laugh at them, it’s not the end of the world.”

  There wasn’t much more Amy could say to that.

  “Are you done, ma’am?” a waiter asked, motioning toward Amy’s plate.

  “Yes, please.” Amy glanced toward the large chunk of raw beef that remained. The waiter removed the steak knife from Amy’s plate, polished it with a napkin, and then set it back on Amy’s place-setting. Only then did he take the bloody steak away.

  Amy looked around. Most of the plates around the ballroom had been cleared. But the knives remained.

  “Caleb Hunt, the big ol’ cunt!” Big O suddenly exclaimed as he rose from the table.

  Amy grimaced at the word but managed to force a smile.

  Caleb and Lilith, doing their rounds of welcoming and thanking all their guests, had finally made their way to Table Ten. Everyone, Amy included, stood to greet the bride and groom.

  Big O intercepted them first, giving Caleb a bone-crushing handshake while slapping him on the back so hard that it might have dislodged a molar.

  “It’s our little nickname. Hunt the Cunt here loves it,” Big O said to Lilith with a hearty laugh. “It’s okay, I can use that word, ‘cause I got a wife.”

  Amy could see Caleb’s jaw clench slightly beneath his smile.

  Lilith went over and gave Big O a warm hug.

  “I’m so glad you could make it, Big O,” Lilith said sweetly. “Caleb talks fondly about his time at Hartworth & Company. It was the job he had right before I met him. You set the stage for what he would become.”

  “I hope he hasn’t told you too much. That’s proprietary information. If he’s giving out trade secrets, then—” Big O mimed swinging a punch right at Caleb’s face. “Wham! My reflexes just gonna kick in. Can’t be held responsible for what I might do.”