All Lights Coming At Us from the Sound!

And there is the wedding tonight on the beach, all the guests dressed up and it rains and I’m there to film, given a camera older than myself to hold and thank god it’s a short ceremony because I almost drop it it’s so heavy. Everyone looks up and the bride comes down from the big winding stairs in the reception hall, where the ceremony relocates during the storm. And she walks to where her husband stands, where I stand with my arms shaking under that heavy thing, recording this moment in sharp black and white. The camera drifts to Erin, her standing in the corner, pinned up, her blue dress, her face soft in all the light coming in through the windows—it’s still sunny even though outside it thunders. The bride begins to speak and I focus back on her, and she says I do and she’s kissed, and she and the groom have their first dance and they eat; Erin and I sneak out to the beach when we notice it stops raining. Now it’s dark, two hours of wedding gone by the same way all weddings do. We take off our shoes and run out to the water, the sound lit up with the skyline of the city and all those apartments on the water.

A wedding arch is in the sand, this one cheap plastic, made to stay outside and get wet, and we walk over to it, cautious of the instinctive kiss these things provoke. But there isn’t any tension, us three years apart, friends since elementary, Erin going off to college soon while I’m starting sophomore year.

This is what we share before she leaves for college: the simple beach, the same loud wedding songs drowned out by the tiny waves lapping at our feet, the bell-buoys.

Your mom said there’s a lesbian wedding upstairs, she says.

Really? I say.

Yeah, she says. We should check it out.

So we walk to a gazebo and pluck the sand from our feet, carefully putting on our shoes. And we slip back in unnoticed, making for the doors to the hallway when my mom spots us. You! she says. We need you.

Us?

Yes, Mom says. The DJ won’t let anyone dance till someone swing-dances first. And you’re the only ones who know how.

Oh. We don’t know that much, Erin says. Only a few steps. And we know different styles.

I’m lindyhop, I say.

I don’t even know the name of mine, Erin says.

Well… Practice for a few minutes, Mom says. And then go to the dance floor. Because I want to dance, goddammit.

So we slip out into the hall, standing there for a moment, laughing, thinking about summer. This is the first time we’ve seen each other in months, but here we are, we’re making jokes, we’re acting like we did when we were young. This is what we do, climb deep into the nostalgia of our roots. And now we teach the other our respective styles, humming what few swing songs we know to catch the beat. Rock-step, back, forward and kick. You got it. Alright. You ready? Let’s do this.

And the doors open and we walk onto the floor, all giddy with everyone watching, with everyone waiting to be dazzled with our flips and spins and jump-kicks, but we do none of those. We only know the simple stuff, the stuff they teach old married couples who go to dancing classes to add excitement to their lives. But here we are, look at us, alternating jumps and steps; I spin her out and in, her hair flying up like a second dress, and we just keep on, smiling, and it’s good and simple and beautiful and I’m laughing, and she’s laughing and people start to clap along. And we become a blur of brown and blue, we’re improvising, making up moves. We’re like marionettes with our clumsy feet, but it’s good, and it’s simple and beautiful and it’s frustrating. And the song ends and we leave the floor with applause, sitting down, exhausted, us red in the face and I excuse myself for the bathroom, and door to the men’s room slams when I walk in, checking under all the dirty stalls for shitting feet and I curse.

This time last night it was just me and a phone and I lay on my bed in the dark, Elliott on the other end, us making small talk to keep from doing homework. What’s the assignment again, for English? Uh… well you had to read those two books over the summer. Well yeah I read those, of course. Oh… well you have to write an essay about your best friend or something. Oh yeah, right, who did you do? I did Erin…. did you do yours yet?

No, Elliott says. I’m not sure who I should write about. Maybe I’ll combine a few friends into one.

I did that a bit for my essay about Erin, I say. Just to be able to write more. I feel like a part of us was lost. She’s been at summer camp so I haven’t seen her in months. But we’re going to a wedding tomorrow night, I say. And I can’t wait.

Erin’s the one who’s old enough to be your mom, right? says Elliott.

Hah, no, I say. She’s three years older. But we’ve known each other since we were kids.

A silence comes and then I can only hear his exhales coming in, distorted through the phone. I’ve only known this Elliott a year, but now every night there’s always us on the phone, always us finding something to talk about: our friends and all the countries we’ll never visit, and all the places we’ll never see.

A man walks into the bathroom while I stand so close to the mirror scowling and it fogs up from all that swearing. I see him and pretend to blow my nose, and I walk back out, walking back into the wedding room, and Erin comes up. Alright, let’s check out the other wedding, she says.

