Under the Stars and Stripes (Under Him)

“Yes, isn’t that what I just said?”

I shake my head and eyeball his bare feet.

“Tony… you have to slow down.”

“I can’t until I find them! You heard the girl? You’re supposed to be getting married in five minutes!”

“Yes, I am aware. But Tony, your socks are probably with the shoes you took off, you fucking idiot.”

He pops up from behind the armchair he’s looking beneath and stares at me as if this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever suggested.

But then he says, “Oh, yeah.”

And without so much as another breath, he flies out of the room to go find his shoes, which will inevitably be the next thing he reports missing to me, as if I’m the lost and found attendant at Six Flags.

I do follow him out into the entrance hall, though, where I’m pleased to see that he has managed to obtain a pair of black socks from next to his dress shoes.

God only knows what nonsense would ensue had he gone to the altar without them. Sarah then steps up next to him and dusts off his shirt.

“Damn, babe, you look hot,” he says to her, as he tries to slide a hand under her skirt.

“Omigod, stop,” she says. “You know we can’t have sex at any of their stuff anymore!”

“Are you having to scold him about trying to have sex five minutes before my wedding?”

“Two minutes, actually,” they say together before playfully slapping each other and then beginning to make out with such vigor that I’m afraid to see what the result will be as it pertains to Sarah’s makeup.

“Okay, that is enough!” I say, grabbing a program and slapping them both with it until they’re off one another as if I’ve had to hose down two horny, unfixed dogs.

“You two have to act right, okay? This is Brittany’s day. And when you two get married someday, you can have whatever kind of wild swinger orgy you want as the theme for you wedding. But as long as Brittany and I are getting married and she has my kid inside of her, there will be no extra-curricular sex in her presence.”

“The baby can’t see it,” Tony says, which I can’t even dignify with a response right now.

I take a peek into the small church’s worship hall, where some of our other model and photographer friends are seated on both sides. Everyone in the industry really took to Brittany, and her to them.

Our lives have gotten so integrated in the last year that it’s kind of crazy to imagine I spent so long without her in my life. And her parents are here too!

Her dad did the right thing and didn’t just go to counseling, but to rehab so that he could get counseling and be kept off the bottle in case anything he discussed in counseling triggered some of those alcoholic behaviors. He and Brittany’s mom have been getting along great since she came back for a visit, which turned into her getting an apartment not far from us.

She’d never officially stated she was back for good, but she was putting down roots left and right as if she were. Plus, she told us two weeks ago at dinner that she actually booked a pilot for NBC as a regular, which is pretty impressive given all that she’s put into her acting.

I think in some ways, hearing that news from her mom made Brittany feel that at least her mom going away for so long to pursue her career wasn’t all for nothing. They’ve all been getting along really well. In fact, it sort of makes me wonder if they’re all plotting to kill me or something.

There are an assortment of other friends peppered into the crowd, but the truth is that even if it had been the two of us eloping, it would have been perfect so long as the two of us— and our baby, whom we’ve told no one is in utero except for the two horny teenagers to my left— were there.

“It’s time!” Sarah says once an alarm beeps on her phone.

The doors are opened for us from the inside and Sarah links her arm into Tony’s, which is hooked for her to do so. They walk down the aisle just the two of them and then split at the altar to their respective sides.

A moment later, I follow suit, and I greet the minister at the front, who smiles and says congratulations.

But when the wedding march plays and the crowd stands, he catches sight of my wife and says so loudly that I’m sure the organist can here him, “Damn! How’d you get such a hot piece? You’re like 100 compared to her.”

“Jesus, Reverend,” I say, in quite the unintentional idiosyncrasy.

“Watch it now,” he tells me. “That’s my boss you’re talking about.”