And All That Life Was: A Wedding Story
Today’s tale comes from The Three of Cups; a Tarot card featuring three young women dancing in a circle and holding aloft three gold chalices. They celebrate their success and good fortune; content with the work they have done and the fruit that work has produced. This is a story about a wedding.
Margo fumbled through her tiny, black purse looking for the small scrap of paper she knew was in there, folded crisply four times, the vellum, off-white paper floating like the most luxurious life raft in a sea of miscellany. She knew these details because she herself had meticulously folded the paper before she left her apartment in Queens.
“Where is the fu-” she was unable to finish her exclamation for at that very moment someone abruptly stumbled into her from behind, offering only the slightest mumble of ‘excuse me’ as he breezed past her; failing even to look back, and sending her small clutch sprawling to the floor. “Mother fucker!”, muttered Margo under her breath. Squatting down, her maroon evening gown tightening around the waist as she did, Margo scanned the contents of her purse lying on the wooden dance floor, currently void of anyone dancing as the reception was still new to this world; a joyful event just now being born all around her, guests, friends and family all arriving and beginning to fill up the space with suites and dresses and fancy shoes. On the floor; lipstick. A pad. An iPhone. And a folded piece of off-white paper. Why had that been so difficult to find before? Margo picked the items up and stuffed them back into her clutch. Standing, she began to unfold the paper when a voice caused her to look up from the work her hands were doing.
“Margo! Hey!” Margo knew the voice immediately and she allowed a small smile to edge its way around the corners of her maroon stained lips (they matched the dress) as Michelle approached from across the dance floor. “I knew that was you.”
Michelle looked exactly how Margo remembered her; slender, black hair, and eyes that held some kind of weight. Margo noticed this from the very first moment she met Michelle; her eyes held something unknowable, something beyond description or perhaps even comprehension. Magic perhaps? Something darker than that? Perhaps those eyes, binary stars filled with light, nested innocently inside the skull, held all the answers, all the dust of the cosmos, a boundless energy both finite and infinite at the same time, mirror images of each other yet, at the same time, transcending the dull binary of human existence and offering a glimpse into a world beyond.
“How the shit are you, Margo?” The momentary spell Margo found herself entranced by broke as Michelle greeted her, the sound of the three ice cubes in Michelle's Mojito glass clinking as she raised the glass to her lips and took a cautious sip from the dark-gold-rimmed glass. Her face light up at the taste of the libation, “have you tried one of these yet? Amazing. How are you?”
“I’m good; about the same as usual,” said Margo, brushing an escaped strand of hair behind her ear. With her other hand, she fingered the still folded piece of paper. “Can you believe they’re married now?”
“I know; it’s crazy. I’m really happy for them. They deserve it,” replied Michelle, gazing over her shoulder momentarily toward the door where, in just a few moments, the newly married couple would be spilling through. “Did you hear what happened though?”
Margo shook her head, feigning curiosity. She didn’t really care about what happened. She really just wanted to get back to what she was doing. Michelle continued anyway.
“I wasn’t at the service, but apparently, they almost feel into the river.”
“What?” said Margo.
“Yeah. I don’t get why you would have your wedding on a riverboat or whatever, but I guess to each their own, Margo; right? Anyway, I guess like a duck or bird or something like, flew down and Connie almost took a dive into the Indian River.”
“A duck or a bird?” said Margo. At this moment she noticed Michelle’s perfume; some kind of vanilla infused candy-smelling scent that Margo didn’t really like very much.
“Yea, nuts right?” Michelle sipped her drink again and the two women starred at each other for just a moment, as if Michelle was waiting for a response that Margo would not give. “Anyway; have a great time!”
Michelle strutted toward the buffet without waiting for Margo to respond. Margo recalled when they were younger; Michelle was the exact same, as if she existed in a world all her own and Margo was just a visiting attraction in that world, a passing guest star. Margo didn’t mind though. She looked down at the paper. The one she had folded before taking the Uber to get here; the one that had been hiding from her deep down in her purse, playing a secret game of hide and seek. Behind her, the DJ played a turn of the millennium pop song; Margo could almost remember the name of it, but her mind couldn’t land on it. She seemed to know all the lyrics though and she sang them to herself as she unfolded the note.
“Hey now,” one fold opened, “you’re a rock star,” fold number 2 revealing itself.
“Get your game on,” another fold, open.
“Go, play” the last fold, un-creased, revealed the words scrawled on the paper. Margo prepared to read them and just as her eyes scanned the first letter, the double doors of the reception hall burst open; the DJ changing songs mid-way through to match, and brining up “Higher Love” by Whitney Houston. Margo knew this one immediately. She looked at the scene unfolding before her:
The women entering the hall burst like racing starlight; their energy and joy pouring into all around them; cascading water into a cup that would never fill. Dancing, spinning, laughing, and behind them, a trail of fellow celebrants, matched in pairs, marching like soldiers in a line. The DJ brought the music up and Margo glanced around the room, the guests and family and friends, for this one moment, for this one moment suspended in time, all fixed on the couple and their light, all eyes fixed together at this point of light; light illuminating light, and the smell of food in the kitchen and the sound of shoes on the floor and high notes from Whitney and the feel of the vellum note in Margo’s hands and all of it happening in one, syncopated moment of connection. She looked down and at last read the four folded note, scribbled in her own handwriting, only a few words:
And All That Life Was.