So we’re sneaking out again, down the hall into the elevator, feeling once more like we’re young, making faces in the slick black of the reflective walls all around us in that elevator, and we stick out our tongues and cross our eyes and laugh, and it’s good, and Erin fixes her hair.

I’m still not sure if I should write about you or Mary or Greg, Elliott says. Too many to choose from.

I don’t know what you’d be able to say about me, I say. I mean all we do is talk on the phone.

Yeah. You’re boring, Elliott says, and he laughs. Maybe I’ll write my essay about a friend of mine who’s secretly gay, he says, and no one suspects but me.

Awesome, I say. Good luck with that.

The elevator opens and Erin and I step off and start down the hall, the music from the upstairs wedding room low and droning. Erin bites her lip, expecting strobe lights and erotic dancing. We turn the corner; outside the wedding room, two people sit on the floor, their heads hung, bored enough to look dead. But Erin walks right by, peeking into the room from the doorway to find everyone sitting, all those people quiet around round tables, conversation already exhausted. Drat, she says. This sucks.

Honestly I’m surprised no one suspects, I say.

Because it’s true? Elliott says.

No, I say, breathing heavy into the phone.

Well, you do find a new girlfriend every two days, he says.

Yeah. I guess I’m just good like that, I say. But… I can’t tell when girls flirt.

Yeah, same here, he says.

When they flirt I just think they’re being nice, I say. And then, bam, they’re my girlfriend. I don’t know how it happens.

Yeah, he says. I mean, I like girls… pretty girls, but they do nothing for me.

So what does that mean? I say.

I don’t know. What do you think it means?

I guess we’re asexual.

Yes, he says. We’re asexual.

And we laugh at this; we laugh at all the girlfriends we’ve had and their faces, and the way they kiss and the way we look at them with their eyes closed, leaning in.

But in all seriousness, he says. Are you?

Back down we take the stairs, Erin exaggerating disappointment to entertain me, to make me laugh. The stairs, big and winding, are almost too grand for this place on the beach; a chandelier hangs and it’s so close it sways when we walk by, through the lobby, and we can hear music from our wedding hall again, all those same party songs muffled by big doors. That was so disappointing, Erin says. I wanted girls popping out of cakes.

Is that really what you want? I say. Because, you know, I can arrange that.

Well, I feel like we’re both avoiding the question… I say, now biting my lip in the dark. So are you, or are you not?

Am I asking or telling? Elliott says.

What?

I asked you first, he says.

No fun, I say.

I asked you first.

Well, I say, I mean it seems like we’re both trying to say it without actually saying it, here. I feel like we’re both too afraid, or something, like if we—

I’M FUCKING GAY.

And I stop. Elliott’s words bring a silence and I’m sitting up now in my bed, breathing hard, hunched over, the phone pressed to my face and he’s breathing hard into the phone, I can feel it.

And he says, You don’t have to respond to that.

No it’s okay, I say. Me too.

And Erin and I sit back down at our table, and it feels like it’s the first time we’ve sat all night, so we pick up our forks and eat, and I’m thinking about her and the wedding and how—fuck—I want this, this is bullshit, I fucking want this. I want a wedding with a woman, with dancing, with swing dancing, and cake, and hair flying up, and I want a house and a kid and a yard and I want to build a treehouse. And Erin chews her food, and I’m just sitting there, staring at all those dancing people.

I want to introduce you to Erin, my mom says, coming up from behind with some woman she knows. Erin’s my future daughter-in-law, she says, and Erin smiles and laughs and I’m just staring at all those dancing people. And Erin gets up and goes to the bar to get some virgin drink and she asks if I want any, and I say no, barely audible over all the music. And she goes up to the bar and gets a drink for me anyway, me at the table just staring at all those dancing people, all together; they’ve all got their own rhythm, all smiling and they’re all pretending that this is their wedding day, too, and for a moment all that young love is alive like it was twenty years ago inside them, and I’m watching them. I wish I had that old camera now, that ancient thing on my shoulder. I wish I could film this, could film everyone’s faces and feet, stepping in and out, each couple synchronized. And Erin comes back with a drink she got for me and she raises her glass and says, Let’s make a toast, just us. To not losing touch when I go to college. And to never change or keep secrets. And to get married and adopt a bunch of babies. And I’ll be an actress and you’ll write all the movies I’m in, she says, and we’ll be happy. And our glasses clink, and she smiles so I smile and we drink, and we take in big sips of whatever it is we’re drinking and she puts her drink down and wipes her mouth and I just keep staring at all those people dancing.