Read Online She Poured Out Her Heart by Jean Thompson - Free Book Online Page B

watching a basketball game while her mother roamed the kitchen, looking for things to clean. The musicians were off-duty, and someone had put on a hip-hop tape, probably trying to get rid of the parents. Bonnie strolled up to them, glass in hand. “Why don’t you do the cake thing?”
    The cake was chocolate, and the baker had aspired to three layers but settled for a lopsided two. Some of Eric’s old soccer club friends had procured a cake topper in the shape of a soccer player fleeing, being tackled by a bride in full dress. Good old Jane laughed along with everyone else. But why was it assumed that she was the one catching Eric? Even if he was a doctor, even if that was how everybody saw it. Wasn’t there some more refined tradition, in which the gentleman pursued the lady, paid her court, won her hand, and then was congratulated on his good fortune?
    â€œWe’re not going to feed each other cake,” Eric announced, in case anyone was expecting it. No one seemed to be. Their friends were allsmart, modern. Not that many of them had married yet themselves, but they were not inclined to follow a lot of used-up customs like smashing cake into each other’s faces, or the groom taking off the bride’s garter, even if Jane had worn such a thing as a garter. Jane supposed she might have to throw her bouquet, though there wasn’t much clearance in the apartment. She would worry about that later, along with everything else she had to worry about. Now she concentrated on cutting an acceptable slice of cake, Eric’s hand on the knife alongside her own. The cake was delicious, everyone agreed, and if it was a bit crumbly, that didn’t interfere with taste.
    The family members ate their cake and began to migrate doorward. “Call us,” Jane’s mother said, kissing her. “Oh, I wish you weren’t going so far away!”
    Oh, but she was glad she was. She was ready to be someone else, not the focus of everyone’s worry and exasperation, Jane the difficult, the delicate, the droopy. Someone she could only be in her new estate, one half of this new and splendid creature, a married couple.
    The parents, both sets of them, shook hands with each other and said they’d be seeing each other again before too long, and then retreated to their own cars to nurse their private opinions of each other. Behind them, the party loosened up, grew louder. Jane took off her shoes, Eric his tie, and when a slower, smokier song came on, they danced in the center of the small living room, to general applause.
    They collapsed onto the couch, breathless, happy, beginning to think about the end of the evening, of going home together to the packed-up apartment and making love. They squeezed hands, meaning they wouldn’t stay that much longer.
    The best man, one of Eric’s med school friends, said that he guessed he should propose a toast. That was what you did at weddings, even one as marginally traditional as this one. “To Eric and Jane,” he announced, holding his plastic cup on high. He was a little drunk, as were they all. “They go together like, wait, I got this. Like . . .” He shook his head owlishly.
    â€œLike Bonnie and Clyde,” someone suggested.
    â€œNo, not them.”
    â€œRoy Rogers and Dale Evans. And maybe Trigger.”
    â€œYou guys, just let me finish, OK?” The best man lowered his glass to take a drink, then stopped himself and raised it again. “Eric, Jane, the two of you are meant to be together, because who else would put up with Eric? Jane, don’t let him get away with any shit. I know you think he’s a nice guy, but soon the scales will fall from your eyes. Jane, I don’t know you that well, but there’s probably something wrong with you too.”
    Somebody said, “What exactly are we drinking to here?”
    â€œAlcohol and happiness,” the best man declared, but the group voted to edit