30 Love, page 6
We laugh, but deep down I know that J is probably ready to settle down and find someone, but I’m not going to press the issue. I figure he’ll do things in his own time.
“Give everybody my best,” I say, preparing to hang up.
“No doubt. And I’ll get that stuff out to you this week. Be easy, Diz.”
7
One thing that parents never tell their sons, especially during those formative years where they are so quick to point out how you should behave around the opposite sex, is how to deal with a woman who is planning a wedding. Nope. They just kind of skip over that part, hoping you will just pick it up on your own, I guess.
Lailah and I have been in discussions all week about this wedding, and the talks have been all over the board. Because of the off-the-cuff way in which we decided to get married, and probably more so because I’m a guy, I didn’t think where and how we did it would be all that big of a deal. Boy was I dead wrong!
When the topic of where we would do it came up, in my infinite stupidity, I said—clearly without thinking—that we could just go to the courthouse, because I was more concerned with our marriage than our wedding. The look she gave me could have melted the steel of a Hatori Hanzo Samurai sword. I quickly made a mental note that I would shut the fuck up on matters that might intrude on her fantasies of a full-blown wedding.
After that, we were forced to consider the prospects of getting married outside (a park maybe?), in a civic center of sorts, or whether we would use a church. I knew better than to make any direct suggestions, instead posing light questions that would help her to figure out more directly what she wanted to do. With her Zen practice and the fact that she hadn’t attended church in a few years, I wasn’t sure she would choose the latter option.
Shows how much I know about my bride-to-be.
She opted for the church, and even more, she wants to do the ceremony in Mississippi, at the church our parents attend, just outside of Daily. I can see the logic in her choice, but even if I didn’t, I have adopted this mantra: If she’s happy, I’m happy.
I asked her how would planning the wedding from another state work out logistically. She responded that she’d just work closely with our moms to make sure everything came together. I nodded. As long as she was marrying me, we could have gotten married in one of the restrooms at Port Authority in New York City.
Even now as I reflect over the idea of us going back home to get married, I have to smile. Daily was the place where I fell in love with her, so I would never object to going there to start our new life together. I just hope that neither one of us bursts into flames when we walk into St. Peter C.M.E. Church on wedding day due to years of flagrant absences, but maybe we would be okay at a C.M.E. church since we tend to be Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Easter kind of folks anyway.
As far as the official date goes, we have given ourselves until next March, roughly seven months. The exact date hinges around the availability of the church and whatever place we use for the reception. If we had our way, though, we would get married during the first two weekends so that we can avoid bumping heads with the legions of college students who will be looking to take their spring breaks.
One thing about being a man about to get married is that you quickly find out that the wedding has nothing to do with how you feel or what you want. The wedding is not for the guy; it’s for the woman. She’s the one who grew up with the fantasy of a big church wedding, the flowing white dress, the army of bridesmaids, the doves, the flowers, the limousine, and the perfection of it all. She is the star of the show, and I am her supporting cast, just a notch above the other participants. As cliché as this might sound, my job is just to be there and to look my best while I stand next to her.
I don’t mind though—mainly because I feel a tug at my heart when I think of Lailah walking down the aisle towards me, her father preparing to give her away. Only in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought such a wish could come true.
The question of how we’re going to pay for the wedding is still on the table. Since I gave an old school proposal, I made the assumption that her family would pay for the wedding. I just assumed that was the way it worked. But when I ask her about it, she clams up.
“Well, let me ask you a question. Did your father at least volunteer to pay?”
“I haven’t spoken to him about it,” she responds. “I was thinking we should foot the bill ourselves so that we don’t inconvenience anyone else.”
“I don’t think we can get around inconveniencing people when nearly all of the wedding party will have to fly to Mississippi. I’m just saying that we should ask our parents if they would be able to help us out, that’s all.”
She rolls the idea around in her head for a moment. “I don’t want my parents to think that we just pulled this whole idea out of thin air and are coming to them for the money to do it. It would be different if we had been planning this for a while, but after my mother’s surgery last year, I would feel kind of funny asking them to come out of their retirement savings to do this.”
Well, if her parents are not going to contribute, then I shouldn’t put my parents on the line for the whole thing either. That leaves only Lailah and me to pay for everything.
“We would have to do everything on a budget.”
“That’s what I was guessing.”
“And the wedding reception would have to be much smaller,” I say.
I can see the furrow between her brows stiffen. I can tell that’s not what she wants. She has an idea of the wedding that she wants, and I’m starting to sense that she’s going to ask that we pay for it together.
“How much do you have on hand to contribute to a wedding?” she asks.
“I don’t really know. I still have to buy the ring and do the arrangements for the honeymoon. I’m going to be serious. I don’t think that I would have a lot of flat-out cash on hand. I would have to put things on my credit card, and the limit there is kind of tight.”
She sighs and looks away from me. I can’t tell if she is angry with me or if she’s just considering the situation. I wait patiently.
When she finally speaks, she sounds somber. “We can just do something small, maybe even have a reception in my parents’ backyard.”
