Wedding Season by Darcy Cosper Page A

look vaguely familiar, I see my brother waving at me. I often forget how oddly handsome he is—we’re both tall and slender and topped with our father’s dark red hair, but James is more elegantly arranged all around. He looks like a dethroned Russian prince. I weave between the tables toward him, noting several minor celebrities along the way.
    “This is hideous.” I fall into a club chair across from him.
    “I know.” James preens and looks around. “Isn’t it divine? Bad taste is in again.”
    “Dare I ask about the food?”
    “French-Japanese fusion. It’s awful. Look, there’s the editor of
Vanity Fair.
”
    “You’re an academic. You’re not supposed to care about the things of this world. You’re supposed to live the life of the mind.”
    “Darling, I teach American Studies. One has to keep up. Look, there’s that director everyone is calling the next Orson Welles. Isn’t he cute?”
    While James is craning his neck around, I puff out my cheeks, cross my eyes, and stick the tip of my tongue out at him. He turns back, and I drop the face. He narrows his eyes at me.
    “You were making the baboon face,” he accuses.
    “No, I wasn’t.”
    “Yes, you were. You always make it when I’m being shallow.”
    “I’d have to be making it constantly.”
    “I recommend that you try the
cervelles de veau
sushi rolls,” James tells me severely from behind his menu. “The Cornish game hen skewers braised in sake are not completely dreadful. They come with sweet little shallots.”
    “Actually, I’m suddenly not so hungry.”
    “Just get the vegetables Provençal tempura,” James says, and nods to a vicious-looking waiter. He slinks over, and James orders for both of us. When the waiter has gone, James turns to me. “Now, darling. Something obviously has you in a snit. Don’t bother denying it. Tell big brother what’s on your mind.”
    “You’re so sensitive. Weddings are on my mind, is what.”
    “God, I know. What a nightmare. Charlotte, Mom, Dad, and Josh. They must have arranged it out of spite.”
    “That’s not the half of it. Charlotte will be the third of seventeen for me.”
    “All this year?” James gasps.
    “Between now and September. All of the girls, Gabe’s sister, one I promised to attend with Charles. A few others.”
    “What were you thinking, Joy? You hate weddings.”
    “I do, yes.”
    “Just cancel for some of them.”
    “I can’t. I’ve already promised I’d be there.”
    “Oh, yes.” James rolls his eyes. “And Joy Silverman never goes back on a promise. Never breaks her word.”
    “Why do you still make fun of me about that? As principles go, it’s not such a ridiculous one to have.”
    “The best of positions become useless when they cease to make you happy. Right now your precious integrity is making you miserable.”
    “On the contrary. Principles don’t mean anything if you abandon them when they become inconvenient or uncomfortable.”
    “So you’ve said. Countless times.”
    “I don’t know why it bothers you so much.” I peer out the window. In the loft across the street, a nearly naked man, sagging into his late middle age, is rubbing paint onto a giant canvas with his bare hands.
    “Rigor depresses me.” James raises his glass of mineral water. “Cheers. You know, this really is a Freudian sickness.”
    “How do you mean, Professor?”
    “Don’t you remember when all of this started?” James squints at me. I shake my head. “When you vowed never to break a promise? No? Of course you don’t. How perfect.”
    “You’re so awful when you try to be knowing. Just tell me.”
    “It was just a couple of months after Dad moved out.” James swirls water around in his glass. “He was supposed to come and take us to the zoo. It was a Saturday, I believe. It was spring. You must have been nine or ten. You don’t remember this?”
    I shake my head. James imitates me, making a faux-naïf expression as he shakes his head, his dark hair