That Old Cape Magic

possible she thought Sid’s death meant not just the end of Sid but of Griffin’s screenwriting career, the last dangling thread neatly snipped. He was now only one thing, a professor of English at a very good liberal arts college, whereas before he’d been two. She herself was the assistant dean of admissions, she informed them, and this, though it was the precise, unembellished truth, annoyed him as well. After all, he was tenured and she wasn’t, but to hear her tell it, anybody would have thought she outranked him. That sort of petty caviling was worthy of his mother, of course, and all the more
un
worthy of him, because Joy hadn’t meant it that way at all. Still, he was relieved when his wife let her voice fall, and the attention shifted to the two hefty lasses across the table.
    They were from Liverpool, and their accents nearly impenetrable. Their spirits were extraordinarily high, even for the present occasion, and so far they’d giggled enthusiastically at everything anybody said, as if prior to taking their seats they’d been informed that the other guests at this table were all professional comedians. Griffin’s experience of lesbians was largely limited to the academic variety—a grim, angry, humorless lot—so he was unprepared for these girls’ good cheer. They demonstrated that British habit of turning simple, declarative statements into questions and then waiting a beat, as if for a response. They’d known the bride for years and years, hadn’t they? Ever since she’d come to Norwich, to the University of East Anglia, that is, where she hadn’t known a soul, had she? But they’d gotten her sorted quick enough. That first Friday afternoon after class they’d pulled her out of the residence hall by force and hauled her down to their favorite pub for a pint, and then introduced her to all the other good pubs and also their
chooms (Their
what? Griffin thought.
Oh, right, their
chums), and when the holidays came round they’d dragged her home to meet their mums and dads, and it had all been ever so much
foon
, hadn’t it? Still, you could’ve knocked them down with a feather when theygot invitations to the wedding, because they hadn’t neither of them ever come over to the States before, had they?
    By the time the girls finished, they were holding hands, which Marguerite apparently took for a show of moral support between foreigners, because she asked if either of them was married or engaged.
“Booth
of us,” one of them replied, giving her partner’s hand a squeeze, “to each
oother,”
as if to admit that their sexual preference might be a local custom that hadn’t yet made its way across the pond. Apropos of nothing but her own embarrassment at not recognizing them as a couple, Marguerite then remarked she’d always wanted to go to England but never had, the reason being—and here she elbowed Harold—that nobody’d ever been nice enough to take her. “Women,” Harold said, turning again to Griffin. “They just never can give it a rest.”
    Marguerite nudged him, noticing he’d already drained most of his champagne. “That’s for the toasts.”
    “Complete this sentence and win a prize,” Harold told her. “Give … it… a …”
    Having no women to speak for them, the final two—Sunny and a man in a wheelchair—had no alternative but to plead their own cases. The latter had a lopsided smile, if that’s what it was and not a grimace, that bespoke a recent stroke. During the previous introductions he’d stared steadfastly at his cutlery as if he expected the utensils to become dangerously animated. There was a vacant chair, complete with place setting, on either side of him, suggesting that everyone had concluded his condition might be contagious. In a loud, braying voice he announced that he was the groom’s sixth-grade math teacher, which cracked the lesbians up more than anything anybody’d said so far.
“Animal House,”
Griffin whispered to Joy, who, no surprise, didn’t get the reference. Though she enjoyed movies, even their most iconic moments left no lasting impression on her, and she’d always considered his own ability to quote such scenes verbatim as rather perverse.
    Which left Sunny, who managed to say only his name and that he lived in Washington, D.C., before the DJ chose that moment to conduct a sound check of his nearby equipment. Harold swiveled in his chair to watch, a clear indication that he couldn’t care less who Sunny was or what