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CASEY AND ELLA WAITED IN THE ROCOCO-STYLE bridal suite at the Coliseum, an upscale Korean wedding hall in Flushing. The photographer had just left them to find Ted for his before-the-ceremony shots, but the divorcée makeup lady had decided to stay for the ceremony and reception—after all, the bride’s doctor father had asked so nicely. She was changing into her guest clothes from her work clothes in the attached bathroom. Ella sat very still on a gilded bench, her full profile resembling a fine marble carving—oval head veiled, lush silk skirts draped over her slim legs. On bended knee, Casey smoothed out the back of Ella’s gown. She alone made up the whole of Ella’s bridal party, leaving her to wonder again how a girl who went to an all-girls’ high school and college could care so little about her own wedding and have only one girlfriend to call upon for her important day. The rationale Casey had come up with was that Ted’s fierce monopoly and control over Ella’s time in combination with the girl’s unwavering shyness had built a kind of fortress around her.
In half an hour, Ella would marry Ted. Yet up through today, Casey often forgot that she herself was engaged. The date was not yet set. Jay had wanted to accept the Gottesmans’ offer to give them a wedding in Manhattan almost immediately, but Casey continued to temporize. He didn’t know this, but she was waiting for a sign.
Ever since she was twelve or thirteen, Casey had gotten, for lack of a better word, pictures in her head. They came every day. Some mornings it was like a slide show; on others, an allusive out-of-focus shot. They were more like clues for a scavenger hunt than previews for a feature film, because Casey rarely knew what they meant or how to interpret them. For example, the year before she took her specialized public high school entrance exams, she received a clear series of images of the interior of a school building. It wasn’t until the second day of her freshman year at Stuyvesant High School that she realized she already knew the entire layout of the dilapidated building on the Lower East Side, because she’d seen it in her mind. Casey never told anyone about this, because it was crazy and spooky. Once in college when she was stoned, she’d almost told Virginia but decided against it. This weird picture thing also affected insignificant aspects of her life—a pair of dark green lace-up boots with stacked heels would bubble up from nowhere, then a few months later, she’d see them in a shop. Had she conjured them up? she had to wonder. Her pictures often actualized themselves, so Casey anticipated them privately, even though she nearly always just threw up her hands at them, baffled as ever. As of yet, a picture of law school had not popped forth. It wasn’t as though Casey were hoping for an icon of the scales of justice—a stack of casebooks would’ve sufficed. And now, as she straightened out Ella’s train, Casey had no picture of herself in a white gown or image of Jay in formal dress standing beside her. As irrational as this was, she planned to set a date and speak to Sabine about the wedding when some image ultimately presented itself. There was time. Thankfully, this was Ella’s day.
Ella was a beautiful girl. Who would dispute this? But as a bride, she stopped your heart. Beneath the long gossamer veil, her white skin shimmered like the inside of an abalone shell. Earlier, the photographer hadn’t been able to stop snapping his camera. He left only after shooting three rolls, when one was customary. The fit of Ella’s dress—sleeveless, modern U-collar, hand-sewn out of six long panels of heavy ivory silk with no suggestion of ornament or lace—was devastating. Even the irritated saleswoman at Bayard’s had ultimately conceded on the winner. Casey had chosen a simple gown with the finest sewing precisely because the spare, almost severe design would not detract attention from Ella’s ideal face and frame. Regardless of her own abundant feelings of inadequacy, it never failed to please Casey to see a woman at the height of her beauty. The sublime, Casey felt, deserved its due.
There was a knock, and the girls heard Dr. Shim’s voice. “Honey, it’s Daddy.”
“It’s kinda early.” Casey glanced at the wall clock. She’d removed her Timex at the apartment because it clashed with her flame-colored bridesmaid dress.
“Come in, Daddy,” Ella shouted, her voice happy and singsongy.
The door opened slowly. Douglas stood at the threshold, unable to speak at the sight of his daughter. Today, it was his job to give her away. Could any man be worthy of such a good child? After Soyeon died, Ella had made his life sustainable. His infant daughter’s requirements: warming her bottles, changing her diapers, putting her down for the night—these had made him rise from his bed each morning. And each day he’d been able to go to work with the thought of her face and smile to return home to. Every year thereafter, his daughter had grown even lovelier than her appealing mother, who’d never lost her hold on his heart. Douglas looked away.