We're bumping down the dirt road that leads out of our neighborhood, feeling that rush of freedom and adventure you get at the start of a road trip.
I'd raced home after work, flung some things in a bag and set off with my husband for a four-day weekend in St. Louis to attend the wedding of a friend, a former intern at the paper. After backtracking to make sure we closed the gate to the dog pen, we finally were on our way, only an hour-and-a-half behind schedule.
After a late dinner in Holland, where the tulips have just started to make an appearance the day before the Tulip Time Festival, we switch drivers. It's dark, but there's little traffic and we're not tired. So we decide to keep going, past the stink of Gary, Ind., past Chicago and the guarantee of a morning rush hour, to someplace nearer our destination.
We're searching for a hotel when I get a strange feeling. A dental crown has come off with the sour jelly candy I shouldn't be chewing. There's no time for a dentist on this trip so I jam the crown back on and hope it won't come off at the reception dinner in front of dozens of strangers.
The next day we sleep in and head to the wedding with the invitation map and plenty of time to spare. But as the highway exits tick by, it becomes clear that something is wrong. The exit numbers are getting lower instead of higher.
Now it's a true emergency. We've driven nearly 500 miles for a wedding and we're going to miss it. I abandon all protocol and call the bride on her cell phone, knowing she's getting into her wedding gown and probably won't answer. Unexpectedly, a bridesmaid picks up and hands us off to another, who efficiently assesses the situation and gives directions to a short-cut.
"Tell Rachel not to start without us," my husband shouts as he puts the car into gear. We make it to the church with 15 minutes to spare. I'm still breathing hard when an usher escorts me to a pew on the bride's side.
At the reception, where we only know the groom and bride and her immediate family, we strike up a pleasant conversation with the others at our table. Just before the wedding party enters, a couple slips into the last two seats. He's quiet and deferential, she's overbearing with a grating voice and a laugh that sounds like machine-gun fire.
Before she even settles into her chair, she whips out a stack of photos and begins regaling the guests with details of her last deer hunt, where she bagged a magnificent buck. Because she's sitting directly across the table, she talks mostly to me. I smile vaguely and, when the photos pass around, pretend to be mesmerized by something across the room so I don't have to look.
But when the photos of her new puppy make their way to me, I'm interested. It's a Great Dane with tail and ears un-cropped and -docked -- because, says the woman without a hint of irony -- "We would never do that."
Ah, weddings.
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