Festival Village, when the groom wore a kilt.”
“Oh, so that’s when she didn’t care what anybody thought-”
Justine laughed. “No, that would be the
“Ah. Was that a Caribbean cruise?”
“The Ocracoke ferry,” said Bekasu. “Which was just as well, all things considered, since it wasn’t legally binding.”
“Oh, just you wait,” said Justine. “Old Sonny will clean up his act one of these days. This Speedway wedding looks like fun, though. I just wish they were having it at Darlington instead of here. Remember Toby Jankin? My escort for cotillion?”
Bekasu shuddered. “The one who wore Converse hi-tops and white socks with his tux?”
“I knew you’d remember! Well, Toby’s a doctor in Florence, South Carolina, now, which is only about ten miles from Darlington. I’m hoping to get to see him when we get there. I’ll bet he’d just love to get married at the track.”
“I wonder what he’d wear,” muttered Bekasu.
The brides presented the greatest range of costumes in the crowd. In defiance of the sweltering heat, some determined women wore traditional satin wedding dresses, complete with long sleeves, high lace collars, and trailing net bridal veils. Their bouquets of daisies and Sharpie marker pens (courtesy of the management) were already wilting in the relentless August sun. Others were making Dolly-Parton-is-my-bridesmaid statements in full- skirted square dance outfits and stiletto heels, or sporting the faux-western attire of fringe and turquoise once popularized by Dale Evans and now employed by country singers who want people to think that Alabama borders New Mexico. The smallest group of brides, in complete denial of their surroundings, wore rosebud corsages and pastel business suits appropriate for a ceremony at the registrar’s office. The youngest and most slender brides had joined in the spirit of the raceway festivities, dressing in sync with their intended husbands: NASCAR firesuits; motorcycle chic; or black jeans, black tee shirts, and silver-studded cowboy boots. Sometimes it was hard to tell man from wife.
“I wonder if you could predict the length of the marriage from the wedding clothes?” mused Bekasu.
“I never could,” said Bill Knight. He sighed, thinking perhaps of twenty-thousand-dollar church-and-country-club spectacles that came to naught. At least these couples would have a race to remember some day, even if they’d rather forget the ceremony that preceded it.
Near the wedding trellis, one of the black-garbed grooms was stamping his cowboy boot on the asphalt and refusing to listen to reason.
“But, Shane,” Karen Soon-to-be-McKee’s eyes welled up. If Shane kept carrying on, she thought, her tears would spill over her mascara and make her cheeks look like a car that had been passed on the last lap by Dale Earnhardt-black streaks all the way down the sides.
“He was supposed to be here. Everybody said so. I was counting on it.”
“I know, but this will be just as nice, won’t it? I mean, it’s not like it would be
“In the pictures it would be. In the pictures.” Shane looked dangerously close to tears himself. “Who remembers their wedding? It’s the pictures that are real.”
For the twentieth time, Karen scanned the crowd, hoping to catch sight of a man in sunglasses, white Goodwrench coveralls, and a black-and-red cap. Or even for somebody who had the right height and body type who could be persuaded to don a hat and dark glasses for the occasion. She was hoping for a miracle, and wondering what would constitute one. Kerry Earnhardt, maybe. Everybody said he was the spitting image of his dad, but he wasn’t driving in the Winston Cup series this year.
She put her hand on her bridegroom’s arm and tried for a compromise. “Shane, wouldn’t it be better to have a real, live NASCAR driver act as best man, instead of some guy in a costume? Look, there’s Jerry Nadeau right over there. He seems really nice and all. Said he’d be best man or whatever if anybody wanted him to. And then you could have a real NASCAR driver in the wedding pictures.”
Shane sneered. “Dude’s from
“Yeah, but he lives in Mooresville now. Just like Dale did.”
“Well, no. But he’s really
“Huh. As often as Nadeau wrecks, it’d probably be bad luck to have him stand up for people getting married.”
Karen sighed. “You’re just making excuses, Shane. He seems like a great guy. I can go ask him. That is, if you promise to be nice to him.”
“Whaddaya mean, be nice to him?”
“Well, you know. In the ’99 race here at Bristol, when they gave Jerry Nadeau that two-lap penalty for spinning out Dale Jarrett when he didn’t even mean to, and then on the last lap of the same race Dale spun out poor Terry Labonte and won the race, and NASCAR acted like nothing had happened. And you said that Earnhardt ought to be able to do anything he wanted just because he was Earnhardt. You just better not throw that up in poor Mr. Nadeau’s face and make him feel bad, that’s all, Shane.”
Shane weakened for a moment, glancing over at Jerry Nadeau who was smiling and chatting with an assortment of bridal couples, then his mulish frown returned, and he said, “No. I don’t want anybody, then. Just an empty space. Dale can be beside me in spirit.”
Karen nodded. “Yeah, hon. I’m sure he will be.”
She scanned the crowd again, this time hoping for a glimpse of people she actually knew, but no one had turned up yet. She had left her mother and the Wiccan Friends of the Goddess contingent sleeping late in their tents back at the campground. They hadn’t been able to find other accommodations, because on race weekend every motel for fifty miles around is booked solid months in advance, so they had spent an uncomfortable night in close quarters with sleeping bags, Mrs. Tickle’s homemade wine, and multi-generational girl talk, to which Karen had contributed very little. Somehow, there didn’t seem to be much you could say to a bunch of women who averaged 2.2 husbands apiece when you hadn’t even managed to bag one yet officially, and she certainly didn’t want to hear any advice from them on the subject of marriage. There was something deeply depressing about being lectured on grounds for divorce and alimony strategies the night before you were going to stand up and vow “ ’til death do you part.”
She wondered what they were going to wear to the wedding. Quite ordinary clothes, probably. Most of the Friends had nice jobs as librarians or professors or realtors, and they tended to clean up pretty well when they wanted to, so she doubted whether the rayon robes with sequin-and-glitter constellations would figure into their wardrobes for the ceremony. Of course, if they did wear them, she didn’t suppose it would matter, what with all the square-dance outfits and racing gear in evidence. As long as they didn’t come sky-clad.
Karen thought she herself looked within hailing distance of normal, anyhow. She had steadfastly refused Shane’s urging to wear the feminine version of the Dale man-in-black outfit, and instead had opted for a more traditional look, although not the white satin gown she’d yearned for. Even she had to admit that the Barbie bridal dress would be ludicrous in the center of a racetrack when the other half of the wedding party was dressed in boots and jeans. In the spirit of compromise that she felt should accompany any venture into marriage, she’d accepted the help of the Friends of the Goddess seamstresses, who had found a bolt of white washable silk at JoAnn Fabrics and fashioned her a Greek tunic with handkerchief hems and a silver cord belt. Lace-up Roman sandals completed the outfit that she felt was cool in both senses of the word. She resolved to purge from her memory Mrs. Tickle’s laughing assessment of the couple: “Xena the Warrior Princess Marries Tim McGraw.”
“Are you nervous?” One of the cowgirl brides asked her. “I sure am.” Sweat poured down the woman’s cheeks from damp red hair squashed under an aqua cowboy hat.
Karen nodded. “I just hope it goes okay. After all, you only do this once.”
A passing square-dance bride overheard this remark and giggled. “Don’t count on that, sugar!”
Karen tightened her grip on the Sharpie bouquet with the handkerchief and the little tube of sunblock tucked into its depths. “My intended is over there sulking because he wanted Dale Earnhardt to be his best man.”
