Wedding Bell Blues - [10]

doctor’s office. “Congratulations!” Maybelle crowed when they walked in. “Y’all are healthy andcompatible.”

At the sound of the word compatible, Ben and Lily both burst out laughing.

The Faulkner County Courthouse was typical of small-town courthouse architecture: brick,columns, clock tower. In a stark, fluorescently lighted office, Lily and Ben waited for their license to beprocessed along with another soon-to-be wed couple. The man looked to be in his late thirties. His beardand mustache were tinged with gray. His bride-to-be, however, couldn’t have been more than sixteenyears old. She was big-eyed and bony except for her belly, which was swollen with pregnancy. The girlnodded at Mimi, who was standing up while holding onto Lily’s knee. “How old?” the girl asked.

“Thirteen months,” Lily said. “She’s working on learning how to walk.”

“She’s pretty,” the girl said, with a wistful smile on her face. “I can’t wait til my baby comes, so Ican play with him.”

Lily smiled at the girl, but looking at her made her sad — this little girl who was going to playwith her baby like a new doll. Lily couldn’t even look at the grown man who had taken his bride’sgirlhood away.

Finally the clerk returned with Ben and Lily’s paperwork. “There ya go,” she said brightly, “andcongratulations.”

Lily was exhausted from hauling Mimi around. “So, where do we go to get this thing over with?”

“Over to the City Drug,” Ben said. “The pharmacist there’s the justice of the peace.”

Lily followed him down the stairs. “We’re getting married in a drug store?”

“Yup.”

“Well, it’s handy, I guess. We can get married and buy condoms for our wedding night in the sameconvenient location.”

Ben stumbled on the stairs, steadied himself on the railing, and looked back at Lily with anexpression of animal terror.

“I was joking! God.”

The old lady in the half-glasses at the City Drug eyed Ben. “You’re Big Ben McGilly’s boy,ain’tcha?”

“Yes. Ma’am, and we’re here to get married.”

“A McGilly getting married in the City Drug? I’ve never heard the like! Why, when your littlebrother got married, they had it over at the country club. I heard tell they floated candles and flowers inthat pond out by the golf course —”

“I know,” Ben said impatiently. “I was there. The thing is, we’re in kind of a hurry.”

The woman looked Lily up and down. “I don’t see why. She ain’t showing yet. And that littlegirl’s just about big enough to be a flower girl.” When neither Lily nor Ben responded, she shrugged andhollered, “Frank! Wedding!”

“Bring ’em on back,” a gruff voice called from the back of the store.

Frank was a paunchy, middle-aged guy in a too-tight pharmacist’s smock. “Y’all got yourlicense?” Ben presented the paperwork, and Frank glanced over it disinterestedly. “All right, then. Let’sget started. Doris, you wanna witness?”

Doris, the lady in the half-glasses, presented Lily with a bouquet of red plastic carnations — thekind that would decorate graves in a cemetery near a trailer park. “A bride needs a bouquet,” the old ladysaid, beaming.

And a blushing bride Lily was, with a baby in one arm and a tacky plastic bouquet in the other,wearing her Good Vibrations T-shirt, cutoff Levi’s, and Doc Martens. If there were a magazine calledPostmodern Bride, she would be its cover girl.

“Ben McGilly, do you take this woman, Lily Fox, to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and tohold, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?” Frank droned. Clearly this ceremony wasno more magical for him than it was for the bride and groom.

“Sure, okay,” Ben said. “I do.”

“Lily Fox, do you take this man, Ben McGilly. ...” While Frank finished his litany, Lily’s eyeswandered to a nearby display shelf where she saw a box marked MEDICATED DOUCHE. When Frankfinished the as-long-as-you-both-shall-live bit, Lily replied, “I...I douche,” and collapsed in a fit ofnervous giggles.

“Then you may kiss the bride.” Frank apparently hadn’t even heard her joke. Heterosexuals were ahumorless lot, Lily decided.

Ben leaned over to kiss Lily’s cheek, but she turned so he caught her on the lips. He was the onewho had said they had to make this look real, after all. The kiss was completely bland, like pecking an oldaunt’s powder-scented jowl.

“Smile!” Doris said after their perfunctory kiss. She snapped a Polaroid of the three of them. Mimiwas chewing on the plastic bridal bouquet. Doris handed the Polaroid to Ben. “Something to show yourgrandchildren.”

“Thanks.” Lily threw the god-awful snapshot in the trash as soon as they were out of the store.

“That was certainly romantic,” Lily muttered, strapping a complaining Mimi into her car seat. “It’s okay,honey,” she cooed to the little girl, “you won’t be in your nasty old car seat much longer, I promise.”

Ben started the car. “So ... ready to go meet the in-laws?”

“Why not? Might as well make this day as surrealistic as possible.” Today had been like a dreamfor Lily, though not in the sense that bubbly straight girls might say their wedding day was like a dream.