“Don’t blame me! They just like to push your buttons!” she said.
“Stormy? Carrying the rings?! Have they lost their minds?!” I looked over at the doorway, and who came romping in but the mutt, who jumped into my empty recliner. “Don’t you start!” I told the dog. “I’m down to my last nerve, and you are standing on it!”
I got a WOOF in return, so I just rubbed her head. There was no way in the world Stormy was going to get involved in this disaster. I’d probably have to pay for a $1,000 Vera Wang designed pillow to carry the rings.
Marilyn laughed at all this. I began to start heading down to the Oval Office and working late, and heading to the Situation Room to see what was happening. Maybe there was a nice war somewhere which would give me a little rest. I told Frank I needed the overtime to pay for it all. He replied, “I’d laugh, but you’d probably un-invite me, which would make my girlfriend un-invite me. No thanks!”
“You have time for a girlfriend? I have to give you more work!” He laughed at that and left. It wasn’t all that funny, actually. The poor schmucks who worked around the White House often had no time for their own lives. Fifteen or sixteen hour days were not unheard of. It’s very easy to take advantage of them. Burnout is quite common.
Friday afternoon was the rehearsal, which I missed due to a phone call with the Japanese Prime Minister. The rehearsal dinner was at the Hyatt, where the men in the bridal party had a suite. I did make it to the dinner. I wasn’t all that worried about screwing up my part in the proceedings. My job was easy. Molly would be the last one up the aisle, and I would be with her. It wasn’t like I was going to get lost.
It was at the rehearsal dinner that I first met my other children’s dates for the first time. Holly brought a long-haired and bushy-bearded chemistry doctoral student from Princeton named Jerry Something-or-other. He truly resembled a homeless vagrant who had been cleaned up and pushed into a suit that didn’t quite fit, as if the last time he had worn it was when he graduated from high school. I whispered to Marilyn after Holly introduced us, “Is this the best she could do?”
“You behave yourself!” was my wife’s reply.
“I’m just saying, I mean, he looks like a bum!”
“I’m sure he’s very nice,” she added, a bit defensively, I thought.
I shrugged. I had glanced over at Holly, who was talking to Jerry. “Well, if they are still seeing each other at Christmas, tell Holly she should get him some decent clothing and a haircut for Christmas.” Marilyn just laughed at that, and promised to try.
He seemed a bit of a nitwit, too. I was getting a drink at the bar, where Charlie and Jerry were standing with beers in their hands. I ordered a couple of glasses of Riesling, so I could take one to Marilyn, and I overheard Jerry ask Charlie, “So what school did you go to?”
Charlie didn’t miss a beat. “The University of Monrovia. I majored in International Relations.”
Jerry seemed impressed, but asked, “Where’s that?” at which point Holly, who had been listening, dragged him away.
I smiled at my son, who tipped his beer towards me and said, “Our school motto was Semper Fi.”
“Ours was Airborne!”
“OOO-RAH!”
I chuckled and left to take Marilyn her wine. With luck, Holly would come to her senses.
Charlie’s date, on the other hand, was a spectacular looking blonde. After we had been introduced, I had asked Marilyn privately if she was another member of Charlie’s Blonde-Of-The-Week Club.
“Megan is a very nice girl. She and your son have been dating since February,” I was informed.
“February! Charlie, with a girl for more than two weeks?! Something must be wrong! Did you check his temperature? Maybe he’s sick?”
“Carl! That’s awful! That’s your son you’re talking about! Besides, maybe he’s settling down,” my wife protested.
I looked at her curiously. “Charlie? Settling down? Charlie Buckman? Are you sure we are talking about the same person? Charles Robert Buckman, and not Charles Horace Buckman?”
Marilyn had the good grace to give me a guilty shrug at that. “Well, it’s possible, isn’t it? They met when he was doing that dreadful movie in Hollywood. She was one of the biker girls in the background. We had a chance to talk the other day. She’s a very nice girl. You should be nice to her.”
“Okay, I’ll be nice. I wonder what caught Charlie’s attention first, the legs or the…”
“CARL!”
“Just wondering, honey, just wondering.”
She punched my arm. “You’re not supposed to notice those things!”
“Well, I can guarantee Charlie noticed them!” I got a finger wag at that point, and decided to keep my mouth shut from that point on.
Ultimately, everything worked out. The women’s bridal party spent Friday night in the Residence, and I hid in my bedroom. Charlie had the men at the suite in the Hyatt, and I had issued my strongest warnings about letting Bucky or anybody else get liquored up. I also told the Secret Service to pat the nitwits down and confiscate anything that looked like it might be fun. Bucky was to show up at the wedding straight and sober, with Charlie and the rest of the crew in the same condition. Marilyn and Tessa were to supervise the bridesmaids.
The wedding was to take place at 4:00 PM at St. Matthews, and the reception was to begin at 7:00 PM at the White House in the East Room. Since it was to be a full Mass at the church, we probably wouldn’t get out of there before 5:00 or 5:30, and then we would have to take photos, just like at any other wedding. Then it would be off to the White House, and if anybody got there earlier, they could hang out in the State Dining Room, which was being set up for something to eat and drink before the official reception. I think the final count ended up somewhere north of 375, but I lost track of both the invitees and the budget.
As we were all leaving the White House to go to St. Matthews, I gave a pronouncement to everyone around. Nothing was to disturb me the rest of the day. If somebody started a war, I wasn’t to be informed unless they used large nuclear weapons. Small ones weren’t going to cut it. Likewise, if I was disturbed, my response would probably involve large nuclear weapons, and I wasn’t being all that particular if the individual disturbing me was foreign or domestic. I was going to nuke somebody! Marilyn just rolled her eyes and hustled me out the door.
All things considered, everything went quite well. On my first go, Maggie had been so nervous she had thrown up for 24 hours ahead of time, and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the time we started walking down the aisle. Then the flower girl, Parker’s daughter Elspeth, got an itch on her butt, and decided to scratch it the entire time she was walking down the aisle in front of us. The entire church got to watch my granddaughter scratch her ass in church. Maggie and I almost died laughing as I walked her down the aisle, and everything after that went fine.
It wasn’t quite that bad this time. Molly was a lot calmer, for one thing. I waited with them in a small room off the entrance of the church. Charlie had the intended victim up front, in another small room near the sanctuary. I found a seat and watched while Marilyn and the girls fussed, then got up and wandered down to see Charlie. I slipped in and found Charlie joking and Bucky nervous. Tusker was standing there with his son, and smiled as I came in “How you holding up, Bucky?” I asked.
“Uh, okay, Uncle Carl. Uh, is… how is…” he stuttered out. Charlie simply muttered something and shook his head, smiling.