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Monday Puzzler
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Monday Puzzler 2/14: The Wrong Suitcase
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Does it come with a diamond ring? I see a couple about to meet.
definitely haven't read this. sounds like a good one!
Mod
From the outside, it looks like the one I’d borrowed from my sister-in-law. A navy-blue hard-shelled Away case, with a matching navy-blue tag. I opened it with the four digits of her birthday, like she taught me. 1-3-0-2. But my party dress isn’t in there. Neither is my make-up bag or the beautiful 1930s silk nightdress I found at my favourite vintage shop in Islington. This is clearly a man’s case. It’s full of checks and blues and a pair of shiny tan leather brogues. They’re enormous, taking up most of the length of the luggage. I eye them approvingly. You know what they say about big shoes.
I pick up the phone and call reception.
‘I’ve been given the wrong bag,’ I explain, when a very patient woman switches from Italian to English and asks me how she can help. ‘There’s been a mix-up. A … confusion. Somebody else must have my suitcase.
*******
‘Holy shit,’ Kat says as we get there. She’s right.
We’ve moved from the looming shadows of the castle out through winding pebbled paths adorned by looping vines that make a dramatic awning. I can’t get my bearings – we’ve been walking for at least five minutes and I thought the castle was behind us, but I think it might actually be to our left. The awning widens from a narrow passageway to a massive makeshift piazza. Rows and rows of gold-and-white chairs face the front, where a huge arch of yellow flowers as big and bright as planets stands on a small staged area. Garlands hang everywhere and, although we’re outside, it feels cosy and intimate, as if we’ve stepped through into a supernatural world. Behind the staging area are two old oak trees, framing Tuscany, making it look like a painted backdrop. The light is soft, the sky beginning to turn the most dusky shade of amber. We take our seats on the bride’s side of the square, getting as close to the aisle as we can, but I’m still three seats into the row. Violins start playing, forcing an excited hush to descend, and the little boys I met earlier walk down the aisle holding hands and waving at everyone. They’re followed by a young girl in a poofy dress, throwing creamy petals everywhere and then getting distracted halfway before running into the arms of her mama. Adriano must have already been at the front, I just hadn’t seen him – but I do now. He’s dressed impeccably and already crying. I’ve been okay up until this point. Held it together. But seeing Adriano so full of obvious emotion, flanked by his groomsmen and laughing with the little boys who were now standing beside him, something clicks in me.
I want that.
I want a man to stand and wait for me, holding his breath because he cannot believe his luck.
I want everyone I know and love to get dressed up to celebrate the rarest of things: true partnership.
I want to be beautiful for a man, and to build something with him that is better and stronger than either of us can do alone.
And then the music changes again, and Sarah appears.
Her dress is the finest ivory, strapless and fishtailed. She’s wearing her long, lowlighted hair in loose curls swept over one shoulder, and holding a bouquet of oversized sunflowers that match the flowers in the garlands. Her smile stretches broadly, and her father moves to whisper something in her ear to which she nods and somehow smiles even more. She’s radiant.
After we’re seated again, I don’t realise how hard I’m crying until Kat hands me a tissue and Anastasia runs a hand up and down my back to soothe me. I’m so happy for Sarah. I’m so overwhelmed that love exists and to be a part of something as special and sacred as this day.
‘Thank you, beloved friends and family, for being here today at the marriage of Adriano Arthur Iafrate and Sarah Elizabeth Fagan. We will open this glorious evening,’ says the celebrant, and I have to look at the floor to gather myself, taking the opportunity to breathe deeply, ‘with a special reading from the groom’s best friend – whom I believe wrote this himself.’
There’s a loaded silence, and I can’t quite see what’s happening, but I presume it’s the best friend making his way up to the mic. Nobody speaks. You can hear a pin drop. And then comes a deep, vibrato voice.
‘What is love?’
I can barely see him through the heads of everyone in front of me, but if I crane my neck, I can make out an open white shirt and dark hair that’s a little scruffy at the bottom but cute. He’s wearing glasses – big, thick black frames that make him look like Clark Kent. Like a sexy Superman.