Now I feel guilty, as if I am pissing on a dream that she’s probably had her whole life. I want to come up with a magical solution, but I already know that the ring is going to cost me a lot of what’s in my savings, and the honeymoon will probably cost me most of the rest. And another part of me considers that if we spend all of our money on wedding related activities, how do we have money to start the actual marriage? Even more, do we want to really start our wedding with debt in behind the events of one day? Maybe it’s just the guy in me looking at the situation that way, but I can’t help it.
“Can we just talk to our parents and let them know that we’re at least open to suggestions on ways of bringing the overall costs down without watering down the actual wedding?” I ask.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to,” she responds.
“I know, baby, but I think our parents would want to help us here, and it would be wrong if we didn’t include them in the planning process, especially since the expenses are proving to be more than we could have anticipated. I know my mother would love to not just help with the church. She’ll probably insist that she and my father pick up a few things to help facilitate everything. Maybe your parents might feel the same way. We won’t know until we ask them.”
Lailah shrugs her shoulders, resigned to the fact that we don’t really have many options.
“Okay. We can tell them what we’re thinking, but let’s not make them feel pressured to pay anything. They can help however they see fit. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I say, leaning over and kissing her.
I can already tell that this is going to be a much more complicated process than either of us expected.
“Let me give you three reasons why you need to make me your best man,” Akil starts, as he runs his hands along the bill of his Atlanta Falcons baseball cap. We are seated in the food court at Lenox, enjoying an easy Saturday lunch.
“I’m listening.”
“I am your closest friend here in Atlanta—next to Lailah.”
I nod. “Okay. That’s one.”
“Truthfully, that’s all I should have to say, Negro. But since you want to force it all up out of a brotha, I’ll give you the rest.”
I laugh and nod.
He picks up where he left off. “I know your girl, so when I help out, I can factor her reaction into the stuff that we will have to do, like tuxes and all that stuff. But the main reason you need to pick me as your best man is because I know how to get the shit poppin’ off for your bachelor party! You need someone who is plugged into the know to make that type of thing happen.”
I laugh. I know he probably assumes that I am going to pick my cousin J to be my best man, so he is politicking hard. To be honest, J was actually who I had assumed I would ask, him being family and all, but Akil is making some decent points. Even his third point, as funny as it may be, can’t be simply ignored. If I’m going to have a bachelor party, it needs to be one that is worth people traveling to Mississippi. Then it hits me. Does Akil realize that the bachelor party will be in a Bible Belt county that has been dry for over three decades?
“I appreciate everything you’re saying,” I start, “but you do realize that we are going to have to have any type of bachelor party in Mississippi, right?”
“I got that under control, too.”
“How so?”
“I’ll start making calls to Memphis or Tuscaloosa. There’s got to be a major city near Daily.”
“Memphis is about two hours away and so is Tuscaloosa.”
“See? I know what I’m talking about. I got you, dude. Seriously. Go with your boy on this one,” he says, tapping his chest. “I can’t steer you wrong.”
“Can I think on it?” I finally say.
Akil sighs. “Only if you must. But let a brotha know something soon.”
“I got you, but I know you’re my boy, thick and thin. And even if, for some reason, I have to go in a different direction with this thing, I know you’ll still help send me off in style, so I’m not even tripping on any of this. I just appreciate you putting the perks out there for a brotha to visualize.”
He laughs and nods. “I got you.” Then he adds, “But you should still pick me.”
I laugh, and as we leave the mall, I already know that he is right and that I will.
In between working on the storyline for the sequel to this fantasy game that JACOPLEX has started developing, I’ve been contemplating how to deal with the ring situation. I have to shake my head on this one, because, in theory, I should have figured this bit of the equation out long ago, considering that I knew I was going to do this and had had a ten-year head start.
I have two conflicting thoughts on the subject, now that I actually have to do something sooner than later. One is to see if I can find a “real” version of the ring that I have already bought her, using a diamond that I can afford (or afford to charge, given my current financial limitations). If I couldn’t do that, I could at least find something that put me in the spirit of the same ring. The only problem with that idea is that I could easily crash and burn by buying her a ring that reminds her of a cheap ring, and the fact that she would be wearing that ring until one of us passes away, I don’t know if I could torture her that long with a ring that she really doesn’t have much of a liking for. So that leads me to my other option. I could take her with me to a jewelry store and have her pick out a ring that she likes. Maybe I could meet with the jeweler ahead of time and figure out a strategy that could at least guide her to a ring that fit comfortably within my price range. I definitely would not have been the first person to do such a thing, and if I’m lucky, I will maybe find a jeweler who has had experience doing that particular scenario and who can make the process less stressful.
I decide to wait until I get to the jewelry store before I make my decision.
After asking around, I’m turned on to a jewelry store in Smyrna that is trustworthy, nice, and best of all, affordable. The place is called Steinhem’s Jewelry and serves as the place where my CEO, Brandon Duvall (whom we all call Duvall, because that’s what he’s been called since college) got the wedding ring for his wife. At first I was skeptical, because, after all, he is our CEO, but when he told me that he got married way before JACOPLEX and that his budget for an engagement ring was tighter than a gnat’s booty, I was more inclined to trust his judgment. After all, I have to buy both an engagement ring and a wedding band to go with it.
