The City of Rossford

“Your bowtie’s crooked,” Sheridan said, turning to Chay and straightening it.

“Thanks.”

“What are you looking at?” Sheridan asked.

“You clean up well, Mr. Klasko.”

“Are you hitting on me, you big gaymo?”

“No,” Chay said. As Sheridan grinned and stood rigidly beside him with the other groom’s men, Chay added, “If I told you how cute your ass was… that would be hitting on you.”

“You’re an evil little asshole,” Sheridan told him.

“Did Casey really give you a hundred dollars?”

“Did Casey give who a hundred dollars?” Brendan said.

“Do you hear everything?” Sheridan asked the young man who was approaching with Kenny.

“Yes,” Brendan said. “And who gave you a hundred dollars?”

“You look really hot,” Chay said.

Brendan frowned at him.

“He’s flattery proof,” Kenny said.

“Especially flattery by juveniles,” Brendan added, straightening his tie. “Uh… Bryant’s finished. Kevin, are you ready?”

“I think he’s ready,” Kevin Nelson said. He was a tall man who Brendan thought resembled Hoot Lawden, also standing near them. Lee and Fenn resembled each other. They and Tom and Todd were whispering and Brendan said, “You think it’s odd that none of us really knows Kevin and we’re his groom’s men?”

“It’s as odd as Fenn giving Layla away.”

Out around the other side of the vestibule Layla came with her bridesmaids.

“Brideswomen,” Milo corrected. “You look good babe,” he came toward his wife and sqeezed her elbow.

“Not so bad yourself,” Dena murmured cupping his ass.

“Wow,” Sheridan said.

“Yeah, you remember that. The fire never dies.” Dena winked as she walked away.

“I need to talk to you,” Sheridan said to Chay.

“About?”

“About Robin?”

“Oh… Meredith just told us.”

“Not about that,” Sheridan said. “And… no matter what, poor Radha. Look at her.”

“I can’t see anything,” Chay said. “She’s got a way of not letting anyone see through her smile when she doesn’t want you to.”

“Well….” Sheridan said. “Wish I had it.”

He tugged at Chay and pulled him over.

“What?” Chay said.

“Robin wants me to sleep with her?”

“What the…?”

Sheridan put a hand over his mouth and from a few paces away, Brendan stared over at them.

“He really takes that surrogate brother thing seriously.”

“I love the hell out of Brendan,” Sheridan whispered, “but he gets on my nerves sometimes.”

“I heard he’s bossy in bed.”

Sheridan stared at him.

“Kenny got really drunk one Christmas. Anyway… back to Robin.”

“That’s it, there’s nothing else.”

“Are you going to do it?” Chay said.

“I hope not.”

Chay snorted.

“What?”

As the organ music began, and Brendan signaled to the two of them, Chay shook his head.

“That is the weirdest answer to that question I’ve ever heard.”

“Look at you,” Kevin held his hands out to his bride. “You look like a princess, you know that?”

“See, now, I thought I looked like a queen.”

He smiled at her.

“You always know how to make me laugh.”

She nudged him. “You think I was joking? By the way, there might be a little trouble at the reception.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Your friends?”

“Radha. Yes. Friends,” Layla said. “They’re like family. Hell, they are family.”

While Kevin frowned, Adele trotted toward them, unsteadyon her heels chanting: “Your veil, your veil, your veil.”

She threw it over Layla’s head. “You know it’s bad luck to be seen.”

“Well,” Layla said as Adele stuffed the veil over her face, “It’s done now, Mama.”

“Adele, what are you doing to that girl?” Hoot said.

“Trying to stop bad luck in the marriage.”

“Was that the problem with us? You saw me too much?”

“No, Hoot,” she said, “that was not the problem.”

“Alright, alright already,” Simon Davis came running out into the sacristy with Fenn. “Now it’s time.”

The doors opened and Chay and Sheridan whispered: “Lights! Cameras—”

“Somebody slap them,” Layla said.

“Action!”

Saint Barbara’s was crowded. The altar and the first pews were filled with all the people in Layla Lawden’s life. All of the pews were filled with people she lived with, people she loved. Dan Malloy, practical as ever, had put up the decorations for the first Sunday of Advent, and there was a wreath already holding three purple candles and a pink one, ready to be lit for the evening mass, just another sign that life was always going on here. On one side of the large, raftered, simple old church was the grotto with the Blessed Virgin, and light winked under it.

“Those lights are for you, kid,” Barb Affren had said. “Almost all of ‘em.”

And on the other side of the church was the image of Saint Barbara with prayer book open in her hand. Mathan read from the Song of Solomon:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:

for thy love is better than wine.

.

Layla tried to remember what Saint Barbara had done. After all she had been baptized in the woman’s church and gone to her school. Now she was being married in her house. A martyr and a virgin. Her father had tried to kill her… Or maybe he hadkilled her? Her father had then gone into a tower and God struck it with lightning. There was the picture of it over the east arcade, between Saints Clare and Catherine.

Mathan continued reading:

Draw me, we will run after thee: the king

hath brought me into his chambers:

we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember

thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,

as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon

“And so,” Dan said, reaching for both of their hands. Kevin made to pull back, but Layla loved the touch of the priest’s hand, of him linking her to her to-be-husband, the kindness that had always been in Dan Malloy, Dan Malloy whom she knew, in some distant and old incarnation had belonged to her uncle long before she was born.

“Knowing that what God has put together, no man can put asunder before joining these two I ask you,” he thundered triumphantly; “is there anyone who knows of any reason that these two should not be joined together?”

A thunderous silence. A silence, to Layla Lawden’s ears, that was more like a profound agreement with what was now happening. Her eyes danced as she smiled at Kevin.

“Well, then,” Dan clapped his hands together and prepared to make the sign of the Cross. “By the power invested in me by Holy Church and by the State of Indiana, I declare you husband and—”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Dan Malloy dropped his hands and stammered.

“By the power…” he began again, his voice uncertain as everyone turned to look down the aisle of the church.

“NO! NO! NO! Absolutely not! Do NOT do it!”

Up the aisle, unkempt, tie undone, hair a mess, stomped William Klasko.

“What the…?” Kevin started.

“Don’t do it, Layla,” Will said.

“Yay!” Dylan Mesda cried.

“I knew it,” Aidan Michaelson muttered in the first row, and beside him his sister, Annelise, nodded her head.

“I never liked him anyway,” Maia said, a little too loudly.

“You don’t love him,” Will said. “You don’t love him like you should. And you don’t love him like you loved me. Or Aidan for that matter,” he gestured to the Michaelsons. “So… don’t do it, Layla.”

She stood looking at Will, and when she said nothing, Kevin looked at her.

“Layla?” he said.

“Uh…” she opened her mouth, eyes still on Will, and then she turned to Kevin, blinking.

Kevin looked at her hard.

“I’m…” Dan Malloy began, “sort of at a sort of loss. You know?”

“I’m not,” Kevin said. He reached down, snatched the ring off of Dylan’s pillow, and stomped off the altar, down the aisle, and out of the church.

Layla stood on the altar looking down at Will, and then down the aisle to the open doors through which Kevin had departed. Now other members of the Nelson family were getting up to follow him.

“If she gets up and runs after that niggah,” Lula muttered.

But it was Fenn who got up, walked the little steps to the altar and touched his niece’s wrist.

“If you cared that much,” he said. “You wouldn’t be standing here with that stupid grin on your face.”

After this breathless daily rossford posting, we're going to take a break and be back in a few days