‘Love is time spent,’ he continues, and it’s clear that he’s comfortable in front of the crowd. He’s quiet, and not an attention whore or showman. He simply is. He’s just himself. ‘Love is kisses given. Love is bedsheets twisted and arguments resolved before sleep, and love is sitting side by side, you with the sports section and her with the arts.
‘It’s the last Rolo, the first cup of morning coffee, and it’s “No, darling. Sleep in. I’ll go and pick up some milk.” Love is everything Adele sings about in her songs, and Christmas mornings and tiny moments of stolen joy that only the two of you understand. Love is also a pain in the arse.’ He pauses here, the side of his mouth rising in a smirk, letting the crowd understand that he’s just told a joke. We’re all under his spell, lured in by his meaningful words, and collectively we exhale in a gasp, amused by this break into levity.
‘It’s grunt work and drudgery in between the big romantic moments. Because when you carry somebody’s else heart, as E. E. Cummings wrote,’ he says, continuing to smile his lop-sided grin, making eye contact with Adriano and then Sarah, and then looking back to the paper he is reading off, ‘you’re responsible. Love really is all of those things – the hearts and flowers – but it’s also boring.
‘Commitment to the everyday isn’t sexy. Duty to somebody else when they’re sick or have morning breath,
isn’t sexy. Laundry, food shopping, worming the dog, toilet training the kids, losing your hearing when you’re old and you become the couple that yells at each other – it’s not sexy. But it is life.’
His words have started to crash into each other for dramatic effect, but at that last declaration he pauses and lets it sink in. But it is life.
‘And pledging to do it with somebody else – somebody who promises to keep their humour about it and see the funny side, and remind you that no matter how hard it seems, it’s all totally ridiculous – that’s love.
‘It’s so clear to everyone here that you two have it. We’re not just here to celebrate it, but also to bear witness to it, so that if you ever forget your love, we can remind you of what we see stood before us today.’
His voice drops for this next bit, another joke for the crowd as he pulls us along on his rollercoaster of emotions – happy, sad, earnest, thoughtful, provocative, kind.
‘And on a personal note, I’d like to say that as a man yet to find it, you give me hope that I can, and will, and must. Sarah, even though he’s weeping like alittle boy, you’ve made a man out of Adriano. But you’ve also made a man out of me by proving what’s possible.’
What humility. What self-awareness. I crane my neck even more to try and get a better look at him, almost falling into Anastasia, who rolls her eyes at me good-naturedly. She’s been affected by his words too. She’s got her other arm slung over Kat’s shoulder and they’re having a moment together, knowing everything he’s saying is true. They got married in secret, just the two of them. They didn’t do the big white wedding because Kat’s parents didn’t approve. That must hurt so much.
‘Love is time spent,’ he finishes. ‘Love is kisses given. Love is bedsheets twisted and arguments resolved before sleep and love is sitting side by side, you with the sports section and her with the arts. It’s the last Rolo, the first cup of morning coffee, and it’s “No, darling. Sleep in. I’ll go and pick up some milk.”
‘It’s also community, and family, and so if this community – your family, through blood or through choice – could join me in kicking things off with a rousing shout of “TO ADRIANO AND SARAH!” on the count of three, that would be grand.’
The crowd murmurs as we realise we’re being called on to participate and he cries, ‘One, two, three: To Adriano and Sarah!’
‘To Adriano and Sarah!’ we all cry with him, and it feels like a release to shout up into the Italian air with all the love and romance that is circling within it. I almost don’t hear Kat as she says over the din of cheers. ‘Heroine, look! Come here!’
She tugs on my elbow across Anastasia’s chest, practically dragging me over her and out to the aisle. And then I see what she means. As this gorgeous, thoughtful, romantic god of a man makes his way back to his seat, it’s clear that despite everything he has going for him, fashion sense isn’t included.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘And he was so close to perfect.’
‘Don’t you get it?’ Kat says to me, and I shake my head blankly. ‘That looks like a man whose suitcase has gone missing.’
Oh my goodness – she’s right. The hottie with the sense of humour who gave a reading that brought the house down is blatantly missing a wedding suit, and most likely because somebody has his suitcase. I have his suitcase!