The Wedding

It was a beautiful spring day in New York City.

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and all was right with the world.

Doris Schwartz chided herself mentally for thinking such sappy thoughts. Then she reconsidered. If a woman couldn't be sappy on her wedding day, then when could she?

As she stood in the doorway of the synagogue, she nervously smoothed down the front of her off-white lace covered dress. Glancing at the door, then at her father, she smiled. "Guess it's time, huh?"

At his nod, she turned to the seven year old angel with bouncing black curls - bouncing because their owner was herself bouncing up and down with excitement. "Is it really time Mommy?" she asked.

Doris smiled at her daughter. "It sure is honey. Are you ready?"

Jenny nodded eagerly, and would have bolted for the door had it not been for Doris' lightning quick reflexes. "Remember Jenny," she admonished. "Slowly."

"I know Mommy." Not for the first time, it was Jenny who sounded like the mother, advising Doris on what to do.

"Whose idea was it to make her maid of honour anyway?" Doris grumbled good-naturedly as she watched her pride and joy preceed her down the aisle.

"Your future husbands," her father reminded her, watching his daughter's face light up with the mention of him. He knew how happy his daughter was, and hoped that this time, it would stay that way.

Doris' thoughts ran along the same lines. She knew exactly how lucky she was to be here like this, when just two years ago it seemed like her life was over. She had returned home to New York, twenty-five years old, divorced, with a five year old daughter. It wasn't a return she wanted to make. Her husband had been cheating on her for over a year, and she had at first turned a blind eye to her suspicions, for the sake of her daughter if nothing else. But when the evidence was too much to ignore, the affair too blatant, she had filed for divorce. Then her mother had become ill, and she and Jenny moved back to New York to look after her. She had managed to get a job, teaching drama at - where else?- the School of the Arts. It wasn't the career she'd dreamed of, but it put food on the table for herself and Jenny, and she really enjoyed it. Still, living in her parents house, teaching at her old high school, she had come to realise the saying that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

She might have gone on like that for years if he hadn't walked back into her life.

Mentally, she wondered at the path that life took people on, bringing them together, leading them apart, yet finally bringing them back together again. All the years that they had been friends, all they had been through together, now here they were about to become man and wife.

After all these years.....

"Doris?"

Her father's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Huh?"

"It's time for us now." Offering her his arm, they stood, waiting for the music to send them on their way.

As she walked down the aisle, Doris looked around her at all the people she knew and loved. One of the first people she saw was Mrs Berg, still working at the School. Long one of her favourite students, Doris was now one of her favourite teachers, and she had no hesitation in giving the happy couple her immediate blessing when she heard the news. "I always thought you two made a cute couple years ago," she said. "Mrs Berg," Doris had pointed out. "There was never anything much between us." Mrs Berg had waved her hand dismissively. "I can tell these things," she said. "You two are just perfect!" As Doris passed by, she gave the older woman a big smile. Mrs Berg wiped away a tear. "Just perfect," she whispered to the man sitting beside her.

The man beside her smiled, at the same time giving Doris a wink. Mr Shorofsky had been a big help to her since she came back to New York, taking her under his wing and giving her all the help she needed in the classroom. As far as Doris was concerned, anything she knew about teaching, she had learned from him. Old age had caught up with him somewhat, and he only worked part-time at the school now. Still, all the students loved him - and so did all the teachers.

In the row ahead of them were two other teachers from the School. Both had left now, but both had taught the boy and girl who were getting married here today. Elizabeth Sherwood smiled at the radiant bride and remembered a time, years ago, when on some crazy diet, Doris had collapsed in her class. She remembered being with her in sickbay and telling her that she would have given anything to be as talented as Doris was. And now here was that little schlump as she had called her then, marrying the man of her dreams. Now, as then, Elizabeth knew that Doris was one lucky woman.

Beside Elizabeth, Lydia Grant dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and thanked God for waterproof mascara. Hearing Mrs Berg sniffling behind her, she smiled and passed back a kleenex. Doris noticed the exchange out of the corner of her eye and fought back a grin. She really was touched by the love of all the people at the school, both past pupils and teachers, who had turned out for their wedding. That school had done so much for her - been her refuge, her santuary, a place she could go where she knew people would care about her. It had given her so much happiness as a student, and now, as a teacher, it had given her happiness again.

As Doris walked by, she got another big smile from Leroy Johnson. Leroy had been almost one of the first names on the guest list, and he was thrilled to be at the wedding of two of his closest friends. He hadn't found it easy to get the time off to come to the wedding - his director wasn't too pleased that one of his most popular performers was missing the afternoon matinee. In point of fact, he had been apoplectic with rage - the Nederlander Theater had never seen such an explosion! "How can I put on a matinee show without my Benny and Mimi?" he had raged. Leroy had stood his ground, and the matinee of Rent went on that afternoon with his understudy in the role. To Leroy's left sat Mimi, or Coco Hernadez as most people knew her. She had stood up to the producer along with Leroy - where else were they going to be on a day like this?

