Sunday, September 20, 2015

2 weddings

I went to the beach yesterday, a small sandy beach with a correspondingly modest parking lot.

It was warm and sunny but breezy. I finished the James Salter novel, Light Years. It's excellent. I got it used, online, for about $3. Was surprised when it arrived to find it signed by the author. I was reading at the beach, absorbed in book, laughing children, and waves of fog. I heard music. Live guitar. I scanned the beach and boats, looking for the musician. Saw a crowd of standing figures, gray and unmoving, on a rocky ridge, sheathed in fog. Rows of white chairs, empty. Three musicians. Classical guitar. A bride in a strapless white dress, surrounded by people in gowns and suits.

A bus arrived and guests walked to the chairs, women in cotton dresses and men in wrinkled tan suits. A chuppah flapped in the breeze. A second bride walked past the musicians, to the very end of the rocky point, and stood under the chuppah. The sun shone through her veil. The first bride stood a ways away, watching. Two brides?

Another bus arrived and tall slim women in silk turquoise and stilettos strode off the bus, followed by young men in grey suits.

Two brides, two weddings, on a late summer day at the beach.