The fact that I’m even stressing over this is embarrassing in and of itself. I must have really convinced myself that Lailah would say “no.” That’s the only way that I can explain my piss poor planning on something as basic as a ring. And to think I thought I was being smooth when I got the costume ring. That costume ring didn’t scream engagement at all. Even with Lailah wearing it, although she didn’t exactly bring any attention to it, no one thought for a second it was an engagement ring. If so, we would have tipped off the fathers from jump. But we didn’t. And unless I get a much classier ring, we won’t be projecting our marriage status to anyone beyond ourselves either.
I add the ring to the long list of things I have to do for things to go smoothly. I’m already looking at vacation packages for St. Lucia and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The prices will be steep, though, and we’re almost guaranteed to bump into a crop of vacationing college students who are looking to drink and party their down time away. I might have to be a bit more imaginative if I want to create the perfect honeymoon.
We have decided to Skype our parents this evening so we can conference about the wedding plans. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they volunteer to pick up some of the financial burden of the wedding. If not, Lailah and I will just have to be creative. And for a novelist and video game story developer, that, in theory, wouldn’t be the worst problem to have.
8
We decide to Skype our parents separately, one after the other. Because I know my parents will more than likely be willing to contribute to the wedding funds, I don’t want to place any pressure on the Landfairs to do so (although I am secretly hoping like hell that they do). Lailah agrees that we should talk to her parents first, although I haven’t revealed to her my rationale, nor have I asked for hers.
As we hover over Lailah’s MacBook Air, checking the screen to see if Lailah’s parents are connected yet, I have a fleeting thought of just how fast all of this is happening. Not even three weeks ago, I woke up in the morning, single, my life just moving along from project to project, and I had a best friend I was semi-secretly crushing on, although I had resolved myself to the fact that was all it would ever be. Then I remembered that night in the dorm room and how close to her I felt, as we sat on her bed. At that moment, I wanted her so badly I ached inside. An ache like that might dull over time but not go away, and something that deeply ingrained in my subconscious was bound to return to the surface, especially with our thirtieth birthday approaching.
“Can you hear me now?” Mrs. Landfair says, poking at the camera on their computer. It’s pretty comical seeing how confused she looks, but I would imagine that my own parents would be just as hapless, if I hadn’t taught them how to videoconference a year ago.
“We see you, and we hear you, Mom,” Lailah says, laughing. “Can you hear us okay?”
Mr. Landfair leans into the frame. “This is amazing! These computers. Boy!”
“Can you hear us?” Lailah repeats playfully.
“Oh yeah, we can hear you, baby girl,” Mr. Landfair says.
Mrs. Landfair starts waving at us. “I can see you, and I can hear you. It’s just like you’re here!”
Once the novelty of what we’re doing begins to level off a bit, Lailah begins by telling her parents about our desire to get married at St. Peters C.M.E. Church in Daily. No sooner than Lailah gets it out does Mrs. Landfair dive into suggestions for how to orchestrate both the wedding and the reception.
“Well, Dizzy,” Mr. Landfair says, interrupting his wife as she goes on about possible color schemes. “We are the men, so I guess we just let them hash that out. Dot and I will take care of the wedding and reception expenses on this end.”
“Daddy, are you sure? Dizzy and I are capable of taking care of all of the expenses. After all, we’re the ones who decided to do this, not anyone else.”
I bite my tongue. What is she talking about? We need them kicking in or we will go broke with the wedding. I think I know what Lailah is thinking, but in this moment, I am not totally sure. I am just hoping like hell that she is using some type of reverse psychology or something.
Mr. Landfair responds, shaking his head. “We are covering the wedding and the reception, and that’s final. I can’t let my only daughter pay for her own wedding. What kind of father would I be if I sat back and did nothing to contribute to the happiest day of her life?”
I feel a tug in my chest as I see the way he is beaming at her. In all of my pragmatism I missed some of the emotional components of this. Just seeing Mr. Landfair and Mrs. Landfair on the screen, their smiles so strong that they are beaming love from over three hundred and fifty miles away, I realize just how fortunate Lailah and I are to have them in our corner.
“We truly thank you,” I say, unable to conceal my own smile. I can’t deny that I’m pleased that we won’t go into debt on the wedding, but I’m even happier to know that I’m being welcomed into such a loving family. And that’s more than I could have hoped to expect: in-laws who don’t treat me like an outlaw.
The talk with my parents goes just as smoothly, and my parents offer to make a contribution to our honeymoon and to help with the food for the reception. By the time Lailah and I close up her MacBook Air for the evening, the only expenses really lingering are her dress, the rings, and my part of the honeymoon. All of a sudden, the budget seems incredibly workable. I feel as if the world has been lifted from my shoulders and I don’t have to pretend to be Atlas anymore. I think the thing that makes me the most relaxed is that both of our families are so supportive of what we’re doing. It’s all going so smoothly that it almost seems like our parents must have been planning this day since we were born.