The same place as Montgomery McNeill, who grinned broadly at Doris as she went by. He hadn't had as much trouble getting time off as Leroy had - as he put it himself, he was between jobs at the moment. Montgomery was a drifter, going from place to place, finding gigs wherever he could. At the moment, he was working out of L.A. and so he'd come across the country for this. Danny had offered to put him up, which he gratefully accepted. As it was, the plane ticket had almost cleaned him out. He was looking into a few things here and there, but he wasn't worried. He always found something. Montgomery knew that he was probably never going to be rich. Or that he was never going to be very famous. But he was comfortable, he had some great friends - what more was there in life?

Beside Montgomery sat Julie Miller - Julie Miller again after all this time. Herself and Doris had kept in intermittant contact over the years, and while they had been good friends in school, it was the last couple of years that had really bonded them for life. As Doris ruefully reflected, knowing Julie was probably thinking the same, the two of them had pretty much been the poster children for the problems of marrying young. Doris had been older when she married, and at the time she thought herself and Bob were madly in love. But he was older than her, and if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that had she not been pregnant, she probably wouldn't have married him. As time went by, she got caught up more and more in looking after the baby, and trying to further her career, and pretty soon, she found that she had grown up. She wasn't the same girl Bob had married anymore. That was what he said anyway - his excuse for cheating on her. Julie's marriage hadn't been any easier. Glen had seemed like a gentleman - for a guy who, as Danny Amatullo had once said, "where's his neck?" Once she got to Fort Worth though, he had begun to exert more and more influence over what she did and who she socialised with. Everything had to meet with his approval, and not much did. It was a miracle that she'd been able to finish high school, and her cello playing didn't get as much time as she'd used to. Then the violence had started. It had taken her nearly three years of violence to leave him - five years of marriage. But she'd got her life back on track, and was now playing with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Her mother kept trying to get her to move back to New York, but she'd fallen in love with the Lone Star State, and for the moment, she had no real plans to leave.

Those sad thoughts were banished from Doris' mind as her eyes met with a pair of dark eyes in the next row. She grinned broadly and unashamedly at her first husband. That small ceremony in a dingy little room was far removed from today's affair. The reasons behind it were vastly different as well. Marrying one of her best friends because they were in love with one another was a far cry from marrying one of her best friends so that he wouldn't be deported. Her marriage to Jesse Velasquez had lasted only long enough to be declared invalid by the immigration services and for the annulment to be processed, and it was now a long-standing joke between them. Every now and again in friend's company, Jesse would refer to Doris as "my ex-wife" which usually lead to several double-takes until they remembered what he was talking about. The memory of that incident brought another memory into Doris' mind, a memory that held a tinge of sadness to it. Even after seven years, it was hard for her to believe that Nicole Chapman wasn't here anymore. Doris had been living in Ohio when she died, and wasn't able to fly back to New York for the funeral. She'd been eight months pregnant at the time, and the doctor and Bob and everyone else had absolutely forbidden the idea, although Doris had insisted right up until the last. She and Nicole had been the best of friends -that was why she'd married her boyfriend to save him from deportation! One of the first things she did when she came back to New York for the Alumnus Week Reunion was to go to Nicole's grave to say her farewells, and also to introduce her to her namesake - 9 week old Jennifer Nicole.

So many people - so many memories.

All these thoughts and more went through Doris' mind. And there at the altar, Danny was waiting for her, with love in his eyes and a smile on his face.

All those years of friendship, leading up to this.

Doris had wanted to cherish every moment of this wedding, to remember every second, what she thought, how she felt. Later, all she would recall was the feeling that this was absolutely right, that this was what she had been waiting for all her life, to be this man's wife.

All the guests gathered around them felt it too.

When the Rabbi pronounced them man and wife, no-one noticed as Coco made her way to the pianist's side. She was to sing as the newlyweds walked up the aisle. They had specially picked the song and asked her to sing it. She was determined that it was going to be the performance of her life.

People had worried that they'd have problems picking the song, but in the end, it had picked itself.

"It's the song we first kissed to!" Doris had pointed out in amazement, shocked that he remembered.

"I know. You think I'd forget?"

"I love this song. I always used to pretend you wrote it for me."

"I did. It just took me this long to realise it."

And so, as the strains of "Beautiful Dreamer" drifted around the chapel, and the seven year old bridesmaid laughingly took the arm of the best man, her "Uncle" Danny, Mr and Mrs Bruno Martelli walked out into the warm New York sunshine, to begin their new life.

The way it was supposed to be - together.

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